How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

by Scott Adams

There are several things to learn from that story. The most important is the transformative power of praise versus the corrosive impact of criticism.

Quality is not an independent force in the universe; it depends on what you choose as your frame of reference.

I didn’t want to be in the business of selling my time.

make. I no longer see reason as the driver of behavior. I see simple cause and effect, similar to the way machines operate. If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one.

No reasoning is involved beyond eliminating the most absurd options.

The point of conversation is to make the other person feel good.

Don’t say, “If I was to go with you, I would enjoy myself.” Say, “If I were to go with you, I would enjoy myself.”

The worst thing you can do in that sort of situation is give some logical-sounding reason why you don’t want whatever is being sold.

“I don’t do food festivals.” And if anyone asks why, say, “I’m just not interested.”

People tend to double down when challenged, no matter how wrong they are. A more

If you phrase your clarification question correctly, it will shine an indirect light on the problem and provide a face-saving escape path.

You know that if you get angry and demanding the person you’re dealing with might stick to the rules and try to brush you off. The most powerful way to approach a situation like this is to ask, “Is there anything you can do for me?”

you want people to like you, for business or for your personal life, pay special attention to the quality of your thanks.

make sure it includes a little detail of what makes you thankful.

You’ll do everyone in your life a favor by acting decisively, though, even if you have doubts on the inside.

The way fake insanity works in a negotiation is that you assign a greater value to some element of a deal than an objective observer would consider reasonable. For

example, you might demand that a deal be closed before the holidays so you can announce it to your family as a holiday present. When you bring in an emotional dimension, people know they can’t talk you out of it. Emotions don’t bend to reason. So wrap your arguments in whatever emotional blankets you can think of to influence others.

When you’re trying to convey a fake sense of confidence—which is often handy—you need to tell yourself you’re acting. Simply speak the way you imagine a confident person would speak and you’ll nail it on the first try.

The quickest fix is simply to substitute silence where you once had “ums” and “uhs.”

option. And when I know a topic is likely to come up in the near future, I practice entire conversations in my head until I can speak my thoughts fluently.

did something similar. I tried a lot of different ventures, stayed optimistic, put in the energy, prepared myself by learning as much as I could, and stayed in the game long enough for luck to find me. I hoped a buck would eventually walk by, and

The success of Dilbert is mostly a story of luck. But I did make it easier for luck to find me, and I was thoroughly prepared when it did. Luck won’t give you a strategy or a system—you have to do that part yourself.

All you need to do is stay in the game long enough.

My observation and best guess is that experts are right about 98 percent of the time on the easy stuff but only right 50 percent of the time on anything that is unusually complicated, mysterious, or even new.

I can easily see that where you live might influence the energy you put into your career. If you live near optimistic winners, those qualities are sure to rub off to some extent.

To change yourself, part of the solution might involve spending more time with the people who represent the change you seek.

find the people who most represent what you would like to become and spend as much time with them as you can without trespassing, kidnapping, or stalking. Their good habits and good energy will rub off on you.

Step one in your search for happiness is to continually work toward having control of your schedule.

Happiness has more to do with where you’re heading than where you are.

Slow and steady improvement at anything makes you feel that you are on the right track.

When you choose a career, consider whether it will lead to a lifetime of ever-improved performance, a plateau, or a steady decline in your skills.

Pessimism is often a failure of imagination.

If you can imagine the future being brighter, it lifts your energy and gooses the chemistry in your body that produces a sensation of happiness. If you can’t even imagine an improved future, you won’t be happy no matter how well your life is going right now.

Don’t let reality control your imagination. Let your imagination be the user interface to steer your reality.

Happiness is the natural state for most people whenever they feel healthy, have flexible schedules, and expect the future to be good.

I’m here to tell you that the primary culprit in your bad moods is a deficit in one of the big five: flexible schedule, imagination, sleep, diet, and exercise.

people become unhappy if they have too many options in

Choosing among attractive alternatives can also be exhausting. You want to feel as if you researched and considered all of your options. That’s why I find great comfort in routine.

I never waste a brain cell in the morning trying to figure out what to do when.

Eat right. Exercise. Get enough sleep. Imagine an incredible future (even if you don’t believe it). Work toward a flexible schedule. Do things you can steadily improve at. Help others (if you’ve already helped yourself). Reduce daily decisions to routine.

eating simple carbs depletes my energy so thoroughly that a few hours after consuming

Under my system, all you need to do is eat as much as you want of anything that isn’t a simple carb and keep on that path for a few months.

Today when I look at a pile of mashed potatoes, I automatically associate it with feeling crappy in an hour.

When you eat for social reasons, aim for the lowest-calorie options. You don’t need to suppress your appetite if the reason you’re eating isn’t hunger.

the long run, any system that depends on your willpower will fail. Or

If you want to make a habit of something, the worst thing you can do is pick and choose which days of the week you do it and which ones you don’t. Exercise becomes a habit when you do it every day without fail.

By putting those pleasures at the immediate end of my exercise, I develop a strong association between the exercise and the good feelings.

doing affirmations might have a predictable impact on the brain, perhaps in terms of focus or motivation

goals make sense only if you also have a system that moves you in the right direction.

Once you optimize your personal energy, all you need for success is luck.