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

by Scott Adams

Successwise, you’re better off being good at two complementary skills than being excellent at one.

When writing a résumé, a handy trick you’ll learn from experts is to ask yourself if there are any words in your first draft that you would be willing to remove for one hundred dollars each. Here’s the simple formula: Each Unnecessary Word = $100 When you apply the formula to your résumé, you surprise yourself by how well the formula helps you prune your writing to its most essential form. It doesn’t matter that the hundred-dollar figure is arbitrary and that some words you remove are more valuable than others. What matters is that the formula steers your behavior in the right direction. As is often the case, simplicity trumps accuracy.

my business training told me I needed to open a direct channel to my customers and modify my product based on their feedback.

If I thought something might someday be useful, I tried to grasp at least the basics.

The Knowledge Formula: The More You Know, the More You Can Know

The simple entry point for developing a news-reading habit is that you read only the topics that interest you, no matter how trivial they might be.

I don’t ignore bad news, but I don’t dwell on it. The more time you spend exposing yourself to bad news, the more it will weigh on you and sap your energy. I prefer stories about breakthroughs in green technology, even knowing that 99 percent of those stories are pure bullshit. I don’t read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time.

You can’t directly control luck, but you can move from a game with low odds of success to a game with better odds.

The point is that while we all think we know the odds in life, there’s a good chance you have some blind spots. Finding those blind spots is a big deal.

The idea I’m promoting here is that it helps to see the world as math and not magic.

Public speaking Psychology Business writing Accounting Design (the basics) Conversation Overcoming shyness Second language Golf Proper grammar Persuasion Technology (hobby level) Proper voice technique

Rule one was that no one would ever be criticized or corrected. Only positive reinforcement would be allowed, from the instructor or from the other students.

The most important is the transformative power of praise versus the corrosive impact of criticism.

Children are accustomed to a continual stream of criticisms and praise, but adults can go weeks without a compliment while enduring criticism both at work and at home. Adults are starved for a kind word. When you understand the power of honest praise (as opposed to bullshitting, flattery, and sucking up), you realize that withholding it borders on immoral. If you see something that impresses you, a decent respect to humanity insists you voice your praise.

Positivity is far more than a mental preference. It changes your brain, literally, and it changes the people around you.

we don’t always have an accurate view of our own potential.

The sudden improvement was entirely due to Sarah’s compliment of my artistic ability.

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.

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.

know when people are using reason and when they are rationalizing the irrational.

A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments.

business writing is all about getting to the point and leaving out all of the noise.

Clean writing makes a writer seem smarter and it makes the writer’s arguments more persuasive. Business writing is also the foundation for humor writing.

One need not have an “eye” for design; knowing the rules is good enough for civilians. For example, landscape designers will tell you that it’s better to put three of the same kind of bush in your yard, not two and not four. Odd numbers just look better in that context.

When you design a PowerPoint slide or a Web page, it’s the same idea. You leave one quadrant less busy than the rest. Skim through any well-designed magazine and you’ll see the L design in 80 percent of the art and photography. The other 20 percent will be some special cases that I won’t go into here.

There are probably a dozen or more reasons to have a conversation, depending on how you slice it. You might start a conversation to … Exchange information Plan Complain Entertain Feel connected Befriend Seduce Persuade Be polite Avoid awkward silence Brag A bad conversationalist will focus on the impoverished part of the list, doing a lot of bragging, complaining, and exchanging of information.

All you do is introduce yourself and ask questions until you find a point of mutual interest. I’ll paraphrase the Dale Carnegie question stack as best I remember it. It goes something like this: What’s your name? Where do you live? Do you have a family? What do you do for a living? Do you have any hobbies/sports? Do you have any travel plans?

The secret to making the list of six questions work without seeming awkward is in understanding that the person you meet will feel every bit as awkward as you. That person wants to talk about something interesting and to sound knowledgeable. Your job is to make that easy. Nothing is easier than talking about one’s self.

When you ask a stranger a personal question, you make that person happy.

Your job as a conversationalist is to keep asking questions and keep looking for something you have in common with the stranger, or something that interests you enough to wade into the topic.

Everyone is interesting if you make the situation feel safe. Here’s a summary of good conversation technique. Ask questions. Don’t complain (much). Don’t talk about boring experiences (TV show, meal, dream, etc.). Don’t dominate the conversation. Let others talk. Don’t get stuck on a topic. Keep moving. Planning is useful but it isn’t conversation. Keep the sad stories short, especially medical stories.

if you must complain, because it’s just too hard to keep it in, you’re better off complaining to someone who already likes you; that way you’ll get the empathy you want.

if you discover some common interests, you’ll feel a connection without any effort.

If you’re physically attractive, it probably isn’t a good idea to talk too much. People are predisposed to liking attractive people. Talking can only make things worse.

Try to get in the habit of asking yourself how you can turn your interesting experiences into story form. I find it helps to imagine telling the story to someone in particular—a spouse, friend, or relative.

It’s a good idea to always have a backlog of stories you can pull out at a moment’s notice.

if I know I’ll be seeing friends in a few days, I make a special note to myself to turn my recent experiences into story form because I know I’ll have a reason to bust one out. The most popular type of stories is … funny stories.

everyone should learn how to tell a funny story. I don’t think people realize that storytelling is a learnable skill and not a genetic gift.

The most important key to good storytelling is preparation.

worthy happens to you, spend some time developing the story structure in your head—a structure I will explain in a minute—and practice telling the story in your head until you have it down. The basic parts of a good party story are: Setup There’s only one important rule for a story setup: Keep it brief.

Pattern Establish a pattern that your story will violate. For example, you could say, “Whenever I take my car for any kind of service, I’m always amazed how expensive it is.”

Foreshadowing Foreshadowing means you leave some clues about where the story is going. The foreshadowing can happen as early as the setup, as in “My in-laws in Arkansas have something they call the ‘fraidy hole’ that everyone climbs into in case of tornadoes. It’s meant to hold no more than four people.” That’s the setup with the foreshadowing built in. The Characters Every story involves characters, and you might be one of them. For people who know all of your foibles, defects, and preferences, no elaboration is required. But if you are talking to strangers or talking about unfamiliar others, fill in the story with some character traits that will be relevant. For example, “Our friend Bob has been borrowing our power tools for years because he’s too cheap to buy his own.” That sort of brief character profile is essential to any story that involves people. All good stories are about personalities. Relatability There is one topic that people care more about than any other: themselves. Pick story topics that your listeners will relate to. If your story is about dealing with a stubborn bureaucrat, most adults can relate to it no matter the bureaucracy involved. But if your story is about the inner workings of competitive quilting, you’d better make it short and extra witty. People drift off when you stop talking about stuff that isn’t, well, them. The Twist Your story isn’t a story unless something unexpected or unusual happens. That’s the plot twist. If you don’t have a twist...

Television show plots:

And results which people do not know about

Dreams:

Medical stories:

Smile, ask questions, avoid complaining and sad topics, and have some entertaining stories ready to go.

A thank-you is like a treat for a human. When you do something generous or nice, you like to know it’s appreciated. The quality of the thank-you matters as much with humans as the quality of the treats matters to dogs. If you want people to like you, for business or for your personal life, pay special attention to the quality of your thanks. Thank-you notes sent by snail mail are always appreciated and still a must for the bigger occasions. But a well-written e-mail is now socially acceptable for most common situations.

This Is Just Between You and Me Research shows that people will automatically label you a friend if you share a secret.3 Sharing a confidence is a fast-track way to cause people to like and trust you. The trick is to reveal a secret that isn’t a dangerous one.