Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success (The Scott Adams Success Series)

by Scott Adams

For years I found it annoying to walk my dog. All she ever wanted to do was sniff the grass and trees upon which other dogs had left their scent. Neither of us got much exercise. It was like tug-of-war to get Snickers to move at all. One day, I saw an Instagram video in which a self-designated dog expert explained that dogs might need the sniffing more than the walking. Their brains light up when they sniff, and it can tire them out when they engage in vigorous sniffing. I had noticed how happy Snickers looked when sniffing, but my brain couldn’t connect the dots because sniffing dog urine sounds inherently unpleasant to my human brain. But to the dog, it was the equivalent of checking her social media. I started naming the trees and shrubs in the park accordingly: Muta (formerly known as Facebark), Twigger, LeafedIn, Instabush, and Treemail. Obviously, the garbage receptacle into which people flung their dog poop bags was TikTok. Once I understood the importance of sniffing, I reframed my experience this way. Usual Frame: Taking the dog for a walk and failing. Reframe: Taking the dog for a sniff and succeeding. That reframe completely changed my subjective experience. Instead of failing at walking, I was succeeding at being a sniff-assistant. Snickers loved the new arrangement, and sure enough, twenty minutes of outdoor sniffing set her attitude right for the rest of the day. But then I had a new problem. Standing around holding a leash is boring compared to walking. It...

I recommend trying the breathing method described by Dr. Andrew Huberman. This involves two sharp inhales through your nose, one after another, followed by a long exhale through your mouth. Apparently, there is science behind the method, but in my experience, you can feel the difference so quickly and profoundly that you won’t need any convincing that it works. You’ll know in under a minute the first time you try it. I was surprised how different I felt after a few repetitions. I was relaxed in both mind and body.

If you’re not excited about this book yet, here’s my favorite reframe success story. If my feedback from social media followers is to be believed, this reframe has helped hundreds—perhaps thousands—of people stop drinking alcohol. I invented this reframe in 2013 for my book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Here’s the simple reframe. Usual Frame: Alcohol is a beverage. Reframe: Alcohol is poison. Some readers of that book lost all interest in alcohol and quit drinking forever because they read those three words “alcohol is poison.” Really. How do I know that reframe will work on some (smallish) percentage of readers? Because several times a week I receive a thank-you message from yet another internet stranger who embraced that reframe and removed alcohol from their lives. I don’t have to wonder if it works—I hear about it first-hand from people who quit a lifetime of overdrinking and credit three words: “Alcohol is poison.”

In my case, every time someone offers me alcohol or asks why I don’t drink, I say, “Alcohol is poison,” either aloud or in my head. I have repeated the reframe so many times it has become my truth in this subjective reality in which we live. Is it hard for me to resist drinking? It used to be. Now I am puzzled by why anyone would drink poison for entertainment. My story that alcohol is poison has become my reality. But is alcohol poison? Yes, definitely. And by that, I mean maybe. Or not. Doesn’t matter. I’ve reframed alcohol out of my life. That was the plan. By the way, I’m not suggesting you need to stop drinking. That’s not what I do. I’m here to give you the tools to reframe your brain however you like.

This made me give up my weekly drink. I feel much sharper.

The “alcohol is poison” reframe works because some people had a profound reaction to it from the start, and their minds kept returning to it when thoughts of alcohol popped up. That was enough focus and repetition to hack their brains. Others—especially non-drinkers—heard the reframe and probably never thought of it again. It wasn’t important to them.

I won’t try to tell you that anyone can succeed at anything they want if they approach the challenge with enthusiasm and passion. That would be nuts. I probably succeed at about 10 percent of what I try no matter how hard I try, but I generally try a lot of long-shot ideas that could be huge if they work. I only need one-out-of-ten to win big and I’m in good shape. This book, for example, is one of several projects I will have worked on this year. I might try adding an interview feature on my YouTube channel. Recently, I began testing my own funny-but-useful cooking show for people who don’t know anything about at-home meal prep. I’ll test several content ideas to see what catches on. A year from now, I’m sure I’ll be able to say I tested ten different content ideas to see what created its own energy in my mind and among my audience. I’ve been testing ideas at about that rate of ten per year for decades, and I still have no idea in advance which will work out. I’m bad at estimating my own odds of success in any specific domain, so I compensate with volume. That’s what I recommend for you, too. If the first thing you try doesn’t work, try something else. You never know for sure what will click. For example, you might go on ten dates before finding a good romantic match, or you might try ten side jobs before one fits and becomes your career. Think of it this way. Usual Frame: I fail at 90 percent of the things I try. Reframe: I only need to succeed 10 percent of the time. Y...

I knew I was entering a field in which the odds of making it big were around 1 percent even after getting the syndication contract, which was already insanely unlikely. The syndication company sells comics to newspapers and web platforms and splits the money with the cartoonists. I had a contract but zero newspaper clients on day one. By the end of the first year of selling Dilbert comics to newspapers, only a few small newspapers were carrying the strip. At that point, seeing no hope of a big hit, the salespeople moved on to the next comic that was being launched. If Dilbert was going to succeed, I would need to make it happen on my own. And so, I worked my day job while also writing and promoting the Dilbert comic for several years. I later wrote books and did licensing. For over ten years, I had the equivalent of three full-time jobs. I worked seven days a week, including holidays. I did everything I could do to promote the comic, putting 100 percent of my mind and body into it. For many of those years, I answered hundreds of emails per day from fans. I traveled the country for book signings and autograph sessions that would last hours. I did photoshoots and interviews several times per week for a decade. Dilbert was the first syndicated comic to be published on the Internet, which also took a lot of work. On paper, my workload from those years looks impossible. If I had merely wanted to succeed, I don’t think I could have lasted. But I didn’t merely want to succeed, I ...

The secret to managing energy as opposed to time is to gain as much control as you can over your own schedule. If you have a boss, you might not have options about when you do what. If you have a spouse or family or pet or other obligation, those, too, can force you out of the more productive and happy energy management mode into time management mode. That’s why I say you should favor life choices that give you schedule flexibility. For example, if you get two job offers that seem equivalent but one gives you more schedule freedom, take the freedom. Likewise with relationships. If you are equally attracted to two people and need to choose, consider picking the one who gives you the most schedule freedom. Freedom is a good tiebreaker for decisions with unpredictable outcomes. (The other good tiebreaker is how much you will learn in one situation versus the other.)

If you’re single, ask out someone you believe is above your self-assessed pulling power. If they say no, you lose nothing but your boredom. Take a chance and let yourself flame out and fail if that’s what fate has in mind. You might be lucky and find the love of your life. Or you might get slapped down so hard it makes a funny story. But you won’t be bored, and you’ll be hardened for the next pothole life presents you. I’m already proud of you in advance for the smart risks of embarrassment you will be taking.

This is bad advice. Short men like Scott remain children all their lives.

If you’re looking to advance your career, this is the time to scare the bejeezus out of yourself by asking for a raise that is so aggressive you worry your boss will either laugh or fire you on the spot. That’s not boring!

Even worse advice.

Fear of embarrassment is the main reason people don’t like to admit they are wrong. And that’s what causes cognitive dissonance. When you discover you were wrong about something important, your brain fixes that for you by hallucinating you were right all along—for reasons that will sound to others like word salad. But imagine if you were never embarrassed in life, about anything. If you were wrong about something, you would simply say so and never fret about it again. If your friends mocked you for being wrong, you would join in the fun. The opposite would happen if you were susceptible to shame and embarrassment. In that case, your brain might insta-generate a hallucination that you were right all along, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For example, if you imagined you were a subject matter expert and some non-expert annihilated your opinion in an undeniable way, that would trigger a hallucination. You might hallucinate that your critic is a foreign spy and dismiss them as a troublemaker. You might hallucinate that you “keep answering the question” while never doing anything of the sort. A hallucination can take any form, from a false memory to the false belief that the words you’re saying make sense.

I have a lot of experience identifying cognitive dissonance because I intentionally trigger people into it on X as a demonstration for my followers. I’ve started telling my audience in advance when my debate participant will start the word salad phase, and sure enough, it happens on cue. All I need to do is point out an obvious flaw in an argument. When I’m wrong, the response is a normal counterpoint that sounds sensible, even if I don’t agree. When I’m right, the response reads like a jargon-generator having a meltdown. Very different and easy to spot. A public display of cognitive dissonance is far more embarrassing than admitting you were wrong. Between the two, the latter is easy. It just takes some practice.

I use another hack as well, which you might be able to replicate in your own way. I repurpose my “mistakes” into content for my daily livestream shows, which makes me more relatable to the audience. They also create a learning opportunity. Why was I wrong? What illusion bamboozled me? What gap in my reasoning skills caused the problem? By turning my mistakes into content, I can welcome them instead of hiding from them. Cognitive dissonance gets no problem to solve in my case—I need no illusions to explain my place in the universe because I know everyone makes mistakes. My self-image stays intact, so there is no trigger for hallucinating.

Do you have an “always right” brand that would make you vulnerable to a better argument or better data? When the “always right” are proven wrong, they hallucinate. But if you can, for example, cultivate a reputation that can handle being spectacularly wrong without offending your sense of self, do that. It will make you the only person in the room who can see the whole field. Others will be obsessed with being right, and that becomes the fuel for their own hallucinations.

A talent stack is a collection of skills that work well together to make you valuable and rare in a wide variety of ways. This is far different from the classic advice about focusing on being the best at some specific skill. That might have made more sense in an earlier time. But in a fast-moving world, you can’t predict what next year looks like. That means your best odds of happiness are closely associated with how flexible your talent stack is. Usual Frame: Focus on being excellent at a skill that has commercial value. Reframe: Acquire skills that work well together and make you rare and flexible at the same time. The simplest example of building a talent stack that meets my specs is adding public speaking skills to any big-company job. That one skill set makes you the obvious choice for promotion to manager. It also makes you a better candidate for a variety of lateral and upward career moves. If you also add effective listening skills, business writing, contract negotiation, and some people skills, not much can stop you. And you could learn that entire stack of skills in a month without breaking a sweat.

On my Locals subscription site—scottadams.locals.com—I have recorded over 200 micro lessons, most of them less than four minutes in length. Each teaches you a new useful life skill. In a few weeks, you could rewire your brain with over 200 new skills, building upon your existing awesomeness. Would you want to compete with someone who had developed 200 skills in one month? I wouldn’t, and I’m the one who created the lessons.

Some years ago, a young man sat in my kitchen and asked me how I would go about designing a career for him. I knew he had artistic talent and an interest in tech. So I told him to learn user interface design and build up his graphic arts portfolio. Combine those skills, and you can add value to big companies and startups alike. I didn’t hear from the young man for several years. When I finally did, he reported that he followed my talent stack strategy—Apple had just hired him for lucrative contract work in his field. He has since moved on to an even better job because he could. Last time we spoke, he was learning how to code. He will never have trouble finding good work that pays well.

I guarantee this guy is unemployed today.

When you ask successful people about their secrets for success, they often say “passion” is the key. That’s only because successful people don’t want to tell you they are smarter than you, took bigger risks, got lucky, inherited money, broke the law, or had some other advantage not available to you. This is how rich people like me prevent the public from killing us to take our stuff. We create a fictional story about how you, too, can get everything rich people have—if you just dial up your “passion” a bit.

If you succeed at anything, passion is likely to find you after the fact. It feels good to succeed, especially if there are witnesses. In my experience, success is most related to your systems, your talent stack, and your ability to go where the energy already is. You also must check the obvious boxes like work hard, stay healthy, and avoid jail. I’ll trust you to get the easy stuff right. Then get your systems and talent stack in order, and you’ll do fine.

A common truism is that it takes money to make money. If you already have a million dollars, your odds of making a second million are much higher than the odds of someone with zero dollars making their first million. I have lived that truth for decades. When I got rich making the Dilbert comic strip, all kinds of other business opportunities popped up. I got offers for speaking engagements, book deals, licensing, movies, and more. Success breeds success, and monetary success breeds more monetary success. Money makes everything easier.

If you can find a way to provide value to someone at a low or reasonable cost to yourself, you can create an asset out of “nothing.” Humans are wired to reciprocate. Do a favor for someone who has access to many resources, someone who hires people, or someone who knows a lot of people, and your odds of someday getting something tangible in return are good. Usual Frame: Don’t give something for nothing. Reframe: Giving triggers reciprocity (on average).

If I could only give you one piece of career advice, it would be to always give more than is expected of you. When you do that, you instantly stand out as a person of character. And doing more than expected is almost always doable. For example, you might go out of your way to thank someone for a job well-done, or you might offer to stay late to help a coworker finish a project. Whenever an expectation about your actions is established, ask yourself what it would take to exceed it. There is no simpler formula for social and career success.

You can’t know for sure if you have met all the people who can ever help you in your career, so compensate for that by meeting as many people as you can. Networking is a numbers game. Get your numbers up. Usual Frame: Success depends on who you know. Reframe: Success depends on how many people you know.

If you have bosses, make sure those bosses see you at work when they arrive and see you still working when they leave. This is especially important for a first impression. Make sure your new boss sees you as the “whatever it takes” person who isn’t afraid of hard work. You might be getting to work five minutes before your boss and leaving five minutes after. That’s all it takes to be in the top 10 percent of most work groups. No one likes to work extra hours for no extra pay, but doing so is free and has a high likelihood of making you stand out. Usual Frame: Your hard work will be rewarded. Reframe: The illusion of hard work will be rewarded.