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

by Scott Adams

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 ...