Sometimes, You Still Need to Sleep on It
“Because I had this character, Dilbert, and he was the type of guy who would be a loner, I wanted to give him a dog just so there was somebody to interact with. And I wanted the name of the dog to have some correspondence with Dilbert. And so Dogbert’s original name was Dildog.”
TIM: “Did the name Dildog make it to print?”
SCOTT: “No, I wisely decided that was not a good commercial decision, at least not for newspapers because they’re all aggressively rated G.”
“Systems” Versus “Goals”
Scott helped me refocus, to use his language, on “systems” instead of “goals.” This involves choosing projects and habits that, even if they result in “failures” in the eyes of the outside world, give you transferable skills or relationships. In other words, you choose options that allow you to inevitably “succeed” over time, as you build assets that carry over to subsequent projects.
Fundamentally, “systems” could be thought of as asking yourself, “What persistent skills or relationships can I develop?” versus “What short-term goal can I achieve?” The former has a potent snowball effect, while the latter is a binary pass/fail with no consolation prize. Scott writes about this extensively in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. Here’s one real-world example:
“When I first started blogging, my future wife often asked about what my goal was. The blogging seemed to double my workload while promising a 5% higher income that didn’t make any real difference in my life. It seemed a silly use of time. I tried explaining that blogging was a system, not a goal. But I never did a good job of it. I’ll try again here.
“Writing is a skill that requires practice. So the first part of my system involves practicing on a regular basis. I didn’t know what I was practicing for, exactly, and that’s what makes it a system and not a goal. I was moving from a place with low odds (being an out-of-practice writer) to a place of good odds (a well-practiced writer with higher visibility).
“The second part of my blogging system is a sort of R&D for writing. I write on a variety of topics and see which ones get the best response. I also write in different ‘voices.’ I have my humorously self-deprecating voice, my angry voice, my thoughtful voice, my analytical voice, my half-crazy voice, my offensive voice, and so on. Readers do a good job of telling me what works and what doesn’t.
“When the Wall Street Journal took notice of my blog posts, they asked me to write some guest features. Thanks to all of my writing practice, and my knowledge of which topics got the best response, the guest articles were highly popular. Those articles weren’t big moneymakers either, but it all fit within my system of public practice.
“My writing for the Wall Street Journal, along with my public practice on the blog, attracted the attention of book publishers, and that attention turned into a book deal. And the book deal generated speaking requests that are embarrassingly lucrative. So the payday for blogging eventually arrived, but I didn’t know in advance what path it would take. My blogging has kicked up dozens of business opportunities over the past years, so it could have taken any direction.”
TF: My podcast was never intended to be a business. I was burned out after The 4-Hour Chef, which was nearly 700 pages, and I wanted a casual but creative break from big projects. Since I enjoyed being interviewed by Joe Rogan, Marc Maron, Nerdist, and other podcasting heavies, I decided to try long-form audio for six episodes. If I didn’t enjoy it after six, I would throw in the towel and walk. My rationale: Worst-case scenario, the experience would help me improve my interviewing, force me to refine my questions, and eliminate verbal tics, all of which would help later projects. One or two episodes wouldn’t give me sufficient practice for a hockey stick in the learning curve, so I somewhat arbitrarily chose six episodes as a test run. Roughly 200 episodes later, here we are.
On the Odd Effectiveness of Affirmations
I believe the devil is in the details with this bullet, so it’s longer than normal. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t work but nevertheless appears to improve the odds. I tested Scott’s approach in my own life after a live Tony Robbins event, which I detail more on page 449. For now, here is Scott’s origin story:
“Let me say first [that I don’t believe] that if you say your affirmations, something magic will happen, and the universe will change in some [non-scientific] way. . . . What I have said is that I’ve used the technique, and I got a certain experience, which I’ll be happy to share, and then I tell the story. . . .
“I’m in my 20s. I was taking a course in hypnosis to learn how to become a professional hypnotist and get certified. One day [this woman in my class] said, ‘You’ve got to try this thing called affirmations. I read about it in a book, but I don’t remember the name of the book.’ So I can’t tell you here, because she didn’t tell me. And she said, ‘It works like this.’
“All you do is you pick a goal and you write it down 15 times a day in some specific sentence form, like ‘I, Scott Adams, will become an astronaut,’ for example. And you do that every day. Then it will seem as if the universe just starts spitting up opportunities. It will look to you like these are coincidences, and whether they are or not is less relevant than the fact that they seem to pop up.
“So I, being my rational self, am saying: That seems like a terrible waste of time. There’s no science behind that, blah, blah, blah. She convinced me, partly because she was a member of Mensa, that she wasn’t dumb.
“The two affirmations that are notable were: First, I said I would become a number-one best-selling author. This was before I’d ever written a book, and I’d never taken a class in writing, except a 2-day course in business writing, and that was it. The Dilbert Principle became the number-one best-selling book.
“There was a period . . . where I lost my voice [beginning in 2005 due to to spasmodic dysphonia]. I couldn’t speak for three and a half years. . . . That was the next time I used affirmations. And the affirmation was: I, Scott Adams, will speak perfectly. Now, I realize I don’t speak perfectly, but when we get to that story you’ll see that there’s more to it.”
TIM: “How exactly are you practicing these affirmations?”
SCOTT: “I’ll tell you exactly how I did it, but then I’ll also tell you that I’m positive the exact method doesn’t matter. I think what matters is the degree of focus and the commitment you have to that focus. Because the last affirmation I mentioned was primarily done in my head while driving, but continuously for years, about 3 years. At first, the way I did it back in those times was I used a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper, and I wrote the same sentence 15 times, once a day, I think. Here’s why I think it seems to work, and there are several possibilities. One is something I learned long ago, and I forget who coined it but have you ever heard the phrase ‘reticular activation’? It’s basically the idea that it’s easy to hear your own name spoken in a crowd.
“You’ll hear background noise blah, blah, blah, ‘Tim Ferriss,’ blah, blah, blah. And you think, how did I hear that one thing in this whole bunch of crowd noise? Basically, your brain isn’t capable of processing everything in its environment, or even coming close. So the best it can do is set up these little filters. And the way it sets its filters is by what you pay attention to. It’s what you spend the most energy on. . . . That’s how you set your filter. So your filter is automatically set for your name, because that’s the thing that matters most to you.
“But you can use these affirmations, presumably—this is just a hypothesis—to focus your mind and your memory on a very specific thing. And that would allow you to notice things in your environment that might have already been there. It’s just that your filter was set to ignore, and then you just tune it through this memory and repetition trick until it widens a little bit to allow some extra stuff in. Now, there is some science to back that. . . .
“Eventually I decided to start the affirmation, I, Scott Adams would become a famous cartoonist. The odds of becoming a famous cartoonist—I think about 2,000 people submit packages to the big syndicates, the people who give you the big contract, your big break. They might pick a half dozen. Of those half dozen, most of them will not make it after a year or two, so it’s very rare. In fact, Dilbert was probably the biggest breakout, or one of the biggest, in 20 years.”
Predicting Trump—What You Can Learn
On September 22, 2015, Scott Adams correctly predicted on my podcast that 10 months later, Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee. At the time, this was considered laughable. Scott based this on what he considered Trump’s hypnosis abilities and media savvy, not his policies. This might seem like old news, but there are actionable lessons in what Scott noticed:
“Take the debate where he [Trump] came in as the under-prepared buffoon who was going to blow himself up. And Megyn Kelly of Fox News decided that, yes, that’s exactly what was going to happen, and she started right out with the ‘Did you say all these bad things about women?’ quote. Now, every other politician would have been smeared off the stage by that, because it wouldn’t matter what he said back. . . .
“The logical answer, maybe somebody [would’ve] said, ‘Oh, that was taken out of context,’ or whatever, which is what people usually say, and it usually is. But the public isn’t going to hear that. They’re just going to hear the feeling that they felt when Megyn Kelly said that person’s name [plus] bad to women.
“That’s really the beginning and the end of the thinking for, let’s say, at least 20% of the public; about the same 20% that can easily be hypnotized, coincidentally. But what did Trump do? As soon as that question came up, he semi-interrupted her and he said, ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell.’ That, my friend, is hypnosis. He took an anchor that everybody could visualize, and his core audience already had a negative impression. Their negative impression of Rosie O’Donnell almost certainly was bigger, stronger, more visual and more important than whatever Megyn Kelly just said. . . .
“She showed him four kings and he beat her hand, and he did it without even trying, and he did it with a method which is well understood. It’s a negotiating technique. You throw down an anchor, you divert everybody. Instead of becoming this sexist, which he could have been on day one, he became the straight talker.
“Now, I know you follow the headlines so you know what happened next. Roger Ailes of Fox News weighed in to say, ‘We need to make peace with Donald Trump because this is getting out of hand,’ and Donald Trump made peace with him. How do you interpret that? I’ll tell you how I interpret it. I interpret it as Donald Trump just bought Fox News without paying a freaking penny. Because if they want him to appear on [their] show, that’s up to him, and he proved he doesn’t need them.”
TF: At this point, I asked Scott about a clever line Trump often uses to shut down journalists, which is a quick interjection of “Check your facts, [insert journalist name].”
SCOTT: “‘Check your facts’ is what I call the ‘high ground maneuver.’ It’s the same thing Jobs did when he explained away Antennagate just by saying, ‘All smart phones have problems. We’re trying to make our customers happy.’ He made a national story go away in less than 30 seconds with those two sentences.”
Morning “Flooding”—Listening to the Body Instead of the Mind
To minimize decisions, Scott wakes up, pushes a button for coffee, and has the same breakfast every morning: a chocolate–peanut butter flavor Clif Builder’s 20-gram protein bar. The next step is exposing himself to new information to generate ideas for his comic strip:
“There’s a process where once you clear your mind, you have to flood it. You may use different words for this, but I know you do it. So you empty it, and then you flood it with new input that’s not the old input. So I’m looking at the news, I’m looking at stuff I haven’t seen. I’m not looking at yesterday’s problem for the fifth time. I’m looking at a new problem, I’m thinking of a new idea. But then you’ve got to find out where in that flood is the little piece that’s worth working with. That’s where I use the body model. I kind of cycle through all this stuff.
“The model is: Your brain can’t find good contact, not directly in an intellectual sense. Obviously, the brain’s involved, but what I mean is that as I’m thinking of these ideas and they’re flowing through my head, I’m monitoring my body; I’m not monitoring my mind. And when my body changes, I have something that other people are going to care about, too.”
TF: B.J. Novak (page 378) has expressed something very similar. This bodily reaction—an involuntary half-chuckle, a rush of adrenaline, a surge of endorphins, a sharp change of emotions, etc.—can act as a metal detector for good material. It takes practice, but it works.
On Diversification for Stress Management
The below came from me asking, “What advice would you give your 30-year-old self?”:
“My 30-year-old self wouldn’t have access to medical marijuana, so I’d have a limited canvas with which to paint. I’ve always made it a top priority since I was a teenager—and had tons of stress-related medical problems—to make that job one: to learn how to not have stress. I would consider myself a world champion at avoiding stress at this point in dozens of different ways. A lot of it is just how you look at the world, but most of it is really the process of diversification. I’m not going to worry about losing one friend if I have a hundred, but if I have two friends I’m really going to be worried. I’m not going to worry about losing my job because my one boss is going to fire me, because I have thousands of bosses at newspapers everywhere. One of the ways to not worry about stress is to eliminate it. I don’t worry about my stock picks because I have a diversified portfolio. Diversification works in almost every area of your life to reduce your stress.”
Dilbert Hardware—What Scott Draws On
Wacom Cintiq tablet
The Logic of the Double or Triple Threat
On “career advice,” Scott has written the following, which is slightly trimmed for space here. This is effectively my mantra, and you’ll see why I bring it up:
If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.
I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.
Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. . . . At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion
is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too.
It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.
TF: Marc Andreessen (page 170) long ago referred to the above double-/triple-threat concept, citing Scott’s writing, as “even the secret formula to becoming a CEO. All successful CEOs are like this.” He reiterated that you could also cultivate this in school by getting unusual combinations of degrees, like engineering + MBA, law degree + MBA, or undergrad physics + economics.
* * *
Shaun White
Shaun White (TW/FB/IG: @ShaunWhite, shaunwhite.com) is a professional snowboarder and skateboarder. Among his many feats, he is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and holds the X Games record for gold medals at 15 (as well as the highest overall medal count at 23). Shaun has earned the number-two spot on BusinessWeek’s list of the 100 Most Powerful and Marketable Athletes. He is the majority owner of the Air + Style event series, which has been called “a combination of Coachella and the X Games.”
Behind the Scenes
Shaun was born with a heart defect called the Tetralogy of Fallot. Several of the valves in his heart leaked, which required multiple open-heart surgeries to fix. In his childhood, he would pass out from overexertion on the soccer field.
My podcast episode with Shaun was recorded live to a sold-out crowd at The Troubadour in L.A., where Guns N’ Roses played the gig that first got them signed to Geffen.
✸ What’s your self-talk just before dropping into an Olympic run?
“I say, ‘At the end of the day, who cares? What’s the big deal? I’m here, I’m going to try my best, and I’m going to go home, and my family’s there. . . . Even though my whole world’s wrapped up in this, who cares?’”
Tools of Titans Page 28
