Synopses & Reviews
Everything you want out of life is in that bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out. Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone youve ever met or anyone youve even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the worlds most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years? In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams shares the strategy he has used since he was a teen to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket.
No career guide can offer advice that works for everyone. As Adams explains, your best bet is to study the ways of others who made it big and try to glean some tricks and strategies that make sense for you. Adams pulls back the covers on his own unusual life and shares how he turned one failure after another into something good and lasting.
Adams reveals that hes failed at just about everything hes tried, including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants. But theres a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of humor along the way. Adams discovered some unlikely truths that helped to propel him forward. For instance:
Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners. Passion” is bull. What you need is personal energy. A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable. You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others.
Adams hopes you can laugh at his failures while discovering some unique and helpful ideas on your own path to personal victory. As he writes:
This is a story of one persons unlikely success within the context of scores of embarrassing failures. Was my eventual success primarily a result of talent, luck, hard work, or an accidental just-right balance of each? All I know for sure is that I pursued a conscious strategy of managing my opportunities in a way that would make it easier for luck to find me.”
Review
and#8220;Adams has a funny, refreshingly considered set of ideas about how to find successand#8212;and what that success will look like when one gets there.and#8221;
and#8212;Kirkus Reviews
and#8220;Scott Adams has drawn nearly 9,000 Dilbert cartoons since the strip began, in 1989, and his cynical take on management ideas, the effectiveness of bosses, and cubicle life has affected the worldview of millions. But he built his successful career mainly through trial and errorand#8212;a whole lot of error, to be exact.
and#8212;Harvard Business Review
Synopsis
The creator of Dilbert ventures into hilarious new territory Everyone knows Scott Adams as the king of workplace humor. No office is complete without a few Dilbert strips on the wall. And if you compare a VP to the Pointy-Haired Boss, no further description is necessary. But why should a humorist stick to the workplace when there are so many other great subjects to explore? What about politics? Religion? Malfunctioning underpants? Despite some fans who wish he would Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain , Adams now offers more than 150 short pieces on every slice of human existence, from airport fiascos to wedding planning, from his doughnut theory of the universe to the menace of car singing. Like George Carlin or Jerry Seinfeld, Adams isn't afraid to ask the really big questions. For instance: -- If a Finnish teenager hacks into our voting machines and picks the next president, would that really make things worse? -- How can you know for sure that Charles Schwab didn't take all of your money and spend it on hookers and cocaine? -- Is it okay to think your own thoughts during the gaps between the words when your wife is talking? -- How much would it cost to have your own army of third world mercenaries? And would it be wrong to make them join coalitions just so you can hear the president say your name on TV? -- Do you really need to respect the religious views of people who killed themselves to follow a comet? Or is pretending okay? -- If you were a supermodel, would you sell your DNA to a billionaire who planned to raise your clone as a sex slave?
Synopsis
Everyone knows Scott Adams, the creator of
Dilbert, as the king of workplace humor. His brilliant insights into the crazy world of business have long been on display in his hugely popular comic strip and bestselling books like
The Dilbert Principle. But theres much more to life than work, and it turns out that the man behind Dogbert and the Pointy-Haired Boss has an equally outrageous take on life outside the cubicle.
Now Adams ventures into uncharted territory in this hilarious collection of more than 150 short pieces on everything from lunar real estate to exploding bladders, not to mention politics, religion, dating, underwear, alien life, and the menace of car singing.
In his essays on Helpful Critical Guy syndrome (HCGS) and the Who Cares Most (WCM) Method, Adams shares his recently acquired insights on married life. He shares his diet secret that involves experiencing a wrenching personal problem to lose weight or, if that fails, buying stretch pants and growing a goatee. He also gives expert advice on how to appear smarter than you are (two words: zeitgeist and eponymous).
Adams isnt afraid to confront the most pressing questions of our day, such as the pros and cons of toothpaste smuggling, why kangaroos dont drive cars, and whether or not Jesus would approve of your second iPod.
His optimistic cynicism enlivens his no-holds-barred rants about stupidity, Komodo dragons, getting old, nose snorkeling, and the end of humanity.
He even takes us behind the scenes of his process for creating Dilbert, showing a series of strips that he wasnt allowed to run in their original form.
Synopsis
Everyone knows Scott Adams, the creator of
Dilbert, as the king of workplace humor. His insights into the crazy world of business have long been on display in his hugely popular comic strip and bestselling books like
The Dilbert Principle. But there?s much more to life than work, and it turns out that the man behind Dogbert and the Pointy-Haired Boss has an equally outrageous take on life outside the cubicle.
Adams ventures into uncharted territory in this collection of more than 150 short pieces?on everything from lunar real estate to serial killers, not to mention politics, religion, dating, underwear, alien life, and the menace of car singing. He isn?t afraid to confront the most pressing questions of our day, such as the pros and cons of toothpaste smuggling, why kangaroos don?t drive cars, and whether Jesus would approve of your second iPod.
Synopsis
Dilbert creator Scott Adams offers his most personal book ever -- a funny memoir of his many failures and what they eventually taught him about success. How do you go from hapless office worker to world-famous cartoonist and bestselling author in just a few years? No career guide can answer that, and not even Scott Adams (who actually did it) can give you a road map that works for everyone. But theres a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of humor along the way.
In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams admits that he failed at just about everything hes tried, including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants. But along the way, Adams discovered some truths youre unlikely to find anywhere else. For instance
- Goals are for losers.
- You can get fit without using willpower.
- A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable.
Adams hopes readers can laugh at his failures while discovering some unique and helpful ideas.
Synopsis
Everything you want out of life is in that bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.
Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone youand#8217;ve ever met, including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and two restaurants. So how did he go from hapless office worker to the creator of Dilbert, one of the worldand#8217;s most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years?
In this funny yet serious book full of personal stories, Adams shares the strategies he has used to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket. Among his contrarian lessons:
and#149; Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners.
and#149; A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable.
and#149; You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others.
About the Author
Scott Adams launched Dilbert in 1989 and it now appears daily in more than two thousand newspapers in sixty-five countries, making it one of the most successful comic strips in history. His business books include The Dilbert Principle and Dogberts Top Secret Management Handbook, both #1 New York Times bestsellers. Adams has published twenty-three books with more than ten million copies in print.