scott adams – @habits

Recent interesting quotes: “Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do.” – Tom Cruise in Top Gun

If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change. – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do. – Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick

A true believer, that one. There are few things so dangerous in a man as lack of doubt – from God of War

Today Jack (Nicklaus) plays such sensational golf with such apparent ease that many people who watch him probably gain the impression that his skills are heaven-sent rather than self-developed. That isn’t true. No one ever worked harder at golf than Nicklaus during his teens and early twenties. At the age of ten, in his first year of golf, Jack must have averaged three hundred practice shots and at least eighteen holes of play daily. In later years, he would often hit double that number of practice shots and play thirty-six — even fifty-four — holes of golf a day during the summer. I have seen him practice for hours in rain, violent winds, snow, intense heat — nothing would keep him away from golf. Even a slight case of polio failed to prevent him from turning up for a golf match.

Excellence is the capacity to take pain – Four Seasons founder

I think I could potentially train harder, because you wanna be as close as possible to being injured, without actually being injured. And I haven’t pushed it as far as being injured yet, so, maybe I haven’t pushed it enough. – Magnus Mitdbo

The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better. Find me a normal person and I’ll show you someone you don’t know that well. – Scott Adams

One lesson I’ve learned is that if the job I do were easy, I wouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from it. The thrill of winning is in direct proportion to the effort I put in before. I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don’t especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best. That is how you win championships, that is what separates the great player from the merely good player. The difference lies in how well you’ve prepared. – Nadal

From the seed-bed
The Dharma raises flowers.
Yet there is no seed
Nor are there flowers.

Ser Otto Hightower : And yet I’ve never seen that side of you, my daughter. I even doubted its existence.
Queen Alicent Hightower : It was an ugly thing. I regret it.
Ser Otto Hightower : We play an ugly game. And now, for the first time, I see that you have the determination to win it.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. – Rumi

29 things I re-learned in 33 years

When I turned 29 I wrote this essay, a list of 29 lessons that were meaningful to me.

Now 4 years have passed and I’m 33, the age that Murakami calls “a kind of crossroads in life”. Because I don’t have the desire to write an entirely new essay of “33 things I learned in 33 years”, I settled instead for a review of the original essay.

Of the 29 items, here are the ones that still resonate:

1. You understand your parents better as you get older – still working on this one. It hasn’t gotten much easier…

2. Relationships are like cars – rings increasingly true. Relationships require continual care and maintenance. The more you put in, the more you get out, but you can’t use the expectation of “getting out” as your primary motivation for “putting in”

5. Never stop learning – the following may feel counterintuitive, but it’s even MORE important as we get older to stretch our intellectual and experiential boundaries. Take up surfing at 60, learn a new language at 47, start writing software at 35…

6. Make 5-year commitments – the exact number of years isn’t important, the long-term commitment is. Determine a priority, commit to it, and build a daily habit to support it. So for example if you want to become a good cook, it’s good to think about where you’d like to be as a chef in 5 years. And then find a reason and routine to cook every day

7. It’s never too late – “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today”

8. Conquer fear and you’ll be unstoppable – Scott Adams: “When you see a successful person who lacks a college education, you’re usually looking at someone with an unusual lack of fear.”

11. Re-think, re-do, and re-learn what’s important. And again. And again. And again – this gets back to my concept of a Personal Bible and memorizing wisdom (usually in the form of quotes) by using Anki cards. Those two practices have given me much, although they have also doled out equal amounts of frustration and annoyance. Consuming new content is perhaps 90% of my content consumption bandwidth. Ideally it would be closer to 60%, or maybe even 50%

12. In startups and relationships, pick the right market – there is a delicious juxtaposition between my many years spent in the stagnant world of book publishing and now investing in the explosive and world changing world of bitcoin and blockchain. Andy Rachleff’s observation still rings true, “When a lousy team meets a great market…”

14. Buy less stuff – yes please. The environment is always underestimated. When I’m in Shanghai, I want to buy things. In Taipei, less so. On a beach anywhere, even less so. Except maybe sunscreen

15. Break the rules – Nietzsche: “society tames the wolf into a dog and man is the most domesticated animal of all”

19. Own a word – this might be the most powerful thing you can do in marketing. Coin a word or phrase and you’ve laid the foundation for a lasting brand. From memes like Pepe the frog to slogans like Nike’s Just do it to concepts like Tim’s 4-hour anything

20. Don’t make exceptions – Clay Christensen: “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time”

23. We know nothing – the more we learn about anything, the less we know about everything

28. What do you think about in the shower? – this question is useful but not perfect, because during shower time, limited as it is, your mind will sometimes preference the urgent over the important

29. Write often and much – My goal is to write meaningfully for 2 hours every day. Most days I can reach that target, but only just. Momentum is important: if I hit the goal yesterday, than it’s easier today, and still easier tomorrow. But the opposite is equally true.

More brilliance from Scott Adams: “You want the grinder, not the guy who loves his job”

I’m re-reading his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big [Kindle]. Along with Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You [Kindle], they present a fantastic one-two punch against the overhyped and underskilled enemy that is passion.

This great gem, about the value of grit and the mirage of passion:

You often hear advice from successful people that you should “follow your passion.” That sounds perfectly reasonable the first time you hear it. Passion will presumably give you high energy, high resistance to rejection, and high determination. Passionate people are more persuasive, too. Those are all good things, right? Here’s the counterargument: When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank in San Francisco, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. For example, you don’t want to give money to a sports enthusiast who is starting a sports store to pursue his passion for all things sporty. That guy is a bad bet, passion and all. He’s in business for the wrong reason. My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over thirty years, said the best loan customer is one who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. Maybe the loan customer wants to start a dry-cleaning store or invest in a fast-food franchise—boring stuff. That’s the person you bet on. You want the grinder, not the guy who loves his job.

If you’re interested in Scott (he created Dilbert), here are some of my past posts about him:

Your Personal Bible: making a handbook of your most treasured text

Since publishing the below post I’ve finished and shared mine publicly. You can read about and download the file here

Your Personal Bible

I’ve come to really value the process of reading the same content over and over and over, until I feel that I know it inside and out like a favorite song or an old sweatshirt. It’s a habit I’ve grown to enjoy and I think it has many uses. Today I want to take the concept a step further and share the idea of building your own Personal Bible.

The Judeo-Christian Bible, from my perspective, is a set of stories and lessons that have not only survived but thrived for millenia. It is both a historical document (who, what, when, where) and a doctrinal one (how you should live, and why). Believers read the Bible weekly if not daily, both silently and out loud, in private and within groups. For many centuries, the Bible was a growing, changing document to which its authors added and removed, edited and curated.

A few weeks ago I began to build my own such “bible”, by collecting my favorite texts from blog posts, books, poems, notes, and the like. (I mean no offense to Christians or anyone who may be put off by a perceived misuse of the word)

My goal for this Personal Bible is to have a handbook of the most inspiring, powerful, and interesting content I’ve experienced. Something I can read every day or as often as possible, a resource I can turn to when facing important decisions or tough emotional times. Together, they represent the ideas and beliefs and insights that I want to remember forever, concepts that I want to become a concrete part of my daily life.

Here are some examples of content that I’ve included in mine:

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research [link]
Paul Graham: How to do what you love [link]
David Brooks: The Heart Grows Smarter [link]
Paul Buchheit: Applied Philosophy, a.k.a. “Hacking” [link]
Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power [Kindle]
Steve Pavlina: Broadcast Your Desires [link]
38 insights from Alain de Botton [link]
The Scott Adams happiness formula [link]
Jiro and Rene Redzepi have a cup of tea [link]
Derek Sivers: Hell Yeah or No [link]
Patrick McKenzie: Don’t End The Week With Nothing [link]
George Saunders advice to graduates [link]
Jure Robic and “That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stranger” [link]
The BVP Anti-Portfolio [link]

When I struggle to commit to a project or path, I read about Jure Robic and how he pushes his mind to near insanity. When I want to be more effective with my time and efforts, I read Richard Hamming’s advice on how to do great work. And so on.

(please note: for most of the above content, I do not include the full text in my bible, but rather my notes and select quotes and excerpts that I pull from the pieces)

And within this document I also include a few of my favorite poems, such as:

The Man Watching by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great.
If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like metal strings
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined to fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

Alain de Botton said something like, we are already far better read than the great Greek philosophers of old, yet we are still think we’re not well-read enough. We hunger for the new. Instead, why not spend our limited time to really understand and know deep within our soul the great stuff we’ve already enjoyed?

Book Notes: How to Fail at Almost Everything by Scott Adams

How to fail by Scott Adams I’ve written about Scott Adams before [1, 2].

He just seems like an awesome guy: funny, opinionated, someone who succeeded through hard work and cleverness and a determination to live on his own terms.

In particular I like his recommendation to build systems [3] instead of chasing goals, and I couldn’t agree more when he says “passion is bullshit”.

—

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big [Kindle]

If you read nothing else:

Recapping the happiness formula: Eat right. Exercise. Get enough sleep. Imagine an incredible future (even if you don’t believe it). Work toward a flexible schedule. Do things you can steadily improve at. Help others (if you’ve already helped yourself). Reduce daily decisions to routine.

(all of the below are quotes)

On life: Always be improving

There’s one step you will always do first if it’s available to you: You’ll ask a smart friend how he or she tackled the same problem. A smart friend can save you loads of time and effort.
It’s a good idea to make psychology your lifelong study.
If your gut feeling (intuition) disagrees with the experts, take that seriously. You might be experiencing some pattern recognition that you can’t yet verbalize.
The directional nature of happiness is one reason it’s a good idea to have a sport or hobby that leaves you plenty of room to improve every year. Tennis and golf are two perfect examples.

On career: What were you obsessively doing at ten years old?

I’ve been involved in several dozen business ventures over the course of my life, and each one made me excited at the start. You might even call it passion. The ones that didn’t work out—and that would be most of them—slowly drained my passion as they failed.
I believe the way he explained it is that your job is not your job; your job is to find a better job. This was my first exposure to the idea that one should have a system instead of a goal.
If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. (one of my favorite quotes!)
In my career I’ve always felt that my knack for simplicity was a sort of superpower. For example, when I draw Dilbert I include little or no background art in most panels, and when I do, it’s usually simple.
My cartooning skills improved dramatically within a week of United Media’s offering to syndicate Dilbert. The simple knowledge that I had become an official professional cartoonist had a profound effect on unlocking whatever talent I had.
One helpful rule of thumb for knowing where you might have a little extra talent is to consider what you were obsessively doing before you were ten years old.
There have been times I stuck with bad ideas for far too long out of a misguided sense that persistence is a virtue. The pattern I noticed was this: Things that will someday work out well start out well. Things that will never work start out bad and stay that way.
The Success Formula: Every Skill You Acquire Doubles Your Odds of Success

On health: Do stuff that gives you energy

The main reason I blog is because it energizes me. I could rationalize my blogging by telling you it increases traffic on Dilbert.com by 10 percent or that it keeps my mind sharp or that I think the world is a better place when there are more ideas in it. But the main truth is that blogging charges me up. It gets me going. I don’t need another reason.
Energy is good. Passion is bullshit.
Tidiness is a personal preference, but it also has an impact on your energy. Every second you look at a messy room and think about fixing it is a distraction from your more important thoughts.
When you see a successful person who lacks a college education, you’re usually looking at someone with an unusual lack of fear. The next pattern I’ve noticed is exercise. Good health is a baseline requirement for success.
The main thing I learned is that nutrition presents itself as science but is perhaps 60 percent bullshit, guessing, bad assumptions, and marketing.

On relationships: Smile!

Research shows that loneliness damages the body in much the same way as aging.
As a bonus, smiling makes you more attractive to others. When you’re more attractive, people respond to you with more respect and consideration, more smiles, and sometimes even lust.
A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments.
It’s a good idea to always have a backlog of stories you can pull out at a moment’s notice. And you’ll want to continually update your internal story database with new material.
Your story isn’t a story unless something unexpected or unusual happens. That’s the plot twist. If you don’t have a twist, it’s not a story. It’s just a regurgitation of your day.
The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better. Find me a normal person and I’ll show you someone you don’t know that well.
Another good persuasion sentence is “I don’t do that.” It’s not a reason and barely tries to be. But it sounds like a hard-and-fast rule.
Crazy + confident probably kills more people than any other combination of personality traits, but when it works just right, it’s a recipe for extraordinary persuasion. Cults are a good example of insanity being viewed as leadership.
Studies show a commanding voice is highly correlated with success. Other studies suggest that both men and women with attractive voices find partners more quickly than those with less attractive voices.
For in-person humor, quality isn’t as important as you might think. Your attitude and effort count for a lot.