How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
Written by Scott Adams
Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
4/5
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About this audiobook
Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you've ever met or anyone you've even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world's 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, to embrace it, then pick its pocket.
No career guide can offer advice for success 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 what he learned for turning one failure after another into something good and lasting.
Adams reveals that he failed at just about everything he's tried, including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants. But there's a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of humor along the way. While it's hard for anyone to recover from a personal or professional failure, 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.
You won't find a road map to success in this audiobook. But 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 person's 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."
Scott Adams
Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, the comic strip that now appears in 1,550 newspapers worldwide. His first two hardcover business books, The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook, have sold more than two million copies and have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for a combined total of sixty weeks.
More audiobooks from Scott Adams
The Dilbert Principle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Joy of Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5DILBERT FUTURE Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
147 ratings16 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Focuses on systems instead of goals, affirmations, good luck, diet-exercise-health habits, skills. Liked it a lot.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I thought this book was OK. I detest self-help books, so that's saying a lot, that I didn't absolutely abhor it. But although his twist was to have a strategy rather than goals, I really didn't see how that was supposed to help. His personal stories were interesting, and I think I pulled the book back from my discards pile to re-read, just in case there's more there than I think.So really a moderately enthusiastic "Meh."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting book. Some good advice through a few different techniques. Systems rule rather than goals for achievement. Worth a read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't really know what possessed me to buy this book. I generally do not like Dilbert. But I bought it and have now finally read it and it seems to be pretty good advice. I feel I'm fairly late in life and unimaginative to go into "success" now, but there were some helpful tips in here, and his emphasis on rest, exercise, and diet were interesting. Adams did not fail in the sense of being completely unemployed and living hand to mouth. He always had a 9-5 job. He failed at his other projects, which were all aimed at making him lots of money. So this is not really a rags to riches story. But his suggestions seem solid.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was an interesting and funny autobiography of Scott Adams - the creator of Dilbert. Wasn't a fan of Dilbert before this book but it piqued my interest after listening to this audiobook. The book is more about Scott Adam's system for success. The book was performed and read very well as an audiobook.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scott confirms my own experience that systems work better than goals. He starts by sharing a long string of failed projects. I can relate! But part of his system is to experiment. More important, take care of your personal energy so that life is fun along the way to great success. My favorite, most helpful book I've read in over a decade.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5wonderful, hard hitting realism on what it takes to succeed.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What a surprise! Great ideas on business, nutrition, exercise, persuasion, and life systems from a cartoonist. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Underrated, awesome “self-help” book. I’ve now read it three times and it’s made a huge impact on my mindset and daily habits.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty funny and pretty good advice. Well, funny to me anyway. And I guess I like the advice because it comes pretty close to what I think anyway. Not sure anyone else I know would like the book. Maybe Scott wrote it just for me.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I like Dilbert but the guy that draws it is a little off his rocker. If you read "The Dilbert Principle" you pretty much read a better version of this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who knew that Scott Adams, after making fun of everything about working for any corporation, had so many serious ideas about work and life.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is an OK book that is mostly centered around the author. The idea is good but the implementation not so much! There are few good points in the book, some of which one can find in other related books, but I believe the author has needlessly made it a lengthy book throughout most of its length, he discusses his own life. I think it is better to change the title to "Story of My Life: Ups and Downs and What I have to Share".
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not exactly a "how to" book, more a collection of ideas and anecdotes about improving performance and results, written in an entertaining and accessible style.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is appropriately named, though perhaps another subtitle could be added: "or how to fake it until you make it."
Scott Adams is known best for Dilbert, a "satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring engineer Dilbert as the title character" (to quote Wikipedia). After listening to his story, it's hard not to see in the eponymous character much of Scott Adams. He is savvy, smart, and, in a way that is uniquely American, confident of doing anything he sets his mind to, regardless of whether he is qualified or not.
It's this last quality, this modern entrepreneurial "daring do" attitude, that makes Adams' book so compelling. As he tells his story, it becomes clear that he has overcome significant obstacles to success. That he overcame these obstacles makes the things he did compelling and persuasive. Indeed, there are times when I had to remind myself that even Adams himself had opened by admitting that he was only sharing what had worked for him, was simplifying the information he had learned from others, and that the readers should figure out what works best for them. Adams is so persuasive a story teller that it is difficult not to be inspired. You too can be a rich and famous--something--if you only think it, believe it, and work harder at it than anyone else.
Also, get lucky along the way. There's no doubt that luck plays a part in success, and you can see it in Adams' tale, but it was his ability and tenancy at taking advantage of both the opportunities, as well as capitalizing on the setbacks, that led him down a road to fame and fortune.
I truly admire Scott Adams for his success. I'm not sure I'll apply his methods or suggestions, but just listening to his story had the effect on me to get my creative juices and ambitions going. It's easy to believe success is in reach and that I can make the changes I need to obtain that success as you listen to Adams' tell how he turned one lemon after another into lemonade. Luck favors the prepared and at the heart of Adam's story is his application of his preparation at the opportune moment. It's a lesson we can all learn from.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I didn't expect a lot of politically correct advice from the creator of Dilbert, nor did I expect too much hand-holding. This is life as Scott Adams knows it in a brutishly practical way. And it's more than worth your time if you can stomach his slightly outsized ego. But hey, I would think an overlarge ego is certainly correlated with being this successful.