## Metadata - Author: [[Scott Adams]] - Full Title: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Category: #books ## Highlights - I would define an asshole as anyone who chooses to make the lives of others less pleasant for reasons that don’t appear productive or necessary. ([Location 1072](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=1072)) - Your attitude affects everything you do in your quest for success and happiness. A positive attitude is an important tool. It’s important to get it right. The best way to manage your attitude is by understanding your basic nature as a moist robot that can be programmed for happiness if you understand the user interface. ([Location 1114](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=1114)) - Imagination is the interface to your attitude. You can literally imagine yourself to higher levels of energy. ([Location 1125](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=1125)) - My main point about perceptions is that you shouldn’t hesitate to modify your perceptions to whatever makes you happy, because you’re probably wrong about the underlying nature of reality anyway. If I had to bet my life, I’d say humans are more like my dog trying to use psychic powers on me to play fetch than we are like enlightened creatures that understand their environment at a deep level. Every generation before us believed, like Snickers, that it had things figured out. We now know that every generation before us was wrong about a lot of it. Is it likely that you were born at the tipping point of history, in which humans know enough about reality to say we understand it? ([Location 1229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=1229)) - If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You’ll find yourself continually debating people and never winning except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational. ([Location 1855](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=1855)) - Dealing with experts is always tricky. Are they honest? Are they competent? How often are they right? My observation and best guess is that experts are right about 98 percent of the time on the easy stuff but only right 50 percent of the time on anything that is unusually complicated, mysterious, or even new. ([Location 2650](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2650)) - Humans are social animals. There are probably dozens of ways we absorb energy, inspiration, skills, and character traits from those around us. Sometimes we learn by example. Sometimes success appears more approachable and ordinary because we see normal people achieve it, and perhaps that encourages us to pursue schemes with higher payoffs. Sometimes the people around us give us information we need, or encouragement, or contacts, or even useful criticism. We can’t always know the mechanism by which others change our future actions, but it’s pretty clear it happens, and it’s important. ([Location 2696](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2696)) - If you live near optimistic winners, those qualities are sure to rub off to some extent. And I advise you to consider this fact a primary tool for programming your moist-robot self. The programming interface is your location. To change yourself, part of the solution might involve spending more time with the people who represent the change you seek. ([Location 2702](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2702)) - You might think the science of happiness is fairly obvious, but it’s not. Pursuing happiness without understanding the mechanisms behind it is like planting a garden without knowing the basics of fertilization, pest control, watering, and frost. ([Location 2716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2716)) - A person with a flexible schedule and average resources will be happier than a rich person who has everything except a flexible schedule. ([Location 2749](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2749)) - You won’t all become work-at-home cartoonists, but you can certainly find a boss who values your productivity over your attendance. ([Location 2760](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2760)) - I’m here to tell you that the primary culprit in your bad moods is a deficit in one of the big five: flexible schedule, imagination, sleep, diet, and exercise. ([Location 2788](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2788)) - 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. ([Location 2836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2836)) - Changing your food preferences is a fairly straightforward process, and it starts the way all change starts: by looking at things differently. ([Location 2884](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=2884)) - Fitness is a simple thing made absurdly complicated by market forces. If you want to make money as a fitness expert or by selling fitness products, you have to make a novel claim about the value of your product or service. Each new idea is layered on to the old ideas until the entire field is so complicated it becomes intimidating. ([Location 3327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00COOFBA4&location=3327))