Alchemy For Life

Scott Adams is often introduced as “the creator of Dilbert.” Indeed he is, however he has done so much more. His latest creation is the best-selling book, LoserThink: How Untrained Brains are Ruining America. Like his other books, it focuses on persuasion, success and strategies about success.

Join us for a great, cordial, in-depth discussion on elements in the book as well as his daily Periscope, his dynamic twitter and his other books too.

Scott offers that anyone who owns the book has his permission to take a photo of one of the pages and send it to someone who is having a disagreement. It carries more weight and is not a personal attack, he explains. I have been following Scott Adams for some time, and have also read most of his books.

Books

We talk about not only his newest book, but previous books such as the non-fiction How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, as well as the fiction God’s Debris. Having read both of those and having also written both fiction and non-fiction I was particularly interested in the genesis of both. Writing fiction is decidedly much different than writing non-fiction. The same goes for marketing them.

Our conversation

Just some of the things we talk about:

• Cognitive dissonance
• Confirmation bias
• Mental prisons
• A/B testing
• Persuasion
• Hypnosis
• Mind Reading – as in, people think they can do that but they can’t
• His books
• The talent stack
• The persuasion aspect of politics

Periscope and The Simultaneous Sip

Scott hosts a daily Periscope in which he talks about the day’s news and interacts with his audience. Each is started with having a sip from whatever beverage you have—he likes coffee. The action is tongue-in-cheek and demonstrates elements of both hypnosis and persuasion (he gives us insider info on this in the podcast). It has really caught on as an a group activity, and has resulted in him recently meeting a number of sippers who introduced themselves as such. I’ll admit that I participate as well. It’s fun, and having him sort through the news with a very scientific method of discovery is fascinating. I liken it to a college professor conducting a class. I mean that in a good way.

If you want to break out of a mental prison you may have placed yourself into it’s a great listen. If you follow politics but wish someone would just clearly sift through it, you’ll want to listen to the podcast and then follow Scott.

I’m grateful for the time he spent with me, and it was wonderful to has such in-depth discussions on so many interesting topics.

What he said at the end, in closing, made me smile. No this is not a “listen till the end” trick.

Find him on the web at:

scottadamssays.com and dilbert.com

Twitter: scottadamssays

In my talks about balance (I have a few that are specific to balance and one is called “Balance Through Transition) I talk about “grabbing the wheel.” What I mean by that metaphor is that sometimes we go through changes that we don’t seem to have control over. I tell people to “grab the wheel” not just as a way to wrestle control from fate, the heavens, circumstance or what have you, but as a way to at least “feel” in control. Like a bus that’s on autopilot: you sit in the driver’s seat and as far as anyone else knows you are in control and managing the best you can. After a while in many circumstances you do indeed get control – the wheel starts to move.

Have there been times in your life that you found the autopilot wheel actually allowed you to grab it and start steering?

Where there even cases in which that was ALL you had to do – touch the wheel?

Well, this podcast is not about grabbing the wheel but about those that go a little too far and grab the hood ornament.

Remember when Indiana Jones was forcibly thrown through a truck window and then held on for dear life? Some people do that but instead of being thrown through the window they jump through it, completely ignoring the big wheel that actually steers the truck.

If your life takes a turn that seems out of control I would suggest you assess, think, meditate, consider and then grab the wheel – even if it doesn’t budge.

What I don’t want you to do is jump through the window and grab the hood ornament.

Being in control – even faking it – is far more healthy than jumping onto the hood (metaphorically) and trying to get control. You’ve probably done this. it felt like an all-or-nothing immersion into fixing a problem. A crisis, a panic.

Some people approach change this way. Some people are forced to.

Try not to get to that point. Try the wheel first, see if it moves. Go from there.

Listen to the podcast for examples.

Thanos and balance

Anyone who knows me well knows two things about me:

1. I’m a big Marvel fan, especially the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
2. I find the mad rush to make pop culture reference metaphors out of everything really annoying, so I never do that

So, it’s very telling that I want to talk about Thanos and balance. Warning, spoiler ahead.

First of all this is a minor spoiler, and something that the comics have been aware of for many many years. I’m not even saying if this is in the movie or not. I’m just relating a character motivation and arc that has already appeared in the comics. The character Thanos is a villain who is on a quest to obtain parts that allow him to populate a gauntlet that will them allow him to to a singular thing – create balance in the universe. His method of creating this balance is to wipe out literally half of the life in the universe, with the snap of his fingers.

His reasoning is fairly simplistic and driven not by evil, but by what he believes is good – he doesn’t want that other half of the universe as a whole to suffer. If you remove the other half, there’s more energy and resources to go around. Sound familiar? If you’re one of the people that doesn’t get wiped out, and no one you know is also wiped out, it’s not that terrible of a thing. Yes you mourn for the half of your planet that no longer exists, but life goes on for you and life is actually better, in theory. More stuff to go around, people expand, empty houses, vehicles, a much shorter line Starbucks, more parking spots available. Think about it. And all you had to do is accept that millions of people had to go away, to be sacrificed and no longer be part of the equation.

So why is this important, and how is this a metaphor? Well, I mentioned energy and resources – two of the three magic words I say over and over. His method is to get rid of people so that there’s more energy and resources to go around. They are sacrificed for the greater (in his belief system) good.

You may have snapped your fingers too

You may have encountered a situation in your past in which you are overwhelmed. You have too much going on. How many people say that? All of them at some point? So what did you do? It’s a fair guess that in the absence of training, wisdom of a really nifty system like Alchemy For Life that shows all your energy and resources you did something else: you snapped your fingers. But instead of countless people disappearing, it was an activity or two, or perhaps even a job or relationship.

Poof.

You made it go away. You associated that unpleasant feeling of being overwhelmed or being pulled into too many directions, or having no energy – with that activity, or job, or relationship. And like Thanos, the simple solution is to wipe it out; make it go away.

And just like The Mad Titan your logic is based on what you think is right. Just like Thanos it may very well be flawed.

The sliding puzzle

As I’ve said, life is a sliding puzzle. You have to make room for something or it’s not going to stick. That’s why all those people start a gym membership in January and by March they never step foot in that gym again. Their schedule and energy push back and eject this new, unwelcome activity. And the gym has already signed you up for a repeating payment. What a great business model.

Instead of snapping your fingers and making these things go away, let’s take two steps back. Before you even add something to your schedule and list of activities see where it will fit. And if it won’t fit, then see what you can shift to make it fit. The beautiful thing about Alchemy For Life is that we can cheat reality and find room for something that shouldn’t fit. How? Because we can overlap, work/play smarter and do things that we wouldn’t have even thought of. Then your activity fits in your schedule. And remember that what you are made of is not just your schedule (time) but energy and resources. Think of that before you start your membership, join a league, start dating, take a new class, accept a new job with a different schedule/energy requirement, agree to help someone on a regular basis or any other commitment. Let’s make sure it has a place first, then move forward. Otherwise there will indeed be suffering and you may very well feel obligated and forced to wipe something out. The thing you get rid of may very well need to be there and be an important part of you. I don’t want you to give up a job, a rejuvenating activity or an important relationship.

So take off the gauntlet and don’t snap your fingers. And my apologies for the metaphor.

Thanos is a property of Marvel, and used in a demonstrative fair use fashion. All names and copyrights belong to their res...

In The Zone

Have you ever been “in the zone?” Have you ever heard someone say “I’m in the zone, don’t bother me?” If you have then you know what I am talking about. If you’ve never really been in the zone then let me explain, because this is a really amazing thing, and you need to not only know about it, but you need to experience this as often as you can.

Defining it

I did a lot of searching to see what others thought the definition was. The one I found that was closest to my perception is the definition by the Collins English Dictionary – a dictionary I hadn’t heard of until now.

In the zone
Informal
in a state that produces achievement with such an extraordinary, often unlikely, degree of success that it seems to defy purely rational explanation

It is interesting that it mentions “often unlikely” degree of success, isn’t it? You are doing something that seems to produce an achievement, with a very satisfying and unusual degree of success that you can’t seem to explain. I think that’s a big part of it. You go to do something, to create something, and when done you look at what you’ve done and marvel at the outcome – dang that turned out really really well.

That’s a part of it, but let’s take a even large view and encompass the entire concept, in my humble opinion of course.

Being in the zone just feels right. It feels like you are doing something you are good at – something you are exceptional at. That feeling of perceiving that you are very good at it is a feeling of self-validation. And we all know just how powerful validation is – it’s the feel all be all emotion. But the zone is more than that.

The Second Facet

If you were good at something but didn’t like it then you would only have a two dimensional feeling of validation. The other facet adds another dimension. Not only do you feel like you’re good at this, but you just feel right doing it. When you do this you feel like this is your thing. This is your domain. Hold my beer. It’s the third act and you are up. That’s a really important part – that feeling that you are doing your thing. This acts as a self-contained fuel for the validation. You do the thing and enjoy it, then take a step back and say “Dang Karen, you really are good at this!” But wait, there’s more.

The Third facet

There’s a third facet of The Zone. This facet is not required but it just makes the zone that much easier to attain for some, and it involves the V word again. Again, you do this thing, then you look upon it and pronounce it amazing, this validating yourself and fueling your passion for it. But now you show it to others and they go crazy over it, not only confirming your assessment of it, but increasing the assessment to another level. You think it’s great – humbly and almost secretly – and they all think it is awesome! Now you have external validation that adds to your fuel.

Systemically

Since I see everything as a system, I see how these three things can be combined to produce different results. I’ll revisit these facets separately in another podcast/article, but the scope of this post doesn’t allow that.

What is your zone?

There’s no limit as to what your zone is. It can be writing, acting, creating music, your specific form of art, or even playing Santa.

Discovering your gages

If you follow me and are aware of The Status Game then you’re aware of how you’re guided by these gages on your dashboards. The Discover Your Gages workbook will be out soon (as a companion to the seminar of the same name). If you haven’t been in The Zone then that’s a crime. You need to find your zone, and The Status Game will help. Hit me up, peeps.

Time

It’s Daylight Savings Time in most of the US (and some other countries). If that’s true for you then you “fell back” this morning. You probably don’t even realize you did it, as by design it happens at 2am.

Homework and fun

We talk about the “do over hour” you just got, and we play another mind game. Listen in and join me, especially if you are Type A...