How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win

I recently read the book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
by author Scott Adams. Scott is the creator of the Dilbert comic and he’s a
serial entrepreneur. I think it’s pretty safe to say that he has reached a high

level of success and he knows what he’s talking about. So I read his book

looking for insights on how to approach my career and this was the biggest

insight that I found. Goals are for losers. You’re probably thinking, “Whoa!

What? I’ve lived my whole life trying to focus on goals.” Yeah, me too. I’ve

been told by the experts to set long term goals, it’s the only way you will

succeed in life. But Scott says if you study people who succeed, you will see

that most of them follow systems, not goals. Scott defines goals as “reach it

and be done” objectives and systems are what you do on a regular basis

with the general expectation of improving. Here are some specific examples

he provides. He says, "In the world of dieting, losing 20 pounds is a goal, but

eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under

four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a

million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur, that’s a system."

Goals are rigid pursuits that shut off your awareness of other opportunities,

but systems are flexible and they leave you open to be curious about new

ways and better ways of doing things. But with all this goal bashing, we still

need to realize that goals are insanely useful, but only in narrow, simplistic

and predictable pursuits. This includes games that are constructed by man

and tasks that are short in duration and have a clear purpose. But goals are

terrible for long endeavors like personal health and career success. This is

because changes happen so fast in today’s world. You may have your head

down trying to pursue a goal, say trying to obtain a certain position within

your company, but by doing so you’re probably missing five better

opportunities and five better companies for career advancement.

Scott urges us that instead of putting the blinders on and expecting a certain

result at the end of months or years of work, instead focus on systems.

Systems are skill-based. They allow you to transfer skills to future projects

and endeavors. Approach each new opportunity with the question: How

likely is this going to improve my broad range of skills and increase my odds

of success? Although most of Scott’s endeavors could be considered failures

from a standpoint of goals, they were actually successes from the

standpoint of systems because they gave him skills that transferred to the

next career move and allowed him to be successful in the long run, making

comics and making millions of people laugh every day. His dozens of failures

early in life with his entrepreneurial projects like computer games, file

transfer software, meditation program, they were all considered failures

when looking at it from the goal standpoint, but from the systems

standpoint, they gave them the skill of hustle, which allowed him to put in

the long hours necessary to get his comic off the ground in the following

years. His failure to move up the ranks at a certain level at a bank that he

was working at allowed him to develop enough business skills to market and

manage his comic business. In his time at a big corporate telephone

company, it didn’t really lead to him being a CEO or anything grand, but it

gave him all the material for his Dilbert comic, which in turn obviously was

a useful thing. Ultimately systems lead to success because success is luck

multiplied by the skills you obtain. For example, there are many kids today

that have probably much better programming skills than Bill Gates had. But

Bill Gates happened to be born at a certain time in history and have access

to computers when other people didn’t. That’s just plain lucky. Because of

that luck, he made billions and billions of dollars. But having certain skills

allowed him to capitalize on the opportunity that was presented to him.

When you focus on systems, you accelerate skill development and you

leave yourself open to notice opportunities, to pivot and make yourself

more likely to be successful. The openness of systems increases the odds of

luck finding you and success coming your way. That was the core message

that most resonated with me from Scott’s book. I highly recommend getting

his book and seeing what experience of his can most help you advance your

career.