Book Review: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

“Persistence is useful, but there’s no point being an idiot about it.”

Scott Adams, the man behind the famous Dilbert comic, has an honest conversation about the pursuit of a healthy and successful life in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Adams describes his many failures and how they paved the way for him to become the successful speaker, author and cartoonist that he is today.

Adams explicitly lists his many failures and describes his successes, especially in the first part of the book. He does so brilliantly, being sagacious without belittling himself. Thus, reeling in his reader. His advice is thought provoking and rarely prescriptive. He focuses on describing what works for him and why he thinks that it can work for the reader as well. This lends a conversational flow to the book.

Adams is also very comprehensive in his advice. He does not limit himself to professional or academic situations, his winning strategy encompasses the pursuit of happiness, food & exercise habits, affirmations, party-conversations and behavioral observations as well. On each topic, he is succinct, thorough and frank. He is very clear about when he is describing something that works for him and might work for the reader (such as affirmations and food habits) and when he is stating a rule that can be reasonably generalized (such as behavioral observations and the importance of correct grammar). As a reader, this leaves you with many different ways in which you could learn from Adams’ intelligence, observations and experiences.

Personally, I found the book to be compelling and engaging. I would recommend it to anyone looking for some practical motivation. The book reminded me that working towards maintaining a healthy, introspective and ambitious lifestyle will drastically increase my likelihood of success, something that can be forgotten if the daily humdrum takes over.

Non Omnis Moriar

There was nothing about the scene that wasn’t picturesque; the blue sky, the regal peak, the crisp air, the disturbing stillness. He stood there alone, scanning the mountain from the foot, right up until the peak. Trying to find a crevice, that would fit him perfectly; For surely, he thought, that is what the mountain was meant for, to find that sweet spot.

He looked at each rise and fall of the mountain and tried to calculate the spot with the least probability of being affected by a landslide. He then brought out a pen and paper and estimated the height of every tree on the mountain. He used geometry to then find the nook and crannies with the most sunlight. As day turned to night, he worked assiduously by the moonlight, just standing by the mountain. Trying to find his place in the mountain.

As he started losing count of the variables and equations and his fingers grew stiff around his pencil, he grew frustrated with every stirring of the wind. Finally, frustrated he shouted into infinity, “Have you no mercy?! How savage is it to throw a child of the Earth into this complexity, just to find his crevice!”.

As he sat freezing in his defeat, recounting his convoluted calculations, a steady voice replied back, “Oh child of the Earth, there is no crevice for you, neither here nor in any corner of the infinite universe. And in that is the greatest mercy bestowed upon you. For the majestic mountain and it’s crevices will crumble in the face of the gale. But you, the child of the Earth, are not born to be destroyed, your soul walks hand in hand with infinity. There is no crevice which can contain you.”

~Rishika Sudhir Dhody