Goodbye Scott Adams

Scott Adams, best known as the creator of Dilbert, passed away a few days ago.

This is my attempt at acknowledging the impact he's had on my life.

I was never an avid reader of Dilbert. It's easy to appreciate it, sure, but that's not how I got exposed to Scott. Although I don't remember exactly, I think that first happened through his blog.

In 2015, Trump showed up in the political scene in his race for republican nomination to the presidential election. The circus and commotion around this left me curious, so I went looking for someone who would make sense of the whole situation. Scott had a series of blog posts deconstructing Trump from a persuasion perspective, and a bold prediction that he would end up being elected president. His writing uncovered the methods behind the apparent madness. It all started with the "Clown Genius" blog post—Scott's blog is no longer up, but ask your friendly AI and you'll find his work elsewhere.

I didn't follow Scott for his political commentary, even if that was fun enough on its own. My curiosity had more to do with his lens on the world, with how he was able to come up with such unique but predictive takes. I would end up reading all his non-Dilbert-related books, starting with "How To Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big". That became one of my favorite books of all time.

Scott introduced me to ideas that changed my life. Systems vs goals, talent stacking, persuasion, the "moist robot" theory, the "basket case" theory. I adopted those ideas and credit much of my "luck" to them. Scott gave me tools to see the world, and myself, differently. It started in me a lifelong pursuit of self experimentation and self programming. I leveled up... Bigly!

Now, this is not about agreeing with Scott's ideas or views. This is about adopting tools and methods he used and advocated, and having success with them.

Scott has not been my only source of inspiration that I would classify as life changing—there have been others in other domains. But he was the first to give me a structure to a life of self improvement. Teach a man to fish, they say.

Another aspect of Scott that inspired me was his work ethic. Not only did he produce Dilbert daily for decades, through major diseases and other setbacks, but in his final form as a podcaster of sorts he produced an immense body of work. His "Coffee with Scott Adams" ran for over 3000 episodes, right up until the day before his death. The extent to which he was frail and diminished was frankly hard to watch. But I have nothing but respect and admiration for the way he put himself out there. He gave it all.

Scott is gone but his influence will remain. Through his work, through all of those that like me were touched by him, and through a community of folks that are out there propagating his wisdom. I particularly enjoyed discovering Akira The Don, who incorporates some of Scott's lessons, using clips of him, as catchy tunes and well produced music videos.

Thanks for everything, Scott.

You helped me figure out life.