Picked up at the used book store today. From the back cover:

Scott Adams has probably failed at more things than anyone you've ever met. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world's most famous comic strips, in just a few years?

In this brilliant book, Adams shows us how to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket.

No career guide can offer advice that works for everyone. Your best bet is to study the ways of others who made it big and try to glean some tricks that make sense for you. So here Scott Adams tells how he turned one failure after another--including a corporate career, inventions, investments and two restaurants--into something successful. Goals are for losers; systems are for winners. Forget "passion"; what you need is personal energy.

While you laugh at his failures, you'll discover some helpful ideas for your own path to personal victory. As he puts it: "This is a story of one person's unlikely success within the context of scores of embarrassing failures. Was my eventual success primarily a result of talent, luck, hard work or an accidental just-right balance of each? All I know for sure is that I pursued a strategy of managing my opportunities in a way that would make it easier for luck to find me."

I don't really know what possessed me to buy this book. I generally do not like Dilbert. But I bought it and have now finally read it and it seems to be pretty good advice. I feel I'm fairly late in life and unimaginative to go into "success" now, but there were some helpful tips in here, and his emphasis on rest, exercise, and diet were interesting.

Adams did not fail in the sense of being completely unemployed and living hand to mouth. He always had a 9-5 job. He failed at his other projects, which were all aimed at making him lots of money. So this is not really a rags to riches story. But his suggestions seem solid.

I'm holding on to this in case my kids would like to read it.

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