What do you do if you have dreams of being a cartoonist but live in the ski country upstate New York? You put yourself into a position to allow luck to shine. Scott Adams did this by moving away from the hinterlands of upstate New York to San Francisco, where he kept “trying to increase the odds of getting lucky.”
While working on corporate America, he created the strip that would; eventually become Dilbert in his spare time. He shopped it around, getting rejected by nearly every publishing house and syndicator. One person he reached out to encouraged him to keep trying — sending a reminder to Adams a year after their initial conversation. That encouragement led to his sending out another round of his most recent work to potential syndicators that led to his receiving an offer from Universal (now known as Andrews McMeel Publishing).
Scott Adams is not only the creator of Dilbert, he is also the author of numerous books, including How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, and most recently of Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter.
His favorite books are here; transcript of our conversation is posted here.
You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Bloomberg, Overcast, and Stitcher. Our earlier podcasts can all be found at iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, and Bloomberg.
Next week, we speak with Tao Group‘s Ralph Scamardella, who is head chef and partner at one of the biggest fine dining restaurant groups in the country.
