Note: This is a book summary of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams

Original book description:

Blasting clichéd career advice, the contrarian pundit and creator of Dilbert recounts the humorous ups and downs of his career, revealing the outsized role of luck in our lives and how best to play the system.

Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you've ever met or anyone you've even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world's most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years? In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams shares the game plan he's followed since he was a teen: invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket.

No career guide can offer advice that works for everyone. As Adams explains, your best bet is to study the ways of others who made it big and try to glean some tricks and strategies that make sense for you. Adams pulls back the covers on his own unusual life and shares how he turned one failure after another - including his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants - into something good and lasting. There's a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of entertainment along the way. Adams discovered some unlikely truths that helped to propel him forward. For instance:

Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners.
"Passion" is bull. What you need is personal energy.
A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable.
You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others.