Scott Adams quotes

I'm listening to How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life in my car and am really enjoying it. I found some quotes from the book via Derek Sivers and thought I'd share a few below. There are many more HERE.

Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value. 

Never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. He’s in business for the wrong reason. The best loan customer is one who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet.

It’s easy to be passionate about things that are working out, but they drain your passion as they fail. 

In hindsight, it looks as if the projects I was most passionate about were also the ones that worked. But objectively, my passion level moved with my success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success.

Have a system instead of a goal. Systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways. 

Running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system.

A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.

Buying lottery tickets is not a system no matter how regularly you do it. 

The world offers so many alternatives that you need a quick filter to eliminate some options and pay attention to others. Whatever your plan, focus is always important.

If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power. 

Success has a price, but the price is negotiable. If you pick the right system, the price will be a lot nearer what you’re willing to pay.

If you learn to appreciate the power of systems over goals, it might lower the price of success just enough to make it worth a go.