Dilbert's Creator Says You Shouldn't Have A Career Plan

Scott Adams argues that career planning works better as a system than as a fixed goal. He presents his own career as a series of moves that built skills, contacts, and material, and says his ideas for Dilbert came from workplace emails, office patterns, and his own failed ventures.

Reading notes

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• He prefers strategies or systems over goals, because specific goals are often too narrow and unlikely to be reached.
• He says a system can still create value even when a particular venture does not work.
• He gives the example of a businessman who kept looking for the next job and eventually became a CEO.
• He rejects passion as a reliable guide, saying it is common to hear it credited for success but it is not very predictive.
• He says passion often follows success rather than causing it.
• He defines happiness as health plus freedom.
• He says freedom means doing what you want, when you want.
• He says he felt miserable before Dilbert took off because his day was controlled by other people.
• He links fitness and diet to happiness and says knowledge about diet science can replace willpower.
• He says his email and reader messages supply many of the office details that become material for Dilbert.
• He says failed startups and business ventures helped him notice patterns that improved the comic.