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Comment by anonu

2 days ago

One thing I appreciated from Scott was his "compounded skills" concept. He explained it: he wasn't a very good writer or illustrator. But he combined those skills with some humorous business insights to make Dilbert.

That concept of merging skills stuck with me.

I'm very fond of a quote from Tim Minchin that I'll paraphrase as: "I'm not the best singer or the best comedian, but I'm the best voice of all the comedians and I'm the funniest singer."

Don't max one stat. Be a unique, weird combination of several.

  • Steve Martin said that after 60 years of playing, he considered himself to be a pretty good banjo player. But then he saw Eric Clapton play guitar and thought “This guy’s not funny at all!”

  • A.J. Liebling wrote: “I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Personal_life

> He has described a method he has used that he says gave him success: he pictured in his mind what he wanted and wrote it down 15 times a day on a piece of paper

I somehow read about him doing this when I was 18, and it was something that I used to help me excel in my university exams. For 7 years I did this during my exam period, and each time I got the exact grades I wanted.

He gave immense focus to a kid with back-then undiagnosed ADHD, and helped me structure my life in general.

I am very grateful to him.