What I'm Reading: Reframe Your Brain by Scott Adams

First, it's sad to hear that our beloved Dilbert Comic Creator has stage 4 cancer (it has metastasized into his bone marrow). Now, he believes he only has a few months left. While Scott is no spring chicken, he should have lived a few more decades (at least). Alas, all good things must come to an end.

I have a soft spot for Scott. When I was young, my Uncle Warren used to buy me books containing all the daily and Sunday comic strips for Calvin and Hobbes and Farside. My brother and I would constantly re-read them. We eventually got to Dilbert just as I was in high school. Little did I know what I thought were jokes would have a strong basis in reality in the working world.

Alas, this is not about Dilbert.

In college, I recall how jarring it was to read the last chapter of the book "The Dilbert Future." Rather than being funny or witty, it was an earnest discussion about challenging the laws of physics. Is the standard model the right model? Are there other ways of looking at how gravity works without relying on some spooky god particle?

This is the stuff that kept me up at night in college. What if we think we know everything, but our models of the universe are completely wrong? While Scott wasn't a scientist, he was an intellectual thinker. I disagreed with most of his speculations, but I have a ton of respect for someone willing to question the status quo and do so with curiosity and rigor.

I then forgot about him for a long time.

Two decades later, I came across another one of his books: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. Again, I was shocked to find out that Scott was a serial entrepreneur. And not just in one narrow category. He explored a wide range of things. He wasn't just someone that talked a big game. He was constantly in the arena, trying new things and expanding his talent stack.

This eventually led me to find his current book, Reframe Your Brain.

I didn't know Scott was a trained hypnotist, but that helped me understand why he was so obsessed with reframing.

Reframes are a fancy way of looking at the world through a different filter or perspective. They don't have to be true or make logical sense. They have to resonate with you, offering you a more empowered or effective way of approaching a given situation.

I've done a great deal of work with reframes in the past, both as a mentor/coach and as an EFT practitioner. Most of the things we believe are things we learned from our parents, friends, or society throughout our lives. They may not be accurate or logical, but we operate as if they are true.

Spoiler Alert: this book is fantastic. It's full of ~ 200 reframes on a wide range of topics. Despite using reframes for the past two decades, I'm finding many new gems to apply in my own life. You know a book is good when you have to constantly pause and take notes. This is that book.

That's it. If you're interested, consider adding it to your Kindle or Audible. Otherwise, thanks for reading!