The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts Episode 106 - Scott Adams

Sep 30, 2026

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Episode 106 features Scott Adams discussing his background as the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and how he applies practices learned across life and work. The conversation covers affirmations and written statements, especially for goals in career and relationships; his curiosity about hypnosis and misconceptions around it; and how he popularized Dilbert through techniques and insights. Tim Ferriss and Adams also explore humor engineering, goals versus systems, and Adams’s views on Donald Trump and the media’s ability to recognize business genius.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryComic

FormatPDF

Pages52

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Episode 106: Scott Adams

Scott Adams background and Dilbert

Affirmations and hypnosis

Humor and communication

Goals vs systems and media

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts Episode 106: Scott Adams Show notes and links at [tim.blog/podcast](tim.blog/podcast) Tim Ferriss: Could you tell me what you had for breakfast, please? Scott Adams: I had my usual coffee and protein bar while staring out the window and wishing I'd eaten more calories. Tim Ferriss: Hello, my heterogeneous sapiens, homicidal tomcats. That doesn’t make any sense. I was going to say homicidal Homo sapiens but heterogeneous, why don't we say heterogeneous, like erogenous sounds… I don’t know. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to the Tim Ferriss show. My job every episode is to deconstruct a world class performer and to show you how they do what they do. What are the favorite books, the routines, the habits? How did they achieve the success they’ve achieved? Whether they are chess prodigies like Josh Waitzkin, or actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, director like John Favreau, comedians, athletes, hedge fund managers; we’ve got everybody, Startup impresarios like Peter Thiel, and so on. This time we have, by request, Scott Adams. Scott Adams is a very famous cartoonist. He’s the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several different books that are nonfiction. He and I had a very wide ranging conversation. We’ve met before, and we cover things such as his use of affirmations, written affirmations for the stock market, for success with women, for his career as a cartoonist. We talk about hypnosis, why he became interested in hypnosis, common misconceptions about hypnosis, and how he used different techniques or aspects of what he learned to make Dilbert popular. Even the name itself, he goes into. We talk about a current fascination of his, which or who is Donald Trump and the negotiator in chief that he is campaigning to become. And why the political press misses a lot of the genius that perhaps the business press should catch. We talk about goals versus systems, so how he has approached his life with systems, in many cases, instead of goals. He and oddly, or perhaps not so coincidentally, share a lot in common there. Copyright © 2007–2018 Tim Ferriss. All Rights Reserved. We talk about his first ever Dilbert check, the six dimensions of humor, so how can you engineer humor in, say, a comic strip or elsewhere? We talk about the most underrated comic strips and comics in his opinion, how he got into the best shape of his life at 58, and much, much more. It’s a really fun conversation. He is one hell of a character, a very hilarious guy as you would hope. And the banter is, I found, a really good time. So I hope that comes across via audio. And without further ado, please enjoy Scott Adams and say hi to him. It is @ScottAdamsSays on Twitter, so give a hello, give a thank you, give him some feedback and there you have it. The without further ado was a little premature but here we go; without further ado, Scott Adams. Please enjoy. Tim Ferriss: Scott, my good man, welcome to the show. Scott Adams: Hey, thanks for having me. Tim Ferriss: I am so excited to have you on because many of the guests who have been on this podcast are fans of yours. I'm a fan of your work and of you personally and there are a few things I'd like to thankyou for. The first is helping me to learn different languages, because I bought the Dilbert Principle in many different languages; Chinese, Spanish, German, English as a way to learn conversational languages, number one. And then number two is foryour tennis lesson, which was the first proper tennis lesson I've ever had. So right off the bat, I wanted to thank you for being very good at helping me to make progress in both of those areas. Scott Adams: Oh, there’s so much I can teach you, Tim. We’re just getting started. Tim Ferriss: The languages and tennis go a long way. I feel like have tennis racket and a few words will travel. Scott Adams: By the way, I've got to tell you, the first time I saw one of my books translated into

FAQs

Who is featured in Tim Ferriss Show transcripts for Episode 106?

Scott Adams is the featured guest in Episode 106, discussed as the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and author of nonfiction books.

What practices does Scott Adams discuss regarding personal success?

Scott Adams discusses verbal and written affirmations, including writing them down multiple times, and also talks about hypnosis and how it influenced his approach.

What topics about achievement does the episode compare or contrast?

The episode contrasts goals versus systems, explaining how Adams approaches life using systems rather than goals.

Sep 30, 2026

Upload by Hazel