Episode 971 Scott Adams: A Micro Lesson on Affirmations. Can You Program Your Reality?

Date: 2020-05-13 | Duration: 35:15

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Whiteboard: Affirmations how-to

If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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## Transcript

[0:12]

hey everybody come on in here you want something weird do you want to have a really weird 30 or 40 minutes it came to the right place you will be tantalized in the brain area you'll be amused you might be shocked or amazed you might think the whole thing is just too weird for you you never know what's gonna happen in the next 3040 minutes but it's gonna be good those of you stay to the end you may never be the same for sure you'll be a little older because you know 34 minutes but maybe even better than that we'll see I don't want to I don't want to over promise alright today I'm going to talk to you about a thing called affirmations now affirmations I think mean different things to different people so I'll give you my explanation I'm not talking about

[1:13]

you my explanation I'm not talking about the affirmations where you look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're a good person and you know gosh darn it people like you that's the the cartoony version the real version isn't much less cartoony than that but it's different and the real version is that you just write down or repeat in your mind you could do it out loud I suppose 15 times a day some specific kind of an objective that you have and the idea is that somehow and it's the somehow that we'll talk about that's the fun and weird part somehow simply repeating or writing down your objective 15 times a day seems to make it happen not every time obviously full disclosure I've been talking about this topic for decades and so lots of people have tried it and they've reported back to me a number of people say they had great results

[2:13]

say they had great results other people said they didn't I didn't do any kind of a scientific poll so I can't tell you how often it works or doesn't I feel like people would more likely tell me if it worked so I probably have a you know oversized the sense of how how often it worked but I will tell you the story from my personal perspective some of you have maybe heard it or read about it and that will form the basis upon which you can judge my credibility so I'll tell you how I was introduced to this idea how I used it what happened and then I'll tell you a little bit more about the technique just takes about a minute and then we'll talk about what kind of a universe gives you even this conversation so we're going to get weird after we talk about it okay so first of all I wrote about this just for a background in three different books the Dilber of future in 1997 gods debris in

[3:19]

Dilber of future in 1997 gods debris in fiction form 2001 came out on 9/11 fish that week bad timing for a book and then more recently at had it failed almost everything and still went big if you wanted to just get the the closest explanation to what I'll be giving you today it would be in this latter book how to fail so I was a young man in my 20s and I had a friend who was in Mensa so Mensa is the high IQ organization and she was very smart because you have to be to be in there and she read a book I don't remember the title of the book but she was talking to me on the phone about it one day and she said it taught something called the affirmations and it was this idea of you know writing down 15 times a day of what you wanted and she said that she tried it you know skeptically and a series of

[4:19]

it you know skeptically and a series of coincidences happened like just bizarre coincidences they caused her to get the thing that she was that she was writing down and I think she tried it a few times and she talked about somebody else's experience and she said you know why don't you try it now keep in mind I'm highly skeptical maybe you'll think otherwise when we're done but you know I'm not a believer in any kind of supernatural power or lock magic horoscopes you know pretty much none of it
it yeah I'm just completely skeptical so how did she talk me into trying something that has no scientific basis whatsoever and seems like absolute crap well did I mention she's in Mensa it turns out they're very persuasive so here was our argument doesn't cost you anything and if it works you'll be able

[5:22]

anything and if it works you'll be able to basically rewrite your reality you might even recognize the technique from Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs was trying to hire was it Scully he was trying to hire him to the President and he didn't want to go and job said to you do you want to sell because he was Scully was a head of Pepsi at the time he said do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or changed the world and they basically you know resigned that moment I think not quite but so that's the power of contrast so she used the power of contrast on me doesn't cost anything could change the world ah I wish it hadn't been so simple and and also I was I was an experimenter I was a seeker so I I would look into almost anything and

[6:23]

I I would look into almost anything and and always well so no matter how weird the claim I'll look into it a little bit I'll check it out you know I'm probably not going to be convinced that your seance is real or that you're you're bending a spoon with your mind I probably won't be convinced but I'll look into it you guys got a inquiring mind so I thought all I'll give it a shot and she gave me this specific advice she said pick something you know is not going to happen in any way because what would be the point right you'd get your thing that you had been writing down 15 times a day and then you'd say to yourself no that probably would have happened anyway you know so she said pick something unlikely so I picked something I thought was pretty unlikely which was to keep this rated G in case somebody's watching you later I wanted to let's say date a specific woman that I didn't even know somebody

[7:25]

woman that I didn't even know somebody who was in the the company there was a big company I didn't know her didn't know where she worked in our name just something I'd seen in the hallway a few times and decided oh my goodness but I picked her as the object of my affirmation because she was so far out of my league just sort of wasn't even close you know if if I'm being if I'm being properly modest wasn't really close yeah that the two of us should never have gone on a date but we did and it was because of a series of coincidences that I won't get into but it was there were weird ones weird weird coincidences that we even met I mean how do you just meet the one stranger and the whole planet you want to meet and just I didn't even try it just happened and then the next thing you know we're in the elevator at the same time and next thing you know I got a lunch there she is next thing I know we're on a date and

[8:27]

next thing I know we're on a date and when it was all done what did I say to myself did I say to myself those affirmations worked really well I I got something that I knew could have never happened in any other way did I say that no I didn't know I didn't what I said to myself was huh I guess I have more game than I thought uh who I guess I had more buying power than I thought so of course the experiment was a complete failure because the very thing that she told me to do didn't work I didn't take something that I couldn't later convince myself I'd gotten through my my own great you know good looks or talent or something else so I was like inconclusive experiment so not long after that I got it in a bet with somebody at work about whether I could retake the GM ATS the test you take for

[9:28]

retake the GM ATS the test you take for your to see if it can get him to a school to get your MBA and that I would retake the test because I'd taken them before and I'd not scored very well scored in the 77th percentile I think which is not good enough to get into a good school if I recall I might have been a little hungover when I took the GMAT the first time that's the story I'm gonna go with so just just go with that and the person I had the bat with had scored I think in the high eighties and it was taking one of those review courses to beef up you know her ability to get an even higher score and so she should have gone from like 88 to something higher but they do tell you that you can't really raise your score that much you know it's not really IQ but there's not a lot you can do you can study the tests and I was telling her you know those review classes they're not going to help you at all and she said oh yeah they will I said no I don't think you well I don't

[10:29]

said no I don't think you well I don't think I think it's a scam she said no no these it's gonna make a big difference so I made a bet the dumbest thing I've ever done maybe you know I've done a lot of dumb things one of the dumb things I've done I made a bet I said that I will take the test at the same time you do because I was thinking about taking it again anyway and I was score you are you're your score even though I was in the high 70s you were in as a high eighties and you're taking a special class to get into the 90s which you would need to get into Berkeley because she wanted to go to Berkeley and you know you'd have to get into somewhere in the low to mid 90s to get into Berkeley at the time so it was the dumbest bad because what were the odds that would happen so I used my affirmations and because I had taken the test before I knew what the what the little output looked like you know that little the mail that you get that says

[11:29]

little the mail that you get that says here's your score and it says this little box and I decided that I would pick as my target from my affirmations 94 so in order for this to happen I would somehow without taking an account for a review course magically go from 77 to 94 now I don't know if it's ever been done but that's a really big ask right so I thought that is sufficiently impossible that if that happens I'm gonna say you know maybe there is something here so I visualized the exact mailer assuming it would be similar to the one before it turned out it was and and I just imagine seeing a 94 and that percentile thing and but I did take some practice tests just you know on my own because I was okay I didn't have a tutor or anything I was just taking the practice nests and every time I took the practice test I scored high 70s percentile just like

[12:34]

I scored high 70s percentile just like the first time so I'd take another one and not the same and every one right in that zone I'd take it in the morning I'd take it with coffee I take it under every condition yeah a bunch of practice tests and every time I seventies so it wasn't looking good for Scott the day comes I take the test she takes the test time goes by and I go to the mailbox and there's there's a result I go back to my little apartment my moldy little apartment and hate district of San Francisco living there by myself a very sad place and I opened up the result and I looked for the little box where I knew the percentile would be and there was a number it was 94 and I looked at it and I thought I'm obviously looking at the

[13:36]

thought I'm obviously looking at the wrong box I'm looking at like a code or something is it a code and on this day he says 94 and I looked at it I thought it can't actually be 94 like not literally 94 and I would look at it let's say I think it is and and for hours this actually happened for four hours I would look at that piece of paper and I was sitting just all alone in my little apartment in San Francisco and had set it down next to me and I would lean back and I think I'm not sure that just happened and I'd have to pick it up and look at it again and I kept doing that all night I just kept picking it up and looking at it and saying what what if I what if I what have I done so I ended up going to Berkeley in getting my MBA almost an accident really it was based on a bet strangely enough so it

[14:37]

based on a bet strangely enough so it wasn't long after that that I thought what's the limit to this thing like what else couldn't it do and is it really doing anything or am I just imagining this we'll get to that part so I set myself a goal of getting rich in the stock market now remember I had no money so it would be hard to get rich in the stock market you know I had maybe a thousand dollars that I could put into the stock market and I didn't even have an account so one day as I'm doing my affirmations I wake up I said straight up in bed in the middle of the night with this thought in my head to buy a stock and Chrysler now Chrysler at the time I'm not good on my years but Chrysler at the time was Bank so you know they owed the government a bunch of money and a lot of people were betting they weren't coming back so their stock was just you know right at the edge of oblivion so out of all the

[15:39]

the edge of oblivion so out of all the stocks in the world how many stocks do you think there are say ten thousand ten thousand stocks maybe I did zero research woke up sat up and thought by Chrysler for no reason they hadn't read an article about it nothing and so I tried to open an account with Charles Schwab and my paperwork got lost and it took too long and in the time it took me to try to open up an account using snail mail and stuff getting lost the stock had gone up I don't know a bunch twenty percent let's say I forget the exact number and so by the time I got my account opened it already going up a lot and I thought ah you turn it it was a good idea but I you know I just missed it
it so I didn't buy it because it already gone up and then it kept going up and those of you who are old enough to remember what was the best stock of that

[16:41]

remember what was the best stock of that entire year and of ten thousand Chrysler it was it was like the number one story stock and of ten thousand stocks and I picked it randomly or was it random maybe there was something floating around in my head that just came together I know but I didn't get it I didn't get rich off it so I thought I'll try it again so I so I thought to myself alright I'm just gonna do the same process I'll just accept now I have my account open and one day I picked up a newspaper and I flipped through it and there was an article about this software company called ask ASX I don't know what happened to him but at the time it was sort of a hot new technology looking thing back when you know that was a new and I became asked to use maybe I don't know and now that was asked computer so it's a different company than Ask Jeeves so it was an ass

[17:44]

than Ask Jeeves so it was an ass software company I forget the details anyway the point is I didn't know anything about this company and I just thought I'm gonna buy this with no anything no research I buy this stock it goes up I know 10% in a week and I think I'm a freaking genius leonis twice in a row I picked a good stock so I sold that stock made pocket it at a quick ten percent I think I made probably I netted a hundred bucks in a month I was nothing nothing like just a week and I'm thinking to myself hey I think I have something here I've got a tiger by the tail I just made $100 without doing anything remotely like work in a week I mean hey the the second part of the story is that that stock didn't stop going up when I sold it it went to the moon it was again one of the storied

[18:47]

moon it was again one of the storied stocks of the year it wasn't just a stock it was like a story that you know people would write about what's up with this stock just going to the moon so both times I didn't trust to stick with the the thing that you know I was being guided toward or so it felt or it wasn't an illusion so I thought to myself let me try something else it wasn't long after that that I tried I Scott Adams will be a famous cartoonist and that's actually the form of it I'll teach you in a moment and I became a famous cartoonist and that I did i scott adams become a number one New York Times bestselling author and that I did and there was also a time that I lost my ability to speak mostly

[19:48]

that I lost my ability to speak mostly you know the story sort of for about three and a half years I couldn't speak properly is a condition called spasmodic dysphonia which was incurable incurable problem but do you hear me so obviously it wasn't so incurable was it long story short I searched the world and found a guy who had an experimental fairly newish surgery and fixed it but that was the subject of my silent affirmations that I would someday speak perfectly now of course I don't speak perfectly so affirmations are sort of directional let's let me show you what the process is then I'll tell you the fun the fun part is is there anything to it or is it just complete BS and you can decide all right there however it is easy you just write or repeat that that

[20:48]

easy you just write or repeat that that thing that you want and use this form I put your name in there if scotomas will be a syndicated cartoonist you could say you'd be wealthy you could say you'll find love you could say you'll be healthy you could say you you'll move someplace you'll you'll start a family whatever it is if if you're too specific and you'll recognize this for be talking about systems versus goals you don't want to be too specific because you don't want you don't want to say for example I I want that specific promotion because what if there's a better one you know you might get the thing that you're affirming but maybe there was something better that popped up in the meantime so try to keep your affirmations you know fairly general now an exception would be there's nothing better than being a syndicated cartoonist if you're a cartoonist yeah if you're gonna be a cartoonist this would be the best one

[21:50]

cartoonist this would be the best one you know of the types of cartoonists you could be so shooting for the top is not so bad because what if I'd gotten close well maybe I still gonna mean a little money or whatever but there's nothing better in the world of cartooning than being a syndicated cartoonist so in that case I could be kind of specific if you're trying to win a you know win an Oscar or something yeah go ahead you know I I don't think those are terribly important but if you want it so people ask me you know does it matter where I write it can I type it can I can I chant it can I sing it and none of that matters it's only about focusing on the thing that you want and visualize it it's also very important you visualize if you don't visualize it you're not putting the most active part of your brain into the game now here's the part where you should be saying to yourself why would this work based on your complete lack of science and logic or

[22:53]

complete lack of science and logic or anything that would connect this to the real world you know why would chanting or writing something down and have any effect on the real world that's the fun part does it here are some ideas and I'll let you decide which one you like the best one of the possibilities is that somehow these affirmations change the basic nature of reality itself can we agree it's not that one okay can we just stipulate we don't have to talk about it too much because you know I may have a different view of reality than you do my view is that we don't have access to it there's there's got to be some base reality but we have we live in our own filters you know most of you know that's my view so I don't see a happy you know I don't see reality changing I see maybe our filter changing that's the part we can see and deal with but you probably don't think reality changes because you wrote something down so I think we'll

[23:53]

wrote something down so I think we'll agree it's not that one okay the other one could be selective memory maybe it doesn't work at all what if what if I'm just good and stuff which explains why I had some success and what if I just forgot the ones that didn't work now those of you read this book know that I have many many failures in fact you know ten to one ten to one more failures and successes so how do I explain that that I'm acting like this works when ten to one it didn't that's what you're thinking right well here's the thing I didn't use affirmations on almost any of those things I only used it on the ones that worked now you're gonna have to take my word for that but there's a reason for that and I'll get to that so there's although there's a reason why I only did it on the ones that worked so

[24:56]

I only did it on the ones that worked so another possibility is that when you're doing affirmations is you're tuning your brain there was a study on luck by a the sky dr. Waisman and he wanted to see if people had luck it is luck a real thing now most of you are ahead of me right luck is not a real thing everybody's gonna have the same luck if you're really controlling the experiment and indeed that's what he found everybody has exactly the same luck but he did this experiment that was very revealing he had people divide themselves into groups that considered themselves lucky and groups that considered themselves not lucky and he gave them all the same newspaper and he said look through the newspaper and count up the number of photographs now the people who consider themselves unlucky counted them up and on average they got the right number that was 42 and it would took them several minutes to complete the task the people who consider themselves lucky even though really nobody was any luckier than anybody else but they

[25:57]

luckier than anybody else but they consider themselves lucky they also got the right number on average 42 photographs but they were done in seconds whereas the the people who thought they were unlucky it took them minutes the difference was that on all the newspapers for both groups and the second page in big writing is said stop counting the photographs there are 42 the people who consider themselves unlucky didn't see the time saver because they were looking for photographs they didn't expect anything to be there except what they were looking for the people who would consider themselves lucky are always looking for luck so what he found is that if you if you open your mind to the possibility that you could get lucky you actually will notice things that will make you appear lucky and if you ask people about their success stories drill down a little bit if you know

[26:58]

drill down a little bit if you know anybody who got successful in an outsized way you're gonna find this point where they noticed something or there seemed to be some kind of a lock or coincidence but if you drill down maybe they were just tuning themselves to notice it you know maybe they just set their filters and and it wasn't luck at all they just set their filters and there was reticular activation is a big word I saw that in some in a corporate training program once it's just the idea that you you're familiar with the the fact that if somebody calls your name in a crowded room you can hear it easily even if there's a lot of background noise so if you're in a crowded room you'll hear a Norma Scott want and you'll be like what the heck what why is the one word that I could hear clearly and that that mumbling was my own name and that's that's because your brain Tunes for things that are important to you so if you use affirmations you're

[28:00]

you so if you use affirmations you're really tuning in to a specific objective in my case is in cartooning I noticed something on television one day that led me down a trail to find a cartoonist who gave me the advice that turned me into a cartoonist so I actually had to notice something though maybe what I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been doing affirmations at the time here's another possibility and a strong one that you're not really causing something to happen but rather you're finding out the hard way what things you're committed to and and you're probably committed to things that on some subconscious level you think you can do you think you can pull it off so I think that we have this situation this is just hypothesis that you might have a rational thought about what you can pull off in life you know how well you can do but you also have an irrational opinion of yourself and the two of them are just always there there's your rational one saying I don't

[29:01]

there's your rational one saying I don't know if you could do that and not everybody gets away with that it looks pretty hard but you might also have an irrational part that says I got this I got this and so the hypothesis is that if you can put in the time to write down that objective you know I Scott Adams or Philip your name will do this and you actually could do that 15 times a day for out a few months that means that there's some part of you probably your subconscious if there is such a thing the things you can pull it off because otherwise it's not going to let you do it remember I told you that there were all those things I failed at that you would think oh why wouldn't you want those to be more successful I of course wanted everything I've been involved with to be successful but there are some things that I wanted with a a burning desire if you know what I mean there's some things I just wanted to work like everybody wants everything

[30:02]

to work like everybody wants everything to work and sometimes I would want those things to work a lot but that extra commitment of writing down 15 times a day I've only done that of those things that had the extra meaning to me I guess and those were the things that worked out so it could be that this is a backwards correlation it could be the fact that you're even willing to write it down 15 times a day is simply telling you something about yourself and that's good maybe maybe that's good by itself and then the more fun possibility is that affirmations is part of the human interface for programming your filters on reality now if you're programming your filters that doesn't mean you have to program base reality you're just programming the way you see it so could it be that the only thing to have in my stories is that I programmed my filter to believe these things happen to

[31:04]

filter to believe these things happen to me maybe or did I program my filter to simply make opportunities more more presentable or not presentable but more opportunities present themselves to me did I do something somehow with the affirmations well here's the fun part it's completely unknowable I don't know but here's my pitch to you if you looked at this and you said to yourself you know this is probably nothing doesn't look like it has any more science than horoscopes and it doesn't it has no more science than your horoscope but yet there's something compelling about it and if there were anything to it you may say to yourself wow because if there's anything to this it's a big big deal and so I would pitch it to you this way doesn't

[32:08]

would pitch it to you this way doesn't cost you anything to try it and if it works it could change the world that's my pitch it worked on me if it doesn't work out of you well maybe you have more more more control that I do or better priorities or something but that's my pitch I will not tell you that I believe in magic I don't I'm not going to tell you it's gonna work for you clearly there are people it won't work for but if you're gonna play the odds focusing probably has benefits if I were to if I were to tell you my you know sort of where I would break down you know what parts of this are probably true versus less likely to be true I would say you know there's no chance that's changing based reality there might be some selective memory but I don't think that's the main thing

[33:09]

don't think that's the main thing definitely the brain I mean tuning is the thing if I if I had to bet that would be the most active part and I definitely think there's something about finding out what you're willing to work hard for and the affirmations are like a practice way to find out if you're willing to work hard for it yeah but I also think there's something to the fact that in some ways is programming your filter on reality in some productive way now since we don't know what base reality is we're only dealing with this weird symbolic level where where we think we're in the same reality but we're not we already talked about the fact that everybody is walking around in their own bubble reality you've got your own religion you think that the other political party is crazy they think you're crazy so we're all in our own little bubbles could it be that there's a way to steer your little bubble because keep in mind if we're all the little bubbles and you can see it for yourself I mean people are living

[34:09]

for yourself I mean people are living full lives within a reality that you don't even recognize they believe you know mystical things according to you they're wrong about this they can't tell us they're murdering or or what I don't want to get into yeah and the heavy topics but weird weird in very different worlds all the time and once you realize you're in different worlds that you know that those worlds are at least a little bit subjective and if you could change just the way you view your world from inside of your bubble you don't even have to get out of the bubble as long as you can redecorate and that's what affirmations might help you do I guess you'll find out if you try that's all for tonight I'm going to keep it on this one topic some of these lessons might not stay on I'm Paris go forever but they will be at the locals calm platform forever and I hope that answers some of

[35:11]

forever and I hope that answers some of your questions