The Scott Adams School - 08/13/26 AFFIRMATIONS W/ SCOTT & The Home Team

Look at all the locals. 146 locals. I love to see it. My faves. You guys are the fam. We'll wait for YouTube to kick in. Good morning, everyone. Oh, Nikki. Hey, girl. Magi. Owen is, um, see how short I look? And I'm like, Owen, you're too in the camera. And that's why I look like I'm 5'1. And I'm actually like five, six or seven, so I feel very short right now. Oh, dónde está Marcela? She's coming.

Mm-hmm.

She's coming. Did you know I spoke Spanish? Wasn't it beautiful? So good morning, you guys. It's August 13th, 2026. I'm looking at your let's see. Owen needs those ice gloves. Well, thank you, SJV. That's so sweet of you.

I want those ice gloves. Give me those ice gloves.

Good morning, EJ. Okay, guys, so it looks like YouTube's kicked in. Good morning, YouTube. How are you? I've been reading everybody's comments like I do every day. So yes, no fear. I see everything going on in every chat. It's very interesting. Very different vibes from the different platforms. Yep. Here's our Marcella. Okay, here we go. Let's let's do the shuffle. And there she is. Good morning, Marcella. Oh wait, we had to wait her. Oh there, it kicked in. Okay, say good morning again so we make sure we can hear you.

Morning, you guys. I had a um. You're never gonna guess.

I don't want to guess. It'll be bad.

I had a leak, a water leak just now, and I'm like, oh my God, right before starting, um, upstairs. So I have to— I dried it out, but I was like, oh, it's Scott.

Well, sorry, you guys. No, we're all, we're all adjusting. My camera's off, you had a leak, Owen was just too big, and, uh, is it Monday?

It's never, never a problem, but okay. Thursday.

Where are you going, Marcella?

Marcella!

She said it's never a problem that it's Thursday.

Okay, ma'am, rein it in. This is a very young audience here. Okay. All right, guys, I think we're ready. I think we're ready. I still hear Owen typing, but we got to do the thing. I can't take it. Ready? Oh, I didn't miss it.

I'm so glad. I was like, green. I thought I missed it. Oh my God.

I know we're late. We are late. We're gonna catch up, guys. I'm sorry. We'll make up for all of this. Here we go.

And all you need to enjoy the best part of the day is, well, I think, you know, it's a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug, or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes Everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now. Go. Oh, that's what I needed. That's what we all needed.

Totally, totally, totally. Why did I have to see a picture of AOC already in the chat, Kev? I'm just kidding. Oh my gosh, AOC! She's the front runner right now. She is the front runner if we had a. an election today for the Democrats, and she is really pulling a hard pivot, isn't she? She's single, right? Ready to mingle and have babies. So—

Or not have babies for a while.

Well, she— I think she said that she doesn't want to have a baby under a Trump administration, but maybe I'm like—

No, she did not.

Yeah, something like that. That's what I heard.

Oh Lord, I don't even know what to say about that. That's odd. So again, you guys, good morning. I'm Erica. You're at the Scott Adams School, and I'm joined by my favorite hosts in the whole world, Marcella and Owen.

Yay!

Just— yay! Just a reminder, so if you guys are looking for all the Scott Adams stuff, all of the amazing YouTube videos and whiteboard lessons he gave to us over the, you know, 10+ years, everything's on YouTube for you. Sometimes what we do is we just scroll, scroll, scroll through his channel, and I just like let, let the random one stop and I just play it. And it's always, it's always golden. It's always a winner. And if you join our Locals community, which is scottadams.locals.com, there are so many of Scott's posts on there, from our man caves to our pre-shows to micro lessons and just Uh, you, you might be cartooning with him one day, and we all would, you know, jump on middle of the day. He's drawing Dilbert, and we would jump on, and he would workshop ideas with us. And I mean, when he thought something was funny, he would just start laughing. Like, he really, you know, I, I loved that, that it didn't matter where the humor was coming from. If someone on the chat said something funny, he would just cry laughing, and it could go on for an hour with us just being silly. So you hear a rumbling, it might be Owen typing. Um, so yeah, so it's a good time. It's a good time. Um, all right guys, so, uh, welcome. And today we have an awesome Scott Adams whiteboard for you. And we were thinking, you know, Joel was talking about how Scott would tell him to do affirmations and like, do they work? Do they not work? And so he started doing them and they work. And so we have Scott's affirmation whiteboard today, and personally, I need them for some personal things I want to work on in my life. And like you forget that they work, you know, like if you don't get in the practice and the habit of doing them. So we will do that. Yeah, Owen does type fast. Isn't it crazy?

Sorry about the noise.

So listen, I I promised Sandy Candy in the chat she found this clip from the eclipse. The eclipse clip, so I can only play the beginning with some sound, and then I'll turn off the sound. But did you guys see this? So this is Spanish Olympic skateboarder. His name is Danny Leon, and he did a skateboard trick to time it just in time with the eclipse, and this is the result.

No pares, no pares, no pares, no pares, no pares, por Dios.

So now I got to turn down the music because it's a Michael Jackson song, but that's pretty cool. So they got the timing right to be just in the center of the eclipse. It's got to be pretty amazing. So we didn't see it here, um, but if anyone saw it, I bet it was cool. So Sandy, thanks for sending that to me. That was fun. Um, Marcella, did your friends in Iceland get to see the eclipse?

No, it was too— I mean, they experienced it, but it was too cloudy because it was raining and all of that. But people— she's telling me that a lot of people paid a lot of money to be there, uh, but the other place would have been Spain. And she's like, they should have gone to Spain. Um, but you know, I, I was more excited when I called her when it was happening. She's like, oh, calm down, calm down, calm down.

She tells me, don't be so excited, Marcela.

I was like, it's an eclipse.

It was, um, that Michael Jackson song about like the environment and like if the world blew up, and it's a very emotional song actually. Um, but you know, Spotify's watching, so they didn't catch us that time. Oh, you guys, I wanted to play this the other day. I just thought it was interesting. So it, it's, um, it's been resolved at this point, but so Mom Donnie, mayor of New York, his wife is going to be traveling, and apparently she requested the NYPD to travel with her as security out of the country. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, do you believe in police and protection suddenly? Like, what's happening? But I just, I just have to laugh at these hypocrites. But here's, here's a clip about it because we have to mock these people as much as we can.

On next month, and the mayor now blaming his staff for the mixed messaging.

Nate Foye joins us now with the details.

Nate, what happened?

Hey, Griff. So yeah, the Big Apple's first lady is headed to the Middle East without a taxpayer-funded police escort, and it comes after sort of a high-profile back and forth between the mayor and the NYPD. A police spokesperson says, quote, the NYPD does not send officers to countries with level 4 travel advisories for discretionary reasons not linked to investigative work. Earlier in the week, a source told the New York Post that the first lady had requested the escort, and a spokesperson for the mayor's office had confirmed that police would in fact join her. They even issued this statement saying the detail would join her on the trip per the NYPD's strong recommendation. That might be because both countries on her itinerary happen to be on the State Department's do not travel list because of security concerns. However, yesterday, after the NYPD denied those plans, Mayor Mamdani blamed the back and forth on a miscommunication.

There was a miscommunication. She hasn't yet taken this trip, and when she takes this trip, it will be without any NYPD detail. So that clarifies that point.

One source familiar with the situation told the New York Post that Mamdani's office reportedly never checked with the commissioner before announcing the security detail on Monday. Syria and Lebanon were given the level 4 do not travel advisory for another Number of reasons, including armed conflict and terrorism with Hezbollah operating in the country, and kidnapping concerns as well. We'll send it back to you guys. All right, Nate Foy.

Thank you very much.

You're on mute. Okay. Oh, is that George? Sorry.

There's George. Rare, rare sighting of George on the show, you guys. That's George Catstanza. He wants to sit in my lap, but I was like, come on. So here's my question.

Oh, and this.

This is for you in particular, just to be fun. So his wife, she shows her bare arms, you know, she's doing all the things that are like a big no-no. Do you, do you think when they go home, he beats the crap out of her for dressing like that?

No, I don't. I think, well, I mean, I'm not, I know you're, you know, partly just making a joke, but I think it's I, I think there's these different classes within that society. Like, you've got the, you know, upper crust people in those Islamic countries, and they have their standards of behavior. But then they have this other element of like the rich that just go party around the world and do whatever they want in America.

Hmm.

And, um, you know, you certainly do see a lot of the hijabs and other stuff here, but I think Especially for that elite class, they seem to just get a pass.

Yeah. Okay. So—

Like, they can do whatever they want. I mean, you, you see sometimes some people like that in bikinis and other, you know, and it doesn't seem like anybody ever complains about that in that. I mean, I don't know, maybe I just don't hear it because I'm not part of whatever they're saying to each other. But, um, it does seem like, you know, a lot of the daughters and family and people of these rich elite people in these Islamic countries just get to, like, do whatever they want and Those rules don't apply to them.

Maybe if Jimmy Wyman's here, he'll chime in. But, you know, the other thing too, when I'm thinking about Islam and the rules and whatever, and why some people aren't concerned or worried about it, and then I'm just like, well, they can do whatever they want in their cult to— like, if they have to lie or convince people, they're allowed to do whatever they want. So maybe that's part of it too, like, oh well, we just do this to make it seem like everything's okay. I don't know. But Marcella, I mean, I don't I don't think you could.

It's like, um, like when you're Jewish and you have Orthodox Jews and you have, um, and you have Jews that are more, you know, not as conservative. So Muslims, like, they have the same thing. There's very conservative, um, centers, very conservative imams, and very conservative, you know, people. But the majority of the, of the The hijabs and the baiyas and the other, you know, whatever you the hikah, the whatever it's called. They choose to wear that. Like these women here choose to wear it, but it's about what they believe, you know. So she doesn't believe in wearing it; she doesn't have to wear it.

So oh, I don't think so.

Yes, I mean, this is I know I have most friends that are like very like.

Westernized or whatever.

Yeah, and they don't, they don't follow like everything. Just like in, you know, you have very, you know, very conservative Christian churches where I've gotten in trouble, um, for saying certain things. And then there's ones that like you can do whatever you need to do. And just like you have your Jewish Orthodox women, they cannot show their hair, so they'll wear A wig, or, or they'll wear like some kind of covering.

So I think it's up to the husbands, not to the women personally.

But people in the chat, what do you think?

It's really, um, it's really up to the woman. That's something that I realized. Even the mothers that raised these men, they, um, they're very into that. Um, I had this idea that like, oh, you know, let me talk to them and I can talk to them out of like wearing this. They're like, no, No, this is how it's supposed to be, you know. So it's like, I, I know that in Iran that's different because, you know, but I'm talking about America.

In America, yeah.

In America, yeah. So there is, there is, you know, there's these, um, there was this case of an Egyptian father, I think, um, who killed his little girls or, or his, um, teenage girls because they wanted to rebel. And he, he basically, uh, killed them Before they went outside and became more, you know. So it's sad that sometimes that happens, but you know, like everything.

Ah, crazy. All right.

I want to know more about these certain things that you said that got you in trouble.

I said Jesus Christ.

That's what I said.

Because sometimes I like hit myself and I said Jesus Christ, and they're like, "Ooh, don't don't use." The Lord's name in vain. The Lord's name in vain. Yeah, so I was like, oh Lord.

And then he did it again.

Yes.

Oh my God.

Yeah, okay, so yeah, I'm like, I can't, I can't.

Oh my gosh.

But you know, I was watching this, this show about the Amish, and I kind of want to become Amish, you guys.

So do you really?

Yeah.

What do you like about it? What do you like about it?

I like the community, the fact that they're so together and, and they're just very peaceful, you know. But the, the whole not having a phone, an ex, or like talking to you guys, that just kind of kills it for me. But—

Would you wear the bonnet and the dress?

Oh yeah, that looks cool. Looks cool.

Bless your soul.

And would you do all the, all the housework and—

Oh yeah, that's what I like about it. I like Like, um, I watched— there's this Amish lady that cooks on Instagram.

Yes!

Have you seen her?

Wait, is she actually Amish? She was Amish.

Yeah.

And she wears that outfit.

She wears the outfit.

I'm making the butter. Butter. I'm like, what are you making? They're like, butter. Yeah, everyone's saying it, churning butter. Yes, she— They do have phones.

EJ says they have phones.

But Marcella, the food doesn't look so hot. It's, you know, maybe you could bring up Blair. It's healthy though.

It's gonna make me live until 200 years.

Oh my gosh. All right. So tomorrow—

Find yourself a good Amish man and he can whisk you off to your new community.

Yeah. And Marcel will be here tomorrow in a bonnet and a Little House on the Prairie dress, and it's gonna be amazing. So sorry guys, you're gonna not see her in that blue purple anymore.

But I mean, when, when you travel to Lebanon, Erica, or Syria, I, I wanna travel with the NYPD as well. I mean, who doesn't want to travel with them? Like, PD guys.

Okay, so did you guys hear Caroline Levitt is, uh, stepping down, our White House press secretary?

She—

I know, she was amazing.

So I saw that this morning.

Yeah, yeah. So I have a clip, but we don't need to play the clip. But, um, so she's stepping down. She was what, like a year and a half, I guess, whatever Trump's been in for. And So she has two little— she has a newborn baby and then maybe what, like a 1-year-old or 1-and-a-half-year-old? So that's a lot. But I, you know, she's very thankful for the job. And Trump says he has like a tremendous, you know, outsider now that will be like one of his best, um, consultants, like an outside consultant. I, I'm wondering if she's leaving If anything has to do with how he left her on Air Force One when he escaped in the catering cart.

Oh my gosh.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like, she's like, uh, you know, I have 2 little ones, I'm ride or die, I travel with you everywhere, and I was left on that airplane. I'm just wondering. I like to put a little something out there, but—

Ooh, yeah, that's a good point.

Um, so it's interesting, but you know, she— I don't know who's filling in for her at this point. I kind of liked the idea of all of the administration people when they filled in. I think they should just do that because who better than to hear from than Bassett and Rubio and Vance? And, you know, Todd Blanche would be amazing with the press secretary as a press secretary fill-in. Um, so we'll see what they're going to do.

I'm not sure.

I was thinking Spencer Pratt. Great. He, he would dominate. But we could also have an AI press secretary, like have a, have an AI answer the questions that are—

Oh, Lemon Minty. You didn't like her, huh?

All right.

Oh, Stephen Miller would be the bomb. Alex Jones. I mean, Lord, we could have—

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, uh, I think, I think she did a great job. Like she did the job she was supposed to do, which was stay loyal to President Trump and speak to the press. She was great at it. And, um, good luck, good luck. Um, all right, so what else do we want to tell you before we get into this whiteboard? The whiteboard's long. We might actually have to get right into it now, you guys. All right, um, I don't want to miss, you know, talking about it on the other end. So let me delete Caroline Lovett. Bye, Caroline. And, um, let's just get into it. So you guys, this is a— this is a longer one, which I think is going to be amazing. It's about— let's, let's call it about 25 minutes, okay? And it's about affirmations. So Wherever you are in your life, whether you're working, not working, whether you think you have your shit together or not, work on this. Okay? So, as Scott's talking, think about the things that, you know, you, you want to achieve and do. And let's see if you can work it into here. And if you want to share with us in the chat, like while we're watching or after, you know, if you decided to come up with something for an affirmation and you want to share it, let us know. But for now, We're gonna sip our coffee and sit back and watch our beloved Scott Adams. Let's do it.

Teach me and teach us to do what you were teaching last night, to transform our lives with those affirmations about which I'm skeptical, but you're an intelligent guy, so I'm willing to, uh, I'm willing to try anything. Well, if you saw my presentation last night, that's That's all you need to get going. The second part of that is just try it and see what happens. Remember, it doesn't cost you anything. So if you don't try it, you'll never know. If you do try, well, maybe you'll still never know. You'll always think that you maybe got lucky just because you're lucky. But there's not much else to teach.

Okay.

Once you see that this is the technique and there's no real way to do it wrong, I get questions like, should I throw away the paper I wrote them on? Or does it matter if I chant them or sing them? None of that matters. It's simply if you can focus on this goal with whatever technique for 15 minutes a day or whatever it takes, that's telling you something. It's telling you something about your commitment to it. It's telling you something about how much you want it. And maybe, Maybe it's setting your filters in your mind or somehow improving your filter on life. We don't know. But that's it. I'd say give it a shot, see what happens. Hey everybody, come on in here. Do you want something weird? Do you want to have a really weird 30 or 40 minutes? You 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 going to happen in the next 30 or 40 minutes, but it's going to be good. Those of you who stay to the end, You may never be the same. For sure you'll be a little older because, you know, 30, 40 minutes, but maybe even better than that. We'll see. I don't want to overpromise. All right, 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 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 cartoony version. Now 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. 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 oversized sense of 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. It just takes It 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 background in 3 different books: The Dilbert Future in 1997, God's Debris in fiction form, 2001. Came out on 9/11-ish that week. Bad timing for a book. And then more recently, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. If you wanted to just get 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 affirmations. And it was this idea of writing down 15 times a day what she wanted. And she said that she tried it, you know, skeptically, and a series of coincidences happened, like just bizarre coincidences that caused her to get the thing that she was affirming, 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, luck, magic, horoscopes, you know, pretty much none of 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 was in Mensa? It turns out that they're very persuasive. So here was her argument: it doesn't cost you anything, and if it works, you'll be able to basically rewrite your reality. And you might even recognize the technique. from Steve Jobs. When Steve Jobs was trying to hire, was it Sculley? He was trying to hire him to be the president and he didn't want to go and Jobs said, do you want to sell— because he was— Sculley was head of Pepsi at the time. He said, do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or change the world? And he basically 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. I wish it hadn't been so simple. And also, I was an experimenter, I was a seeker, and so I would look into almost anything. And always will. So no matter how weird the claim, I'll look into it a little bit. I'll check it out. I'm probably not going to be convinced that your séance is real or that you're bending a spoon with your mind. I probably won't be convinced, but I'll look into it. I've got an inquiring mind. So I thought, I'll give it a shot, and she gave me this specific advice. She said, pick something that you know is not going to happen anyway, 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, well, 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— I'll keep this rated G in case somebody's watching it later. I wanted to, let's say, date a specific woman that I didn't even know. Somebody who was in the company, it was a big company, and I didn't know her, didn't know where she worked, didn't know her name, just somebody 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. It just sort of wasn't even close. If I'm being properly modest, it wasn't really close. 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 they were weird ones. Weird, weird coincidences that we even met. I mean, how do you just meet? The one stranger on 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 the next thing you know, I go to lunch, there she is, 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 got something that I I knew could have never happened in any other way. Did I say that? No, I didn't. No, I didn't. What I said to myself was, huh, I guess I have more game than I thought. Who knew? 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 pick something that I couldn't later convince myself I'd gotten through my own great, you know, good looks or talent or something else. So I was like, ah, inconclusive experiment. So not long after that, I got in a bet with somebody at work about whether I could retake the GMATs The test you take for your— to see if you can get into 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. I 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 GMATs the first time. That's the story I'm going to go with, so just go with that. And the person I had the bet with had scored, I think, in the high 80s and was taking one of those review courses to beef up 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. 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 they will. I think it's a scam. She said, oh no, it's going to make a big difference. So I made a bet, the dumbest thing I've ever done maybe. No, 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 will outscore your score, even though I was in the high 70s, you were in the high 80s, and you're taking a special class to get into the 90s, which you would need to get into Berkeley, because you wanted to go to Berkeley. And 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 bet because what were the odds that that would happen? So I used my affirmations and because I had taken the test before, I knew what the little output looked like, you know, the little mail that you get that says, here's your score, and it's in this little box. And I decided that I would pick as my target for my affirmations 94. So in order for this to happen, I would somehow, without taking any kind of 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 going to 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 I just imagined seeing a 94 in that percentile thing. But I did take some practice tests just on my own because that was okay. I didn't have a tutor or anything. I was just taking the practice tests. And every time I took a practice test, I scored a 94. Scored high 70s percentile, just like the first time. And so I'd take another one and got the same, and every one right in that zone. I'd take it in the morning, I'd take it with coffee, I'd take it under every condition, you know, a bunch of practice tests, and every time it was perfect. High 70s. 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 the result. I go back to my little apartment, my moldy little apartment in the Haight 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 wrong box. Am I looking at like a code or something? Is it a code? No, this actually says 94. And I looked at it and I thought, it can't actually be 94.

94.

94. Like, not literally 94. And I would look at it and I'd say, I think it is. And for hours, this actually happened, for hours, I would look at that piece of paper and I would sit just all alone in my little apartment in San Francisco and I'd set it down next to me and I would lean back and I'd 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 have I done? So I ended up going to Berkeley and getting my MBA. Almost an accident, really. It was 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 $1,000 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 sat straight up in bed in the middle of the night with this thought in my head to buy stock in Chrysler. Now Chrysler at the time, I'm not good on my years, but Chrysler at the time was bankrupt. 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 right at the edge of oblivion. So out of all the stocks in the world, how many stocks do you think there are? Say 10,000? 10,000 stocks maybe? I did zero research, woke up, sat up and thought, buy Chrysler, for no reason. I hadn't read an article about it, nothing. What was the reason? 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, 20% let's say. I forget the exact number. And so by the time I got my account opened, it had already gone up a lot and I thought, ah, it was a good idea but I And I just missed it. So, I didn't buy it because it had 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 entire year out of 10,000? Chrysler. It was like the number one story stock out of 10,000 stocks. And I picked it randomly. Or was it random? Maybe there was something floating around in my head that just came together. I don't know. But I didn't get it. I didn't get rich off it. So I thought, well, I'll try it again. So I thought to myself, all right, I'm just going to do the same process, except 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, A-S-K. I don't know what happened to them. But at the time, it was sort of a hot new technology looking thing back when that was new. And— oh, it became Ask Jeeves maybe, I don't know. No, it was ASK Computer, so it's a different company than Ask Jeeves. So it was an ASK software company. I forget the details. But anyway, the point is I didn't know anything about this company and I just thought, I'm going to buy this, with no anything, no research. I buy this stock, it goes up, I don't know, 10% in a week and I think, I'm a freaking genius. Look at this. Twice in a row I picked a good stock. So, I sold that stock, pocketed a quick 10% I think I made, probably I netted $100 in a month, not in a month, in 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 second part of the story is that that stock didn't stop going up when I sold it. It went to the moon. And it was, again, one of the storied stocks of the year. It wasn't just the stock. It was like a story that 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 thing that 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 then I did, I, Scott Adams, will become a number one New York Times bestselling author. And then I did. And there was also a time that I lost my ability to speak. Most of you know the story. So for about 3 and a half years, I couldn't speak properly because of a condition called Spasmodic dysphonia, which was incurable, an incurable problem. But 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, uh, let me show you what the process is, and then I'll tell you the fun part is, is there anything to it, or is it just complete BS? And you can decide. All right, the how of it is easy. You just write or repeat that thing that you want and use this form. Put your name in there. Scott Adams 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'll move someplace. You'll start a family, whatever it is. If you're If you're too specific, and you'll recognize this from me talking about systems versus goals, you don't want to be too specific because you don't want to say, for example, I want that specific promotion, because what if there's a better one? 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 Now, an exception would be, there's nothing better than being a syndicated cartoonist if you're a cartoonist. If you're going to be a cartoonist, this would be the best one 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 could have made 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 don't think those are terribly important, but if you want to. So, people ask me, you know, does it matter where I write it? Can I type it? Can I chant it? Can I sing it? None of that matters. It's only about focusing on the thing that you want and visualizing it. It's also very important to 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 anything that would connect this to the real world. You know, why would chanting or writing something down 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?

No.

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 got to be some base reality, but we live in our own filters. Most of you know that's my view. So I don't see it happening. 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 agree it's not that one. Okay? The other one could be selective memory. Maybe it doesn't work at all. What if I'm just good at stuff, which explains why I had some success, and what if I just forgot the ones that didn't work? Now, those of you who read this book know that I have many, many Failures. In fact, you know, 10 to 1. 10 to 1 more failures than successes. So how do I explain that I'm acting like this works when 10 to 1 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 going to have to take my word for that, but there's a reason for that and I'll get to that. So hold on, there's a reason why 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 this guy, Dr. Wiseman, and he wanted to see if people had luck You know, is luck a real thing? Now most of you are ahead of me, right? Luck is not a real thing. Everybody's going to 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 considered themselves unlucky counted them up and on average they got the right number that was 42. And it took them several minutes to complete the task. The people who considered themselves lucky, even though really nobody was any luckier than anybody else, but they considered themselves lucky, They also got the right number on average, 42 photographs, but they were done in seconds, whereas the people who thought they were unlucky, it took them minutes. The difference was that on all the newspapers for both groups, on the second page in big writing it said, stop counting the photographs, there are 42. The people who considered 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 anybody who got successful in an outsized way, you're going to find this point where they noticed something or there seemed to be some kind of a luck or coincidence. But if you drill down, maybe they were just tuning themselves to notice it. Maybe they just set their filters and And it wasn't luck at all. They just set their filters and there it was. Reticular activation is a big word. I saw that in some corporate training program once. And it's just the idea that you're familiar with 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, Scott, and you'll be like, what the heck? Why is the one word that I could hear clearly in that mumbling was my own name? And that's because your brain tunes for things that are important to you. So if you use affirmations, you're really tuning into a specific objective. In my case, 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 that maybe would— 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 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 we have this situation, this is just a hypothesis, that you might have a rational thought about what you can pull off in life and 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 opinion. rational one saying, I don't know if you can do that. Not everybody gets away with that. That 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 fill in your name, will do this, and you actually could do that 15 times a day for, I don't A few months. That means that there's some part of you, probably your subconscious if there is such a thing, that thinks 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 burning desire, if you know what I mean. There's some things I just wanted 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 on 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 that happened in my stories is that I programmed my filter to believe these things happened to me? Maybe. Or did I program my filter to simply make opportunities more presentable, more— 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 might 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. It 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 on you, well, maybe you have more control than I do or better priorities or something.

Thank you.

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 going to work for you. Clearly there are people it won't work for. But if you're going to play the odds, focusing probably has benefits. 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 it's changing base reality. There might be some selective memory, but I don't think that's the main thing. Definitely the brain tuning is the thing. 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. Or like a practice way to find out if you're willing to work hard for it. But I also think there's something to the fact that in some ways it's 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 we're— we think we're in the same reality but we're not. We already talked We talked about the fact that everybody's 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 in little bubbles, and you can see it for yourself, I mean, people are living full lives within a reality that you don't even recognize. They believe mystical things according to you. They're wrong about this. They can't tell if they're murdering or what. I don't want to get into any heavy topics, but we're in very different worlds all the time. And once you realize you're in different worlds, then 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 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.

Love it, love it, love it. So we're all gonna redecorate our bubbles. And, uh, so many of you put in the chat what your affirmations are. Some of you are working on them, and they also will develop over the day. Like, if you're thinking about it, Things will come into your head, and then you can kind of fine-tune it. So we only have a couple of seconds. Owen, did you change?

Oh, what do you mean?

Are you?

I know you're talking about your. What the hell?

I'm so jealous. You look nice. I know we have thirty seconds. Okay, so Owen, why don't you just take us out on the affirmations, and then we're gonna end the show.

All right.

Well, I mean, I know I think it's a very interesting concept. I have played with it in the past, but really never seriously. I've done it a couple times, and honestly, I can't even remember what I did or if it worked. Um, but I— it's fascinating to me, and I do think the reticular activation piece is probably a big part of it, that it, um, you know, focuses your mind and focuses your actions. And I've talked about this in the past with, with like The Secret, the book that talked about affirmations, and it, you know, what I, what I hated about it was it kind of presented it a little bit like what Scott just said, which is all you have to do is write it down and sit back and wait for it to happen. And so you can just say, you know, like, I'm gonna get $1 million in the mail and then it's just gonna show up and you don't have to do anything. And that, to me, I, I find that hard to believe, you know. I mean, maybe, I don't know, if it really— if we really are in a simulation, I suppose anything's possible. But if I start from the frame that we are actually in some kind of reality Then I tend to think what's happening is that, you know, you, you focus your mind in a way where if you keep writing something down 15 times every day, then that's focusing your brain on that frame. Just like the red car thing, you know, if you start thinking about red cars, you see a bunch of red cars on the road all of a sudden. You didn't see them before. And it's not that there are actually more red cars, you just notice them. And so you may notice opportunities, you may notice things that You know, you didn't notice before, and you're like, oh, well, there's a way that I could do that thing that I was trying to do. And so you start taking action on it, and you start moving in that direction. And so if you hadn't done the affirmations, you might have just never noticed that thing, or never noticed that opportunity, or never taken that action.

Right.

And so my suggestion would be to use that kind of frame in terms of, I'm going to focus on this thing, and I'm going to believe that it's going to happen to me, and I'm going to believe it's possible, and I'm going to believe that it's going to happen. And then, you know, you can— I mean, if you want, you can say let the universe open it up for you and think about it that way. But don't just sit back and say, no, I'm not going to even lift a finger to do it.

Yeah, no, you guys, that's true. So, you know, try it, you guys. Even like what Scott said in the beginning, um, try something just really small You know, like start with a small affirmation. Um, and you know, it's all the clichés, what you think about, you bring about, you know, what you focus on. And by the way, if you're focusing on something and you're thinking about it negatively, you're gonna get negative back. So when you are thinking about something, really try, you know, to tell yourself, let me, let me put either a positive spin on it, let me reframe it, or let me just think about something else altogether because The affirmation, I guess, is the goal, but don't forget you still need to put your systems in place to hit the goal. So, Marcela, anything real quick you want to add?

No, that, that it's a good system to affirm positive things happening to you. I mean, even if, uh, you might not believe in it, it still puts a positive spin to you. I actually have done it. I, I studied Neville Goddard, uh, living in the end, assuming the feeling fulfilled, and it's worked for me. Like, I literally have I've gotten calls out of nowhere like, hey, we need you now. And I'm like, whoa, I never applied for this. They're like, we don't care. And I'm like, oh, I literally got checks in the mail from certain attorneys that I've referred things to. It's like, here's $10,000, here's $20,000. I'm like, what?

You know?

So it's, it's actually happened to me, but, um, I may just be lucky.

So.

And it doesn't cost you anything to try it, like Scott said, but it might cost you not to try it.

So, but I would, I would also just say, like, after everything I just said about, you know, do the work, you know, have it be kind of based in a feasible reality way of it happening, a lot of the examples Scott gave were these impossible things. And he did present several of them where he didn't really do anything other than the affirmation. So give it a try. I mean, I don't think I know how this all works. And if you do just say, you know, I'm going to get a million-dollar check in the mail or whatever, I I don't know, maybe it'll happen. I'd love to hear your story if it does.

After tax. You guys—

Like, we found, uh, we found an uncle of yours in Italy, Erica, that's sending you a billion dollars.

I mean, it could happen, guys.

I've seen it.

That might be too much money for me, a billion, but yes, uh, fine.

We'll share it.

We'll share it. You guys, let's all do this. We have to run. I have to run. I have a haircut appointment. I get my haircut like twice a year, and today's the day. Um, So listen, why don't we all do this? And if you want to be open about it, be open about it. If not, not. But why don't we on today's post on X and let's put one on Locals. If you want to, let's all try like a really simple affirmation, meaning I'm going to get a million dollar check in the mail. I mean, it doesn't have to be that exactly, but yes, Haruka today. So let's all just do this for 30 days. Okay. You write your affirmation 15 times. Maybe that's like the first thing you do in the morning, or you do it when you're sipping coffee with us. Let's all pick an affirmation, write it, you know, 15 times, and then in 30 days, so exactly 1 month from now— somebody write this down for me to remind me, please, because I can't write it down right now— we'll revisit it and see how everyone's doing with their affirmation. I'll put mine out there too later today when I get back. So, I mean, if you want to try as like a group activity, let's do it. All right, guys. Love you guys so much. Owen and Marcella, thank you so much. I loved having that big chunk of Scott today. And Metal Seer, I will miss you also for the next 23 hours. Thank you for missing me every day. As always, a closing thank you to Scott and Shelley for allowing the Scott Adams School to go on. And thank you to every single one of you that come here every day. The way you show up, it means everything to All of us that we all show up here for Scott, and let's have a closing sip to our beloved Scott. I can't do an Akira song, you guys, today, but tomorrow we'll make up for it. Okay. All right, guys. Go out there. Be useful. Pick an affirmation. We're gonna write it every day to Scott.

To Scott.

Just reminder: seven months today that Scott left us.

So oh yeah, just today. Yep. Okay, guys. Get out there and be useful. I could someone send me a message about what I want to do to do this later. Thank you. I'm sorry. I have to run out the door.

Bye, guys.

Love you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye, you guys. Just waiting for you guys to all say goodbye so I have to cut you off. Love yuns.