Reframe Your Brain Quotes

“According to Dr. Andrew Huberman, you can hack your dopamine reward system by reframing your work today as essential to the kind of future you want. That gives you a reason to be happy every day. I call it preferring systems over goals. If you are following a good system, the reward is that you followed the system.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“I was baffled by the phenomenon of the always-late until I heard an expert explain that people with ADHD are not “distracted” as we commonly believe; they have time blindness.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“The only bad writing is no writing at all. Everything else is either good or under-edited.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“scottadams.locals.com—”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“Knowing What Your Job Is We are trained to believe our “job” is the set of tasks we accomplish for an employer in return for money. That’s how I saw it until a CEO shared with me his approach to business. He viewed his career as a non-stop search for a better job and because of that changed jobs and companies often. Apparently it worked because he was the head of a company when I met him. Usual Frame: Your job is what your boss tells you it is. Reframe: Your job is to get a better job. Don’t confuse your job with the work your employer wants you to do. The boss might want you to process all the pending orders by quitting time, but your job is to get a better job. Everything else you do should service that reframe. If it doesn’t help you leave the job you are in and upgrade, it might not be worth doing. But don’t worry that this line of thinking feels sociopathic—doing a good job on your assigned duties is one way to look good for promotions.  The reframe reminds us to be in continuous job-search mode, including on the first day of work at a new job. If that sounds unethical, consider that your employer would drop you in a second if the business required it. In a free market, you can do almost anything that is normal and legal. Changing jobs—for any reason you want—is normal. Your employer’s job is to take care of the shareholders. It’s your job to take care of you. That doesn’t always mean acting selfishly. If being generous with your time and energy seems as if it will have the better long-term payoff, do that. Your employer might want to frame employees as “a family,” which is common, but that’s to divert you from the fact that they can fire you at will. They don’t want you to know you have the same power to fire them. Part of the job of leadership is convincing you that what is good for the leader is good for you. Sometimes that is the case but keep your priorities clear. You are number one. When I recommend being selfish in the job market, I expect you to know that approach works best when dealing with a big corporation. A small business might require a more generous approach. When your workplace reframe is that your job is to get a better job, that helps you make decisions that work in your favor. For example, if you’re offered a choice of two different projects at work, pick the one that teaches you a valuable skill, lets you show off what you can do, or lets you network with people who can help you later. Don’t make the mistake of picking the project that has the most value to the company if doing so has the least value to you. Sometimes your best career move is to do exactly what your boss asks, especially if it’s critical to the company. You’ll know those situations when you see them. Don’t lose sight of your mission: Get a better job. Boredom”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“People usually know when they mess up and why. What they need is extra energy and mental strength to get past the mistake. For that, be the motivator who ignores mistakes as if they don’t exist and serves up dopamine treats in the form of compliments for what has been done well.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“the energy I have for a task is more important to the outcome than the amount of time I have allocated to do it. I can produce more in fifteen minutes with the right energy than four hours with the wrong energy. Most creative people will tell you something similar. There is a time of day that works best for creative work and other times that do not work at all. The”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“I don’t know anyone who enjoys studying. It’s boring and painful. The reframe that I found useful in my school days involved treating tests as competitive events. I didn’t mind doing work to win a competitive event. But I hated studying on the promise it would be useful someday in the future. That wasn’t motivating.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“Continuous Learning As mentioned earlier, a powerful way to make something out of nothing involves building a talent stack—a set of skills that work well together. Learning isn’t free, but it can be close to free if your employer pays for career-advancing classes or if you learn on your own online. Developing valuable skills is the main way any adult turns nothing into something. If you are not actively learning something of potential commercial value—all the time—you might be leaving money on the table. Usual Frame: Learn what you need. Reframe: Learn continuously, especially skills that work well together.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“Usual Frame: You need to stop thinking negative thoughts. Reframe: You can’t subtract negative thoughts. But you can crowd them out.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“Usual Frame: Your mood is determined by your internal thoughts. Reframe: You can improve your mood by completing meaningful tasks.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

“For years I found it annoying to walk my dog. All she ever wanted to do was sniff the grass and trees upon which other dogs had left their scent. Neither of us got much exercise. It was like tug-of-war to get Snickers to move at all. One day, I saw an Instagram video in which a self-designated dog expert explained that dogs might need the sniffing more than the walking. Their brains light up when they sniff, and it can tire them out when they engage in vigorous sniffing. I had noticed how happy Snickers looked when sniffing, but my brain couldn’t connect the dots because sniffing dog urine sounds inherently unpleasant to my human brain. But to the dog, it was the equivalent of checking her social media. I started naming the trees and shrubs in the park accordingly: Muta (formerly known as Facebark), Twigger, LeafedIn, Instabush, and Treemail. Obviously, the garbage receptacle into which people flung their dog poop bags was TikTok.  Once I understood the importance of sniffing, I reframed my experience this way. Usual Frame: Taking the dog for a walk and failing. Reframe: Taking the dog for a sniff and succeeding. That reframe completely changed my subjective experience. Instead of failing at walking, I was succeeding at being a sniff-assistant. Snickers loved the new arrangement, and sure enough, twenty minutes of outdoor sniffing set her attitude right for the rest of the day.  But then I had a new problem. Standing around holding a leash is boring compared to walking. It’s boring compared to most things. But then I reframed my boredom this way. Usual Frame: I have nothing to do. I am just standing here. Reframe: Perfect time to practice proper breathing and posture. Now I spend twenty minutes a day enjoying the outdoors while breathing properly and practicing my posture. It feels good, which is enough to lock in the new habit. Now I am delighted to take my dog to the park. The only thing that changed was how I thought about the point of it all. If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time standing in line or waiting for one thing or another. It feels like a gigantic waste of time. Maybe you check your phone, but that probably isn’t as useful as it is anxiety-making. As you can tell from the Snickers story, I found a way to turn all mindless waiting time into one of the most productive parts of my day using the good-time-to-breathe reframe.”
― Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success