EXCLUSIVE: Scott Adams on Confidence, Reining in Mexican Cartels and More

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with legendary Dilbert cartoonist and best selling author Scott Adams. Adams is also known as a student of persuasion and a trained hypnotist.

We discussed his new book Loserthink, the power of confidence, and the potential for President Trump to rein in China and Mexican cartels, among a wide range of subjects.

Here are a few excerpts from the conversation.

Meyer: Loserthink has been described by some as a guide for helping people escape mental prison. What are one of the ways it helps people escape mental prison.

Adams: Well the first way is to see all the examples of, let’s say, inefficient thinking. Loserthink is about the gaps that people might have in their mental model, in their ability to see the world, that they’re not aware of.

In this clip, I asked Adams about his infamous simultaneous sip that he does with viewers on his daily streams.

I also asked Adams about the power of confidence and Adams told this story, “When I took the Dale Carnegie course, years ago, it was a course for people to learn how to do public speaking, particularly if they were afraid of it…And by the end of the class, every one of us were expert, comfortable speakers…and the only technique the Dale Carnegie process uses is compliments…They just tell you what you did right.”

For this reason, Adams stressed the importance of sharing compliments with other people when you genuinely have positive feedback to share.

In this clip, I asked Adams which tweet by President Trump had stuck in his mind most for it’s persuasion ability or it’s humor.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on three Chinese nationals for trafficking fentanyl, three days after Adams tweeted about it.

When asked whether there is a chance to influence the Mexican cartels in a positive direction, Adams said, “As long as the drugs that Mexico is shipping to the United States are illegal in this country, it wouldn’t matter if the cartels decided not to be cartels, because there would just be a new cartel. It’s so lucrative that there’s nothing you could do to stop it, money is just too big of a deal. But if you negotiated with them at the same time you legalized drugs in this country, they would know that their old sources of income are going away.”

Back in early 2015, I was an avid reader of Adams’s blog posts on Donald Trump, as they helped me understand what Trump was doing early on in the primaries, and why we was so effective.

I asked Adams about a famous 1990 cartoon he had drawn referencing Trump in this clip.

I also asked Adams about the power of affirmations, who influences his thinking, and much more.

The full interview with Adams can be seen here: