How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (2 page)

In the spring
of 2005 my doctor diagnosed me with a form of mental illness. He didn’t use those exact words, or anything like them, but he did refer me to the in-house psychologist at Kaiser, my health-care organization. I can take a hint.

The psychologist listened to my story and came to the same conclusion: crazy. But like my doctor, she didn’t use the actual word. The psychologist suggested Valium and offered her educated guess that reducing my stress level might return me to some sort of normal behavior.

I declined the Valium because I didn’t
feel
crazy. I didn’t even feel all that stressed, or at least I didn’t feel that way until a doctor and a psychologist agreed that I was probably losing my mind. I certainly understood why both of these professionals leaned toward that diagnosis. By any measure, my recent behavior
appeared
crazy, even to me.

My symptoms were that I had suddenly lost my ability to speak to human beings, even though I could speak normally while alone or when talking to my cat. My regular doctor and Kaiser’s in-house specialists had systematically eliminated each of the more likely causes for my speech problem. Allergies? Nope. Common respiratory problem? Nope. Acid reflux? Nope. Tumors or polyps in my throat? Nope. Stroke? Nope. Neurological problem? Nope. I was in seemingly perfect health, except that I had suddenly lost the ability to speak to other humans. I could speak normally
to my cat. I could speak normally when alone. I could recite a poem. But on the phone I could barely squeeze out an intelligible sentence. I had some sort of weird social laryngitis. Bottom line: crazy.

Insanity is always a reasonable diagnosis when you’re dealing with writers and artists. Sometimes the only real difference between crazy people and artists is that artists write down what they imagine seeing. In the past few decades, hardly a week has gone by without a reader of my blog questioning my mental health. I understand that; I’ve read my writing too. The rational part of my brain knows that if enough people suggest I might be crazy, I need to consider the possibility.

I also have some craziness in my genes. My mother’s father spent some time in the loony bin, or whatever it was called at the time. If I recall, he was the recipient of electroshock treatments. Apparently they didn’t work, because my mother and grandmother later left him forever, taking nothing but the clothes on their backs, as he chased them down the road with a blunt object in his hands and, apparently, homicide on his mind. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that I inherited whatever caused Grandpa to flip out.

Living as a presumptive crazy person was hard work. When I tried speaking to humans, my vocal cords clenched involuntarily on certain consonants, giving the impression of a very bad cell-phone call that drops every third syllable. Asking for a Diet Coke at a restaurant turned into “… iet oke.” I usually ended up with a sympathetic look and a regular Coke. Or worse, the server would say, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” And I would get no beverage at all.

It was a confounding, maddening problem. I could sing fluently, albeit hideously, which was entirely normal for me. And I could recite memorized pieces without much of a hitch. But I couldn’t produce a normal, intelligible sentence in the context of a conversation.

Like a stutterer, I learned to avoid problem syllables that would trip me up. If I wanted gum, I knew it would come out as “… um,” so instead I would try a work-around, such as “I want the stuff you chew.” That approach generally failed. People don’t expect riddles in their casual conversations, and no matter how clearly I laid out the clues, all I got in return was a puzzled expression and “Huh?”

Losing your ability to speak is obviously a social nightmare. It’s so surreal that you feel like a ghost in a crowded room. And I mean that literally; it feels like an actual ghost experience, or at least how you imagine that might be. The loneliness was debilitating. Research
shows that loneliness damages the body in much the same way as aging.
^1
,
2
It sure felt that way. Every day felt like losing a fight.

I learned that loneliness isn’t fixed by listening to other people talk. You can cure your loneliness only by doing the talking yourself and—most important—being heard. For the next three and a half years I experienced a total disconnect from normal life and a profound sense of aloneness, despite the love and support of family and friends. My quality of life was dipping below the point of being worth the effort.

In the early months of my voice problems I had a more immediate problem than my loneliness. In addition to being a syndicated cartoonist for
Dilbert
, I was a highly paid professional speaker. And I had an event scheduled in a few weeks, the first since I’d lost my ability to talk. I couldn’t predict whether my voice would work for my canned speech in the same way I could sing or repeat a poem. Would my vocal cords slam shut on stage and stay that way? Would I stand in front of a thousand people and yammer incomprehensibly?

I informed my client of the situation by e-mail and gave his organization a chance to cancel. They decided to forge ahead and take the risk. I agreed to take the chance too. Luckily for me, I don’t feel embarrassment the way normal people do, which I’ll discuss in an upcoming chapter. The prospect of humiliation in front of a thousand strangers, many of whom would likely be video recording the disaster, wasn’t as much of a showstopper as you might think. It was worth the risk to me because I needed to know what would happen with my voice in that context. I needed to find out the pattern. Would my voice work if I presented a mostly memorized routine in front of a thousand people? There was only one way to find out.

I’d given a
hundred similar talks. On some level, every speaking event was the same: Sign the contract. Book a flight. Show up. Make small talk with the organizers. Hit the stage. Make people laugh. Sign some autographs. Pose for pictures. Rush to a waiting car service. Ride to the airport. Fly home.

This time the small talk wasn’t working. Backstage, minutes before I was introduced to a packed ballroom, the organizers tried to engage me in conversation. I did my best, but they couldn’t decipher much of what I was trying to say. I whispered and gestured and used my work-around sentences, trying to assure them that things would be better onstage. But honestly, I didn’t know that to be true. And I could see the panic in their eyes. The odds were high that I would walk onstage and my throat would snap shut on every third syllable.

Experts say public speaking is one of the most terrifying things a person can do. That wasn’t generally the case for me. I was well trained, experienced, a natural ham, and my audiences were generally full of friendly
Dilbert
lovers. But I had never before stood backstage waiting for an introduction while wondering if I possessed the ability to speak.

This was new.

As the host launched into my introduction, I climbed the metal steps to the side stage. The sound technicians fiddled with the mixer and prepared to go hot on my microphone. The event organizers
faded into the backstage darkness. The audience was restless with anticipation. My introduction seemed to last forever.

I peeked out to see the audience, to get a feel for the room. These were my people: technical folks and office workers. I took a few deep breaths. The moderator used a joke I’d supplied for my introduction and the audience laughed. They were primed and ready.

I fidgeted with my shirt to get it tucked in just right. I checked the microphone cord to make sure the excess was neatly hidden under my belt. The moderator raised his voice for effect and bellowed,
“Please welcome the creator of
Dilbert,
Scott Adams!”
My heart pounded so hard that I could feel it in my shoes. I walked into the blinding glare of the stage lights. The audience went wild. They loved
Dilbert,
and by extension they were happy to see me. I crossed the stage and shook hands with the host. We made eye contact and nodded. Everything moved in slow motion. I walked toward the ELMO—a digital video device that would display my comics on the big screens. I placed my materials on the table and took two steps to the side. I put my hands in front of me, fingertips together, as speakers do, while I absorbed the applause and converted it to positive energy. The energy felt good. I was jacked in to the audience, for better or worse.

In an instant, and right on schedule, my heartbeat dropped to a normal state, just as it had a hundred times before in front of a hundred other crowds. My training was kicking in, and with it came my confidence. In my mind I owned the audience, and they would have it no other way. They had come to surrender, in a sense. All I had to do was show them I knew it. And to do that, I needed to be able to speak.

I took two deep breaths and looked around. I smiled at the audience. I was happy to be there—genuinely happy. I was born for this. The stage always feels like home.

I waited for the applause to stop. And when it did, I waited a little longer, as I had learned. When you stand in front of an audience, your sensation of time is distorted. That’s why inexperienced presenters speak too rapidly. I mentally adjusted my internal clock to match the audience’s sense of timing. I also wanted them to wait in silence for a beat or two, to engage their curiosity. I knew from experience that audience members often wonder what the creator of
Dilbert
will sound like. That day, I wondered the same thing.

At
this point in my story, you might have the following question: What kind of idiot puts himself in a position to be humiliated in front of a thousand people?

It’s a fair question. The answer is a long one. It will take this entire book to answer it right. The short answer is that over the years I have cultivated a unique relationship with failure. I invite it. I survive it. I appreciate it. And then I mug the shit out of it.

Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value. I have a long history of profiting from failure. My cartooning career, for example, is a direct result of failing to succeed in the corporate environment.

I was looking for a pattern with my speech that day. I needed to know why I could speak normally in some situations and not in others. Why does context matter? Is it something about my adrenaline level, or the tone of my voice, or the region of my brain that I access for memorization? If I could find the pattern, I thought it might reveal a solution to my voice problem. Would my voice be better than normal or worse than normal in front of an audience? I was about to find out.

I opened my mouth and began to speak. My voice wasn’t good, but it worked, in a raspy sort of way. Most people probably thought I had a cold. I spoke for forty-five minutes, showing comics that had gotten me in trouble and telling amusing anecdotes. The audience ate it up.

When I walked off the stage, I immediately lost my ability to speak. When the context changed from my memorized speech to normal conversation, my throat locked up.

Damn, the problem was definitely in my brain.

For the next three years I looked for patterns that would reveal a solution to my voice problems and free me from my ghostlike social existence. Over the course of this book, I’ll tell you how that search went, because embedded in that story is pretty much everything I know about grabbing failure by the throat and squeezing it until it coughs up a hairball of success.