Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton has an expert program, which brings local experts in a variety of fields into the school to share their talents and gifts with the students. Previous expert guests include veterinarian Dr. Liz Sufit, forensic scientist Anthony Sprague, poet Martha Meltzer, and Robert Palassou, a Valley View Elementary teacher and NASA educator/astronaut trainee.

Last week, entrepreneur, cartoonist and creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, spoke to the students to share his words of wisdom and to autograph many of the Dilbert books that the children brought from home.

Like any successful entrepreneur, Adams told the students to work hard, practice and expect to be lucky.  Unlike other entrepreneurs, he told them not to draw necks or feet.

At the start, Adams outlined his goals for the program: to teach the students how to draw, how to be funny, and how to be successful. He showed them his 12 tricks to illustration. “It turns out that you can bluff your way through anything if you know 12 things about it,” he said.

For drawing, he said the “most important tip of all” was to start with the eyes. .
“For some reason, if you start with the eyes, you can imagine the rest of the drawing easier. If you start with the feet you usually end up with some weird, deformed head.”

Adams also shared his “funny formula”. He explained the six elements of humor—cute, clever, mean, bizarre, naughty, and familiar—two of which need to be used to make something funny.

“I’m now going to share my tips for success, that you have probably never heard before and will never hear anywhere else,” said Adams. “You don’t need to the very best at one specific thing. If you were, you would already know. Instead, you just need to good enough at several things. The more things you are good at, the more unique you are.”

Adams said he was good, but not great, at illustration and an adequate writer. Adding to these skills, he got an undergrad degree in economics and an MBA from UC Berkeley and became a good businessman. “So once I was creating comics, I knew how to market myself, how to create a blog and other things that everyone who is great at writing or illustration might not know.”

Adams also emphasized the element of luck. It seems like he equates luck with expectation and determination.  “Everyone is lucky, but you have to expect it to be able to capitalize on lucky moments. Nine out of ten things you try probably won’t work out so well, like girlfriends,” he said. “But you can control your luck by trying ten things or even thirty things.”

Adams shared his story of how he became a cartoonist, answered questions and was funny and gracious.  At the end of the program, all attendees, including teachers, were entered in a raffle for a picture with Adams in the yearbook, a copy of 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert (that includes Adams’ very early work), and a framed copy of one of Adams’ original strips along with the newspaper version.

After the program was over, Adams drew a personalized cartoon for every student and teacher who waited.  What a great guy!