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The funniest part of all this is it’s not true that Seinfeld ever said that. 1. Read the footnote in the article 2. Read this Reddit post by Jerry Seinfeld https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/comment/ceitfx... I mean I definitely have increased my own skills over time by being consistent, but this is definitely a fake claim.
To have a big success early on and then coast off and build off that success. And huge syndication royalties. No one even cares about his standup anymore. Plenty of people do what he did and try to be consistent and get nowhere in life. major survivorship bias. The entertainment industry has more failures than anything.
If you want to be successful you have to be really good. being consistent and not procrastinating is not enough.
Now, the whole thing I was so interested in 20 years ago is really taking off. I feel rather vindicated, so I guess that's success? I never really felt that 'success' had much to do with revenue generation.
{edit: the fundamental nature of comedy can be seen in the old 'the emperor wears no clothes' routine. Seinfeld would never dream of doing that routine - that's why he made so much money. The Emperor likes that kind of comedy...}
Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2262437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6544267
Thank you! I tried to search first, but I think sometimes HN search is broken.
The funniest part of all this is it’s not true that Seinfeld ever said that. 1. Read the footnote in the article 2. Read this Reddit post by Jerry Seinfeld https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/comment/ceitfx... I mean I definitely have increased my own skills over time by being consistent, but this is definitely a fake claim.
I took his reply in the AMA as “Yes I do this, but it’s dumb that I get credit for it because it’s a pretty common idea.”
For years I spent a lot of time working on things that I thought were important but that nobody else seemed to really care about. There was no success involved in doing this. Procrastination was irrelevant. There's no correlation between working hard and 'success' in terms of revenue generation. As far as Seinfeld, he was pretty tepid and his work didn't threaten the corporate heirarchy and so he was 'successful'. Ha…
Yes, his sitcom influenced a generation of TV and was one of the most highly rated and watched shows of all time. It introduced a number of phrases that are still part of the common lingo. He was at the forefront of the "observational" style humor.
You don't have to "threaten the corporate hierarchy" to be funny, you just have to be funny. I love Carlin too, and Bill Hicks and a lot of other comedians that are known for criticizing the establishment. They're funny too, but that's not the only way to be funny. Comedy is about being funny, not just being edgy.
The funniest part of all this is it’s not true that Seinfeld ever said that. 1. Read the footnote in the article 2. Read this Reddit post by Jerry Seinfeld https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/comment/ceitfx... I mean I definitely have increased my own skills over time by being consistent, but this is definitely a fake claim.
The don’t break the chain thing is nice. I’ve used it a few times, but it can be very demotivational when you had a super long chain and you broke it. It’s very hard to get momentum again.
Same. Stuck at a “modest” diet & exercise habit daily for 8 months with great results. Then I stopped for a couple days and haven’t been able to “keep the chain” going again since. From the article: > While most people get demotivated and off–track after a bad performance, a bad workout, or simply a bad day at work, top performers settle right back into their pattern the next day. I think that’s the key (which I’ve n…
This helps me not feel bad when I miss a day, but still gives me the feeling of don't break the chain. I've been doing it for about 3 months and I'll see if it continues to works out :)
The article itself though... It's a dubious link to Jerry Seinfeld at best, and the rest of it is pretty superficial. If you're not familiar with habits and streaks as a motivational tool, give it a read. Otherwise there's nothing novel or deep here. I'm being cruel now but it reads like the author wrote it because they wanted to keep a writing streak going.