The life secret Jerry Seinfeld learned from Esquire
The only thing worth having is a skill to master.
“Because the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill,” he said. “Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They’re good. I like them. But having a skill [is the most important thing].”
This, he said, he learned long ago from reading an issue of Esquire magazine on “mastery.” “Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life,” Seinfeld continued. “You will feel good. … I work because if you don’t in standup comedy — if you don’t do it a lot — you stink.”
This sent me looking for the issue of Esquire that had made such a difference for him, and I’m pretty sure I found it. In May 1987, two years before “Seinfeld” premiered on NBC, Esquire published an issue titled “Mastery: The Secret of Ultimate Fitness.”
It does indeed offer provocative lessons in how to excel at any undertaking, lessons that stand up today and deserve to be resurfaced from 37-year-old magazine pages.
In recent decades, notable books have addressed this same topic, including Robert Greene’s “Mastery” (2012) and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (2008), which popularized the “10,000-hour rule” specifying how much practice it takes to master a skill.
But the Esquire issue is older than those books, and it contains gem insights all its own. (In fact, the magazine issue was so popular that it inspired George Leonard — who edited and compiled that issue — to write a book on the topic.)
Here are the six notable takeaways:
1. Anyone can pursue mastery — if they can first locate the path
In the issue’s main article, “Playing For Keeps: The Art of Mastery in Sports and Life,” Leonard explains: “The modern world can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We are bombarded with promises of fast, temporary relief, immediate gratification, and instant success, all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.”
This is, if anything, truer today than it was back then. TV, a growing distraction in the mid-1980s, was nothing compared with the smartphones in our pockets now.
2. Maintain a child’s mind-set
Starting on the path of mastery requires qualities more commonly found in children than in adults: curiosity, being present and lack of ego — specifically, not caring if you fail.
Many adults are unable to learn new skills, Leonard says, because they are “impatient for significant results” and unwilling to make mistakes.
3. Develop muscle memory
The best athletes in a sport usually make it look effortless — think of Roger Federer in tennis or Steph Curry in basketball. It looks effortless because the athlete has put in countless hours of practice. The physical movements become “muscle memory” and the actions are on “autopilot.”
There has been significantly more research on this topic since the mid-1980s, but it’s interesting to read what was understood almost four decades ago. Karl Priban, then a neuroscientist at Stanford University, explains to Leonard that humans possess a subconscious “habitual behavior system,” which involves a “reflex circuit in the spinal cord” connected to various parts of the brain.
“It makes it possible for you to do things — jump over a hurdle or return a scorching tennis serve — without worrying just how you do them,” Leonard says about Priban’s research. In the beginning, you have to learn new ways of moving and sensing, but once you reprogram the habitual system, you no longer have to stop and think about where to place your feet to leap over a hurdle or how to grip your racket.
4. Mastery is plateaus and brief spurts of progress
Leonard describes his own experience learning to play tennis. He wants instant results, but his instructor wants him to be patient. Leonard is told to avoid even playing against an opponent for six months. Instead, he should spend his training time perfecting his grip on the racket. The instructor is trying to impart two main lessons:
“Learning something new involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher than what preceded it.”
and
“You must be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.”
Learning to tolerate plateaus is essential, because they are “where the deepest, most lasting learning takes place,” Leonard says. In time, he learns that every plateau leads eventually to a satisfying new spurt of progress.
Those who fail to appreciate this truth wind up as non-masters, of which there are three kinds. The first is the “dabbler,” the zealous beginner who “announces proudly to everyone he knows that he is going to take up tennis, golf, martial arts, bodybuilding, running, swimming, whatever. He loves the shiny new equipment [and] the spiffy training suits.” He has a spurt of progress, demonstrates his skill to family and friends, and can’t wait for the next lesson. But when the inevitable plateau arrives, he loses enthusiasm, starts missing lessons, and rationalizes that the sport was really never for him. He starts into something else, and the cycle continues.
The second type is the “obsessive,” who wants to get every skill down right off the bat. “He stays after class talking to the instructor. He asks what books and tapes he can buy to help him make progress faster. He leans toward the listener when he talks.” And he makes robust progress at first. But when he reaches the plateau, he can’t stand it. He tries harder, pushing himself until he quits, often with an injury.
The third kind of non-master is the “hacker,” the person who, after reaching the plateau, is willing to stay there. “If it is golf, he gets locked into an eccentric but adequate swing and is satisfied with it. If it is tennis, he develops a solid forehand and figures he can make do with his backhand. If it’s martial arts, he likes the power but not the endless discipline. … He’s a good guy to have around but he’s not on the journey of mastery.”
5. Mastery is a lifelong endeavor
As you get older, it is totally fine to “dabble” and “hack” (especially to avoid injury), but there should be at least one pursuit that you take seriously. As everything changes — work, family, social networks, locations — a lifelong pursuit grounds you in something constant.
“If you stay on it long enough, you’ll discover that the path is a vivid place, with its ups and downs, its challenges, comforts, its surprises, its disappointments, and unconditional joys,” Leonard writes. “You’ll take your share of bumps and bruises while travelling it — bruises of the body and of the ego. … It will give you plenty of exercise, a well-toned body, a feeling of self-confidence and an added charge of energy for your career and your good work. Eventually, it might well make you a winner in your chosen sport, if that’s what you’re looking for, and then people will refer to you as a master. But that’s not really the point: What is mastery? At the heart of it, mastery is staying on the path.”
6. Practitioners of mastery share four traits
The Esquire issue concludes with four commonalities among people who pursue mastery:
- Enthusiasm: “It works both ways,” says Leonard. “Having a great deal of experience at something worthwhile makes you enjoy working at it. Enjoying what you work at results in your wanting to get more experience.”
- Generosity: Noting that the word “generous” comes from the same root as “genius,” Leonard says. “Some of those known as geniuses might be selfish, vulgar, cruel, and generally obnoxious in other aspects of their life (witness the lives of some of our musical geniuses), but insofar as their own particular calling is concerned, they have a remarkable ability to give everything and hold nothing back.”
- Zonshin: This is a Japanese word meaning “unbroken concentration.” Leonard cites an example from the world of golf: “It was said of the legendary Ben Hogan that other golf pros learned a lot about the game just by studying the way he moved down the fairway between shots.”
- Playfulness: People in pursuit of mastery, Leonard says, “are willing to take chances and to play the fool.”
Whatever you think of Seinfeld’s comedy, his pursuit of the art offers a master class in mastery. By the time he read that issue of Esquire, he already understood the value of practice. To prepare for his first appearance on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” in 1981, he rehearsed his six-minute set about 100 times.
The next two decades — including his eponymous TV show — was one higher plateau after another. Since retiring from TV, Seinfeld’s work has been more mixed.
But because comedy has been, for him, a lifelong pursuit, the highs and lows wash away. He controls what he can control and trusts that putting in the work every day will yield results. And at age 70, he is still performing and trying to perfect the craft.
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