Lines + Circles

In the back of a comedy club, a struggling comedian got a chance to talk to Jerry Seinfeld. He said he’d been struggling and sacrificing for about 10 years to “make it” as a comedian. Approaching his 30s, he was worried he’d taken the wrong path. Seinfeld gave him this advice: “This [pointing at the stage] is such a special thing,” Seinfeld says. “This has nothing to do with ‘making it.’” “But did you ever stop and compare your life?” the struggling comedian says. “I see my friends, and they’re making a lot of money. They’re moving up. They’re all married. They’re all having kids. They have houses. They have a sense of normality.” Seinfeld makes a disgusted face and then says, “let me tell you a story. This is my favorite story about show business.” “Glenn Miller's orchestra is doing a gig...They can't land the plane because it's winter, a snowy night—they have to land in this field and walk to the gig. They're dressed in their suits. They’re carrying their instruments. They’re walking through the snow—it's wet and slushy. And in the distance they see this little house…They go up to the house and look in the window. Inside they see this family. There's a guy and his wife—she’s beautiful. There's two kids, and they're all sitting around the table. They’re smiling. They're laughing. There's a fire in the fireplace... These guys are standing there in their suits. They're wet and shivering, holding their instruments, and they're watching this incredible Norman Rockwell scene. And one guy turns to another guy and goes, 'How do people live like that?' That's what it's about.” Takeaway 1: Comparison, it is said, is the thief of joy. James Altucher has written about a cure for comparison. Usually, when we compare ourselves to someone, we compare ourselves to a select few aspects of their life (their house, their good looks, or their professional success, etc.). Instead, James writes, “picture that you can change places in every way with them. But then it’s forever...Would you do it.” Usually—as Seinfeld’s story illustrates—the answer is…no, you wouldn’t want their whole life. Takeaway 2: One of the differences between Seinfeld and the struggling comedian is the way in which they view comedy. The struggling comedian sees comedy as a means to some end—there’s some amount of money or celebrity that would make him feel like he “made it.” For Seinfeld, comedy is an end in itself. “[It] has nothing to do with ‘making it,’” as he said. For Seinfeld, as Ryan Holiday once told me, “The work is the win.” - - - “The set I get to do tonight at 7:20 PM is the win. I get to do comedy—I won. It being predicated on doing X or being bigger than Y—no, no, no. To me, it’s always just been about the work. I’m on house money, full-time.” — Hasan Minhaj Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!