In this episode, we talked about Jerry Seinfeld and the thought of Deliberate Practice and Perfection. Jerry Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which he created and wrote with Larry David.
The Sought-After Comedian
[0:05]
Jerry Seinfeld is a famous comedian. He is one of the top elite comedians and is close to $900 million today. He and the team had a great run with the Seinfeld show. It went on for 14 years at a stretch and ended in 2012. Even after years of success and achieving this massive success, Jerry worked on one single job for over a year.
Is Perfection an Enemy?
[1:18]
We say that perfection is an enemy, and successful people first decide and act on it. They try to decide on building the plane, and then on the way down, they build the plane.
Deliberate Practice
[1:44]
They go against each other on the one hand. Even though we say that perfection is an enemy, why would Jerry keep working on that one singular joke for over a year? If you take that concept and apply that to a day-to-day comedy, it is simply not going to be possible for that comedy to survive if he or she keeps on working on that one singular joke for over a year.
[2:46]
Jerry could have kept working on it. He would have kept working on that one singular joke because he could afford it. But if you apply that “perfection is an enemy principle,” it may not work for average day-to-day competence.
The 10,000 Hours Rule
[3:08]
There is a concept of deliberate practice. Malcolm Gladwell famously popularized the concept of 10,000 hours rule. It says that if you want to get good at something, you need to have a deliberate practice of your craft, niche, or whatever you might be good at. It could be sports, writing, photography, blogging, painting, or anything you can think about.
[3:54]
If you want to become truly a successful person in any craft or niche, you need to apply the 10,000 hours of rule. Only then will you start to attract a lot of fame, a lot of success, a lot of creativity, so on and so forth.
Practice to Perfection
[4:26]
Successful elite people are good at perfection to a great degree. If you take Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, these two NBA superstars were known for deliberate practice. They used to practice hours and hours to ensure that the craft gets perfected so that when the decision time comes in the game time when one second remains on the shot clock, they can confidently take that shot right.
[5:20]
Perfection is an enemy. For the average person, you cannot afford to do that. But at the same time, you need to keep practicing your craft, niche, or habit of whatever you’re good at doing or whatever you want to become to get from point A to point B.
