A Legendary Comedian

This may sound strange but I have felt for the last two years that one of the people who has been providing the best insights on leadership and creativity is writer and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.  Here is just a small sample of his thoughts and insights:

• “A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking.”
• “Creativity is intelligence having fun.“ – Jerry quoting Albert Einstein
• “The way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.”
• “When I was starting out, I used to sit down and write a couple of times a week.  And then, I was watching these construction workers go back to work, watched them trudging down the street.  It was like a revelation to me: these guys don’t want to go back to work after lunch, but they’re goin’.  That’s their job.  If they can exhibit that level of dedication for that job, I should be able to do the same.”
• “Learn to accept your mediocrity.  No one’s really that great.  You know who’s great?  The people that just put tremendous amount of hours into it.  It’s a game of tonnage. “

Check out the following clips as additional examples:

Find The Torture You Are Comfortable With

Jerry Seinfeld’s Offer of $110 Million to Make Another Season of “Seinfeld” and Why He Walked Away

Click the image below:

Duke’s 2024 Commencement Speech

Seinfeld’s leadership chops were on full display during Duke University’s 2024 Commencement Address.  Watch the speech below and then enjoy the leadership quotes from his speech.

The following are 20 Leadership Quotes and Lessons from Jerry Seinfeld’s Duke’s 2024 Commencement Speech:

1. “I can’t imagine how sick you are about following you passion… Find something you can do that would be great.  If you try something and it doesn’t work, that’s okay too.  Most things do not work.  Most things are not good.”
2. “Let do of this idea that you have to find this one great thing that is my passion, my great passion.”
3. “Just be willing to do your work as hard as you can with the ability you have.”
4. “Find fascination.  Fascination is way better than passion.”
5. Jerry’s 3 Keys To Life – “Number one.  Bust your #%$.  Number two.  Pay attention.  Number three.  Fall in love.”
6. “Number one you obviously know.  Whatever you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s your job, your hobby, your relationship… Make an effort… Effort always yields a positive value even if the outcome of the effort is absolute failure of the desired result.  This is a rule of life.  Just swing the bat and pray is not a bad approach to a lot of things.”
7. “I have truly spent my life focusing on the smallest things imaginable, completely oblivious to all the big issues of living.”
8. “Find something where you love the good parts and don’t mind the bad parts too much.  The torture you’re comfortable with.  This is the golden path to victory in life.  Work.  Exercise.  Relationships.  They all have a solid component of pure torture and they are all 1,000% worth it.”
9. “Privilege is a word that has taken quite a beating lately. Privilege today seems to be the worst thing you can have. I would like to take a moment to defend it… I say, use your privilege.”
10. “I grew up a Jewish boy from New York.  That is a privilege if you want to be a comedian.”
11. “You went to Duke.  That is an unbelievable privilege.  I now have an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree, and if I can figure out how to use that, I will.  I haven’t figured anything out yet.  I think it’s pretty much as useful in real life as this outfit I’m wearing.  But so what?  I’ll take it.  My point is we’re embarrassed about things we should be proud of and proud of things that we should be embarrassed about.”
12. “You didn’t fake your fabulous education. You earned it. Be proud of it.”
13. “AI, on the other hand, is the most embarrassing thing we’ve ever invented in mankind’s time on earth.  Oh, you can’t do the work.  Is that what you’re telling me?  You can’t figure it out?  This seems to be the justification of AI: I couldn’t do it.  This is something to be embarrassed about.  The ad campaign for ChatGPT should be the opposite of Nike: You just can’t do it.”
14. “Making work easier, this is the problem.  So obsessed with getting to the answer, completing the project, producing a result, which are all valid things.  But not where the richness of the human experience lies.  The only two things you ever need to pay attention to in life are work and love.  Things that are self-justified in the experience, and who cares about the result.  Stop rushing to what you perceive as some valuable endpoint.  Learn to enjoy the expenditure of energy that may or may not be on the correct path.”
15. “Now, if you have been at this amazing place for four years and still have no idea what you like, what you’re interested in, or what you want to do in life, you are the luckiest ones here.  Those of you who think that you know what you want to do are very likely wrong and perhaps even overestimating your ability to do it.  You have convinced yourself that you know who you are and what’s going on in the world.  You don’t know either.”
16. “The less secure and confident you feel in the direction, the more surprises and excitement you will have in store.  That’s good.  So the better the job you’ve done in finding a path for yourself, the more boring and predictable your life is going to be.”
17. “If you took a stupid job that you find out you hate and you don’t leave, that’s your fault.  Don’t blame work; work is wonderful.  I definitely will not be looking back on my life wishing I worked less.  If that’s not how you feel at work, quit.”
18. “And this is probably the biggest point I would like to make to you here today, regarding humor… The slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor is okay.  It’s not something you need to fix.  I totally admire the ambitions of your generation to create a more just and inclusive society.  I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people’s feelings in the million and one ways we all do that, every second of every day.  It’s lovely to want to fix those things, BUT—all caps—BUT, what I need to tell you as a comedian: do not lose your sense of humor.  You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through.  Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor.  And I know all of you here are going to use all of your brains and muscle and soul to improve the world, and I know that you’re going to do a bang-up job.  And when you are done, as I am now, I bet the world, because of you, will be a much better place.  But it will still not make a whole hell of a lot of sense.  It will be a better, different, but still pretty insane mess.  And it is worth the sacrifice of an occasional discomfort to have some laughs.  Don’t lose that.  Even if it’s at the cost of occasional hard feelings, it’s okay.  You gotta laugh.  That is the one thing at the end of your life you will not wish you did less of.  Humor is the most powerful, most survival-essential quality you will ever have or need to navigate through the human experience.”
19. “The other thing I see going on that throws a lot of people off these days is thinking, ‘I have to make as much money as I can.’  I personally believe the real game is, I want to have the coolest job.”
20. “Money will be made eventually, somehow.  Try not to think about it so much.  I see this messing people up a lot.  Put it to the side a little.  Don’t think about having, think about becoming.  Having is fine but focus on becoming.  That’s where it’s at.”

What is one thing you learned from Seinfeld’s quotes above which will make you a better leader?

My latest eBook is available for download.  The Top 65 Leadership Quotes Of 2022 Part 1 is a resource every leader should have.  Great quotes bring clarity and put into words who we intuitively feel as leaders.  They give us wisdom and insights which advance the mission and vision of our organizations.  This eBook includes thoughts and insights from leaders like Warren Buffett, Nick Saban, James Clear, Dawn Staley, Jurgen Klopp, Jerry Seinfeld, and even Ted Lasso.  This resource will take you about 10 minutes to read but a lifetime to apply.  You will want to stop and ponder the implications of each quote.  Click HERE or on the image provided for immediate download!