Monday Seven No. 026
The wisdom of Jerry Seinfeld
Welcome to Monday Seven, where I discuss and share topics that interested me.
In the last 5 years, I’ve founded 2 startups thisopenspace and Uppercase. I started without any experience in tech, retail, or real estate. I raised venture capital and built $10mm+ businesses. Now I’m working on what’s next.
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The last edition had a 54% open rate. We talked about discovering your personal values and codifying your rules of life. The top link was an exercise on building your personal values.
No. 026
1 — The wisdom of Jerry Seinfeld
I started watching Seinfeld at 9 years old.
I'd record every show on VHS. I'd download clips of Jerry Seinfeld’s standup on Napster and listen on mp3. By the time Seinfeld went off the air in 1998, I'd watched the series multiple times.
In my senior year of high school, I wrote a paper analyzing each character's psychology. I was the therapist, they were my patients. It was some of my best work.
My first-ever live show was watching Seinfeld perform I'm Telling You for the Last Time at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theater.
I joke that I haven’t watched TV since Seinfeld went off the air, in many ways that’s true. The only series I’ve watched from start to finish since Seinfeld are Curb Your Enthusiasm and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The former has Jerry’s DNA all over it and the latter is another show about nothing from the famed comedian.
I’ve subscribed to Jerry’s ideas for most of my life.
The most important lessons I've learned along the way are:
i) laugh at the absurd, and
ii) find the funny moments in the seemingly mundane.
This week, I listened to Jerry Seinfeld interviewed by Tim Ferriss. Not surprisingly it was one of my favorite podcasts of all time. Here are my key takeaways from the show:
Pursue boldness and inventiveness in lifestyle. Two things Seinfeld would pass on to his kids: Boldness and Ethics. "I wanted to be urban and I wanted to be smart, and smarter than I was. I wanted to have this cool, adventurous life."
Don't tolerate conflict. In pursuing a bold life, Jerry adopted his biggest principle: Confront. "I am fearless in rooting it out and solving it. And if anyone’s having a problem, I’m going to walk right up to them and go, “Is there a problem? Let’s talk about this.” This reminded me of investor Ray Dalio’s Principles: Identify and Don't Tolerate Problems.
Life is fun when it’s a game. "Whatever the problem is, let’s make it a game."
Know when to get out of the game. "I pulled out of it before I had to, before anyone wanted me to, because I didn’t want to be on a boat that was starting to struggle. Every storm blows itself out."
Start where you are. "Let’s come up with something you can do. That’s where you start everything. That’s how you start to build a system."
Spend as much time as you can in a flow state. "You’re trying to maneuver yourself into a state of mind that you know is your highest functional level. It’s musical, it’s very rhythmic and musical."
Write daily. “I still have a writing session every day. It’s another thing that organizes your mind. The coffee goes here. The pad goes here. The notes go here. My writing technique is just: You can’t do anything else. You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else.”
Nurture your creativity. "Never talk to anyone about what you wrote that day, that day. You have to wait 24 hours to ever say anything to anyone about what you did, because you never want to take away that wonderful, happy feeling that you did that very difficult thing you wrote."
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."
Fall in love with the process, not the results. "If I got up there and tried to do it, I win, even if I didn’t reach what I’m trying to reach. Even if to me it’s a four out of 10 show, I still pat myself on the back for it. It’s still a win."
2 — Getting organized
I’ve been cleaning up my notes and implementing new personal knowledge management (PKM) and project management systems.
It’s absolute chaos right now but I know there’s peace on the other side.
I’ve been following the PARA system, modifying it for Roam where I started building my personal knowledge management and project management systems, and cleaning up Notion which I still use for project management whenever I need to collaborate.
Roam has a massive learning curve and this is actually my third attempt to pick it up. For the first two, I tried going at it alone. This time I followed this course and read a couple of articles (here and here) on how others use it. It’s finally stuck.
I plan on teaching Christine over the holidays and may record a video for anyone else interested in seeing my set up.
3 — Game I’m playing
Picked up YINSH over the weekend.
It’s a 2-player abstract strategy board game. The game is played without dice, which I love because it eliminates luck. The learning curve was pretty short and it took us about 5-minutes to pick it up. A full game takes 20-30 minutes to play.
Here’s a quick video about how it works if you’re curious to learn more.
4 — Fungi based meat alternatives
I’m fascinated by meat alternatives and the companies leading the way like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. When meat-alternatives started selling at fast-food chains including McDonald’s, I knew the trend was here to stay.
The problems with meat consumption are well documented. If the many many campaigns to raise awareness for health issues, animal cruelty, and depleting water resources did not persuade the general populous to eat less meat, rising meat prices will certainly shift habits.
A newly emerging category is fungi-based meat alternatives.
Learned a ton from this video including making vegetable charcuterie with Koji fungi and discovering this fun Instagram account by Dr. Fun Guy (@fascinatedbyfungi).
5 — Big vouch
This new bullet highlights friends doing cool things you should know about. Working on something new you’d like to share? Hit reply and let me know.
You should know about Zvi Band and his ideas (@skeevis). A great place to start is by reading his newly published essay The Next Social Platform Won’t Be Individualistic.
Our individualism comes at a cost, as we put into greater importance on ourselves at the cost of our connections to others. Extreme individualism, which we see everywhere around us today, ignores and violates the innate kinship we all have.
We have been led to believe that the good life is about checking off the boxes that others have set for us, and maybe, donate a few dollars or tip a little bit extra. But here we are, safer, better fed, and with more opportunities than all of our ancestors, and we are miserable. Divided. Alienated. Rotten.
But with a bottom comes the opportunity to bounce back with fervor, in a different direction. I’m a fervent believer in the opportunity to move away from our hyper-individualistic world to something much more deeper and fulfilling.
I got to know Zvi this past summer. I can tell you that he’s one of the most thoughtful people when it comes to how we form true connections with one another.
Zvi’s also the author of Success is in your Sphere and built Contactually for 7+ years before selling it the real estate behemoth Compass. He’s the overachiever I aspire to.
6 — Sounds of the week
Kid Cudi’s on loop all week. He’s back with a new album, Man on the Moon III: The Chosen. Here are three of my favorite songs from the album:
Another Day (Youtube, Spotify, Apple)
Damaged (Youtube, Spotify, Apple)
Lord I Know (Youtube, Spotify, Apple)
(Longtime readers may remember I shoutout his song Rose Golden in No. 015)
7 — Quote
I’ve been thinking about this one a lot. Thinking of your mind and the brain as two separate entities. Training the primitive brain while nurturing the mind’s wisdom.
You’ve got to treat your brain like a dog you just got. The mind is infinite in wisdom. The brain is a stupid, little dog that is easily trained. Do not confuse the mind with the brain. The brain is so easy to master. You just have to confine it. You confine it. And it’s done through repetition and systematization. — Jerry Seinfeld
Last words
As always, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider forwarding it to a friend or click below to share.
Until next time,
Yashar