Put In The Work

I loved hearing Jerry Seinfeld describe how he arrived at such a grueling process for creative progress in the documentary, Comedian: “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.”

It reminded me of something he said on Tim Ferriss’ podcast last fall, after a fairly lengthy, and incredibly insightful, description of his idea generation and experimentation process:

“It’s just work time. Which, and I like the way athletes talk about, 'I got to get my work in. Did you get your work in?' I like that phrase.”

When Ferriss asked him what he’d teach students learning the craft, Seinfeld replied, “Well, I would teach them to 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.” Which is to say, “Put In The Work.”

I like the yin and yang of this idea combined with yesterday’s, “Put Yourself Out There.” Both deliberate individual effort and humble openness to brutal feedback are necessary to creative progress. The speed with which he does both, and the elimination of friction between the two activities, is a fantastic embodiment of ideaction, that state of being in which the distinction between having an idea and acting upon it is almost blurred entirely.

Three dangers jeopardize the creative enterprise: too little effort, too little feedback, and too much time between the two.

Related: Put Yourself Out There
Related: The Daily Discipline
Related: Ideaction

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