Here's HOW to Master Your Life! | Jerry Seinfeld | Top 10 Rules

Physical and mental energy to me is the greatest riches of human life. Comedian speaks to the public in a way that no other person does. Privilege is toxic.

Yeah, it, it sadly, it really is.

Sadly.

He's an American comedian, actor, director, writer, and producer. He's best known for portraying a semi-fictional portrait of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld. In 2005, Comedy Central named him the 12th greatest stand-up comedian of all time. He's Jerry Seinfeld, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 6 is my personal favorite, and make sure to stick around all the way to the end for some special bonus clips.

Putting in a phenomenal day's work to me is way better than, you know, Let's say you come into a little chunk of money you didn't think you were going to get. You know, you just get some dough, and you go, hey, that's great. That is great. I think money's great. But energy, physical and mental energy, to me, is the greatest riches of human life. What I am good at, and what every comedian is good at, is knowing how to carefully manage an audience's attention span. And that is also the key to this show. For example, I'll give you another. When the show was first cut together, again, to go back to that little scene with the phone about Net-a-Porter and Jess talking to my wife, Julia says, "Ask your wife about this thing about Net-a-Porter." I go, "You know what? I'm gonna ask her right now." And I take the phone and I dial the phone and I And then Jess picks up the phone. And I go, hi, Jess. I'm sitting here with Julia. I'm in the middle— we're actually right in the middle of doing an episode. She has a question about Net-a-Porter. Do you mind? Can I ask you right now? Are you busy? OK. You've got to get rid of all that. All of that goes because it's just boring. Now, it's not boring in a TV series. When you're watching a TV series, you're watching an episode of a sitcom, there's a story that you're hooked on, and there are characters, and this is going somewhere. This thing is going nowhere. So even when they first cut it together, they even had me dialing. No, no, no, you can't have that. That microsecond is on the internet— because the internet is the most brutal medium for attention span. The distance from your finger to that off or stop. You're holding it right there while you're watching things. How many times you see a video, you go, oh, that looks good. I want to see that. You press it, and they want 15-second commercial. No, no, no, no. No, you don't get 15 seconds. It's not that good. Amazon.com, one-click ordering. That's where I got this idea. They understood. Two clicks, I don't even want it anymore. I change my mind in between clicks. As a stand-up comedian, you must master that attention span dynamic of an audience. And it's no different from, you know, trying to do jokes for 4 drunks in a nightclub at 2 o'clock in the morning. You've got to get their attention and hold it. So you spend your life doing it, and that's what you have to do on the internet to survive. Comedian speaks to the public in a way that no other person does. He talks about things that we all see, commercials and things, and it's special. I mean, it's a unique podium being a stand-up comic. You have free range, and you don't even really have to make a point, but you have to relate to people on a very personal level. And I was afraid— I'm still afraid of losing that. 'Cause I think that's the key to my own sanity as well as my continued success. It's a nice feeling to invent something where there was no template there before you to figure it out. I mean, I remember when I told the idea to Louis C.K. and I said, I have this idea of I'll hang out with comedians and I'll shoot it and I'll cut it together with music and coffee. And I said, what do I do with that? And he says, you should charge people $1 to watch. Charge everyone $1. And I didn't like that idea. Nobody knew what to do. I remember I had this big meeting at CAA with their really smart digital people, you know. It was like 10 people in the room, people I had read about, never met. This is the guy who meets with Zuckerberg every day. He's way out there, you know. I go, okay, well, I got this idea, and it seems like, you know, as a person that people know, I have a, you know, I have an audience, people know me. So we can get people to check it out, and the internet seems like a pretty fluid medium. I could put this thing on the internet, you know. What do you think I could do? And they went, I don't know. No idea. And then I met with these Facebook people, and I met with YouTube people. All the— I mean, a guy like me, you know, that's one of the fun things about being me is you can meet anybody, you know? You can call call anybody and say, "Can I talk to you?" And they go, "Sure, come on in." And they're all smart and they were nice and they were well-intentioned and they all told me this will not work. This will not work. They said if you're over 5 minutes, nobody's going to— they're not going to hang in there. Because the internet is 5 minutes is the maximum length of time. And we average 19 minutes of viewer. So that was Pretty cool. I think the breakthrough is when people are talking about your act to other people and they can't do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? They start to do it and they go, "I can't do it. It's the way he does it." Yeah. That it's so ingrained in your personality and the way you talk and the way you behave that people cannot imitate it. How did you find it? You just— you just, um— I mean, did you sit there and say, "What can I talk about?" The audience teaches you. The audience teaches you over the years. That's the way I learned. You just, night after night, show after show after show, you're doing something and they laugh and you go, "Why did they laugh at that?" Yeah. And, but the next night you do it again the same way, and if they laugh, then you build on it. Privilege is toxic.

Yeah, it, it sadly, it really is.

Sadly, things that people struggle to achieve. Yeah, they get to positions of power, influence, money, can do things. It has a toxic effect on their judgment.

Yes. Has that happened to you yet?

No.

Why is that, do you think?

So, yeah, why don't you ask me? Yeah, come on, you do some work.

So you're a funny guy.

Thank you.

You go on some late-night talk shows, people think you're funny. Yeah, they give you a show, right? And then next thing you know, you've made like a ridiculous amount of money.

So much more than you, and yet No. How do I seem to you? Do I seem spoiled, out of touch? Well, I don't know. Well, you have a— you have a pretty good instinct for people.

Right now you seem like a completely normal guy.

But I'm putting on an act. Well, that's like everyone else does for you.

That's my point. That's, that's what I'm right. But I'm going to probe this. Uh, the question is, how did you calibrate dealing with that, right? At a At a certain point, you might have thought to yourself, you know what, I'm more than just a comedian. I'm gonna make a Jewish version of Citizen Kane, you know. How did you keep perspective?

I'll give you the real answer, which it's got to be similar to your life. I fell in love with the work, and the work was joyful and difficult and interesting, and that was my focus. Food is so complicated as an adult. It's just— you see people in the supermarket in the supermarket, they're just sweating it out. Nobody knows. What do I eat? The protein, the carbs, the fat content. Oh my God, fat content. They're just walking up to each other. You look pretty good. What are you eating? Maybe I'll eat that. The whole supermarket itself is designed to break down your sense of having any life outside the supermarket. It's like a casino. There's no clocks, no windows, no easily accessible exits. You ever not buy anything in the supermarket and try and get out of there? It's impossible. There's no way out. You can see what happens to people when they're walking up to the supermarket. They really have a whole sense of purpose. I'm going to get this, I'm going to get that, I'm going to pay for it, I'm going to get out of here and get right back to my normal life. You see that same person 10 minutes later, just What aisle is this? Why did I come up here? Always noticing something new. Oh, they got them in mesquite flavor now. What is mesquite? Wonder if it's made from mosquitoes. Produce section I always find very challenging. There's always some special thing you're supposed to know, you know, about each fruit. Summertime, make sure your peaches are— I don't know, whatever it is. You gotta fake it, you know. I'm shaking stuff, holding it up to the light. Yeah, that's a good one. Sure glad I found that one. Cantaloupes rolling down the aisle. See the way that's fading left? That one's not ready. I don't want that one. I'm very impressed with this, uh, seedless watermelon product that they have for us. They've done it. We now have seedless watermelon. Pretty amazing. What are they planting to grow the seedless watermelon, I wonder? The melons aren't humping, are they? They must be planting something. How does this work? And what kind of scientists do this type of work? I read a thing, it was 15 years in development in the laboratories with, you know, gene splicing or whatever they do there. I don't know. I mean, other scientists working on AIDS, cancer, heart disease. These guys are going, no, I'm going to devote myself to melon. I think that's much more important. Sure, thousands are dying needlessly, but this, that's got to stop. You ever try and pick up a wet one off the floor? It's almost impossible. I really think we should devote the money to these studies. Milk is a big problem for people in the supermarket. They're never quite sure if they have it, if they need it. They bury it way in the back in the supermarket. You got to find it. You got to hack your way through all the displays. Well, there it is. There's the milk. Do we have any milk? People are never really sure if they have milk. I think you have milk. We might have milk. I know there's a carton in there. I don't know how much is in it. Well, what should we do? Because you want to be sure. There's nothing worse than thinking you have milk and not having. You know, you got the bowl set up, the cereal, the spoon, the napkin, the TV, the newspaper, everything's ready to go. You're gonna lift up the carton and it's It's too light. Huh? Oh no! Too light! Or sometimes you think you need milk. Hey, we better pick up some milk. Like many of you are thinking right now. You know, he's right. Maybe we should pick up some milk. So you'll pick up some milk on the way home, and then you'll discover you already had milk. And now you got way too much milk. That's no good either. Now it's a race against the clock with the expiration date. That freaky thing. Now you're eating giant punch bowls of cereal 3 meals a day. You're washing your face with milk. Bringing cats in from all over the neighborhood. Hurry up and drink it! Come on, it's almost time! Get back over here. Here, how do they know that that is the definite exact day? You know, they don't say like it's in the vicinity, give or take, roughly. They brand it right into the side of the carton. Then they— that's your goddamn day right there. Oh, don't screw with us, we know what day is It's the final day, and then it is so over. You ever have milk the day after the day? Scares the hell out of you, doesn't it? The spoon is trembling as it comes out of the bowl. It's after the day! I'm taking a big chance! I smelled it, you smelled it, what is it supposed to smell like? Smelled like milk to me. I don't know how they're so definite though. Maybe the cows tip them off when they're milking them. July 3rd.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Kenny Mean asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Jerry Seinfeld's top 10 rules had the biggest impact on you and why, what change you're going to make in your business as a result of watching this video, what clip was your favorite. Leave in the comments and I will join in the discussion. Finally, we give a quick shout out to Dre Baldwin from DreAllDay.com. Thank you, Jay, for picking up a copy of my book. For you guys watching, if you want a chance at a shout-out in a future video, make sure to grab the book and email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.

So with Letterman retiring, that's another of one of your peers that was retiring, and I know you said you'll never really stop doing stand-up, but I was wondering What drives you to do this show? Like, the things outside stand-up, like, what is bringing you to do that? I did this show, I really, first of all, I never thought it was a show. It was really actually just very recently that I started to think, maybe this is actually something. But I kind of missed from talk shows the funny talking of casually hanging out. There's no casual hanging out anymore on talk shows. The real estate is too valuable, and people want to push their product, and I don't know. So I came up with this idea of like, if I ever did a talk— see, the reason I never did a talk show is because I can't really talk to people that aren't comedians and be funny. It's hard, you know. You're doing just great, though. 3 minutes. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, this was my personal fantasy idea of what I would like to watch. And stand-up has become so popular with so many young people now. Yeah, there's so many stand-up geeks, you know. I thought they would, they would like this, you know. So I just made a few of them and just threw them on the internet. We didn't do any press or sell it in any way. And, you know, that's what's so cool. The internet fastens fascinated me also as a network. I thought, why do I need a TV network? Why can't— this is a network. So that was what drew me to it. You want to know the key to comedy right now in two words? Because you guys are going to be doing more comedy bits on the show. Let me explain the basic thing, really all you need to know: loud and fast. Do not leave pauses between the lines. Say it loud, say it fast, and you're 80% there. When people would come on the show, actors, sometimes good actors, they would come on to do a scene or do a part on the show. That's all we would tell them: louder, faster, louder, faster. You can't fix the material. Is the material right? You're going to do what— and then that was, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. I thought I would say shish kebab, you guys. No, I would say I would make it 30 seconds shorter. Okay. And I would pull out some of the air. Did you edit that, or is that just— you did edit it a little bit. Okay. So I would have just pulled out a little more air, and I thought it played pretty well. The best— who, who captured a character out of these? They were, they were all good. Well, they had— you were good. Fritzie as, as George, he was good. You know why?

I appreciate that.

He talked quickly. He always does. What about comedy? You got to talk quickly because you want that— you want to get the mind going.