209: On Seinfeld, Sensitivity, and Trend Spotting

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello my friends. I'm excited to riff today on sensitivity, Seinfeld and trendspotting. Interestingly, I was looking back through my Moleskine notebook and I had a statement I wrote to myself thought sensitivity allows me to transpot. Because I was trying to think about what would be the upside of being so sensitive to the world around me, to people, events, et cetera. And then as I went to jot down some notes for this solo episode, I remembered an article in the New York Times about Jerry Seinfeld that just came out a couple days ago in advance of his special 23 hours to kill that's on Netflix. And the article, it just struck me because it's called Jerry Seinfeld is Making Peace with Nothing. He's post Show Business. If you've read Pivot, you know that I talk about Seinfeld in the pilot chapter of the book, and I talk about how he pivoted from Seinfeld, a show about nothing, to comedians in cars getting Coffee, three of his passions. And in the episode with President Obama, he says, there's nothing more nothing than this. So I've been following his career, his trajectory, and his ability to transpot as well, because we all know that what Seinfeld is an absolute master at is recognizing the idiosyncratic things in the everyday. Just like Larry David. I also am a big Curb fan. Seinfeld is so good about picking up things that we experience every day and then creating bits around it, making comedy. But I also took a real interest in him because I loved seeing how he spotted the trend of web TV and streaming. He launched Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee as a pilot for his next phase, and he just incorporated the things that he loves for any of you out there that love coffee. You know that watching that show is this visceral experience for coffee lovers of the sounds. I always make myself a cup of coffee when I watch. Same thing. If you're really into cars as he is, he matches the car to each guest. It's just fun to see him delight in these things that he geeks out over and then with comedians. Why? Because they're funny. So of course we want to watch comedians in cars having coffee. What I thought was interesting about that was that he funded the show himself, but he didn't. He wanted to monetize it early on, even though he has kajillions of dollars. It was important to him to show that web TV could be a viable model for the future. And then lo and behold, Netflix acquired it. So I've been following Jerry and his pivots. Oh yeah, we're on a first name basis for a little while now and I this article is so interesting. I'm going to put the link in the show notes about making peace with nothing and post show business. What does that mean? And you'll see how it ties back into this notion of sensitivity and trend spotting. I as well. So I will come back to that. A couple points from the article. I love the intro. So it says Many of us have been wondering lately what Jerry Seinfeld, the sitcom character, would be doing in this current era of home quarantines and social distancing. How his extreme fastidiousness, self centeredness and constant scrutiny, scrutiny of quotidian details, not to mention the hyperbolic traits of his fictional friends and neighbors, would be stretched to hilarious extremes. And in an environment of isolation and anxiety.

However, the real Jerry Seinfeld, the one who gave up the sitcom long ago to focus on an occasional talk show and a peerless standup career, is not the same guy. He's as devoted as ever to his daily rituals and habits and still inescapably prone to atomic level observations of human behavior. As I mentioned, his standup special, 23 Hours to Kill is just getting released and that special was recorded in October at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan. The the actual stand up event. But then he was doing some post show filming right in the middle of March just before everything went on total lockdown and shelter at home. I love this line of the article. It's a Q A with him when he describes his overall professional outlook as, quote, post show business. He says, I'm really just into the pure art of it now. He explained just the bit the audience and the moment. I'm more interested in that than ever, and I'm less interested in everything else. He continues, part of your makeup in this profession is adaptation. You just become highly adaptable to everything. So this is just another thing to adapt to. Adaptability is one of the key traits of pivoters and of the pivot method and of being agile. I mean, agile and adaptable are essentially interchangeable. What's so interesting is that his experience of adapting to audiences and noticing and noticing the moment is what he's leaning on during this time. I love how he, of course, some of us listening, and even me, are going to say, well, yeah, when you have millions of dollars, you can totally just be into it for the pure art of it. But not everybody feels that way. Money doesn't guarantee happiness. It doesn't guarantee fulfillment. It doesn't guarantee free freedom from fear and fear of loss. I've heard from a lot of people who end up. And not just personal friends, but maybe I hear it on a podcast where they reach these certain heights of their career. And the fear, instead of being a fear of not having enough money, it's a fear of losing it, or a fear of people around them not having good intentions. So money alone is no guarantor of happiness or career fulfillment. That's why I'm. My ears perk up when I hear someone like Jerry Seinfeld saying, I'm just into the pure art of it now. This, the bit, the audience and the moment, that's all that any of us can do right now. Even if you're not a standup comedian, what is the bit, the one line, the one nugget that you can focus on right now? The audience, who are you serving during this time? And it might be your family, it might not reach farther than that, and that's okay, too. But who is it that's in the room for you, the proverbial room, the digital room. You're all here in the room with me for this podcast and the moment. That's it. That's the pure art of it now for all of us. The bit, the audience and the moment, and then becoming adaptable. Seinfeld also says in the article, I don't really feel that funny. It's hurting so many people so brutally, I'm not in the mood to be funny. It's like you're a bird and then suddenly they change your cage. You're just not sure who you are now. So he talked about falling back on his routines, that he actually loves routine it gives. He has, he said he has so much freedom in his mind that he needs routines. That's something that Jonathan Fields talked about in his book Uncertainty is that often the most creative people actually have the most routine that borders or brackets their creative outlets or their creative moments. So they might be very regimented and routine oriented in the morning and the evening for your wind up and wind down so that your, your mind is optimally free during that window that you're trying to create. But if even Seinfeld, with all his resources, he's 65, just turned 66, and his career experience as well, feels that he's a bird and suddenly they change your cage. Now we could get into some Freudian or Jungian analysis, I don't know, of the symbology of a bird and a bird cage. And maybe we all feel that we're in some kind of cage with sheltering at home. Hopefully not. I hope that you're finding ways to accept that for, for those of you, again, always with the caveats of many of you have already lost people due to coronavirus, but as a society, you know, what he's really saying is like the world just shifted on its axis. Like, we might be in our same home, you might even be lucky enough to be in your same job or your same business or your same career, but the whole outer world just shifted around us 90 degrees and we have a different context now. The interviewer asked if he find finds himself yearning to get back on stage. He said he still has a writing session every day. It's another thing that organizes his mind. And he said, you don't have to write, but you can't do anything else. The writing is such an ordeal that sustains me. That's his writing technique. You can't do anything else. You don't have to write, but you can't do anything do anything else. The writing is such an ordeal that sustains me. I wanted to read that line because to give us all hope. If Seidfeld, who has done this his whole career of noticing things in his environment, right down to the mundane or seemingly mundane, which is often the most hilarious, he finds writing an ordeal. Ah, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Two of the recent Pivot podcasts were on your book and Big Idea and I said that I find writing to be quite an ordeal for me. I. It's just not my go to thing. So it's comforting to hear that often, you know, even some of the luminaries that we all look up to find it to be an ordeal, but he makes a point. And Neil Gaiman does the same thing where if he sets aside an hour or two hours or three to write, that's fine if he's going to choose not to write. But you can't, you can't distract yourself. So maybe your phone is not even in the room. You're allowed to look out the window, you're allowed to daydream. But I heard Neil Gaiman talk about this, that he lets himself get so bored that the best option becomes to write.

Last two little bits that I wanted to share with you from the article. Seinfeld says, I wonder if people will find it's more difficult to laugh right now. There's a general base level sadness that our species is under threat. You've got to feel a little sad about that. The laughter, when it comes, will feel great, but it might be harder to get there. And then at the very last line, he says, I'm kind of, what's the word? Post show business. Now, I did show business and I love show business, but I'm past that, past trying to play or understand that game. It doesn't interest me anymore. These are two big themes that I've been talking about reflecting on for myself and what I've shared here on the podcast. One, even Seifelt is saying there is this base level sadness and he's a pretty non emotional guy like so many of the comedians in Cars episodes. I'm looking at him like this guy is just unmoved. He doesn't seem to have that. I don't know, he doesn't seem to be that emotional of a person. He's so much more on the rational side and kind of like seems that he's always had a certain confidence about him. But even he's saying it might be harder to get there, to get to the laughter, to get to the lightness. And that's okay. And then this whole idea of him feeling like he's post show business. He said that this might be his last special. I don't, I don't, I don't really think so. But what, who am I to say again, like, I know him personally, but I wonder what, what are you post. Like if Seinfeld is post show business, what are you post. What are you leaving behind? What do you feel that you've done and you actually want to close the chapter on in your career or in your business or your creative projects or your personal life? This is an unmistakable catalyst. This time at this point is a cliche to even say that we know that we know that we are, we are being pivoted. We are all in our stretch zone. And even if you're finding some amount of pseudo comfort, pseudo stability in quote, the new normal, we all have eyes wide open that even that can change at any time. Even the measures of staying at home may shift. And then we go back out into the world and then maybe there's another spike and then we go back into our homes. We can't predict the future. That, of course, is the true nature of reality. That's what I've been sharing. I've been interviewed a couple times this week and I'm reinforcing that for myself and others. That is the nature of reality. We never know what's going to happen. We never know what the future will bring. Again, as I said in the very first episodes of this pandemic series, we're all getting a black belt in adaptability and navigating change. You might not have asked for one, but you are certainly getting it. And if even Seinfeld is saying he's post show business, somebody that goes and does a stand up set every night, I think he said he'll keep doing those because he, he loves those. That's, that's the bit, the moment in the audience, but that, that he's even moving on from a certain part of playing the game. He even said in his own words he's past trying to play or understand that game. So I turn it to all of you. What game are you playing? What game are you ready to leave behind? What are you ready and willing or what is formulating that you might want to step into? The reason I keep using the word calling is what is calling to you? What are you being called toward? Where is there a magnet in your life? No matter how quiet, whether it's the magnet that repels, like you're almost feeling repelled by something that was in the old version of your life. And then where do you feel drawn? Where do you feel curious? Where is your energy? Where is your attention? Where is your interest?

Can you just shine the light of awareness and inquiry on those two polarities of this magnet right now? That's all you have to do. You don't have to know the answer. And by the way, I'm telling that to myself as well because I feel ready to leave certain old things behind, but I don't even know what they are. And there's a part of me that I feel called to expand in a new or different way. And I don't really know what that looks like. And just as any of you probably would, I often feel hesitation when I think about leaving something behind. I think, is that the right move? Is this the right risk to take? Is this entitled? Is this unreasonable? Is this.

Not smart, for lack of a better word? In that moment, I have all those same questions. It's important to me to let those questions be there, but keep pressing into that inquiry. If we're all in a new cage, and I'm going to say that the cage door is open, let's say we're in a new structure of society or are parts of society, what does it look like? How do you want to. Again, I don't. I don't know that I would choose cage as the metaphor. But how do you want to create your new environment, your new surrounding structures? And even if you don't know how you're going to do that yet, or even if it's possible, give yourself the space to at least envision what it is, at least be creative about visioning.

When I started this recording, I mentioned this intersection of three topics, Seinfeld, sensitivity and trendspotting. This brings me to sensitivity and trendspotting.

Often I see my own sensitivity. You know, I've learned definitely, especially over the last five years, to really harness it, let's say six years. Harness sensitivity, harness intuition. A large part of this podcast is about how do we harness anxiety, uncertainty, counterintuitive approaches to navigating change. But it's easy to still spot sensitivity as a bad thing to think. Well, I feel allergic to these aspects of society or of work or expectations in my industry, or shiny shoulds or sexy shoulds as I've called them before. What are those for you and what are you sensitive to? What are you and can you give yourself more credit? Instead of feeling bad, instead of feeling that you're too sensitive or too picky, what if you gave yourself credit? What if your sensitivity was a signpost to trends that you just have a front row seat on or you are experiencing first or early? You're the black sheep of a certain situation or certain expectations in your industry and you're in society. Or what if you gave yourself credit? So many of the coolest ideas, inventions, transformations in society and in the arts come from people who are seen as various types of black sheep. You can fill in a different type of word outliers, to use a gladwellism. What if you treated your sensitivity as Seinfeld does? The things that annoy you or Larry David curb your enthusiasm. The things that annoy you, the things that bug you, the things that you feel allergic to, the things that drain your energy. And instead of feeling that that was a, that was a problem that you can't just snap into place, what if you use that as clues toward where things might be heading or where things might be heading for people who relate to you? Seth Godin in his a lot of his new marketing materials. In his book this Is Marketing, he talks about how people like us do things like this. That's one of his monikers for thinking about creating community and who you might want to reach out to with your marketing. People like us do things like this. And I may be paraphrasing it incorrectly, but that's the gist of it. So, okay, what if your sensitivity is pointing you toward people like us.

Do things like this in a new way? It gave me I was very relieved to record the episode that I did on digital introverts and screen fatigue because I needed to just voice these things that I was feeling about overwhelm during this new time that we're in and then give myself and others permission. Maybe not everybody experiences digital introversion or screen fatigue or video overwhelm, but I do. And so if you're out there and you do, then by me saying it out loud, hopefully it gave you some permission that at least, if nothing else, you're not crazy. Even if you still feel screen fatigue and you still feel a little digital overwhelm right now, you're not crazy. What if you gave yourself credit for your sensitivity and you allowed that to help you spot trends that could help people like you to feel less alone, to feel more supported, to have more ideas about how they can pivot and adapt during this time. Not just in a way that looks like what everyone else is doing. There go those sexy shoulds again. But in a way that genuinely fuels their own spirit, and in a way that genuinely fuels your spirit. The biggest breakthroughs that I've experienced, what sparked the Pivot method was me being very frustrated at the status quo. The way things were done, the way people thought about careers, wrote about careers, even the fact that at that time so many of the business and career books were written by men. I mean, just me being a woman in the career business book space was a little unique when I got the deal in 2014. And I love the men and women in my community, the Pivot community. And I've never. I don't want to just segment and only speak to women, but after it came out, I got invited to so many conferences for women because they were inspired by a woman talking about these things. But the point I'm making there is that where Pivot came from was my own sensitivity and frustration and not being able to gain traction by doing things the normal, quote, normal way. The people who are in momentum don't mind that I'm not on social media. In fact, it gives them permission not to be themselves. And I'm not saying that that's like the quickest path to a huge platform or to greater revenue, but for me it's a path to sanity and keeping space to create. That could change. But that's a permission that I've given myself and it's helped me connect with others who share those same values, intentions and permissions. Even if, let's say, you listening, even if you love social media, you're here because you must give me permission to be my quirky self and have my little rants about various things. And you're still here. So I think you can also trust that the right people will be amenable to your sensitivities, open to them, and might even find them interesting. I was very grateful when Dr. MJC, who's been a Pandemic podcast co host, he wrote and he said I'm a major extrovert. But I listened to your episode on Digital Introverts and it helped me get to know the introverts in my life. It helped me develop some empathy and understanding for what might be going through their mind. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Seinfeld sensitivity and trendspotting. If you want to leave me a voice note, you can ivittmethan.

If you wouldn't mind, I would also love for you to take the Pivot Listener Survey. It's just a few questions and it will really help me shape future episodes like this one. That's@pivotmethod.com survey thanks for listening everybody. Can't wait to hear what you start noticing large and small.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.