Matthew Hussey uses Jerry Seinfeld's work ethic to argue that meaningful life stays hard. The shift isn't to easier work but to difficult work you love. He calls it finding a form of torture you enjoy, and shares examples: boxing, filming in noisy nature, running a retreat for 100 women.
So I was watching an interview with Jerry Seinfeld the other day and I've become kind of a fan of Seinfeld, not even necessarily because of his work, but because of his ethic and the way he thinks. This is a man who really lives for what he does. He lives for comedy and for telling jokes and is very passionate about the idea that his life wouldn't be worthwhile unless he was finding the funny in every situation. He was asked in this interview about whether he enjoys his work. Is it still difficult at times? And he said, it can be torture. But that's life. You find the torture you're comfortable with. Now you can either take that to me something very depressing or you can take it to mean something very empowering. I think one of the great myths of our society is that things get easy. You know, you work hard to a certain point and then life is easy. And I think that's something that's particularly perpetuated by the self help culture that we live in. For me, even ironic as it may be that it feels like I'm in that space, it drives me crazy. Get rich quick and your life will be easy. Find a relationship and your life will be easy. Get six pack abs and your life will be easy. And life really, life doesn't work like that. Life isn't that simple. It's not easy. Life stays difficult. My job in being a coach and doing what I do is not to make people's lives easier. It's to help people graduate from doing hard things that are of no consequence or things they just hate and aren't getting them anywhere and doing hard things that they really enjoy. My business is no easier than it was five years ago. It's just as hard, if not harder. There's more opportunity on the table. More opportunity can mean more work, but I enjoy it more. That's the difference. The key isn't to try and find an easy life. The aim is to find something that you love doing that is a torture that you can endure because you enjoy it and therefore don't mind working all the hours God sends because it drives you. By the way, sometimes you'll be doing something hard that you don't even find fun and you'll be saying, well, why am I doing this? This isn't fun. Just because something isn't fun, it doesn't mean it's not fulfilling. One of the big things that I love doing is boxing. During the session I'm like, oh my God, this is such hard work. This is killer. This is torture. And sometimes it's not fun, but at the end of it, I feel amazing and I get excited about going the next day. So just because something ain't fun, it doesn't mean it's not rewarding and fulfilling at the end of it. Find a form of torture that you will enjoy so that in those moments where it's grueling and when you're gritting your teeth trying to get through it hour by hour, and the one thing you can say is, this is torture that I'm willing to endure because it's part of me. It's part of my DNA. I love it. I enjoy it. There's a plane going through as I'm saying this. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to stay on this ramp right now. Jameson, we're not cutting this one. We're going to keep it. Usually we'd normally we'd cut here because there's a plane. Not going to do that right now. You know why? Because sometimes making a video is hard and this is a form of torture because you're out here in nature trying to film a video and birds make noise and there's a plane in the sky. I do this because it's torture. I enjoy. Everything I do is torture. I enjoy. Going and running a retreat for 100 women is torture that I enjoy. Pleasing 100 women in a room at the same time. Not easy. My friends, find your torture that you know you're going to enjoy and be able to endure and then give it everything you've got and don't stop because it's hard work and don't stop because it's not paying off right now. Keep doing it because you know that it's something that drives you at a core level. Take care, my friends. I'll see you soon.
