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avg_dev

The funniest part of all this is it’s not true that Seinfeld ever said that.

1. Read the footnote in the article

2. Read this Reddit post by Jerry Seinfeld https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/comment/ceitfx...

I mean I definitely have increased my own skills over time by being consistent, but this is definitely a fake claim.

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I took his reply in the AMA as “Yes I do this, but it’s dumb that I get credit for it because it’s a pretty common idea.”

It piques more people’s attention if it is attached to a famous name.

Sounds like a U.S. thing too. Worshipping of rich people, who must be rich because they are virtuous (Weber) therefore if you copy their habits you can be virtuous too, become rich and go to paradise.

On my way to make 9 babies in order to become the next Elon Musk.

Really? You can’t think of any examples of any other country doing this?

Of course people in other countries do this, but anecdotally it does seem to be more common in the US. I think it's something to do with the American dream.

I have lived in France and Germany and 95+% of the articles I have seen that follow this exact pattern to use as selling argument for $SomeTechnique$ the exact number of millions or billions someone made using $SomeTechnique$ were from the US.

Perhaps you don't pay attention. It striked me because I couldn't care less about the lives of billionaires. People laugh at the 9 years old girl who wants to become Madonna but that dream is no more irrealistic and is IMHO less stupid than becoming Elon Musk.

And no, I'm not gonna make 9 babies. If I have a child one day I want to do half of the parenting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the...

Strange. Countries everywhere have this. I don’t quite understand your rambling, but maybe it’s you who isn’t paying attention if you miss this?

The spirit of capitalism comes from the US and has a religious background. Nowadays, many countries have a strong US cultural influence, no shit. I wish I was smart enough to make this up, but it all comes from this very famous book which summary I provided. Maybe reading books is not your thing, but I find it interesting.

It’s strange. This has been an idea for a long time. 30 years ago we did this in elementary school for reading contests. So, yeah it is weird to call it the “Seinfeld Strategy”.

He also says this in the AMA:

> I am burned out. And you may have noticed that I tend to quit things soon after doing them, like TV series, animated movies, book writing, broadway plays. I do feel very strongly in stopping the second I feel like I'm not excited anymore, whatever I'm doing.

There's no humor like misattribution humor.

ugh i'm just trying to work then stumble across this ama

It also doesnt make much sense. You'll just optimize for red X's. If anything it will encourage bad writing.

I've found that the more I spend time on writing, the ideas that are being written about change in a way that generally coalesces into something better defined and of higher quality than just quickly writing down the initial form of the idea.

Forcing one's self to write, forces more in-depth thinking about the topic, which can lead to surprising and unexpected revelations (which I would refer to as quality writing).

One doesn't need to keep the journey, just publish the destination. The reader doesn't need the journey the writer took, but the writer sure does.

The point of the strategy is that "bad" writing is better than the alternative of no writing at all. That's why the linked article specifically says that Seinfeld said nothing about the goal, only consistency.

Nah, that's optimizing practice. Eventually you roll into whatever because it's old hat. Would you tell BB King playing every day he was optimizing for nothing?

Haha. You can and will hit a bad streak, it's inevitable. There is value in doing the thing.

Pretty soon all that practice adds up. YMMV. But like the article said it's gotta be action.

What is doesn't say is this is a way to build small wins. It only takes a small chain to create momentum.

Stack the deck in your favor.

After 10 years of doing a thing every day you'll be better than someone who didn't. And what's more they're likely never going to catch up, unless you completely stop and they start using your method.

And even then it'll take years.

And you should think of this other person as the alternative you.

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