Trung Phan is a co-founder of Bearly AI and writes the SatPost newsletter. This essay is adapted from the entry of May 24th on SatPost.
During a recent interview with the New Yorker on the occasion of his directorial debut with the film “Unfrosted,” Jerry Seinfeld was asked why, given his huge financial success, he still works so much. His answer was glorious:
“Because the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skills,” he said. “Good skills are the greatest asset. The things that money can buy are fine. They’re good. I like them. But having a skill (is the most important thing).”
This, he said, he learned long ago from reading an issue of Esquire magazine about “mastery.” “Strive for mastery that will fulfill your life,” Seinfeld continued. “You’ll feel good. … I work because if you’re not in stand-up comedy — if you’re not doing it often — you stink.”
This got me looking for the Esquire issue that had made such a difference for him, and I’m pretty sure I found it. In May 1987, two years before “Seinfeld” premiered on NBC, Esquire published an issue titled “Mastery: The Secret of Ultimate Fitness.”
It does indeed offer thought-provoking lessons on how to excel in any endeavor. They are lessons that are still relevant today and deserve to be re-dug from the 37-year-old pages of the magazine.
In recent decades, notable books have addressed this topic, including Robert Greene’s “Mastery” (2012) and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (2008), which popularized the “10,000-hour rule,” which specifies how much practice it takes to master a skill.
But the Esquire issue predates those books and contains gems of insight in its own right. (The magazine issue was so popular, in fact, that it inspired George Leonard — who edited and compiled that issue — to write a book on the subject.)
These are the six main conclusions:
1. Anyone can pursue mastery, if they can first find the path
In the issue’s lead article, “Playing For Keeps: The Art of Mastery in Sports and Life,” Leonard explains: “The modern world can be seen as a vast conspiracy against mastery. We are bombarded with promises of quick, temporary relief, instant gratification, and instant success, all of which lead in precisely the wrong direction.”
That is even more true today than it was then. Television, a growing distraction in the mid-80s, was nothing compared to the smartphones we now carry in our pockets.
2. Maintain a child’s mindset
To step onto the path to mastery, qualities are needed that are more common in children than adults: curiosity, presence, and no ego. In particular, the fact that you don’t worry about failure.
Many adults fail to learn new skills, Leonard says, because they are “impatient for significant results” and unwilling to make mistakes.
3. Develop muscle memory
The best athletes in a sport usually make it look effortless — think Roger Federer in tennis or Steph Curry in basketball. It looks effortless because the athlete has put in countless hours. The physical movements become “muscle memory” and the actions are on “autopilot.”
There has been a significant increase in research on this topic since the mid-1980s, but it is interesting to read what was understood almost four decades ago. Karl Priban, then a neuroscientist at Stanford University, explains to Leonard that humans have a subconscious “habitual behavior system” that includes a “reflex circuit in the spinal cord” that connects to various parts of the brain.
“It allows you to do things — jump a hurdle or return a blistering tennis serve — without having to worry about how you do them,” Leonard says of Priban’s research. At first, you have to learn new ways of moving and feeling, but once you’ve reprogrammed your habitual system, you no longer have to stop and think about where to place your feet to jump a hurdle or how to hold your racket.
4. Mastery consists of plateaus and short bursts of progress
Leonard describes his own experience learning to play tennis. He wants immediate results, but his instructor wants him to be patient. Leonard is told that he is not allowed to play against an opponent for six months. Instead, he must spend his training time perfecting his grip on the racket. The instructor tries to teach two important lessons:
“Learning something new involves relatively short periods of progress, each followed by a slight decline to a plateau slightly higher than what preceded it.”
“You have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau in order to keep practicing, even when it feels like you’re getting nowhere.”
Learning to tolerate plateaus is essential because this is “where the deepest, most lasting learning happens,” Leonard says. Over time, he learns that each plateau eventually leads to a satisfying new spurt of progress.
Those who fail to appreciate this truth end up as non-masters, of which there are three types. The first is the “dabbler,” the eager beginner who “proudly announces to everyone he knows that he’s going to play tennis, golf, martial arts, bodybuilding, running, swimming, whatever. He loves the shiny new gear (and) the flashy tracksuits.” He makes a flurry of progress, shows off his skills to family and friends, and can’t wait for the next lesson. But when the inevitable plateau arrives, he loses his enthusiasm, starts missing classes, and rationalizes that the sport was never really for him. He starts something else, and the cycle repeats.
The second type is the “obsessive,” who wants to master every skill right away. “He stays with the instructor after class. He asks what books and tapes he can buy to make faster progress. He leans toward the listener as he talks.” And at first, he makes solid progress. But when he reaches a plateau, he can’t keep going. He tries harder, pushing himself until he gives up, often with an injury.
The third type of non-master is the “hacker,” the person who, having reached the plateau, is willing to stay there. “If it’s golf, he gets caught up in an eccentric but adequate swing and is content with that. If it’s tennis, he develops a solid forehand and thinks he can get by with his backhand. If it’s martial arts, he likes the power but not the endless discipline. … He’s a good guy to have around, but he’s not on the path to mastery.”
5. Mastery is a lifelong endeavor
As you get older, it’s okay to dabble and hack (especially to avoid injury), but there needs to be at least one activity that you take seriously. While everything changes — work, family, social networks, locations — a lifelong activity grounds you in something constant.
“If you stay on it long enough, you’ll find the path to be a lively place, with its ups and downs, its challenges, its comforts, its surprises, its disappointments and its unconditional joys,” Leonard writes. “You’ll get your share of bumps and bruises along the way — bruises of the body and of the ego. … It will give you lots of exercise, a well-trained body, a sense of self-confidence, and an extra charge of energy for your career and your good work. Ultimately, it may make you a winner in your chosen sport, if that’s what you’re after, and then people will call you a master. But that’s not really the point: What is mastery? Essentially, mastery is staying on the path.”
6. Practitioners of mastery share four qualities
The Esquire issue ends with four similarities among people who pursue mastery:
- Enthusiasm: “It works both ways,” Leonard says. “If you have a lot of experience doing something worthwhile, you enjoy working on it. If you enjoy what you do, you want to get more experience.”
- Generosity: Leonard notes that the word “generous” comes from the same root as “genius,” he says. “Some of those who are known as geniuses may be selfish, vulgar, cruel, and generally unpleasant in other aspects of their lives (witness the lives of some of our musical geniuses), but as far as their own particular calling is concerned, they have a remarkable capacity to give everything and hold nothing back.”
- Sunshin: This is a Japanese word meaning “unbroken concentration.” Leonard gives an example from the world of golf: “It was said of the legendary Ben Hogan that other golf professionals learned a lot about the game just by watching how he moved down the fairway between shots.”
- Playfulness: People who seek mastery, Leonard says, “are willing to take risks and act like fools.”
Whatever you think of Seinfeld’s comedy, his pursuit of the art offers a master class in mastery. By the time he read that issue of Esquire, he already understood the value of practice. To prepare for his first appearance on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” in 1981, he rehearsed his six-minute set about 100 times.
The next two decades — including his eponymous TV show — were one plateau after another. Since retiring from TV, Seinfeld’s work has become more mixed.
But because comedy is a lifelong pursuit for him, the highs and lows wash away. He controls what he can control and trusts that hard work every day will yield results. And at 70, he’s still performing and trying to perfect his craft.
