Jerry Seinfeld, Watchmaker

"I am my job. Everything else in life pales by comparison." - Jerry Seinfeld

I recently watched an old backstage clip of Jerry Seinfeld in conversation with a young comedian.

The youngster is struggling. He’s trying to maintain confidence in his career. “How much longer can I take it,” he asks. While he is grinding and getting older, his friends “are all married, they're having kids. They all have houses…” Did Seinfeld compare his life, he wonders. Did Seinfeld ever doubt his choices?

I felt a mixed reaction. On the one hand, I could relate to the man’s anxiety, to the doubts assaulting his mind. I know what it feels like to walk a lonely road. You have to trust it will lead you where you’re supposed to go — and you try not to ruminate on the opportunity cost. The guy says he’s already 29. I’m older than that! I start to resent him and his ridiculous fears. What does he know? I fight off the feeling that it is I who should be worried.

Anyway. Seinfeld tells him his “favorite story about show business.” It’s about the Glenn Miller Orchestra on tour and what it means to walk the artist’s path. But that’s not what stuck with me.

Jerry Seinfeld's story

I was struck by Seinfeld’s reaction. He is incredulous. “This has nothing to do with your friends,” he says. “This,” meaning standup comedy, “this is a special thing.”

But the man is too wrapped up in his experience to listen. He’s too eager to make the most of the moment to realize that he’s already there, backstage, doing comedy, talking to Jerry Seinfeld.

In 1993, Seinfeld sat down for an interview with Playboy magazine. By then, Seinfeld the show had become a runaway success and the comedian was “just hanging on to this thing.” Seinfeld shares his career philosophy and the metaphor I wish he’d shared with the young comedian.