🛹 Jerry Seinfeld’s secret to success is... torture?

It’s 2:06 am. I’ve reread this email 17 times. Seems ok. Gotta wake up in 3 hours to play pickleball. Guess it’s time to hit publish. Let’s boogie.

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“You’re a psychopath”

It’s the usual response when I tell someone I love running.

But it’s also what I think of my wife for how much she loves teaching Zumba.

Just the thought of swinging, bouncing and shaking my sweaty body around to music with a couple dozen other sweaty bodies literally staring at me the whole time…

*gag*

So what’s up with that?

Why’s the same activity bliss for one person, but psychotic for another?

While you think on that, imagine this:

You’re standing on a wood plank.

But wait, it’s got wheels.

Your goal is to use it to fling yourself out of an empty swimming pool.

And ya better look cool doin’ it.

You biff it thousands of times over several decades as you figure it out.

• Concussions

• Broken teeth

• Broken pelvis

• 100’s of stitches

• Broken elbow

• Broken thumb

• Fractured skull

Does that sound fun to you? Or even sane?

It does to Tony Hawk, cause that’s exactly what he’s done for 46 years.

(you know, the 55 year old pro skateboarder)

He asked himself after his first injuries:

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The legendary comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, believes skateboarding is virtuous.

It’s literally a sport where kids will eat concrete repeatedly for hours, days, weeks, sometimes years for the sake of progress — landing a trick.

In a very different way, it’s how Jerry approaches comedy.

Howard Stern once asked him in an interview about his “process” for coming up with jokes.

Jerry: “I’m never not working on material. … Every second of my existence I’m thinking, can I do something with that?”

Howard: “That, to me, sounds torturous. … Have you ever been to therapy?”

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So that’s it then.

All it takes to build a habit, and become wildly successful at it, is to find the torture you’re comfortable with.

I’d rather rub habenero peppers in my eyeballs than do dance workouts, but my wife would do the same to avoid running.

You might not wanna bang your head against the sidewalk trying to land a kick flip. Tony Hawk does.

Howard Stern can’t fatham obsessing over jokes 24/7. Jerry Seinfeld can’t imagine life any other way.

You don’t have to do what everyone else does.

Just find your own good torture.

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So you’ve got 2 options:

1. Find the torture you’re comfortable with

2. Make the torture more comfortable

If you still haven’t found the torture you’re comfortable with:

• Go outside your normal routines

• Hang out with new people

• Try new things

If you wanna build a habit, but it still mostly feels like torture, how can you make it less torturous?:

• Find creative ways to include fun things in the habit (like listening to your favorite playlist while organizing)

• See if there’s anything lame about the habit about that could be changed or removed to make it not so bad

• Get your best friend to do it with you. Misery loves company, right? 😂

When you find the right fit, at some point it won’t feel like torture anymore… it’ll just be who you are.

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Daughter: “Can I have some seaweed?”

Wife: “What are you talking about?”

Daughter: “SEAWEED!”

Wife: “Honey, seaweed is the green stuff in the water.”

Daughter: “No, not that… THAT!” *points at fruit basket*

Wife: “Oh, you mean KIWI?”

Daughter: “Oh… yes :)”

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Thanks for reading!

- Kody

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P.S. This took 3 hours to write. It only takes you 3 seconds to share.