During a recent interview with the New Yorker to mark his directorial debut with the film “Unfrosted,” Jerry Seinfeld was asked why, given his great financial success, he still works so much. His answer was glorious:
“Because the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill,” he said. “Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys 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 on “mastery.” “Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life,” Seinfeld continued. “You will feel good. … I work because if you don’t in standup comedy — if you don’t do it a lot — you stink.”
This sent me looking for the issue of Esquire 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 provocative lessons in how to excel at any undertaking, lessons that stand up today and deserve to be resurfaced from 37-year-old magazine pages.
In recent decades, notable books have addressed this same topic, including Robert Greene’s “Mastery” (2012) and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (2008), which popularized the “10,000-hour rule” specifying how much practice it takes to master a skill.
But the Esquire issue is older than those books, and it contains gem insights all its own. (In fact, the magazine issue was so popular that it inspired George Leonard — who edited and compiled that issue — to write a book on the topic.)
Here are the six notable takeaways:
1. Anyone can pursue mastery — if they can first locate the path
In the issue’s main article, “Playing For Keeps: The Art of Mastery in Sports and Life,” Leonard explains: “The modern world can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We are bombarded with promises of fast, temporary relief, immediate gratification, and instant success, all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.”
This is, if anything, truer today than it was back then. TV, a growing distraction in the mid-1980s, was nothing compared with the smartphones in our pockets now.
2. Maintain a child’s mind-set
Starting on the path of mastery requires qualities more commonly found in children than in adults: curiosity, being present and lack of ego — specifically, not caring if you fail.
Many adults are unable to learn new skills, Leonard says, because they are “impatient for significant results” and unwilling to make mistakes.
3. Develop muscle memory
