Jerry Seinfeld appears to like giving advice during Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions. In his first AMA earlier this year, he disclaimed responsibility for the Seinfeld productivity method and explained the value of meditation. In his second AMA appearance last week, he talked about the value of persistence, the best way to approach celebrities and how to efficiently allocate time during the day.
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Inevitably most of the questions in the AMA were about his classic eponymous sitcom, but some advice still sneaked in there. Asked about the lowest point in his career, he recalled:
There were a couple of times when I definitely thought that everything had completely come to a halt. At one point, in the early 80s, I got a part on a sitcom called Benson. And I was on the show for 3 episodes, and then I got fired. And I thought that would be the only break I was ever going to get. It was just a youthful lack of perspective. But at the time, I thought that was it. But it really ended up making me really get into being a much better standup comedian so that I wouldn’t be dependent on other people. It ended up being a good thing. The best things in my life have been the bad things that taught me stuff.
Having become successful, he also noted that some fans could use education in how to approach famous people
Well, sometimes I try and help people with their, um, etiquette with strangers. You always have to approach a stranger as a stranger, even though you may have seen that person many times on TV, they’re still strangers. So you know, I sometimes will try and help people in their approach – you can’t walk up to someone that you know and act like they know you. The TV only works one way. You can’t just yell at me and expect me to respond positively. You have to introduce yourself first. You can’t just yell “HEY JERRY, C’MERE!” and expect that to work.
Asked about his secret talents, he suggested that he’s good at time management:
I’m very good at streamlining a series of activities so that everything gets done in the amount of time that I have. I am very good with the clock. Like if I have a lot of stuff to do and a limited amount of time, I’m very good at figuring it all out. I’m very efficient in everything that i do, I never waste time so that I have more time to waste.
Finally, here’s some advice we can all use:
I would say the advice I would give myself, or any young person, would be “Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success.”
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