The guest
Jerry Seinfeld and Maria Popova: Jerry Seinfeld is an American standup comedian, actor, writer, and co-creator of Seinfeld; Maria Popova is an essayist and cultural critic who created Brain Pickings (now The Marginalian).
What this episode covers
This 10th-anniversary 'super combo' episode pairs two of Tim Ferriss's favorite past conversations. Jerry Seinfeld breaks down his systematized approach to writing comedy, the desk-to-stage feedback loop, the role of routine, exercise, and Transcendental Meditation, and how a brutal failure at the LA Comedy Store fueled his career. Maria Popova then walks through how she chooses and reads 12-15 books a week, her analog and digital note-taking systems, her philosophy of writing for an audience of one, and how she built and runs Brain Pickings on donations rather than ads. Throughout, both guests return to the tension between discipline and presence, and the conviction that you should make the kind of work you yourself want to exist.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Body for Life
Bill Phillips
“I think it's a work of Genius this book and it really got me in shape”
“I picked up this book by Bill Phillips called Body for Life and it's really really such a system I think it's a work of Genius this book”— Jerry Seinfeld
BookRecommendedISBN verified
On the Shortness of Life
Seneca
“so good this perhaps the best Manifesto for our current struggle with this very notion of productivity versus presence”
“I just revisited the shortness of Life so good this perhaps the best Manifesto for our current struggle with productivity versus presence”— Tim Ferriss
BookRecommended
Tara Brach's books
Tara Brach
“she has changed my life perhaps more profoundly than anybody in my life so I highly highly recommend her”
“she has changed my life perhaps more profoundly than anybody in my life so I highly highly recommend her Tara Brach she has two books out”— Maria Popova
BookRecommended
Alan Watts books
Alan Watts
“Alan Watts has changed my life I've written about in quite a fit so highly recommend”
“any Alan Watts piece Alan Watts has changed my life I've written about it quite a bit so highly recommend any of those articles”— Maria Popova
The guest's own work
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Is This Anything?
Jerry Seinfeld
“his latest book is is this anything you can find Jerry on Twitter and Instagram at jerry seinfeld”— Tim Ferriss
MediaBy the guest
Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld
“co-creator of the Emmy Golden Globe and People's Choice award-winning Seinfeld named the greatest television show of all time by TV Guide”— Tim Ferriss
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The 4-Hour Workweek
Tim Ferriss
“when I was writing the 4-Hour Work week as my first book I still to this day find writing very challenging”— Tim Ferriss
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
MediaReferenced
The Black Stallion
“I've seen people that were given black stallions and if you have a black stallion like from that movie and you're born and they just put you on it”— Jerry Seinfeld
BookReferencedISBN verified
In the Heart of the Sea
Nathaniel Philbrick
“it's like in the heart of the sea you know that book yep Ron Howard made the movie when they're dropping like flies”— Jerry Seinfeld
MediaReferenced
In the Heart of the Sea
Ron Howard
“it's like in the heart of the sea you know that book yep Ron Howard made the movie when they're dropping like flies”— Jerry Seinfeld
BookReferencedISBN verified
Waking Up
Sam Harris
“I saw your your review of his latest book waking up an annotated reading of waking up which I found really impactful for me in a lot of ways”— Tim Ferriss
BookReferenced
The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert
Richard Betts
“it's the essential scratch and sniff Guide to Becoming a wine expert the illustrations are wonderful Richard Betts is the sommelier who was part of that”— Tim Ferriss
BookReferencedISBN verified
Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed
Paul Cronin
“I just finished reading this kind of 600 page interview with him a conversation that a journalist named Paul Cronin had with him over the course of 30 years”— Maria Popova
MediaReferenced
Good Will Hunting
“the hottie pompous college student in Goodwill Hunting in the bar scene who's like reciting you know Shakespeare”— Tim Ferriss
ProductReferenced
Kindle app
Amazon
“I prefer electronic so I use the Kindle app on the iPad or any PDF viewer because I read a lot of archival stuff”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
iPad
Apple
“I use the Kindle app on the iPad or any PDF viewer because I read a lot of archival stuff”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
Evernote
Evernote
“I pay them into an Evernote file to sort of just have all of my notes in a specific book in one place”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
TextWrangler
Bare Bones Software
“I used to take notes and drop them into text Wrangler which is used for coding a lot just to remove the formatting”— Tim Ferriss
ProductReferenced
Coda
Panic
“yeah I do that with Koda yeah it's true though there but there's got to be a solution”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
WordPress
Automattic
“it is on WordPress I was going to make a joke about how the technology is called corpus callosum”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
TRX
TRX
“Plyometrics and TRX is actually quite handy there's a for some reason it just not my thing can't get into it”— Tim Ferriss
ProductReferenced
Weighted jump rope
“I actually carry a weighted jump rope with me when I travel in case there's nowhere to do Sprints which is my plan B for cardio”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
Buffer
Buffer
“I use buffer for Twitter and I use just my hands for Facebook”— Maria Popova
ProductReferenced
PayPal
PayPal
“I use PayPal for donations and I can for the life of me figure out how to actually look at the data”— Maria Popova
Big reveals from this episode
- Seinfeld says writing is '95% rewrite' and describes two phases: the free-play creative phase and the polish/construction phase where he perfects every word.
- His core writing system: set a defined, time-bounded writing session with an end time and a reward, because open-ended sessions are 'a ridiculous torture' for the brain.
- Seinfeld claims audience feedback is the only feedback that means anything, and advises never talking to anyone about what you wrote for 24 hours to protect the good feeling.
- Seinfeld recounts his favorite failure: Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore told him she'd give his spots to another comic, and his resentment pushed him from writing 3 days a week to 7.
- Popova reveals Brain Pickings started as an email newsletter to seven coworkers and now reaches about 7 million readers a month, yet she still writes for an audience of one, herself.
- Popova describes building her own 'alternate index' on the blank last page of every analog book, listing key ideas (not keywords) and page numbers to synthesize patterns later.
- Popova reveals that when she finally pulled her PayPal data for taxes, recurring small monthly donations outnumbered one-time donations two to one, surprising her.
Worth remembering
- Seinfeld credits Bill Phillips's book 'Body for Life' as a 'work of genius' that got him in shape by scripting every minute of the workout.
- Seinfeld trains with weights three times a week for an hour plus interval cardio three times a week, and does Transcendental Meditation at least twice a day.
- Seinfeld's billboard message would be a flag with just two words: 'just work.'
- Popova reads 12-15 books per week and Brain Pickings reportedly takes 400+ hours of work per month.
- Popova meditates 15-25 minutes each morning using a single Tara Brach 'smile meditation' recording she's used since the summer of 2010 on an old 3G iPhone used as an iPod.
- Ferriss admits he assumed Seneca was a Native American elder for a year or two before realizing he was a Roman writer.
- Popova carries a weighted jump rope when traveling as her plan B for cardio when she can't do sprints.
- Popova's Brain Pickings Facebook page grew from 250,000 to nearly 3 million followers in under a year starting October, for reasons she couldn't explain.
- Popova deliberately hides dates on her posts (keeping them only in the URL) to fight the culture's bias against older material.
- Running Brain Pickings costs Popova several times her rent, which is why she added donations rather than advertising.
More from Tim Ferriss
All 35816 recommended