Seinfeld is one of the best comedies of all time (in my opinion).
A simple story of 4 friends and the escapades they get up to.
One of the most memorable moments in the show was when Kramer, Seinfeld’s crazy neighbor, decides he’s going to renovate his apartment by himself – it’s entitled, “The Bet.”
I doubt my explanation would do it justice, so I tracked the video down on YouTube for you.
Click here first and watch the video before reading on.
If you’ve seen the show, you most likely remember what happens. If not, what do you think will happen?
Personally, I knew there would be trouble when Kramer said, “It’s all in my head.”
Then, despite Kramer asking for a month, Seinfeld offers to a year to accomplish the bet. Maybe he knows something that we don’t?
The final result is here starting at the 2:02 minute mark.
In the later video, Jerry says something which bears repeating. In response to Kramer saying, “And it could be done,” Seinfeld says, “Well, of course, it could be done. Anything could be done. But it only is done, if it’s done. Show me the levels. The bet is the levels.”
That is something that we all should remember. Whether we’re talking about children, teachers, lawyers, financial advisers, doctors and, most importantly, ourselves, it’s not what you can do that counts, it’s what you do that matters.
In our dreams we all have incredible bodies, can speak 10 languages, can jump small buildings in a single bound and look like Hollywood stars.
Reality, on the other hand, is somewhat different.
Who cares if you could finish the project on time, if you don’t. Who cares if you could have closed the deal, if you didn’t. Who cares if you knew the stock market would crash, but did nothing about it.
The project’s not done, the deal’s not closed and when the stock market crashed, you weren’t prepared for it.
The facts speak for themselves.
In the end people only care about what does get done. And this is just as true at home as it is at the office.
The craziest thing about this situation is that though this is a sitcom, this happens more than we care to admit in our own lives.
Having been a teacher for many years I can tell you that students may be the guiltiest of all; saying such things as they “were going to,” “wanted to,” “started to,” “thought about” or “tried to” study.
None of those mattered to me. The only thing I wanted to know was – DID THEY?
At home, I’m in charge of vacuuming, laundry and the dishes.
There are times when I get busy and I forget. But there were others when I was lazy and just didn’t do them.
But from my wife’s perspective, it’s one and the same, the task at hand did NOT get done. After a long day at work, my wife isn’t interested in why things weren’t done.
In situations like this most of us turn to our favorite way of weaseling out of work – excuses.
But excuses, only get us so far. There’s only so many excuses people are willing to accept. We all have our breaking point when it comes to others not doing what they said they would.
First time, no big deal. Second time, still no problem. Third time it’s slightly frustrating. The fourth, mildly irritating. Then the fifth, the sixth and the seventh…sooner or later we snap.
And it seems that the older we get, the less willing we are to accept excuses because we’ve heard them ALL before.
Over and over again, and each time our patience wears a little thinner.
Me, I am at the point in my life when I go with the three strike rule. I mean, if people don’t seem to be making any progress after three warnings, then chances are they’re never going to change.
I’m happy for people to prove me wrong but percentages don’t lie, I would say less than 10% of the people who use up their three strikes will ever change.
Those that finally do, I take as a welcome surprise.
I heard something the other day in one of the marketing lectures I was studying that stuck in my mind and sums things up what I’m talking about nicely, “Greatness isn’t talked about, it’s demonstrated.”
Well said.
Let’s go demonstrate just what we’re capable of.
Adrian Shepherd