Robert Bruce Shaw

“Obsession is more than pursuing a long-term goal—it is the singular focus and unrelenting drive needed to achieve an audacious undertaking.”
― Robert Bruce Shaw, All In: How Obsessive Leaders Achieve the Extraordinary

“Comedian Jerry Seinfeld performs over one hundred stand-up routines each year. Now over sixty-five years old, he doesn’t do it for financial reasons, since his net worth is an estimated $800 million. “I like money,” he says, “but it’s never been about the money.”14 Instead, Seinfeld spends the majority of his time writing jokes that work—which he shapes and reshapes to produce the most laughter. One of his peers commented that most comedians are lazy bastards, while Seinfeld is a dedicated craftsman. When at home, he goes to his office in New York City, sits alone, and for hours on end reworks jokes on a yellow legal pad. In some cases he will spend years thinking about and modifying a single joke—altering its flow, inserting or deleting a word, and changing the way he delivers it in front of an audience. His life is one of fine-tuning jokes, smoothing things out, and making one small fix after another.”
― Robert Bruce Shaw, All In: How Obsessive Leaders Achieve the Extraordinary