Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Science Agree: ‘You Collect Your Money at Night, but You Make It During the Day’

I chatted with a startup founder after he pitched potential investors. He had developed a plan, made projections, and built a prototype. This had been his 17th pitch meeting. 

“What do you do when you’re not pitching?” I said.

“Not much,” he said. “Just try to land more meetings. Without funding, I’m stuck.”

His response made me think of a story Jerry Seinfeld tells about Chris Rock. As he gave a young comedian advice about building a career, Rock asked, “What do you do during the day?”

“I hang out,” the comedian said. “I don’t do anything during the day. But I do open mics every night.”

“During the day is when you make the money,” Rock said, referring to writing, developing material, and crafting sets. “We collect it at night, but we make it during the day.”

The same is true for the startup founder. His pitch is the performance–that’s where he hopes to someday collect the money. But where he will make that money is during the day. Refining his plan. Tightening his projections. Improving his prototype. Using the feedback he receives from every pitch to make the next pitch even better.

The same is true for nearly every pursuit. Somewhere, among all the tasks and initiatives, there’s a core activity that matters most. 

As Seinfeld says:

It was after I saw a comedian do a couple of Tonight Shows and get bounced. He went on, he did well. The second time he went on, he did less well. The third time, he struggled, and they never had him back.

And I (thought), “Oh, now I get how this racket works. This is a writer’s game. If you can write, you succeed. If you can’t, you will not make it.” 

The performing, being funny onstage, that’s great. Any comedian can be funny onstage. But the bullets are the writing.

Writing is where Seinfeld and Rock make — not collect, but make — their money.

And are more likely to collect that money.

A study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that feeling prepared makes you feel more confident, and therefore makes you more effective. (Oddly enough, you’ll feel more confident in areas of your life unrelated to whatever you feel prepared to do; evidently, confidence likes to spread its self-assured wings.)

Say you’re a leader;  a great team is where you collect your money. You make your money by identifying the right people, developing their skills and talents, setting clear expectations, and making each person feel important and valued.

Or if you’re a startup founder, you collect revenue but you make your money by finding and maintaining great product-market fit. (Or, if you’re a startup founder looking for funding, you make your money developing a business — and a pitch — that makes investors feel your business is worth an investment.)

Or if you want to run a marathon — or want to achieve anything where consistent, long-term effort is required — you collect your money at the finish line, but you make your money by training every day.

While it’s easy to focus on the performance (the sales demo, the team meeting, the one-on-one with a struggling employee), what really matters is what you do to prepare for the performance. 

Because that’s where you make your money.

And, if you’ve done the work, is where you’re likely to collect even more money.