George Costanza’s School of Dating, Career, Confidence, and Social Status

Normally, George Costanza is the last person you’d ever want to learn from.

He’s the epitome of human indecency.

He shoves small children and elderly women out of the way to escape a small kitchen fire rather than putting it out. He accidentally gets fired from his dream job at the New York Yankees after stealing another mans clothes and lying to a woman at the tourist bureau to secure a date. And he accidentally kills his fiancé with toxic glue from cheap wedding invitations that he picked out while subsequently showing no real signs of remorse.

And much, much more…

But then there’s this one episode.

One episode where you might be able to learn everything you ever wanted to know about how to succeed in dating, careers, confidence, social status and especially in business and marketing.

But before I come right out and tell you George’s secret, here’s something that might help you guess it on your own.

In Al Ries and Jack Trout’s book, Positioning, they write about a Volkswagen ad from the 1950s. During that time, the U.S. auto market was focused on making cars bigger, faster, flashier, and more luxurious than ever before.

Everyone was riding high on post World War II prosperity. The economy was booming, suburbs were spreading, and the middle class were buying cars the size of boats just to show they could.

But underneath the surface, people were growing tired of it.

Mass production, mass consumption, and mass conformity began to feel hollow. Decades later we’d see this satirized in the movie Edward Scissorhands which features rows of identical pastel houses, perfect lawns, and neighbors smiling behind their quiet discontent.

Flawless on the outside, but on the inside, people wanted something different.

And Volkswagen gave it to them.

Rather than trying to “me too” their way to success, they relied on something Al Ries and Jack Trout refer to as “thinking in reverse”. Whereby you learn to recognize and accept the perceptions of the current marketplace and rather than trying to retie or reshape them, you focus on using what you’ve got to your advantage.

Their ad campaign was so successful that Apple re-built their entire brand identity on something similar roughly 38 years later.

It brought them from an obscure foreign automaker to one of the most beloved brands in America. And it launched in 1959 with two simple words: “Think Small.”

They knew exactly what U.S. consumers would think of their car and they didn’t try to hide it.

They also knew there was a rising air of discontent around more of the same. So they made small cars cool. And they made their product stand out by embracing what’s already different about it. Not by trying to imitate what other U.S. auto makers were doing at the time.

And you might have already guessed George Constanza’s secret to success at this point, but in case you haven’t, let me make it abundantly clear.

In this particular episode of Seinfeld, George orders the opposite of what he’d normally get for lunch at the coffee shop and it causes him to meet a beautiful woman. He says the opposite of what he’d normally say to her by telling her he’s unemployed and lives with his parents at which point she becomes incredibly attracted to him. So on down the line it goes.

He even lands his aforementioned dream job in this episode by doing the opposite of what he’d normally do in an interview and mouths off to the head of the Yankee ball club organization, Mr. Steinbrenner. It’s his uncensored opinion that causes him to stand out from every other yes-man in the room.

By accepting what everyone already thinks about him and making it cool. By doing the exact opposite of his instincts which have historically led him astray. And by saying what he really thinks instead of what he thinks he should say. George becomes a magnet for everything he ever wanted in life.

So maybe there’s some areas of your life where you might benefit from doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing?

Maybe there’s some areas of your life where you might benefit from doing the opposite of what you’ve been told is the “right” thing to do?

Maybe there’s some areas of your life where you might benefit from doing the opposite of what I might appear to be suggesting that you do?

Maybe there really is something to this opposite thing after all?

Maybe…

But with all that said, whatever you do, definitely don’t reply to this email with whatever you’re seeing in your industry that you’re completely fed up with, and you’re ready to take a stand against and finally do the opposite.

I won’t read it. And I won’t reply. Because I’m the opposite of every man you’ve ever met.

Kevin Hood