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Late At Night Have You Experienced A Vision Of The Person You Might Become, The Work You Could Accomplish, The Realized Being You Were Meant To Be? Are You A Writer Who Doesn't Write, A Painter Who Doesn't Paint, An Entrepreneur Who Never Starts A Venture? Then You Know What Resistance Is.

-Steven Pressfield

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Late At Night Have

Steven Pressfield

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Late At Night Have You Experienced A Vision Of The Person You Might Become, The Work You Could Accomplish, The Realized Being You Were Meant To Be? Are You A Writer Who Doesn't Write, A Painter Who Doesn't Paint, An Entrepreneur Who Never Starts A Venture? Then You Know What Resistance Is.

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I Believe In Previous Lives And The Muse—and That Books And Music Exist Before They Are Written And That They Are Propelled Into Material Being By Their Own Imperative To Be Born, Via The Offices Of Those Willing Servants Of Discipline, Imagination And Inspiration Whom We Call Artists.

The Best And Only Thing That One Artist Can Do For Another Is To Serve As An Example And An Inspiration.

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Warrior And The Artist Live By The Same Code Of Necessity, Which Dictates That The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

If We Were Born To Overthrow The Order Of Ignorance And Injustice Of The World, It’s Our Job To Realize It And Get Down To Business.

A Horse Must Be A Bit Mad To Be A Good Cavalry Mount, And Its Rider Must Be Completely So.

The Professional Respects His Craft. He Does Not Consider Himself Superior To It. He Recognizes The Contributions Of Those Who Have Gone Before Him. He Apprentices Himself To Them.

The Principle Of Priority States (a) You Must Know The Difference Between What Is Urgent And What Is Important, And (b) You Must Do What’s Important First.

Seeking Support From Friends And And Family Is Like Having People Gathered Around At Your Deathbed. It's Nice, But When The Ship Sails, All They Can Do Is Stand On The Dock Waving Goodbye.

The Last Thing We Want Is To Remain As We Are.

Figure Out What Scares You The Most And Do That First.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying. Why Is This Important? Because When We Sit Down Day After Day And Keep Grinding, Something Mysterious Starts To Happen. A Process Is Set In Motion By Which, Inevitably And Infallibly, Heaven Comes To Our Aid. Unseen Forces Enlist In Our Cause; Serendipity Reinforces Our Purpose.

Picasso Painted With Passion, Mozart Composed With It. A Child Plays With It All Day Long. You May Think You’ve Lost Your Passion, Or That You Can’t Identify It, Or That You Have So Much Of It, It Threatens To Overwhelm You. None Of These Is True.

Look In Your Own Heart. Unless I'm Crazy, Right Now A Still Small Voice Is Piping Up, Telling You As It Has Ten Thousand Times, The Calling That Is Yours And Yours Alone. You Know It. No One Has To Tell You. And Unless I'm Crazy, You're No Closer To Taking Action On It Than You Were Yesterday Or Will Be Tomorrow. You Think Resistance Isn't Real? Resistance Will Bury You.

I Had Always Been An Enthusiastic Reader Of Stuff About Ancient Greece. I Would Read Herodotus And Thucydides Just For Fun.

The Amateur Tweets. The Pro Works.

The Artist Must Be Like That Marine. He Has To Know How To Be Miserable. He Has To Love Being Miserable. He Has To Take Pride In Being More Miserable Than Any Soldier Or Swabbie Or Jet Jockey. Because This Is War, Baby. And War Is Hell.

The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul.

The Sign Of The Amateur Is Overglorification Of And Preoccupation With The Mystery. The Professional Shuts Up. She Doesn't Talk About It. She Does Her Work.

Tomorrow Morning The Critic Will Be Gone, But The Writer Will Still Be There Facing The Blank Page. Nothing Matters But That He Keep Working.

Writers Think In Metaphors. Editors Work In Metaphors. A Great Reader Reads In Metaphors.

Resistance Really Takes The Shape, For Me, In Voices In My Head Telling Me Why I Can't Do Something Or Why I Should Put It Off For Another Day, Procrastinate For Another Day.

Nothing Is As Empowering As Real-world Validation, Even If It's For Failure.

When We Make Our Art A Practice, When We Make Our Workspace Sacred And Enter It Daily With Respect And High Intention, Then We Elevate Our Actions (even If They're Taking Place Within The Profane Arena Of Commerce) Beyond Ego And Above Gimme-gimme Ambition.

These Scars On My Body,” Alexander Declared, “were Got For You, My Brothers. Every Wound, As You See, Is In The Front. Let That Man Stand Forth From Your Ranks Who Has Bled More Than I, Or Endured More Than I For Your Sake. Show Him To Me, And I Will Yield To Your Weariness And Go Home.” Not A Man Came Forward. Instead, A Great Cheer Arose From The Army. The Men Begged Their King To Forgive Them For Their Want Of Spirit And Pleaded With Him Only To Lead Them Forward.

Our Greatest Battle Is To Become Ourselves, In The Face Of Adversity.

It May Be That The Human Race Is Not Ready For Freedom. The Air Of Liberty May Be Too Rarefied For Us To Breathe... The Paradox Seems To Be, As Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery. While Those Who Will Not Govern Themselves Are Condemned To Find Masters To Govern Over Them.

Resistance By Definition Is Self-sabotage.

Research Can Become Resistance. We Want To Work, Not Prepare To Work.

We Need To Ascend Beyond Our Own Petty Resistance, Our Own Negative Self-judgment And Self-sabotage, Our Own "i'm Not Worthy" Mind-set.

Sometimes, When We're Terrified Of Embracing Our True Calling, We'll Pursue A Shadow Calling Instead. That Shadow Career Is A Metaphor For Our Real Career. Its Shape Is Similar, Its Contours Feel Tantalizingly The Same. But A Shadow Career Entails No Real Risk. If We Fail At A Shadow Career, The Consequences Are Meaningless To Us. Are You Pursuing A Shadow Career?

The Professional Is Acutely Aware Of The Intangibles That Go Into Inspiration. Out Of Respect For Them, She Lets Them Work. She Grants Them Their Sphere While She Concentrates On Hers.

The Amateur Believes He Must First Overcome His Fear; Then He Can Do His Work. The Professional Knows That Fear Can Never Be Overcome. He Knows There Is No Such Thing As A Fearless Warrior Or A Dread-free Artist.

You Are A Writer When You Tell Yourself You Are. No One Else's Opinion Matters. Screw Them. You Are When You Say You Are.

Late At Night Have You Experienced A Vision Of The Person You Might Become, The Work You Could Accomplish, The Realized Being You Were Meant To Be? Are You A Writer Who Doesn't Write, A Painter Who Doesn't Paint, An Entrepreneur Who Never Starts A Venture? Then You Know What Resistance Is.

Resistance In My Experience Always Kicks In When You're Trying To Move From A Lower Level To A Higher Level Or To Identify With A Braver Part Of Yourself Or Your Higher Nature. So It's That Negative Repelling Force. It's Kind Of The Dragon That We Have To Slay Every Day If We're Artists Or Entrepreneurs.

Turning Pro Is A Mindset. If We Are Struggling With Fear, Self-sabotage, Procrastination, Self-doubt, Etc., The Problem Is, We’re Thinking Like Amateurs. Amateurs Don’t Show Up. Amateurs Crap Out. Amateurs Let Adversity Defeat Them. The Pro Thinks Differently. He Shows Up, He Does His Work, He Keeps On Truckin’, No Matter What.

Procrastination

This Man Has Conquered The World! What Have You Done?" The Philosopher Replied Without An Instant's Hesitation, "i Have Conquered The Need To Conquer The World.

Conquer The World

We're Wrong If We Think We're The Only Ones Struggling With Resistance. Everyone Who Has A Body Experiences Resistance.

It’s Better To Be In The Arena, Getting Stomped By The Bull, Than To Be Up In The Stands Or Out In The Parking Lot.

The Hero Wanders, The Hero Suffers, The Hero Returns. You Are That Hero.

The Only Intercourse Possible Between The Knight And The Dragon Is Battle.

The Professional Conducts His Business In The Real World. Adversity, Injustice, Bad Hops And Rotten Calls, Even Good Breaks And Lucky Bounces All Comprise The Ground Over Which The Campaign Must Be Waged. The Field Is Level, The Professional Understands, Only In Heaven.

That’s Why An Artist Must Be A Warrior And, Like All Warriors, Artists Over Time Acquire Modesty And Humility. They May, Some Of Them, Conduct Themselves Flamboyantly In Public. But Alone With The Work They Are Chaste And Humble. They Know They Are Not The Source Of The Creations They Bring Into Being. They Only Facilitate. They Carry. They Are The Willing And Skilled Instruments Of The Gods And Goddesses They Serve.

Creative Work Is Not A Selfish Act Or A Bid For Attention On The Part Of The Actor. It's A Gift To The World And Every Being In It. Don't Cheat Us Of Your Contribution. Give Us What You've Got.

The Most Pernicious Aspect Of Procrastination Is That It Can Become A Habit. We Don't Just Put Off Our Lives Today; We Put Them Off Till Our Deathbed.

Procrastination

As All Born Teachers, He Was Primarily A Student.

Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It. If We Were Born To Paint, It’s Our Job To Become A Painter. If We Were Born To Raise And Nurture Children, It’s Our Job To Become A Mother. If We Were Born To Overthrow The Order Of Ignorance And Injustice Of The World, It’s Our Job To Realize It And Get Down To Business.

I Love Memoirs, Particularly Obscure Ones Because The Writer Is Usually A Regular Guy Just Telling What Happened To Him And To His Friends. What These Tales Lack In Artfulness They Make Up For In Passion And Authenticity. For A Writer Of Fiction, They Are Solid Gold. I Have Stolen So Much From Memoirs It's Ridiculous.

I Guess What I Want To Say To Us Artists And Entrepreneurs Is That Conventional Yardsticks Of Success Don't Apply To All Enterprises. Labors Of Love Count.

The Artist And The Mother Are Vehicles, Not Originators. They Don't Create The New Life, They Only Bear It. This Is Why Birth Is Such A Humbling Experience. The New Mom Weeps In Awe At The Little Miracle In Her Arms. She Knows It Came Out Of Her But Not From Her, Through Her But Not Of Her.

The Gnostics Believed That Exile Was The Essential Condition Of Man. Do You Agree? I Do. The Artist And The Addict Both Wrestle With This Experience Of Exile. They Share An Acute, Even Excruciating Sensitivity To The State Of Separation And Isolation, And Both Actively Seek A Way To Overcome It, To Transcend It, Or At Least To Make The Pain Go Away. What Is The Pain Of Being Human? It's The Condition Of Being Suspended Between Two Worlds And Being Unable To Fully Enter Into Either.

It's One Thing To Lie To Ourselves. It's Another Thing To Believe It.

The Professional Dedicates Himself To Mastering Technique Not Because He Believes Technique Is A Substitute For Inspiration But Because He Wants To Be In Possession Of The Full Arsenal Of Skills When Inspiration Does Come. The Professional Is Sly. He Knows That By Toiling Beside The Front Door Of Technique, He Leaves Room For Genius To Enter By The Back.

Persian Envoy "our Arrows Will Black Out The Sun..." Dienekes Of The Spartans.."good, Then We'll Fight In The Shade.

The Professional Learns To Recognize Envy-driven Criticism And To Take It For What It Is: The Supreme Compliment. The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

The Difference Between An Amateur And A Professional Is In Their Habits. An Amateur Has Amateur Habits. A Professional Has Professional Habits. We Can Never Free Ourselves From Habit. But We Can Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones.

Be Too Dumb To Quit And Too Stubborn To Back Off.

Every Sun Casts A Shadow, And Genius's Shadow Is Resistance.

Many Pedestrians Have Been Maimed Or Killed At The Intersection Of Resistance And Commerce.

The Kabbalah Describes Angels As Bundles Of Light, Meaning Intelligence, Consciousness. Kabbalists Believe That Above Every Blade Of Grass Is An Angel Crying "grow! Grow!" ... I Believe That Above The Entire Human Race Is One Super-angel, Crying "evolve! Evolve!"

Its [resistance] Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us From Doing Our Work.

The Great Thing About Writing About The Ancient Spartans Or Athenians Is That So Much Knowledge Is No Longer Extant That No One, Except Maybe A Cambridge Or Oxford Don, Can Call You Out And Prove You Wrong.

If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children, You Hurt Me, You Hurt The Planet. You Shame The Angels Who Watch Over You And You Spite God Almighty, Who Created You And Only You With Your Unique Gifts, For The Sole Purpose Of Nudging The Human Race One Millimeter Further Along Its Path Back To God.

Ambition, I Have Come To Believe, Is The Most Primal And Sacred And Fundament Of Our Being. To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls. Not To Act Upon That Ambition Is To Turn Our Backs On Ourselves And On The Reason For Our Existence.

When We See Others Beginning To Live Their Authentic Selves, It Drives Us Crazy If We Have Not Lived Out Our Own.

It Can Pay Off, Being A Hack. Given The Depraved State Of American Culture, A Slick Dude Can Make Millions Being A Hack. But Even If You Succeed, You Lose, Because You’ve Sold Out Your Muse, And Your Muse Is You, The Best Part Of Yourself, Where Your Finest And Only True Work Comes From.

We Will Have To Choose Between The Life We Want For Our Future And The Life We Have Left Behind.

A Great Trick That I Learned Having Worked As A Screenwriter For Many Years, The Way Screenwriters Work, Is They Break The Project Down Into Three-act Structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I Think That Is A Great Way To Break Down Any Project, Whether It's A New Business Or Anything At All.

As Resistance Works To Keep Us From Becoming Who We Were Born To Be, Equal And Opposite Powers Are Counterpoised Against It. These Are Our Allies And Angels.

The Artist Committing Himself To His Calling Has Volunteered For Hell, Whether He Knows It Or Not. He Will Be Dining For The Duration On A Diet Of Isolation, Rejection, Self-doubt, Despair, Ridicule, Contempt, And Humiliation.

Anything That Draws Attention To Ourselves Through Pain-free Or Artificial Means Is A Manifestation Of Resistance.

Making A Judgment, Taking A Stand And Then Acting Against An Injustice Or Acting To Support Excellence Is The Stuff Of The Everyman Hero. If You Are An Aspiring Artist And You Wish To Avoid “judgments,” You'll Find That You Have Nothing To Say.

When A Novelist Or Screenwriter Is Looking For A Subject, The Element He's Seeking Is Conflict. Conflict Makes Drama. Conflict Produces Great Characters And Memorable Scenes. So War Is A Natural Topic.

Playing For Money, Or Adopting The Attitude Of One Who Plays For Money, Lowers The Fever.

Writers Think In Metaphors. Editors Work In Metaphors. A Great Reader Reads In Metaphors. All Are Continually Asking, "what Does This Represent? What Does It Stand For?" They Are Trying To Take Everything One Level Deeper. When They Get To That Level, They Will Try To Go Deeper Again.

The Problem I've Always Discovered In My Own Work When This Kind Of Thing Happens When You Hit The Wall Is There's Almost Always A Reason. You've Almost Always Made A Mistake In The Initial Conception Of The Project. You Misapprehended Something Or You Thought Something Would Work And Now You're Three Quarters On The Way Through And You See That It Doesn't Work.

Like A Magnetized Needle Floating On A Surface Of Oil, Resistance Will Unfailingly Point To True North--meaning That Calling Or Action It Most Wants To Stop Us From Doing. We Can Use This. We Can Use It As A Compass. We Can Navigate By Resistance, Letting It Guide Us To That Calling Or Action That We Must Follow Before All Others. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

A Cavalryman's Horse Should Be Smarter Than He Is. But The Horse Must Never Be Alowed To Know This.

Of Any Activity You Do, Ask Yourself: If I Were The Last Person On Earth, Would I Still Do It?

Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance.

What Finally Convinced Me To Go Ahead Was Simply That I Was So Unhappy Not Going Ahead.

Cousin, The Days Of Gods And Heroes Are Over." "not To Me. Not To Them.

The Awakening An Artist Must Be Ruthless, Not Only With Herself But With Others.

Long-term, We Must Begin To Build Our Internal Strengths. It Isn't Just Skills Like Computer Technology. It's The Old-fashioned Basics Of Self-reliance, Self-motivation, Self-reinforcement, Self-discipline, Self-command.

The Professional, Though He Accepts Money, Does His Work Out Of Love. He Has To Love It. Otherwise He Wouldn’t Devote His Life To It Of His Own Free Will.

Those Who Will Not Govern Themselves Are Condemned To Find Masters To Govern Over Them.

When We Sit Down Day After Day And Keep Grinding, Something Mysterious Starts To Happen... Unseen Forces Enlist In Our Cause; Serendipity Reinforces Our Purpose.

The Opposite Of Fear," Dienekes Said, "is Love.

A Child Has No Trouble Believing The Unbelievable, Nor Does The Genius Or The Madman. It’s Only You And I, With Our Big Brains And Our Tiny Hearts, Who Doubt And Overthink And Hesitate.

I Was Keenly Conscious Of The Comrades-in-arms Who Had Fallen With Me. A Bond Surpassing By A Hundredfold That Which I Had Known In Life Bound Me To Them. I Felt A Sense Of Inexpressible Relief And Realized That I Had Feared, More Than Death, Separation From Them. I Apprehended That Excruciating War Survivor's Torment, The Sense Of Isolation And Self-betrayal Experienced By Those Who Had Elected To Cling Yet To Breath When Their Comrades Had Let Loose Their Grip.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are. More Than Our Parents/children/teachers Think We Are. We Fear That We Actually Possess The Talent That Our Still, Small Voice Tells Us. That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perseverance, The Capacity. We Fear That We Truly Can Steer Our Ship, Plant Our Flag, Reach Our Promised Land. We Fear This Because, If It’s True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know. We Pass Through A Membrane. We Become Monsters And Monstrous.

The Professional Will Not Tolerate Disorder... He Wants The Carpet Vacuumed And The Threshold Swept, So The Muse May Enter And Not Soil Her Gown.

Every Artist Has To Face His Own Demons And Evolve His Own Method Of Working.

No Industry Is Immune And No Occupation Is Safe. All Of Us Need To Begin To Think In Terms Of Our Own Inner Strengths, Our Resilience And Resourcefulness, Our Capacity To Adapt And To Rely Upon Ourselves And Our Families.

The More You Love Your Art/ Calling/ Enterprise, The More Important Its Accomplishment To The Evolution Of Your Soul, The More You Will Fear It And The More Resistance You Will Experience Facing It.

We Come Into This World With A Specific, Personal Destiny. We Have A Job To Do, A Calling To Enact, A Self To Become. We Are Who We Are From The Cradle, And We're Stuck With It.

Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

The Working Artist Will Not Tolerate Trouble In Her Life Because She Knows Trouble Prevents Her From Doing Her Work. The Working Artist Banishes From Her World All Sources Of Trouble. She Harnesses The Urge For Trouble And Transforms It In Her Work.

The Last Element In Drama Is High Stakes. War, Of Course, Is Life And Death - Survival, Not Only For The Story's Characters, But Often For The Society Itself. That's Why I'm Drawn To Stories That Are Built Around Wars, Even If They're Not Technically "war Stories."

Is There A Spiritual Element To Creativity? Hell, Yes. Our Mightiest Ally (our Indispensable Ally) Is Belief In Something We Cannot See, Hear, Touch, Taste, Or Feel.

If You're Are Paralyzed With Fear It's A Good Sign. It Shows You What You Have To Do.

We Show Up. We Do Our Best. Good Things Happen.

You Have Never Tasted Freedom, Friend, Or You Would Know It Is Purchased Not With Gold, But Steel.

The Instinct That Pulls Us Toward Art Is The Impulse To Evolve, To Learn, To Heighten And Elevate Our Consciousness. The Ego Hates This. Because The More Awake We Become, The Less We Need The Ego.

Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It.

Never Forget: This Very Moment, We Can Change Our Lives. There Never Was A Moment, And Never Will Be, When We Are Without The Power To Alter Our Destiny.

We Feed It [resistance] With Power By Our Fear Of It. Master That Fear And We Conquer Resistance.

In Other Words, Any Act That Rejects Immediate Gratification In Favor Of Long-term Grown, Health, Or Integrity. Or, Expressed Another Way, Any Act That Derives From Our High Nature Instead Of Our Lower. Any Of These Will Elicit Resistance.

A Work-in-progress Generates Its Own Energy Field. You, The Artist Or Entrepreneur, Are Pouring Love Into The Work; You Are Suffusing It With Passion And Intention And Hope.

Art Is A War - Between Ourselves And The Forces Of Self-sabotage That Would Stop Us From Doing Our Work. The Artist Is A Warrior.

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

Always Attack. Even In Defense, Attack. The Attacking Arm Possesses The Initiative And Thus Commands The Action. To Attack Makes Men Brave; To Defend Makes Them Timorous.

Have You Ever Wondered Why The Slang Terms For Intoxication Are So Demolition-oriented? Stoned, Smashed, Hammered. It's Because They're Talking About The Ego. It's The Ego That Gets Blasted, Waxed, Plastered.

The Professional Tackles The Project That Will Make Him Stretch. He Takes On The Assignment That Will Bear Him Into Uncharted Waters, Compel Him To Explore Unconscious Parts Of Himself. Is He Scared? Hell, Yes. He's Petrified.

Uncharted Waters

Start Before You’re Ready.

Resistance Is Not A Peripheral Opponent. Resistance Arises From Within. It Is Self-generated And Self-perpetuated. Resistance Is The Enemy Within.

We Must Do Our Work For Its Own Sake, Not For Fortune Or Attention Or Applause.

When We Conquer Our Fears, We Discover A Boundless, Bottomless, Inexhaustible Well Of Passion.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are... That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perserverance, The Capacity... Because, If It's True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know.

As Artists And Professionals, It Is Our Obligation To Enact Our Own Internal Revolution, A Private Insurrection Inside Our Own Skulls. In This Uprising We Free Ourselves From The Tyranny Of Consumer Culture.

Resistance Is Implacable, Intractable, Indefatigable.

When We Sit Down To Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying.

Positive Thinking

Don't Wait For Someone Else To Validate You. Validate Yourself.

F@*# Self-doubt. I Despise It. I Hold It In Contempt, Along With The Hell-spawned Ooze-pit Of Resistance From Which It Crawled. I Will Never Back Off. I Will Never Give The Work Anything Less Than 100%. If I Go Down In Flames, So Be It. I'll Be Back.

Are You Paralyzed With Fear? That’s A Good Sign. Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember One Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.

The Professional Loves Her Work. She Is Invested In It Wholeheartedly. But She Does Not Forget That The Work Is Not Her.

When We're Living As Amateurs, We're Running Away From Our Calling - Meaning Our Work, Our Destiny, The Obligation To Become Our Truest And Highest Selves.

Next Morning I Went Over To Paul’s For Coffee And Told Him I Had Finished. “good For You,” He Said Without Looking Up. “start The Next One Today.

Most Of Us Have Two Lives. The Life We Live, And The Unlived Life Within Us. Between The Two Stands Resistance.

The Artist And The Fundamentalist Both Confront The Same Issue, The Mystery Of Their Existence As Individuals.

Reading Is Alive And Well And Will Get More Alive And More Well. Reading On Tablets (or Whatever The Next Tech Device Will Be) Is The Future - And The Future Is Now.

If You Find Yourself Asking Yourself (and Your Friends), "am I Really A Writer? Am I Really An Artist?" Chances Are You Are. The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

Fame Imperishable And Glory That Will Never Die -- That Is What We March For!

The Professional Arms Himself With Patience, Not Only To Give The Stars Time To Align In His Career, But To Keep Himself From Flaming Out In Each Individual Work.

When We Turn Pro We Stop Running From Our Fears. We Turn Around And Face Them.

Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember Our Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It. Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance. Therefore The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul. That's Why We Feel So Much Resistance. If It Meant Nothing To Us, There'd Be No Resistance.

On The Field Of The Self Stand A Knight And A Dragon. You Are The Knight. Resistance Is The Dragon.

Artists, Writers And People In Creative Fields Are Entrepreneurs By Necessity. Nobody Gives Them A Paycheck Or Picks Up Their Medical Insurance. The Ones Who Succeed Learn To Think And Act Like 'independent Operators.' I Think People Who Are Technically 'employees' Have To Think This Way As Well. The Company Is Not Looking Out For You.

Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us... Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

The Essence Of Professionalism Is The Focus Upon The Work And Its Demands, While We Are Doing It, To The Exclusion Of All Else.

Contempt For Failure Is Our Cardinal Virtue.

In My Experience, Depth Of Work Consists Of Two Components. The First Is Recklessness; The Second Is Discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.

Slay That Dragon Once, And He Will Never Have Power Over You Again.

The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

The Spartans Say That Any Army May Win While It Still Has Legs Under It; The Real Test Comes When All Strength Is Fled And The Men Must Produce Victory On Will Alone.

The Athlete Knows The Day Will Never Come When He Wakes Up Pain-free. He Has To Play Hurt.

One Thing I've Found In Any Project Is Almost Universally About Three Quarters Of The Way Through - Or Maybe A Little Father, Maybe Seventh Eighths On The Way Through - Any Project Will Explode.

The Professional Does Not Permit Himself To Become Hidebound Within One Incarnation, However Comfortable Or Successful. Like A Transmigrating Soul, He Shucks His Outworn Body And Dons A New One. He Continues His Journey.

Playing The Game For Money Produces The Proper Professional Attitude. It Inculcates The Lunch-pail State Of Mind That Shows Up For Work Despite Rain Or Snow Or Dark Of Night And Slugs It Out Day After Day.

These Are Not Easy Questions. Who Am I? Why Am I Here? They're Not Easy Because The Human Being Isn't Wired To Function As An Individual.

To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls.

Evolution Has Programmed Us To Feel Rejection In Our Guts. This Is How The Tribe Inforced Obedience, By Wielding The Threat Of Expulsion. Fear Of Rejection Isn't Just Psychological; It's Biological. It's In Our Cells.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt. We Experince It As An Energy Field Radiating From A Work-in-potential... Its Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us, Prevent Us From Doing Our Work.

The Amateur Has A Long List Of Fears. Near The Top Are Two: Solitude And Silence. The Amateur Fears Solitude And Silence Because She Needs To Avoid, At All Costs, The Voice Inside Her Head That Would Point Her Toward Her Calling And Her Destiny. So She Seeks Distraction. The Amateur Prizes Shallowness And Shuns Depth. The Culture Of Twitter And Facebook Is Paradise For The Amateur.

Don't Prepare. Begin. Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation. The Enemy Is Resistance, Our Chattering Brain Producing Excuses. Start Before You Are Ready.

Resistance Is Directly Proportional To Love. If You’re Feeling Massive Resistance, The Good News Is, It Means There’s Tremendous Love There Too. If You Didn’t Love The Project That Is Terrifying You, You Wouldn’t Feel Anything. The Opposite Of Love Isn’t Hate; It’s Indifference.

Stay Stupid. Follow Your Unconventional Crazy Heart.

Someone Once Asked Somerset Maughham If He Wrote On A Schedule Or Only When Struck By Inspiration. "i Write Only When Inspiration Strikes," He Replied. "fortunately It Strikes Every Morning At Nine O'clock Sharp.

In The Hierarchy, The Artist Faces Outward. Meeting Someone New He Asks Himself, What Can This Person Do For Me? How Can This Person Advance My Standing? In The Hierarchy, The Artist Looks Up And Looks Down. The One Place He Can't Look Is That Place He Must: Within.

Meeting Someone

Start Before You’re Ready. Good Things Happen When We Start Before We’re Ready.

Traditional Publishers Will Be Dominant, And They Should Be Because They Really Do Assure Quality. But Ebooks, Which Are Huge Already, Are Going To Eclipse Everything. They Will Save Traditional Publishing The Way Dvds Saved Movie Studios (for A While) And They'll Greatly Expand The Number Of Readers.

The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

When We Are Succeeding - That Is, When We Have Begun To Overcome Our Self-doubt And Self-sabotage, When We Are Advancing In Our Craft And Evolving To A Higher Level - That's When Panic Strikes. When We Experience Panic, It Means That We're About To Cross A Threshold. We're Poised On The Doorstep Of A Higher Plane.

Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation; It’s Not The Difficulty Of The Project Or The State Of The Marketplace Or The Emptiness Of Our Bank Account. The Enemy Is Our Chattering Brain, Which, If We Give It So Much As A Nanosecond, Will Start Producing Excuses, Alibis, Transparent Self-justifications And A Million Reasons Why We Can’t/shouldn’t/won’t Do What We Know We Need To Do.

If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Write A Symphony Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children. You Hurt Me. You Hurt The Planet.

We’re All Pros Already. 1) We Show Up Every Day 2) We Show Up No Matter What 3) We Stay On The Job All Day 4) We Are Committed Over The Long Haul 5) The Stakes For Us Are High And Real 6) We Accept Remuneration For Our Labor 7) We Do Not Overidentify With Our Jobs 8 ) We Master The Technique Of Our Jobs 9) We Have A Sense Of Humor About Our Jobs 10) We Receive Praise Or Blame In The Real World

When You're A Working Writer, Sooner Or Later Friends And Acquaintances Will Get You Alone And Confide That They, Too, Have A Book In Them.

Sooner Or Later

This Is The Other Secret That Real Artists Know And Wannabe Writers Don’t. When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us. The Muse Takes Note Of Our Dedication. She Approves. We Have Earned Favor In Her Sight. When We Sit Down And Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

Resistance’s Goal Is Not To Wound Or Disable. Resistance Aims To Kill

What Force Is Yanking At Our Sleeves? This Process Of Self-revision And Self-correction Is So Common We Don't Even Notice. But It's A Miracle.

The Professional Has Learned That Success, Like Happiness, Comes As A By-product Of Work. The Professional Concentrates On The Work And Allows Rewards To Come Or Not Come, Whatever They Like.

For What Can Be More Noble Than To Slay Oneself? Not Literally. Not With A Blade In The Guts. But To Extinguish The Selfish Self Within, That Part Which Looks Only To Its Own Preservation, To Save Its Own Skin. That, I Saw, Was The Victory You Spartans Had Gained Over Yourselves. That Was The Glue. It Was What You Had Learned And It Made Me Stay, To Learn It Too.

On The Artist's Journey We Are Redefining And Reconfiguring Ourselves And Our Lives.

Thr Principle Of Organization Is Built Into Nature. Chaos Itself Is Self-organizing. Out Of Primordial Disorder, Stars Find Their Orbit; Rivers Make Their Way To The Sea.

No Matter How Great A Writer, Artist, Or Entrepreneur, He Is A Mortal, He Is Fallible. He Is Not Proof Against Resistance. He Will Drop The Ball; He Will Crash. That’s Why They Call It Rewriting.

The Song We’re Composing Already Exists In Potential. Our Work Is To Find It.

We Cannot Let External Criticism, Even If It's True, Fortify Our Internal Foe. That Foe Is Strong Enough Already.

Artists Are Modest. They Know They're Not Doing The Work; They're Just Taking Dictation.

Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery.

You And I May Only Be Mortals, With All The Foolishness And Fallibility That That State Implies, But We're Mortals Made In The Image Of Heaven. The Gods Can't Do Their Work Without Us. So Let's Be Bold, In Their Cause And In Our Own. It's Our Job, We Humans, To Make Manifest That Which Is Unmanifest-and To Raise Into Consciousness, In This Material Dimension, That Which Had Been Known Before Only In Heaven.

It Is A Commonplace Among Artists And Children At Play That They're Not Aware Of Time Or Solitude While They're Chasing Their Vision. The Hours Fly. The Sculptress And The Tree-climbing Tyke Both Look Up Blinking When Mom Calls, 'suppertime!'

But Nothing Really Clicked For Me Until I Gave Up Completely On Hitting The Overlap And Just Did What I Loved, Even When I Thought Nobody Else In The World Would Be Interested.

Ignorance And Arrogance Are The Artist's And Entrepreneur's Indispensable Allies. She Must Be Clueless Enough To Have No Idea How Difficult Her Enterprise Is Going To Be And Cocky Enough To Believe She Can Pull It Off Anyway."

You Know, Hitler Wanted To Be An Artist. At Eighteen He Took His Inheritance, Seven Hundred Kronen, And Moved To Vienna To Live And Study... Ever See One Of His Paintings? Neither Have I. Resistance Beat Him. Call It Overstatement But I'll Say It Anyway: It Was Easier For Hitler To Start World War Ii Than It Was For Him To Face A Blank Square Of Canvas.

Resistance Will Tell You Anything To Keep You From Doing Your Work.

The Most Pernicious Aspect Of Procrastination Is That It Can Become A Habit. We Don't Just Put Off Our Lives Today; We Put Them Off Till Our Deathbed. Never Forget: This Very Moment, We Can Change Our Lives. There Never Was A Moment, And Never Will Be, When We Are Without The Power To Alter Our Destiny. This Second We Can Turn The Tables On Resistance. This Second, We Can Sit Down And Do Our Work.

Procrastination

Right Now With Blogs And The Flood Of Internet Access, A Multitude Of Aspiring Writers Think They're Ready For Prime Time. They're Not. Be Great. Read. Write. Bust Your Ass. Learn And Find Your Voice. As Hard As You Think It Is, It's A Hundred Times Harder.

The Part We Create From Can't Be Touched By Anything Our Parents Did, Or Society Did. That Part Is Unsullied, Uncorrupted; Soundproof, Waterproof, And Bulletproof. In Fact, The More Troubles We've Got, The Better And Richer That Part Becomes.

Do We Have To Stare Death In The Face To Make Us Stand Up And Confront Resistance?

There Is An Enemy. There Is An Intelligent, Active, Malign Force Working Against Us. Step One Is To Recognize This. This Recognition Alone Is Enormously Powerful. It Saved My Life, And It Will Save Yours.

The Artist Cannot Look To Others To Validate His Efforts Or His Calling. If You Don't Believe Me, Ask Van Gogh, Who Produced Masterpiece After Masterpiece And Never Found A Buyer In His Whole Life.

Do I Really Believe That My Work Is Crucial To The Planet's Survival? Of Course Not. But It's As Important To Me As Catching That Mouse Is To The Hawk Circling Outside My Window. He's Hungry. He Needs A Kill. So Do I.

I'm Superstitious. I Keep Mum While I'm Working On Something.

The Highest Treason A Crab Can Commit Is To Make A Leap For The Rim Of The Bucket.

You Don't Need To Take A Course Or Buy A Product. All You Have To Do Is Change Your Mind.

The Opposite Of Fear Is Love - Love Of The Challenge, Love Of The Work, The Pure Joyous Passion To Take A Shot At Our Dream And See If We Can Pull It Off.

A Contemporary Or Near-future Book Is Much Harder Because You Can't Fake The Facts. There Are People Alive Who Know Much More Than You Do About The Subject. You Have To Really Have Your Research Together - And Of Course No One Can Know Everything About A Topic.

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Benjamin Disraeli

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