Know Thyself - E83 - Steven Pressfield: Win The WAR of ART & Unlock Your Creative Potential

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Steven Pressfield, author of “The War of Art” shares how to tap into your creativity and unlock your full potential as an artist. He discusses the source of inspiration, sharing how he views ‘the Muse’ and how we can fine tune ourselves to tap into it more. He unpacks how to find your voice as an artist and know yourself through each piece of work.  He discusses the #1 thing that keeps creators from achieving their potential: fear. Explaining that fear is a sign that we’re on the right path, and how we can transform this fear into a masterpiece. Him and André also discuss what distinguishes an amateur from a pro, balancing business and creativity, and our responsibility as artists to share our work. André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro  2:04 The Responsibility of Sharing our Art 4:55 Discovering Ourselves Through Creativity 9:33 The Muse: Tapping into the Source of Inspiration 15:52 Finding Your Creative Voice 19:16 Facing Off With Resistance & Fear 27:30 The Art That Surprises You 28:53 Why Talent Doesn’t Matter 30:22 How to Get Out of Your Own Way 34:25 Why We Secretly Fear Success 41:22 Finding Courage to Follow Your Dreams  50:10 Destiny vs Free Will 52:48 Feeling Lost? Here's How to Find Your Way 55:11 How Steven Struggled His Way to Success 1:03:55 When "the Lightening" Strikes 1:06:13 Go From Amateur to Pro 1:11:34 Selling & Marketing Your Artwork 1:17:22 Refining: Reducing A Piece to it’s Maximum 1:19:11 Prayer to the Muse: Setting Intentions for Creating 1:23:01 The Daily Pressfield: A Guide to Completing Great Work 1:30:54 Does the Self Doubt Get Easier? 1:31:54 Why We Must Share our Art 1:33:09 Dharma and Creativity 1:34:50 Conclusion ___________ Steven Pressfield is the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, Tides of War, Last of the Amazons, Virtues of War, The Afghan Campaign, Killing Rommel, The Profession, The Lion's Gate, The War of Art, Turning Pro, Do the Work, The Warrior Ethos, The Authentic Swing, An American Jew, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t, and The Knowledge.His debut novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was adapted for screen. A film of the same title was released in 2000, directed by Robert Redford and starring Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlize Theron.His father was in the Navy, and he was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943. Since graduating from Duke University in 1965, he has been a U.S. Marine, an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout, attendant in a mental hospital and screenwriter. His struggles to earn a living as a writer (it took seventeen years to get the first paycheck) are detailed in The War of Art, Turning Pro, The Authentic Swing, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t, and The Knowledge.There's a recurring character in his books, named Telamon, a mercenary of ancient days. Telamon doesn't say much. He rarely gets hurt or wounded. And he never seems to age. His view of the profession of arms is a lot like Pressfield's conception of art and the artist:"It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior's life." Steven’s New Book “The Daily Pressfield”: https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-daily-pressfield/ Website: https://stevenpressfield.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven_pressfield/ ___________ Looking to Start a Podcast? Podcasting Course: https://www.podcastpurpose.com/ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

We find out who we are through the works we produce. And to me, those works have always surprised me. For at least 30 years, I was struggling as a writer, kind of beating my head into the wall and getting better and learning things, but never being able to actually tap into something that really felt like I'd hit something real. What it really is, is I've been attacking this like an amateur. There's a secret that real writers know, that wannabe writers don't know. And the secret is this.

Fear of success is the greatest fear. The idea that we really do have talent. I mean, that's a really scary thing. Because if that's true, then the onus is on us to do it. Ask yourself, what am I most afraid of? And that's the one you should do. Once we get into the creative flow, unseen forces come to our aid. Things that we couldn't do on Tuesday, we can do on Thursday.

After a while, you start to say to yourself, where do ideas come from? That voice in our head that tells us, you know, we're not good enough. Our idea isn't good enough. We're too old. We're too young. We're too fat. We're too thin. Job one of any creative person is to recognize that there is an enemy and the enemy is you.

Everyone, welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast. Today we have the privilege of sitting down with an individual who is a best-selling author of multiple nonfiction and fiction works. and most notably some books that have been impactful for me are The War of Art, Turning Pro, and why no one wants to read your shit. This podcast is going to be very supportive for musicians, artists, writers, content creators, really anybody who uses their creative energy, which is all of us in some capacity. And we're going to be reflecting on how to unlock our creative potential, what it means to become self-actualized and fulfilled in that regard,

and so much more. So Stephen Presfield, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Andre. It's a real pleasure to be here. Yeah. Where I want to start is this quote from Jesus. It says that if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. I'm just curious what you think of that to start out. I agree with it completely. In fact, I think that's really almost like if you're a creative person, And I think that's kind of the purpose of your whole existence, you know. And sort of the issue or a couple issues.

First is sort of to know what that thing is in you. I know when, you know, it took me a long time myself to sort of have a sense of that. And when it did happen for me, it was a surprise, what came out and it constantly is a surprise. But the flip side of it, I absolutely agree with that. If you don't bring this forth, I mean, the way I kind of. to look at it is I feel like we have an underground river flowing through us. You know, that's our creativity that comes from some other place. And if we don't give that river a chance to flow into its proper positive way,

it doesn't go away. It flows into malignant channels. And so what you don't bring forth, I think, will destroy you, will turn into disease or vices or just general unhappiness, depression, and, you know, go into all kinds of bad channels. How much do you feel like the suffering in our life comes as a byproduct of that creative expression, not having voice to flow? That's a great question.

I think almost all of it, I think. I mean, we'll never know, right? If disease happens, you can never, but it wouldn't surprise me if, you know, depression, alienation. You know that thing that just happened with Elmo? Did you hear that story? Yeah. You know, Elmo from Sesame Street. I guess he has followers, right? He's a puppet, right?

But he has followers. And like, just two or three days ago or he put out a little thing that said hey kids, how are we doing? And what happened was they got this flood of responses saying, we're not doing so good. You know, depressed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it was sort of, it became news. And so I think there's a lot of that out there, you know, that, and in my opinion, it does come at least partly from not being able to express or to get out the real thing that's inside you. I mean, people may be getting out some shadow version of what's inside of them, but in my opinion, it's almost, that's almost 100% of it. How much do you feel like knowing who we are is discovering, I guess, who we are on the inside versus creating who we are for the world to receive? The path of self-realization is to understand who our true self is. But I feel like so much of discovering who our true self is in the active unveiling and creative process of how our soul kind of moves in motion in that way, whether it's a podcast or a book or whatever way creativity expresses itself.

I'm just curious what you think there. Yeah, I agree with that completely. as well. In fact, I want to ask you a little bit about how you conceive of know thyself. But my take on this, I'm kind of a believer that we find out who we are through the works we produce. And to me, in my own career, those works have always surprised me. You know, so that in terms of like, I don't know if I would say at all that I know my sense. self, whatever that may be. I'm not sure there even is a real self there.

But I do see through the books that I write that that must be me, whether I realize it or not. And books that I've written that were successful, I were, like I say, I thought they, I was really surprised that they came out of me. you know, that that was a subject that would interest me. Like one, one is the legend of Bagger Vance, the first book that I actually published as a novel. I thought, where did that come from? I've known, you know, and then I followed that up with a book called Gates of Fire

that was about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, which is completely different from the first thing. And also a subject that I thought, what do I know about that? You know, it wasn't like I, but so in other words, to find it, if you'd ask somebody, well, who am, who is Steve President? field, they'd have to say, well, it has something to do with those books, but yet they were complete surprises to me. So creativity is a kind of a weird genie, you know, things come out of you that you didn't know were there. And it's kind of a mystery. In fact, let me ask you

Andre. When you say, know thyself, do you really feel that you can or any of us can kind of really do that and really say, oh, I'm this or I'm that or I'm not that or am I? Or am I the other thing? How does it, if you elaborate on that, what would you say? Well, I definitely think you can say, I know I'm not this, right? And it's more of a negation of the things that are unreal, that are not true to who we are. And I find that I can experientially know. I can know that I'm not my name or if I cut off my arm, I still exist, so I must not be my arm. And a long list of my ethnicity to the religion, to the cast, to the creed, to all the things that I identify myself as I can see fundamentally it's not who I am because without that thing I still exist. And so

you know, I think that who most people perceive is like the lowercase s self, which is kind of this identity structure that we have. Yeah. That to me doesn't feel real. It's, it can be useful to use in the marketplace. We can have the experience as if it is real, but the more we actually look into it, we see how it's illusory. What I do feel is that like capital S self, which you speak to as well with like the muse when you know you connect to a higher plane of existence that feels like it's connected to everything else that to me feels like the real self and that we can connect in deeper moments of stillness in silence and meditation and also in deep creative moments as well where we tap into a deep intelligent field that runs behind all of life that is consciousness moving in

its beautiful way within all life and so that to me feels a little bit more of a all-encompassing version of self. And I still very much still feel like I'm a student in discovering what that is. But this podcast is my endeavor to, you know, follow that curiosity. Ah, okay, that's a good definition. I like that. Sure. So it definitely does not become a self that you can say it has this characteristic or that characteristic or the other thing. It's really more of a connection to a greater sort of constantly moving, constantly evolving entity that we can't really define. Would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then I would love for you to elaborate your perspective on the muse and like the source that we tapped into in this creative process because, you know, there is in my perspective, and I know you've shared as well, this higher spiritual, non-visible plane of existence that we tap into, which is potentially where a lot of these creative ideas and things that we're pulling from that then come through us instead of from us exist at. And so I'm just curious for you to elaborate. What do you feel is the reality?

of the source of our creativity. Ah, that's another great question. I mean, and it's a mystery, right? A mystery with a capital M that we're never going to solve. But, well, let me go into a little bit of detail about who the muses were for people that are listening and might not know. In Greek mythology, the muses were nine sisters, the daughters of Zeus and nemesony, which means memory.

And the muse's job was to inspire. artists. And there was a muse of dance, Terpsichore, a muse of music, Calliope, and all, you know, none altogether. And so sort of the classic image of the muse is somebody like Beethoven at the piano and whispering in his ear is this female goddess-like figure who we assume is kind of telling him, da-da-da-da-dam, that kind of thing. So for me, just in my evolution as a writer, and I'm sure this is true for every artist that works at all, after a while you start to say to yourself, where do ideas come from, you know, where did that song come from? Where did this idea for a book come from? Or if I'm writing something in the

moment and stuff comes out that I had no idea I knew or anything like that, where is this coming from? And my, I like the anthropomorphic thing. My answer is, you know, it's the goddesses. I like to put a human face on something. But it could be the quantum field. It could be anything you wanted to call it, you know. But there's definitely another level, at least one other level, maybe many, many, many. And I really do feel like we live here on the material plane, our ego, our small s self, right? And we have a name and all those things.

We have an arm. But above us on a higher level is what I would call the muse. But you could call it a self, you'd call it a soul, you could call it, you know, any number of things. And our job as writers or as artists is to open some kind of a pipeline to that. And I also believe that that dimension is trying to reach down to us. Like in the War of Art, I talk about that quote from William Blake, the visionary poet where he says, eternity is in love with the creations of time. And what I take that to mean is, sorry if I'm rambling on here, is eternity is the dimension

above us, the dimension without time. And we're here on the material plane, a time-bound dimension. And if eternity is in love with the creations of time, that's like the muse, looking down to the creations of time would be Beethoven doing his thing or any artist doing whatever it is. And if they are in love with it, then they are somehow participating in this. So I definitely believe that when we tap into whatever that higher dimension is, it's actively assisting it. It's our ally. And our job, which is a really hard job, is to open the pipeline to that and let it come through us. So that process of opening the pipeline, I love what you just shared, because

I have unfortunate, I love my musician and artist friends and talk about the creator process with them as well. And I play music too. And I feel, you know, there's Michael Jackson shared that one time where he would be in the studio for hours and try to kind of refine his attenna to certain things in that field that we would talk about. Because he was also fearful that if he didn't spend the hours in the studio, making space to find that, that Prince would get it. Yeah. Uh-huh. And so it very much feels like if you look through all throughout eternity, these powerful pieces of music or art that stick out kind of above the rest that find most resonance with the planet and are impactful come by virtue of really doing the work for a long period of time so that you almost become worthy of receiving it and become a conduit for it in some ways. Yeah, so any thoughts there about really we want to tap in and be the attenna for these great ideas, but it feels like we get luckier, the more that we show up and do the work. Once again, you know, I agree with you completely. That's certainly been my experience.

I mean, I felt like probably for at least 30 years, I was struggling as a writer, kind of beating my head into the wall and never, you know, getting better and learning things would never be. being able to actually tap into something that really felt like, you know, I'd hit something real. And then, you know, one day I could do it, you know. It just, and I do think it was the process of just trying and trying and trying as hard as you can. And then finally, you know, something happens on some other level, you know, whether, you know, if you put it in terms of the muse, it's like the goddess is looking down, judging you,

and at some point when she figures you've paid enough dues or you've moved your attitude to enough humility enough receptivity that she says okay i'm going to give this guy you know a couple of good ideas uh so i definitely feel like at least for me it was a you know i don't know what people like uh neil young that starts out and like at 17 he's doing incredible stuff or bob dillon um how that works Maybe they're just born with a gift or something. But for me, it certainly was a long process of beating your head into the wall before something finally clicked. So I love that.

I'd love to just dive a little bit more into the process because I think a lot of people struggle in finding their own creative voice. And I would just love to hear what you think about, what it means to be authentic in the creative process. Well, like I was saying before, the things that have really come out of me that I felt were most authentic were real surprises to me. And they were really like, when I look at them, I go, that's not me, you know? Like The Legend of Bagger Vance, the book, not the movie, but the book is told by a 75-year-old

retired doctor, remembering something that happened when he was 10 years old. So I wrote that when I was like maybe 50 or something. So I thought to myself, how can I write somebody in the voice of somebody that's smarter than I am and has lived a longer, and has more wisdom. How can I do that? And yet, and I'm sure this is any creative person will say that, as soon as I sat down, I could do it. You know, it's the imagination. You tap into that other dimension. Now, I don't know if I could have done that a year earlier or 10 years earlier, but it just started to flow and it went.

And it wasn't hard at all. But then again, in terms of like seeking authenticity, so that voice that came out was not my voice, not at all. You know, it was a voice of this character that was a southern, you know, I'm from New York, you know, a completely different voice. But yet it was authentic to me in some crazy way. And other books that I've written, fiction books that I've written, are in other people's voices.

It's like an actor playing a character. If it's a first-person narrator, then my quote-unquote authenticity is to embody that person, you know, to just imagine myself into who that person is and to speak in that person's voice. And I've found, at least after the 30 years of killing myself, that it's not hard.

once you surrender to it. But again, I asked you that question about know thyself. I've never really, like The War of Art is a book that you could say is written in my voice. But not really, you know, that the sort of, the speaker in that book or the writer in that book is sort of me, but not really. It's kind of an avatar in a way. So seeking that authenticity, I'm thinking of a young writer, musician or whatever, trying to crack that nut, I'm not sure there really is an authentic individual that's you. But there is a voice, and the voice changes with the material.

I mean, I think Bob Dylan's albums are, you know, his songs, one is different from another. he's talking in one voice, another. One is, you know, kind of sentimental and sweet. Another one is really hardcore, you know. I think each song calls forth its own authentic voice, and the artist seeks that voice and hopefully finds it. Do you feel that, like, it's possible to become a truly fulfilled individual without facing the resistance that is inevitable in the creative process?

we must face the resistance in order to discover and refine who we are, like, you know, chiseling out of a marble to reveal the statue of our being. Now, when you say resistance on day, do you mean like resistance with a capital R? Like I would talk. Yeah, and I'd love for you to share with. Our own self-sabotage, that kind of thing? Yeah, the resistance that comes as a byproduct of our ego like you speak to. Ah. I don't see any way around it, no.

I mean, because nothing good ever came out of the ego. in terms of creativity, you know? When we're, like Rick Rubin, talks about this a lot, like that when you go into his studio, he doesn't want you if you're a musician. He doesn't want you there because you want to make a hit. He wants you there to find whatever it's in you that you love at the moment. What musical thing are you really into now,

whether you think it's crazy or nobody's going to like it or whatever? So I do think that's working kind of out of the soul or out of the self instead of out of the ego. So but to get to that place, you know, you got to go through a real thicket of those ego sabotage things that that stop you. Yeah. Yeah, it really seems as though resistance often comes as a byproduct of our thinking of what is good and what is bad. it's a comparative phenomena. And like you spoke to Rick and then also I'm sure, you know, I've heard you share as well. When we come into an idea or the creative process of what we think is going to be good or received well, almost from the perspective of what will be successful,

then we're kind of robbing ourselves of that authentic discovery of what really moves us in a way. And so, yeah, I would love for you to share a little bit more about comparison as, you know, what, you know, how that creates resistance. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's so hard to sort of detach yourself from that because we can't help but think, oh, you know, I would like to have a hit. I do want people to like whatever I'm doing. But at least I've found whenever I, I had some project where I thought, this one's right down, it's a fastball right over the plate, you know, it bombs, you know. And when I think, when I'm working on something that I think, this is really a dumb idea, I mean, I love it, but nobody else is going to love this. It's not just me being crazy.

Those are the ones that I think do resonate. And that's what Rick Ruben is looking for. The ones you love and you don't, you know, that hopefully what you think is great, an audience is going to think is great too, or at least a, you know, part of an audience is going to think is great. Yeah. So it's, but it's so tricky because we all have egos, but we got to, you know, get beyond it, I think, you know. A lot of times I look for something that I think is crazy, you know, if I have like two or three ideas, I'll, I'll try to, you know, I'll, I'll try to pick the one that I think is the crazy one because somehow, I mean, the goddess, I think knows. We think we know, but we don't know. And so, but again, it's tricky, very tricky.

Well, I'm curious, what is something you found really allows you to surrender the ego and the creative process outside of the continual process of just showing up. But how, after writing so many books and really committing yourself to the process in so many ways what's been in a really effective modality for you to surrendering and finding ease amongst that resistance. That's a great question. I mean, I do think that at least in the writing process, it's hard to express this, but there is a mindset where you get beyond self-consciousness. instead of thinking, oh, what is anybody going to, is anybody going to like this? Or is this really writing?

Am I really doing a book? Instead, you're just sort of disgorging stuff. And like jumping off a cliff or something like that, just entrusting yourself that what's going to happen is going to be okay. And even if it's terrible on the first draft, you hope it'll get better. it's you know it is a process of surrender a process of trust i think um how you get to that like for me it just took me forever to get past that kind of self-conscious thing yeah i don't know if that's an answer to your question yeah yeah i'm just curious that there's any other things that you've uh to help people get past the conditioning of other people's voices because i find in the

authentic like creative process journey of discovering what really moves us in many ways. It can be very muddy in our mind because we have so much conditioning from our parents or friends in culture of just like what's good, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, I think that I know for me and my kind of long process of self-education as a writer that I used to copy Hemingway or Henry Miller, I would literally put the book open

beside me and just type it, you know, for hours, you know. So that's like trying to inculcate another voice, right, just to find a true voice, even though it's not my voice. But I don't think there's any substitute, in my experience anyway, for going through that long process. I think, you know, if you're a musician, I'm sure you learn the various licks that Keith Richard did and, you know, Eric Clapton, whatever it is, right? you have to learn them, right?

And then at some point, your own voice does start to come out, I think, inevitably. It's like Robert Green in his book, Mastery. You know, he talks about the concept of apprenticing oneself to a mentor, because that's the way you learn. But then he says at some point, and I agree with this completely, we all have to kind of shake free of the mentor. You know, we have to say, what the fuck? I've got a voice too. There's something I want to do, and it's not the same thing

as whoever I've been studying under. And so that calls for a certain bit of courage to do it. But again, I would say, it's so hard to find that authentic thing when you're looking inside you for, who am I? Because I don't think it's there. I think it comes from when you fall in love with an idea,

when an idea seizes you, then you surrender. to that idea. And you just say, well, how can I serve this idea? Like, I'll give you one small example from my experience. There was a, I wrote a couple of books about Alexander the Great, but one of them was called The Virtues of War. And it was in Alexander the Great's voice, in the first person.

And so I thought to myself, how can I write him, Alexander the Great? Well, you know, what if he, you know, but you have, the process, you have to kind of just surrender to because I was seized by this thing, you know. And it is a process of like an actor gets into something, right? It's a process of the imagination where you just say to yourself, okay, I am, I am this person. Let me just start to do what this person would say. And I think like an actor searches for some little trick, you know, that, you know, a hat that you wear or something that suddenly you feel like you have the character. You do that. You do that. You know, a hat that you wear. You as a writer too. And so in other words, I don't think you're plumbing yourself, your real self or anything.

You're surrendering yourself to the material and then letting the material guide you. That's the way it certainly has worked for me. You spoke to the moments where you've been surprised in that process. We were like, whoa, I didn't expect that to come through you. Yeah. Do you have any examples? I'm sure maybe even that work with Alexander the Great or other pieces of work where you have surrendered, you know, yourself into the process and then you got surprised by what came through you. I mean, everything I've done has been that, you know.

There are different, you know, you write in other people's voices, you know, I wrote one book in the voice of an Englishman and others in the voices of various ancient characters. And even when you're writing in sort of your own voice, quote unquote, like, um, I wrote a book a few years ago called The Lions Gate that was about the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, where I went over to Israel and interviewed 75 pilots and da-da-da-da-da-da. And so in that case, the book was kind of a series of short things in the voices of these individual people. And so I would just sort of surrender to that voice. I had stuff on tape, and that was how that worked.

And it always was, like I say, it's always a surprise. In fact, I would say if it's not a surprise, something's wrong for me, in my experience anyway. So on that note, how much do you feel like this balance between talent and work ethic? What's the balance between the two and finding success in your creative expression? I'm a great believer that work is everything. You know, particularly for a writer because your writer has a long career, you know. You can be 70 years old, 80 years old, still working, you know. And, you know, I've said this before that, like, for 30 years, well, now people tell me that I have talent.

But for 30 years, they told me I was a bum, you know, and I was a bum because I hadn't learned how to do it. You know, I didn't have the confidence. I hadn't found a voice or a job. anything like that. So work, I think, is, you have to have, obviously, you have to have some talent, but work is 90% of it, I think. You can get better. That's the good news, you know. No matter how bad a first draft is, the ninth draft can be really good. Or no matter how bad you were when you're 26, when you're 46, you could be really good. You know, when you look back at what you wrote at 26th year, this is dog shit, you know?

but I'm not doing that anymore. I've learned and I can do better. So the good news for anybody that's struggling, I think, is that work does pay off. You can get better. You can learn more. You can improve. Yeah.

To me it feels very sad of, you know, there's that one quote of like the richest place on earth is the graveyard. All the people's die dreams, you know, that weren't expressed that go there. And I want to speak a little bit more into resistance with the capital R and its manifestations because part of that creative expression unlocking and, you know, being surprised by yourself, one of the struggles I find, you know, personally sometimes and often, you know, with a lot of people in the creative process is because we live in a world of infinite distractions, procrastination is very easy. And so I just love for you to share as, you know, how to overcome procrastination as, you know, resistance to, you know, resistance to, just putting your butt in the seat in writing or whatever people's creative expressions are because I don't know how many people listening to the show right now are writers, but we all use our creative energy in some capacity, right?

Well, you know, the whole subject matter of the war of art, my book The War of Art, is about what I call resistance with a capital R, which is that voice in our head that tells us, you know, we're not good enough, our idea isn't good enough, we're too old, We're too young. We're too fat. We're too thin. We went to a school, blah, blah, blah. And the other aspect of that is procrastination,

the susceptibility to distraction going down rabbit holes and, you know, click bait and stuff like that. And other things like perfectionism, where we'll spend all day working on one paragraph instead of moving forward. And there's a million ways that our ego will sabotage us, you know. And to me, job one of any creative person is to acknowledge that that is, you know, there is an enemy and the enemy is you. You know, the enemy is me. It's in us.

It's there. The minute we wake up in the morning, it's a dragon we have to slay every morning before we even sit down to work. Work is, that's easy compared with, like in the War of Art, it says something like, there's a secret that real writers know that want to be writers. don't know. And the secret is this. It's the writing is not the hard part. What's hard is sitting down to write. And I believe that completely. If you and what we all have to do in our own way, and everybody does it differently, is find some way to slay this dragon every morning to be able to work. Obviously, if you can't work, you can't do anything. But the first step to that, in my opinion, is recognizing that there is this negative force.

You know, you sit down at the blank page and it radiates off that blank page, right? You know, let's go to the beach, you know, let's smoke a joint, let's whatever, right? Something that the resistance is always trying to stop us from doing our work. So if we can believe that, accept it, feel it inside us, then we can overcome it. We can dismiss it and just say, well, bullshit, I'm just going to sit down and do my work. And it's, to me, it's like jumping into a cold pool. It's hard when you're standing on the edge. But once you're in the water, in other words, once you start writing or dancing or doing

whatever it is you're going to do, then, you know, that fear goes away. And fear is a huge part of it too, Andre, right? It's like fear of success, fear of failure, fear of destitution, fear of embarrassing yourself, fear of looking like an idiot. And somehow we all have to get past that. you know that i don't give a shit i'm going to do it anyway the pain when the pain of not doing the work becomes worse than the pain of doing the work then we'll actually sit down and do it yeah but the good news is once we start to do it immediately everything is okay you spoke to fear

there and it's many manifestations of perceptions from other people criticism you know fear of failure all those things and one thing in the war of art you do mention is potentially one of the biggest fears of all is the power of our light. Like what, you know, that we're more powerful beyond measure that, you know, that is also intimidating for so many of us because it's kind of, it's a death of a small self in a way to know and believe that you're capable of so much greatness and what that would mean to all the times where you didn't believe that. And I'm just curious for you to share about the power of our own light and the fear we have of it. It's a, it's a great one. I've never quite been able to grasp this myself.

But it is true. Like I think what you're quoting Marianne Williamson, I think, you know. And the idea that we really do have talent, I mean, that's a really scary thing, that we really can move the needle, that we really can produce something great. Because if that's true, then the onus is on us to do it, you know. And I think fear of success, even though I can't say exactly why, is the greatest fear. You know, more than fear of failure, I think. But I can't really say why.

It's so scary. But it is scary. It's a real responsibility. And if you don't bring it forth, it's an insult to God, to the universe, to ourselves. You know, it's a terrible insult. Like you say, the graveyard, you know, is full of people that didn't bring it forth because they were afraid. They were afraid that it would be great. it's so interesting. I'm wondering if we can spend just a little bit more time on this and see if we can come to any understanding as to why it's doing. What do you think? What is fear of success? Why is it so powerful? I mean, I can imagine that we just have so much conditioning around what it would mean about all the times where we didn't live up to our potential. If we're in our midlife and we just realize the power of our being, what does that mean about what we spent the rest of our life doing, that we lived a thwarted life the right?

rest of it. That's kind of a painful reality, pill to swallow. So maybe that's one thing. Mm-hmm. I mean, another thing I can think of is that in a democracy, we're always taught that, you know, we're all equal, right? So, and it's the sort of the tall poppy syndrome, right? If anyone that stands out becomes immediately, oh, he's an egomaniac and let's cut him down to size. And we all, and also you sort of think to yourself, well, if I dare stand out, what does that mean that I'm, I think I'm better than my buddies. I'm better than my mother and my father. I'm better than my brother and sister, better than my wife. You know, you don't want to be in that, you know, maybe that's a fear. I do think that some people, I can't really relate to this myself,

but I've certainly heard this before that people are afraid to stand out because they're afraid they'll be better than their father or better than their mother. You know, it's like, why, you know, that that's a terrible thing, you know? What I left them behind or they weren't good enough? People that loved me and brought me into this world. And so you say, well, I better not be better than they are, you know? Maybe that's part of it. I'm just sort of guessing, you know?

No, I definitely feel like so many of us think there's something noble and minimizing our light or ability to shine because it might make other people uncomfortable, which is a reflection and a trigger really for them to, to, to, to realize why that is. Earl Nightingale has that quote along the lines of the, in modern society, the opposite of courage is not cowardice, but conformity. And I feel like that really is true. It's so comfortable to conform and to just fit in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think as we're talking about this, I'm thinking that I've always been fascinated by the character of Alexander the Great. and one of the reasons I think,

you never really know kind of why, but he was somebody that had no fear of success. I mean, from the time he was like 10 years old, he said, I'm going to conquer the world, you know? My father's already halfway done it. I'm going to put him in the shade. I'm going to do it. And that sort of was, I guess,

really appealed to me because I must have had some or must have some of that kind of aspiration myself, but was afraid or am afraid to embrace it. And so I sort of was fascinated by this character that wasn't afraid at all. Now, here's another thing. I'll throw this out there. Maybe this will spark more conversation between us.

The concept of the daemon, D-A-I-M-O-N, right, which is a Greek word that means a kind of an inhering spirit that sort of is us but is not us in a way. And the Latin equivalent of that is the word genius, like if we think of Leonardo da Vinci or whatever. And Alexander definitely talked about his demon and that it was a, it was him, it was like Alexander with quotation marks. And that this, whatever this spirit was, it was capable of things,

it was, there was something monstrous about it. It was capable, it had no fear, it was capable of real cruelty. It was capable of great events, great achievements that the actual Alexander might not have, you know, dared to do. And he was simultaneously intoxicated with this demon and also afraid of it. Because if he felt like this was kind of madness, if you sort of gave yourself over to this force, maybe that has something to do with why we fear success. Maybe we sort of feel like, you know, you see people in this world like Trump, that it's out of control in them, you know.

They are just malignant egomaniacs, you know? And we think, oh, fuck, I don't want, what if, what if I were to let that genie out of the bottle? Maybe that's part of why we're afraid. But we are afraid, that's for sure. Yeah. I think so much of it is a perceived death too. Like to become the big capital-s-self, the small ego self has to experience death to some degree, right?

Yeah, completely, right? Yeah. But is that, but what is that, though? That's, I mean, if we're leaving the small ego behind, I would hope we're going into the self with the capital S, which would be a positive thing. But there also must, there's always a devil you know, to go with the angel.

Maybe we're afraid of... Demons and demons. Yeah. Yeah. These are great questions, Andre. Yeah. You know, I'm glad we dove into this. I would love for you to share a little bit more

about your process of ambition because a lot of us feel this urge and want to live a big life and really just become fulfilled in our creative journey and so much of what we're speaking to. But it is scary for so many people. And part of us just has to surrender

and admit to ourselves that it's okay to be ambition. and it's okay to want big things and to play at a big level and to shine bright, you know, and it's tough when we're surrounded by so many people that conform and want, you know, it's comfortable to stay small, you know, get a degree, get a job, working 40 years, retire, you know. And that's very comfortable. It's the norm. But for the big dreamers out there that are listening right now, I would just love for you to share somewhat of a permission slip to really go for it.

Well, I agree with that. I mean, I don't live a big life, you know. I'm certainly not, you know, hobnobbing with anybody or anything like that. But in my work, when I'm in my room with the keyboard, I am trying to write Moby Dick or whatever it is that, you know, whatever biggest idea I have, I am trying to do that. Even if it gets out there and nobody gives a shit, you know, or nobody even knows it's there. which happens most of the time. And I do think that that is, you know, I give myself permission to do that, and I give everybody that's watching here permission to do that. In fact, I would say if you have a choice between two ideas and one is medium size and the other is giant size, for sure, go for the giant size thing.

Even if you fail, there's something really empowering about allowing yourself, you know, It's like letting a thoroughbred racehorse run. I think we all have that in us. And it's great to let the reins go a little bit. It's really empowering. Yeah, there's something inherently expansive about choosing to go after something you don't know how to get

because in the pursuit of that, you have to become a new version of yourself that you're not currently. And that feels like the true process of stretching and expanding yourself because if we just always go after what we know we can get, then there's no uncertainty, there's no potential failure. And if we're not risking the capacity to fail and fall in our self, then we're not also gracing herself with the ability to learn and to grow.

And so much of that, I feel like comes to that process. But I think the key element here is that we really fall in love with this thing that we want, that we're seized by it, you know, that we're not just being. picking something because we feel intellectually, oh, I got to do something big. If you don't love it, you're not going to have the passion for it to do it. But if you do love it,

then the shackles are off, you know, and go for it, you know. For people that don't feel like they've discovered what that is, that really lights them up like that, do you think it's just a process of exploring and trying more things? I do, I do. But one, if there is any kind of shortcut,

which I don't think there is any shortcut of anything, is to ask yourself, what am I most afraid of? If you have three or four options that you're thinking about doing, which one scares you the most? And that's the one you should do. Again, this is like the theory of resistance and the principle of resistance with the capital R, that the reason we feel fear towards a certain form,

project is that's our resistance. That's our self-sacare. That's this voice of the devil, this dragon, trying to stop us from coming into our own and being who we really are. And it's trying to scare us. And it does scare us, right? So when we feel that big fear, that's a good sign. That's a great sign because it says, that's the one we got to do. And another thing I've been thinking about recently is self-doubt. when you're in when you're trying to decide on something you want to do and once you've started to do it that self-doubt is a good sign because it's just like fear it's resistance it's the it's the devil trying to stop you from doing it and so when you feel doubt about something I know it's tricky because it could be like some shitty idea that you legitimately feed it but usually it's not it's

almost always a really good idea that the self-doubt is the voice of resistance, trying to stop us from doing this thing. And in fact, I sort of have evolved this principle recently for myself that if I don't feel self-doubt, maybe for the first nine months of some project I'm working on, something's wrong. I want to feel that self-doubt. Or when I do feel it, I take it as a good sign. Yeah. This is why it's so tricky to navigate these waters because resistances are diabolical force that uses every kind of trick and deception against us. It's so true.

There's just so many different ways that, you know, from imposter syndrome like you're speaking to where you just the self-doubt creeps in and like, who am I to, you know, create something like this. I'm not skilled enough. I'm not talented enough. I'm not young enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not whatever.

fell in the blank enough. In fact, let me say right now, I would say if any of us feel imposter syndrome, that's a good sign because that, again, is resistance trying to stop us. So, and the answer to that is to sort of say to resist, this is bullshit, you know, I am capable of doing this. And even if we're not capable of it at the start, when we start to do it, we'll become capable of it as we go along. And that's another really interesting thing is that once we get into the creative flow,

once we sort of commit to something, unseen forces come to our aid, as I'm sure you know. And things that we couldn't do on Tuesday, we can do on Thursday. I don't know why, but, you know, it's the goddess, it's somebody, it's something. Forces come to our aid. They see the courage that we show. They see the commitment. They say, this person's got some balls. We're going to help them, you know?

And all of a sudden, we can do what we couldn't do two days earlier. That ring so true for me. There's the kind of... Please talk about it. Well, there's the quote first, that the acronym or whatever of fear, which I'm sure many people have seen, which is either fear everything and run or face everything and rise. And you're speaking to the... second one where we use actually obstacles and resistance as the way in order to refine those

gifts coming online. I even felt like this podcast, there was uncertainties and fears, but ultimately it was that thing that felt like the most in alignment with my Dharma and what I wanted to bring forth in the world. And so as I listened to it, I did feel like there were like universal, unseen forces that really helped support me and gave me resources and connections and supported me listening to that voice. And it's just what you're speaking to. And I think it's a really important reminder that once you do face your fears and rise and commit yourself to the process and do the work and these things, we do get kind of,

it feels like unseen outside help that support the process or even plant seeds and different things. Yeah, it's definitely true. It doesn't seem like it should be true. It seems counterintuitive. but everyone I've talked to about this says the same thing that you just said, Andre, you know. And it's even crazy in that things like money coming to you, you know, that, you know, it's material things. It isn't just, oh, I've got a vision or I have some good ideas, but that's true too.

But also, like you say, lucky breaks that you didn't deserve, you know, or people come into your life that can say, let me put you in touch with so-and-so. And all of a sudden the door opens and there you are. but it all kind of comes, I think, from that initial courage and initial commitment, you know, to really, okay, I'm going to go for this, you know, I'm not going to fuck around anymore. I'm going to go for it. The gods see it. You know, bold, what is it? Fortune favors the bold. There's truth to that. I wonder if there's, I'm sure, like, it feels that there's an analogy between nature and our own nature, like nature, unadulterated by the human species, kind of, always gets what it needs in many ways, you know? And, you know, when I think about trees or, you know, a garden, and it feels like the more that we align with our own nature, we kind of get what we need in many ways. And of course, there's pitfalls, there's resistance in different things. But it just feels like we get supported in so many different ways, like I said, by discovering that

nature. Yeah, I agree with it. Yeah. This is great. I'm really loving this. It feels like we come into life with just like a blank page. Like the story of our life, the book of our life is kind of, it's a blank book when we first come in here. And then it's upon us to write the story of our life. And so this is going to be, I guess, I want to kind of go into some more meta questions and your perspective on these things. First, do you feel like we are actively writing the story of our life or it's being written?

That's a great question. I certainly believe that we don't come in as a blank slate. I think we're, you know, whether you believe in previous lives or not, which I certainly do, I think... I agree with this, by the way. I was more so referring to, like, the future of our life is yet to be kind of seen. Yeah. But I do think, like, if you come from a family of three kids, from the minute you're born, each kid is its own personality, right?

And there's no way that you can force one into the other. So where does that come from? You know, we sort of, you know, it's like that Wordsworth poem of, you know, not in whatever it is of come, we come trailing clouds of glory, whatever it is, that we come into this life with our own, I'm not even sure what Dharma means, but it's something like that, with our own aspiration, our own kind of sense of humor, our own consciousness, and our own demons, our own crimes maybe that we have to have to make up for. or something like that. And so I don't think that we can be anything we want to be, but I do think that our role is to find out who we actually are and then become that, allow that to happen. If we have a gift to find out what that gift is,

and not just for ourselves, but to give that gift, that's kind of, I hope, that's God's, you know, overwhelming, you know, overweening plan for this whole thing. Yeah. For those that want the story of their life to be powerful, but currently feel it's lackluster for a better term. What advice do you have for people? I know we share a lot of things right now, but people that don't feel like they've come fully alive and they haven't kind of discovered that their voice. And, you know, what do you have for people that kind of feel lost in that regard? Well, I would certainly say one thing that I was lost myself for years. I didn't publish, get anything published until I was 52 years old. You know, I worked a million jobs.

I was broke forever. So there's a lot to be said, I think, for even when you think you're lost, you're really not. You're on your hero's journey. And in some way that you can't understand at the moment, you're on the right path. And when you look back, you'll be able to say, oh, gee, that all made sense. A, B, C, well. So, but I would say two things. Look for whatever it is you really love.

You know, what, you know, if nothing else counted and you only had to do what you really love, what is that, you know? And the second thing is, what are you most afraid of? And a lot of times they're the same thing, you know. The other thing I would say to anybody young that was struggling is it's a long life, you know? You don't have to solve it by the time you're 26 years old or 36 years old. or 36 years old, you know, somebody like me took forever, you know. Sometimes people get it early and sometimes it takes a long time. I remember a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, his name was Paul Rink.

You probably know him from the stuff I've written about. We had a friend, or he had a friend, who had, he'd been a merchant marine guy, he was in prison, He'd gone through all kinds of hell. And when we knew him, when I knew him, he was a writer and he was doing great, you know. And I said to Paul one day, I said, you know, how do you explain it? You know, the crap, this guy's been through the ordeals. And now he's doing great. And he said, suffering never hurt any writer than I know of.

And he might say that for artists or anybody else. Suffering never hurt anybody. So it certainly didn't hurt this guy. I love that. Would you share a little bit more of your own process when your own story for like the pieces of work that first kind of started to get big notoriety up into the point of like the war of art where you feel like your career hadn't really taken off to the degree you would have maybe liked? Just I would love for you to share your journey of coming to that point. Okay. I mean, I'm not sure how much detail and gory detail you want to hear. but my first job was in advertising in New York. I was like a junior copyrighter at a big ad agency,

and I had a boss who wrote a novel, and it became a hit. And I kind of said to myself, well, shit, why don't I do that, you know? So I quit, and I tried to write a novel, and of course it was something like way beyond me. I had no clue what resistance was, no clue what. Anyway, the whole thing, you know, when I got like, 99% of the way through, I blew it up. You know, I cheated on my wife.

I blew up everything, you know. Resistance. Couldn't cross the finish line, fear of success, all that sort of stuff, right? And so I sort of wound up kind of on the road and living in the back of my Chevy van for years. You know, and I worked in oil fields in Louisiana. I taught school. I drove trucks. I picked fruit as a migrant laborer, that kind of thing, and didn't write, you know, had didn't

anything for years. And finally, I sort of had a moment that I talked about in the War of Art, where I finally was able to kind of take my old typewriter out, sit down and start to write, even though it was garbage, whatever I wrote, but I felt like, ah, this worked for me. I sat down crazy, and I got up sane. And I thought, okay, I've now turned a corner. I've found something that works for me. But then, as it is in real life, with a breakthrough like that, it takes another 20 years before anything actually pays off.

So from then on, I sort of, I would work, save money, write a novel. Nobody would buy it. I couldn't sell it to anybody. Work, save money, did it again, three different times. finally, I reached a point, am I going into too much detail? I love all this. Please take up your time. Finally, like the third time I did this, I'm now like 36 or something like that,

driving a cab in New York City. And I thought, I just can't do this again. I can't do a fourth one. I can't take another four years and have nothing happened. So at that point, suddenly I had a kind of a flash. I said, why don't I go to California? Why don't I go to Hollywood and try to be a screenwriter? you know that I've failed as a novelist let me fail as a screenwriter so I did come out here

and took about four or five years writing scripts that nobody bought couldn't sell anything to anybody but I did have an agent and one day he said to me he was a good agent a guy named Mike Werner he said what if I teamed you up with an older established writer and you would be the junior member of the team, another client of his, in other words. And, you know, you'll have to work your ass off, but you'll at least get work because the established writer will bring it in, you know. So I did do that. I teamed up with one of the original writers of the first alien. And for like about five years, I did that. And that was a great experience. It was a mentor, protege experience. And then he and I had a painful divorce. And then I sort of had a stumbling, bumbling

career by myself for a while. And by now I'm 50-something years old. And finally, the idea for the legend of bag of ants kind of popped in. Talked about being seized by something. I was just seized by this thing. And at that point, I wrote it as a book and it worked. It was the first thing that actually worked and, you know, that brought. And then I had, from then on, I would say I've been a legitimate writer.

And so that was, like I say, I was 52 years old at that time. So, but along the way, certainly when I was working in the movies, I was learning. And I was making money. I could pay the rent. I actually bought a house. And so it wasn't all kind of wastes of time. How do you deem what is work? worthy of pursuing? Wouldn't you have a creative idea or something you want to write or create?

Like I said before, I asked myself, what am I most afraid of? And also, I ask myself, do I love it? If I, and I do this, you know, to this day, because I've always been, I've always been a spec writer, meaning I'm willing to write the whole thing on speculation. I don't need a deal. Nobody has to give me a contract. And so I have to ask myself, if I put in two years, three years on this thing and I never sell it, is it going to be worth it to me? Do I still want to do it? And a lot of times I answer, yes, I do want to do it. It's worth it to me.

And so that's kind of what do I love? And like I said before, that it's a surprise. A lot of times for me, the thing that I love, in my assessment is not commercial. I don't look at it and I say, oh, this is a hit. All I got to do is do this. Instead, I think to myself, this is the dumbest idea anybody's ever had. I love it, but nobody else is going to love it.

And that's a good sign, I think, at least for me, because if you love it, maybe other people will love it too. So that's really what I'm looking for. Does it seize me? Do I, you know, like Linda Ronstadt talks about a certain song that she might come on. And she says, I can't not do it. There's just something that grabs her. I can't let this go.

I got to do it. That's the thing I look for. What do you think about us doing the thing that really we love makes it so that it has the ability to receive the big notoriety? You know, like we spoke to earlier, how when we try to make something we think is going to be number one, often it doesn't work. But when we do oftentimes follow what we just really. really love and want to do. What about that energy of it infuses it with the potential for more success? It's again, it's kind of a mystery with a capital M. I think it is energy. Somehow the love that you put into it, it's sort of like cooking, right? Somebody that makes a, you know, a jambalai

or a gumbo or something and they put someone, your grandmother, right? She puts in so much love into it. Everybody loves it, you know, even though technically it maybe has the same ingredients as anything else. I don't know, there is some kind of magic when you really do love something. That's, I feel like that's so true. Like somebody could just make a dish or something just by putting the ingredients together. But somebody who really loves it, there's some sort of magical X factor. You don't even need to be good at it, right? You're just something there is.

It's an X factor. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about that process of when lightning strikes. These are great questions, by the way, Andre. I just say you're doing a great job. Thank you, man. Yeah, well, I'm so fascinated and, you know, I'm doing something I love right now. So this process of when lightning strikes, whether it's the first sentence of a line in a piece of poetry or a chord progression or a lyric, we have these moments where we have a big aha or something comes through that feels uniquely exciting that just opens this up creatively in a unique way.

And we spoke to how the more that we simply show up and do the work, the more that we can. become lucky and have those moments. I want to speak to the difference between turning pro and being amateur because a lot of people might have this creative hobby on the size, something they love doing, but then to make the decision that I'm going to become a professional in this, which I really admire and people that take the step and leap into the arena. There's that whole quote of the man in the arena. And committing yourself to that process. So I would just love for you to share a little bit more about turning pro versus being an amateur, the key differences, and yeah, becoming available for the lightning that can strike in those moments. You might have to remind me about the turning pro thing.

Let me just one thing that you said before about when lightning strikes, because this is, in my experience, it's, it has taken, like, I'll have an idea that's a flash, and then I'll immediately kind of forget it or I'll write it down and I'll just sort of dismiss it. It'll sort of have to sit there and cook for a while. You know, I think it's maybe, you know, in the hero's journey, there's the call, which is immediately followed by the refusal of the call. And I think that when you have a flash of something that is really good, you immediately, maybe it's fear of success, you immediately sort of go, oh, shit, I better not do, you know,

that's too, you know. And you're not even aware of it. I'm not even aware of it. I'll like just, you know, I'll write it down. Oh, that's a pretty good idea. Let me put it in a file or whatever. And then for me, it's like maybe two months later, I'll sort of come back to it. I go, you know, that was a pretty good idea.

You know, let me take a, and then I'll maybe I'll do some work on it. You know, I'll do an outline or just whatever, you know, and now put it away again. And then, you know, a few months later, then I'll say, you know, whatever happened, that was a good idea. And then finally I'll go, oh, shit, you know, I'm ready. So in other words, I'm saying this thing. anybody that's listening to us that is thinking, oh, wait, I get some lightning flash and it'll work. At least in my experience, it takes a little while because you got to kind of psych yourself into doing it.

And, you know, it's like it knocks on the door and then it goes away. And it has to come back and knock on the door again and finally you get it. At least that's my experience in, like right now, I have an idea that for the next book that I might write. And I'm deep in the self-doubt phase of it, you know, where I've thought. about, I've been thinking about this for like three years. And each time I come up, I say, this is a really dumb idea, you know? And I'm still in that stage.

I haven't, but at some point, hopefully I'll go, fuck it, you know? This is, let me do it, you know? It hasn't happened yet, but I'm certainly, it's a long process for me. But back to turning pro and being an amateur. Yeah. When I sort of was stumbling and bumbling around and could never really get it together,

I thought, what am I doing wrong? You know, am I, you know, is there something wrong with me? Or am I sick? Am I crazy or something like that? And I eventually, I sort of thought, what it really is, is I've been attacking this like an amateur. I've been a weekend warrior, you know, when. I haven't taken it seriously enough. I haven't really committed. We talked before, you know, Andre, about like, once you commit, those unseen forces come to you. And I think that that,

that was a big breakthrough for me to say, I'm going to think of myself as a professional. Even though I might not be making any money, I'm going to think of myself as, as a pro, you know. I'm JD Soundser, you know, I'm Ernest Hemingway, whatever it is, I'm going to, because like an amateur, when an amateur is confronted with adversity, an amateur folds. But a pro takes adversity in stride

and goes for it. Like, somebody like Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, they play hurt. You know? Yeah. They know, you know, if I'm an amateur and I have a problem thing with my ankle, I don't know, let me sit down. You know, but not Michael Jordan's not going to do that and Kobe's not going to do that. And the same thing

in a pro, a pro, shows up every day. You know, a pro, another thing about a pro as opposed to an amateur is an amateur worries about how they feel. You know, it's like, oh, I don't feel like doing this today. But a pro doesn't give a shit about how they feel. They get up and they do it, you know, no matter what. How I feel doesn't count, you know.

I've got a job to do, I got to do it. So, and once you kind of do that, make that switch in your mind and, say, you know, I'm a professional. It's really empowering. You know, one of the things I talk about, I think it's in the War of Art. It's like when I was in the screenwriting business, there's a thing that most screenwriters incorporate themselves. They don't have a contract, you know, as themselves to do writing, but as their corporation, and the phrase is FSO, four services of. And so the idea of like incorporating yourself and thinking of yourself as well i'm general motors you know or i'm a business now you know i'm not an artist that's going to fold if things get too rough or or i'm going to be

such a prima donna or a diva that i'm not going to accept this you're thinking of yourself i'm a business you know i'm incorporated i got to pay taxes i got a bottom line to do then that's a very empowering thing even if you just think of yourself that way you don't literally incorporate yourself So that's a really great way to think of yourself. I think the process of any creative thing, if you're a dancer, a photographer, whatever, it's like it goes on two tracks. There's this sort of airy-fairy side of it

with the muse and the goddess and where does it all come from. And then there's the daily blue collar sitting down, grinding it out, showing up to do the work every day, the pro side of it. And the two go hand in hand. They're not compatible, but they go hand in hand. You know, I don't know. I'm blathering on here.

That's all very, very useful. And also practical advice that if you feel like you have to motivate yourself every day to do something, that's very much so an amateur. But the pro is disciplined, right, and just shows up regardless of their feelings. And otherwise, you know, you're just not going to get those moments where lightning strikes as often. or you're not going to, you know, you kind of have to go through a lot of the bad ideas, I feel like right to get the good ones.

Lightning strikes when you just sit down day after day after day and you finally forget about the lightning, then it happens. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it is, it's very, this, the creative business or world is a really hard world because you're alone, basically.

Particularly if you're a writer, if you're a dancer, if you're a photographer, even if you're in the movie business where it's a collaborative thing, you don't have that structure, that external structure like you would have if you were in the army or something, you know, or you were working for a corporation where you have, you get a paycheck at the end of the two weeks, you get medical insurance, right, and you have a boss that tells you what to do, that rewards you, pat you on the back. When you're, you know, an individual creator, or a writer, artist, whatever, you have to supply that yourself.

Self-validation, self-reinforcement, self-belief. It's hard. Nobody teaches you that in school. And that's kind of, maybe that's why it takes so long, or at least it did for me, to learn these things, you know? Because, you know, it's not in a textbook. You got to, it's in, it's in, you learn it in the trenches. I feel like the creative arts, inherently people that are in that field,

they're more sensitive to life. They have a higher sensitivity. They have greater access to the beauty and the pain, the full spectrum of what it means to be human. And on the flip side, I feel like a lot of sensitive individuals are more at the whims of their emotions and aren't as able to discipline themselves. And so I do want to talk a little bit about the process of developing these ancillary skill sets also of marketing and selling and sharing our work is a whole different. skill set than the creation process, which is, you know, comes by virtue of being sensitive. Yeah. Yeah.

That's, that's, it's, well, there's sort of two parts of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the, first of all, I think sensitivity is very highly overrated and is a bunch of bullshit usually, you know, and I certainly think that everybody's sensitive, you know. I think that, and feels pain, I mean, you listen to country songs, you know, everybody's in agony. But I think as a working dancer, musician, professional, whatever it is, you have to compartmentalize that sensitive side and then the work side, you know, that shows up in the studio and does the work.

You know, you're not allowed to be drunk. You're not allowed to, you know, fuck off. You've got to show up for the goddess, you know, and for the thing. Then the marketing thing, that's a whole other world. That's been a real challenge for me. And I think for most creative people, I mean, I know a few painters, and they notoriously underpriced their work, you know. Oh, here it is. It's only $65.

You know, I said, what? That should be $5,000, you know? And I guess we're sort of so timid of, you know, and we don't want to, and we don't want to go out and sell our own stuff, you know. And I certainly don't. It's like you wish you had a third party saying, oh, this guy's really great, you know, to have to sell it as. You know, but these days, the way the world, you know, with Amazon, with Google, with the fact that the world has changed for music, for everything, right? The individual, creative person does have to be the face of their brand. It's hard.

Yeah. But, you know, like the reason I'm here talking to you partly is to get the brand out there, you know, so people know, oh, I've heard of this guy, you know, da-da-da. and it sort of has to be done. Otherwise, the way I try to look at it is like, particularly if it's fiction, if it's, I'm thinking about a book that I've written with characters, that I love these characters, they can't go out and sell themselves, you know? I've got to be their champion. Yeah.

I love that. And so that motivates me, but it is really hard. It's a whole skill set that I think the creative type person, a lot of times, is an introvert. I certainly am. You don't want to, you know, I'm even suspect of when I see people that can really sell so great, I think, how can this person really be an artist? You know, they're full of shit, you know? But it is, I feel like it is rare. It's not necessarily true, but. But it is more rare, I feel like, you know, because a lot of, like you said, creative people tend to be introverts and love to be in their own studio, creating their thing, and to put themselves on TikTok or YouTube and

like talking about the product or it is a whole different skill set. It can feel very intimidating. But in many ways, like you spoke to you, you do need to be the champion for your artwork and recognize the value that it has because you spoke to how often painters and creatives really undervalued their work and also themselves. And this is something, I feel like in my own personal journey, I've been able to be a little bit more audacious and like for a consulting gig or whatever like really demand my worth and if people just don't meet it then they don't meet it but that also makes you a match to the people that will pay the $5,000 for your painting and you deserve to make money and do make a handsome living doing the thing that makes you you

you know come alive the most in life but somehow we just equate the creative arts to be less I guess valuable than most people what most people think in the marketplace. Yeah. But again, it's sort of an amateur versus professional concept where you sort of have to, your thinking brain says, look, somebody has to market this thing. I can't hire anybody to do it. I have to do it.

I might not want to do it, but I've got to learn how to do this thing, one way or another. And of course, like, we can have to have something valuable that other people find valuable, but I also, like I've talked with a couple of people that are coaches and they have their coaching packages or whatever. And like, if they charge $100 or $200 for an hour, like, God bless whatever people want to charge, but time is our life in many ways. You know, and if we're giving somebody an hour a day, a month of our time committed attention towards them,

like, what do we value on that time? Because that is our life investing into something else. So I feel like that helps us shift into, you know, not just what is the thing, but like what do I value my own life energy in this thing, you know, which is going to, that's, that's more expensive. Yeah. But for whatever reason, it's hard to do. It is. It's hard to do. Another question that is coming to mind is this idea of reducing something to its maximum.

Like when we have, I've never heard that one before. When we have a book, a podcast, something that we want to share with the world, how do you discern how to cut out the fluff of what doesn't necessarily need to be there and refining the thing into a whole as a greater piece of art. How would it mean your own process and editing and yeah. Well, one thing

when I was in advertising, when I was a young copy cub in advertising, you would like say a 60 second commercial or a 30 second radio commercial can only have like a 60 second can only have a certain number of words and you would have to like bring a script

into your boss It's kind of like being in the newspaper business. And your boss would say, this is way too long. Get out of here, cut it. And, you know, you do that like a thousand times. And you finally sort of learn that, you know, what is absolute, how can we boil us down to the absolute essentials? And I definitely tried to do that, you know.

It's like there was a thing that in the movie business where they would say that there was never a script. that wasn't better when 10% was cut from it. And once you've got the 10%, cut another 10%. And it's a great exercise as a writer or as any kind of artist to look at a finished thing and say, what can I pull out of here? Because almost always, if you can pull something out

and it doesn't make it worse, and it doesn't leave a hole, then it's stronger. Sometimes you can't pull anything out. Sometimes you do need the carburetor, you do need the brakes, you do need the steering wheel. But sometimes when you can pull something out, it makes it stronger.

But that's a skill that you can learn, I think, just by doing it over and over. In that process, I guess kind of jumping earlier into the creative process now, you have a prayer, the prayer to the muse, right? Would you mind sharing? Do you have a committed to memory like that? I do.

It's a, this is, it's, It's also in my book, The War of Art. The prayer is in there. And the backstory of this thing, again, this is sort of what we talked before about. We're on the material plane. The goddess is on a higher plane, and we're trying to get her to intercede on our behalf. And this mentor of mine, Paul Rink, that I mentioned earlier,

he used to live on, he's like 30 years older than me. We lived on the same street in Carmel Valley. up north and I used to have breakfast with him every morning. I'd have a cup of coffee with I'd go on his place and have a cup of coffee with him. He kind of taught me stuff about, you know, the writer's life and everything. One of the things he taught me was this prayer to the muse, which he typed out for me and it's the, it's the invocation of the muse from the Odyssey, from Homer's Odyssey, the translation by T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. And, uh, What Paul taught me was the concept that even Homer, the greatest writer or whatever that ever lived,

is first thing before he started, this is the absolute start of the Odyssey. Before he gets into the story, he invokes the goddess. And he basically says, you know, help me tell this story. It starts out, oh, divine poise, goddess, daughter of Zeus. sustain for me this song of the various-minded man. And then he goes on to describe, you know, Odysseus' story. And it kind of ends with, make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, oh, muse. So he's really the writer, the artist, is exhibiting humility.

And he knows that he can't summon the muse, he can't command the muse, this higher dimension. all he can do is kind of offer a prayer. He's kind of an invoker and hope that she'll come to his aid. And so Paul kind of impressed that on me, that that's the way the creative world works. And so I've done, you know, he typed this out and gave it to me, and I still have it. And I still start every day like that.

And I think it's a great thing to do. like if you and I were working in a meditation class with a teacher or we were in martial arts class with a teacher when we would enter the dojo or the zendo or whatever it is you know we'd put our hands together like this

and we'd bow to the sensei right and to the room and to the space and to our fellow students and that's kind of the same thing I'm sort of invoking this unseen power and if facing our own ego, not going in there saying, okay, I'm going to really kick some ass today, but saying, you know, I recognize this is a mysterious process and there are forces beyond me that I can't

see, that I want to invoke. And so, you know, showing respect to those forces and asking humbly for their aid. I think that's a powerful practice we can all implement in whatever regard, whatever that invocation is, to open up the space. before we create and helps us get into our zone and own our territory and like these things that you speak to as well, I think is really powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Let me talk on the marketing side of something.

Sure. Here we are. Let me talk about for a minute. Yeah. This book that I have that's coming out now. Yeah. It's live in action right now. See, this is the artist.

So this is the marketing action. Yeah. It's a book called The Daily Press Field. And it's right up the street of what we're talking about. It's a 365 day kind of devotional, day one, day two, day three, day four. And it's designed for anybody that is an individual artist, creative person, entrepreneur, who is about to undertake or is undertaking a long-term project, like writing a novel or making a movie. And they're on their own.

They don't have a structure supporting them. and they need to have self-discipline, self-validation, self-reinforcement, all that sort of stuff, to fend off resistance that they're going to feel for as they go through this. So this is what the whole point of this book is. Like chapter one, I'm selling this now, is called Resistance Wakes Up With Me. And it talks about that people have asked me, when in your day do you experience resistance? and I say the minute I open my eyes. And the reason that's chapter one is because anybody that's starting a long-term project,

the first thing I want them to be aware of is a minute you open your eyes on morning number one, this dragon is going to hit you immediately, right? And you need to be aware of that and be ready for it. You know, and this sort of this day, day one, a little short chapter, ends with just the idea of So therefore, let us kind of gird our loins for this year that we're going to work through, that we're going to have to face this dragon every morning. So that's just the first thought. And then the book kind of takes you all the way through, you know, a year, including things like,

what if it fails? What if this never goes anywhere? And things like that. So anyway, it's called the daily press field. And it can be, we're selling it. This is actually my significant other, Diana Wilburne and me. We're self-publishing this thing. It can be bought three ways.

You can get it on Amazon, where it's just the book itself or through my website, which is my name, Stephen Pressfield. You can get two different ways. One is just a really nice signed copy. And the other way is what we sent to you, which is like a really kind of a high-end gift box that comes with a journal that goes along with this thing. and some gift cards and things like that and in a great package that would make a gift

for anybody that was struggling. If you have any creative person in your life that is being defeated by their own self-sabotage, etc., that this is a great book to really kind of walk them through a long-form project. So that was me marketing this thing that can't stand up on its own two legs and say its own talk for its own self.

So anyway, it's a good book. All right, great. Well, we have it here now. The Daily Press Field, awesome. I think it's really powerful to have, like, a ritual as you go into your creative process and almost have something that's like accountable, an accountability system that can guide you along the process. So it's really cool. We have 365 little chapters and guides as well through that process.

So we'll link everything down below. And thanks for, yeah, thanks for sharing. sharing yourself with us in this way too, because these tools and I know how many creatives you've helped with your books and your nonfiction writings is just, for me, it's been immensely helpful. And I know for many creatives and artists to help contextualize the process of resistance in creativity and how to, to me, very much so is the process of self-actualizing in this creative process. And so thank you for doing all the work that you're doing. Ah, okay.

I mean, I do think, like we talked before about, we inhabit this material plane, right? Yeah. And the higher plane is what we're trying to reach. But in between the two is this negative force, resistance with a capital R. And its whole job is to stop our prayers from reaching this higher level and to stop their intercession from reaching us.

So job one for any creative person, entrepreneur, whatever, is to find some way to get through that force that's blocking us. Now, we could also say it's our ego and our self, right? That this is the ego here and the self that we're trying to reach. So it's all inside ourselves, but it's this negative force has to be overcome or it will defeat us. It will kill us. Yeah.

Thank you so much. I think it's such a powerful reminder. And I'd be curious for everybody that's listening in to write in the comments or just let us to know in which ways you've been able to overcome and face this own resistance in your life because I feel like the greater this understanding spreads and the work that you're doing in many people about this whole creative process. The stories that we tell and the music that we make and the art that we share in the world, I feel like is really what moves the needle in terms of our capacity to. raise consciousness on this planet. There's this beautiful quote from Tony Kbanbar, I believe, that says it's the artist's responsibility to make the revolution irresistible. That's great.

I never heard that before. Yeah. And I really believe it. It's true. Yeah. Amazing. Any last words that you have to share that you'd like to share with the audience? One, here's one thought on the subject of resistance.

That the way resistance fools us, it appears as a voice in our head, right? the voice that says you're unworthy, or the voice that says, let's do this distraction, or the voice it says, let us be perfectionists and divas and prima donnas. And the voice that appears in our head pretends to be us. The way it fools us is we think it's our thoughts rationally assessing something. Like, I really don't have the ability to do this project. It's too big for me. I don't have the education.

It sounds like it's us talking. But it's not. It's this negative force. And believe me, everybody has the exact same bullshit going through the heads and the exact same words. So once we realize it's not us. This is not us thinking this is a negative outside force. Then it's possible to just dismiss it and just say, well, that's bullshit, you know. I don't buy that.

I am good enough to do this. I can do it. I'm not unworthy. And I'm going to start and I'm going to do it. So when you hear that voice, dismiss it. It's also really refreshing earlier to hear in some ways that you still face self-doubt with your creative process. Never goes away, right?

Never. I'm sure it's different for everybody, but do you feel like it's gotten easier in any regards? Like that voice of self-doubt and that feel that we have to get past through? It has gotten easier in the sense that anybody that's worked for a long time, I can say to myself, well, I have defeated it in the past, so I know I can. defeat it. Right. But at the same time, it also gets more diabolical, you know, and it uses more nuanced twists to it, you know, and including things like you get getting sick, getting cold, or another thing like, I believe, if you get it in an accident, you get a little fender bender

or something like that, you hurt yourself at the gym, 99% of the time, that's resistance. It's trying to knock you down. But if you can say to yourself, ah, the reason is, you, you're not, The reason I, you know, I scrape the side of my car, that's resistance. And so then you can say to yourself, it's a good sign because if resistance is fucking with my head to that extent, it must really want to stop me from what I'm doing. And if it really wants to stop me, then that must be, then I've got to do it. And that's a good thing. It's really trying to stop me because it sees I'm about to move to another level or

I'm about to do something really good. So in any event, it's diabolical and it's nuanced. And for me, it gets just as hard as it always was, just in a different way. Wonderful. So the last thing in closing here, just as a kind of come full circle from where we started about bringing forth the things that are within us. Any thoughts or words you want to share on the responsibility that we have as creative beings to bring our art forth in the world?

if we don't do it like I said before that underground river that's flowing through us that never stops Rick Rubin talks about this he calls it source with a capital S what I would call the muse if we don't bring that forth it doesn't go away it flows into malignant channels and you know and it will produce

bad shit, bad juju, and there are many casualties in this world. And a lot of times, you know, the reason is that that thing that was inside of them, it's like we're all like pregnant moms, you know, there's new life inside us, wanting to be born. And if we don't bring it forth, you know, it turns malignant. So bring it forth. Let's all bring forth what is within us. Thank you so much.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Yeah, this is great, Andre. Let me ask you. Here's the question I want to do. What is Dharma? Dharma. Yeah. Vadically, it's kind of understood as a reason for being almost or like the,

it is our soul in motion in Western. I feel like we kind of see it as like a purpose in many ways as well. and to me, Dharma expresses itself more as like the natural fragrance of our being. In a way, to me, Dharma feels like the thing that when we do it, time stands still. Like we kind of almost leave this time space reality

when we do it because our soul is at home and expressing and it always feels like it has an element of service to others while doing it as well. So it's creativity or something? If a dancer dances, is that their Dharma? Yeah. To me, I think it doesn't actually matter what the thing is.

It's the presence we have while doing it in many ways. And so whether it is cooking or dancing or singing or podcasting or being a mother, to me, that all feels encapsulated in our Dharma purpose and expression. Yeah. I also look at it in some ways analogous to the Japanese term icky guy. I don't know if you're familiar with that one as well. Yeah. So that kind of gives the intersection between.

what you're good at, what you love doing, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. Kind of in the oversection cross of that is your Ikey guy, a reason for being, you know, in many different ways where we feel most fulfilled. Like, we're being used by life in a good way. I mean, a lot of, that's what a lot of what we've been talking about here today. Totally. Yeah. Okay. Beautiful.

Well, thanks very much, Andre. Thanks for the great questions. Thanks for having me on the Know Thyself podcast. Yeah, of course. Looking forward to future conversations that I'm sure will come. We'll do it again. Yeah, yeah. It's great to have a new friend. And thank you for sharing yourself today. Again, everywhere you can find the daily press field will be linked down in the description below. And thanks for being creative and allowing your artistic voice to come online. I've been so honored to meet some of our listeners in person.

And it's just so inspiring to see how many people out there are sharing their business. voice in the world in their own unique way and how that accumulates to, you know, we all have like a sole fingerprint that's unique to us in many ways. And it feels like the more that we share that with the world, the more that the greater, the more that the whole and the collective as an individual is a benefit to that as well. That's great. Very well put. That's great. Yeah. So wonderful. Thank you all so much for coming on this journey with us. Until next time, be well. Thank