Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - He Spent 30 Years Failing Before Writing a Bestseller — Steven Pressfield on Resistance, Identity & Going Pro - E191

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

What if the thing standing between you and the life you were meant to live… isn’t your circumstances, your resources, or your talent — but one invisible enemy inside your own mind? My guest today spent thirty years broke, overlooked, and grinding before the world ever heard his name. He drove trucks. He tended bars. He wrote scripts nobody bought. And then he sat down and wrote a book that redefined how artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs think about their own psychology. Steven Pressfield has one name for what’s stopping you — and once he tells you what it is, you will never unsee it. Stay with us. This one is going to hit different. Follow Steven Pressfield:  Web / www.stevenpressfield.com IG / @steven_pressfield Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/StevePressfield     Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy:► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ► Substack: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick     MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is subjective and an acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast.   SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast: You will find a "Follow" button in the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec   Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Operly - Take Back Control of Your Work Day and Get Rid of All Your AI Apps - Welcome to the new world of Time Freedom and Unlimited Scaling and Success with Operly -  https://go.getoperly.ai/video?ref=jean-claude-claude-d-2a95 Blue Blinds Bakery - Handcrafted with all-natural ingredients - www.blueblindsbakery.com     0:00 - Intro: The Invisible Enemy / Resistance 1:40 - Steven Pressfield Today 4:57 - Before Success / Finding His Voice 7:02 - The Breakthrough Moment 9:01 - Calling and the Muse 11:08 - Resistance and the Arena 20:43 - The Wilderness / Hero’s Journey 35:40 - Telemon, Arcadian, and the Fiction World 44:21 - What Humans Are Here to Do 47:47 - Legacy and Final Thoughts   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if the things standing between you and the life that you were meant to live? Isn't your circumstances, your resources, or your talent, but one invisible enemy that's inside your own mind. My guest today spent 30 years broke, overlooked, and grinding before the world even heard his name for the first time. He drove trucks. He tended bars. He wrote scripts that nobody bought. And then he sat down one day and wrote a book that redefined how artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs think about their own psychology. Stephen Presfield has one name for what it is that's stopping you, and once he tells you what it is, you'll never unsee it. Stay with us. This one's going to hit differently. Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you,

that your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited, noise, how easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up. Let's rise. Let's rise up and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense.

What does it like to be Stephen Presfield these days? Well, actually, the biggest event of the last year or so is that our house burned down in the Southern California wildlife. Yes, I heard about that. That's been kind of the overwhelming event. We still haven't gotten to the point of being able to rebuild or even. and no, we don't have a permit yet, all that sort of stuff. And so the really sort of the big question overhanging everything is can we rebuild,

will we rebuild, what sort of a nightmare is that going to be, and how can I keep working in the interim? So we're renting a house, you know, not too far from where we were. And I've been able, this is like I'm in the kitchen now. The kitchen's right behind you. So I've been able to work, which is like what sort of keeps me together. That's what I'm doing right now. and trying to figure on a crazy mindset to think, oh, let me try to get back to where we were before, or does this a sign from the universe that it's time to move on and we go to some.

So, you know, I'm dealing with all this kind of things in my head. That's what it's like to be me at the moment. What is it that is most important to Stephen Pressfield these days? What's most important in your life right now? Sort of the center of my life really is pretty much the work that I'm doing. So that's kind of at the center, keeping going there. But also, I'm like 82 years old. And so those, it's hard to avoid those numbers, even though I don't feel decrepit or anything like that.

But you do start to become aware, you know, you're on the back nine and you may be on the 16th T, you know. I sort of wonder, am I ever going to sort of kick back and not try as hard as I do? or am I going to keep the pedal of the metal going forward? And I think it's going to be the latter for me. But that's sort of a decision. It's in the background constantly for me. I heard a conversation between you and Tim Ferriss, which was just such a great one.

And it's one of the things that I love about you is you were actually positioning denial as like a superpower. And you were talking about this very topic of just living in complete denial that what you just said is the case. So it sounds like. it's becoming more of a conversation of the potential. I think denial is kind of a super power. Tim Ferriss is kind of, he's great at kind of living in denial of a lot of things. I mean, the positive side of that is that you're, you're, you know, you're aiming at something.

You know, you're not just saying, no, I don't want to be that. You know, who's to say that, like, what's like speaking about aging, what's kind of floating in the zeitgeist, or whatever you want to call it, is a certain conventional wisdom. Oh, at a certain age, certain things, you know, you're supposed to think certain things and things are supposed to happen with your body as, you know, with that thing. But who says that's true? That's just conventional wisdom. It's just bullshit, you know, if we can, if we have, who's to say that you or I have to abide by any of that stuff? We don't. And you can look around and see many examples, not just age, but anything. Your ethnic, your racial identity, your, your schooling, your background. Are you an American or

Are you somebody else? You know, we get to decide that. Yeah. Denial is a great, is a great superpower. Before the world knew who Stephen Presfield, the author was, who was he? Some good questions you have here, J.C. I was just a person who had been struggling to be a writer and to learn the craft and to break through in some kind of way for years and years.

When Legend of Agravance was the first book of mine was ever published, so that, you know, you got that verification from the wider world. But up until that, I was just, you know, just trying to make a living and learn my craft. Would you say, because with all your work, you know, with resistance and everything, when you look back to that time, were you just not ready? Was your content not right? Or did you not know how to publish a book? Or was there something else holding you back during those days?

For the prior 10 years before that book got published, which was, I think, 98 or something. like that, 1998. I had been a screenwriter. I had a career as a screenwriter, which doesn't count the years before that. And I hadn't yet kind of turned the corner where I was really writing from my own center. Some of the work I did was pretty good as a screenwriter, but anybody else could have done. If I wrote a Western, anybody else could have written that Western. So something happened at some point with bag of rants or when that idea came to me, where suddenly I was writing stuff that only I could have written. And that was really kind of a turning point.

Not in terms of big success or anything like that, but in terms of feeling like my feet were really on the ground as a writer. And I was really writing from the place I'd always wanted to be working from. Interesting. So with the message to somebody out there, it's almost like imposter syndrome of the writing kind. Yeah. I find that I struggled with anxiety for many, many years.

and it was always due to me. I thought it was public speaking, but what I later found out is it was when I would be public speaking and saying what I was told to say, rather than going out there and talking from my heart, right? All of a sudden, that got rid of the anxiety. And what happened that made you just sit down and write what you wanted to write that time?

I guess that's what I'm so curious, because you're talking to one of your fans here that doesn't just like your books, but I mean, your books have been, I mean, a lot of them have impacted like millions, of people. And when I tell people, I had Stephen Pressfield, they're like, the guy that wrote this. So that was a critical moment, you know, and I like to believe that everybody's capable of that critical moment. So was something going on in your life that just made you sit down and do

something like that? That's another great question. And I agree. It's a critical moment. And I do believe everybody has that moment in their life. Not everybody actually gets to it or just to live it out, but it's there and potential. And I think for me, probably was a lot like you really speaking from your heart and breaking through that anxiety thing was. I think it just came from, because I've been trying for like 30 years up to that point, trying to be a writer. We're writing stuff that was really crap, writing stuff that was mediocre, writing stuff that was good, but it wasn't really from my heart.

I think the gods, the goddess, finally said, okay, this kid has worked long enough. I'm going to give him that breakthrough, you know. I think it's sort of like a Zen. I'm sure you've read Zen in the Art of Archery, right? You know where the big thing for Harrigal was the moment of releasing the book, the strength, right? He always was trying too hard and never just sort of allowing it to just happen. In a kind of a Zen way or studying of Zen, you can't force that moment to happen. It just happens.

You know, you try and try and try and finally you give up. which is really what it is. You just say, I can't do this shit anymore. Let me just, you know, just wing it. Let me just open my heart. So I think that moment happened for me. And the good news is it never went away. I never fell back.

I've heard you say before once you've identified, once you identify your calling, never leave its side. Isn't that something that I've heard you say? I believe it, yeah. Did you identify your calling in that moment? You know, what was it that you learned about yourself once you published a book and everybody's like, we like it? I came to believe, and I'd already believe this really, but it really became true to me. I believe in the muse. I know you know that, Jayce, if you've heard my stuff, you know.

I really believe that the ideas that come to us come from another place. Like the classic story of a songwriter is driving along the freeway and all of a sudden a song comes into his or her head complete with everything. melody lyrics and they screech over to the side of the freeway and write it all down before they forget. And I think that that's how it works. For whatever reason, that started to happen for me, you know, and I think that every new book for me has been a surprise. It's never, you know, sometimes people will say, well, what's your five-year plan? Or where are you going to be, write a letter to yourself, you know, if your future to yourself is writing a letter back, and I think that just doesn't work. It's not true. It's not true.

because you just can't tell what's going to come next, at least in terms of, like for me, what book is going to come next? I have no idea. You know, it comes. And when it comes, it's always a surprise. Like I've been getting an assignment and I'm saying, me, I'm supposed to do this. I don't know anything about this. I don't even care about this. But then when you look back, once you've done it, you say, wow, it was meant to be type of thing. I love that. I love that idea. And I'm experiencing it. I wrote my first book. but I'm writing my second book now. It's kind of detached from what it's going to do or what it could do,

but I'm finding myself surprised that I came up with the idea, and I'm having fun with that. It's a really good sign, you know, JC. It really is. That's a great sign. I found a quote that I love this conversation about the arena of play and the wilderness and voltage and all of this stuff that I've heard to talk about. We'll talk a little bit about resistance.

and then I want to get into the Arcadian. This is what I found. It says, the professional keeps his eye on the donut and not the hole. He reminds himself, it's better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands. What's that about? I think it's true. It's sort of like the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote, right?

The person that's in the arena getting dusty and beaten up is that's where the action is, and not in the stands. So I think a lot of people, and I say this of myself as well, my younger self, can be spectators. Or we're living vicariously through some other person or somebody we admire or something like that. Whereas I think your professional life, your creative life doesn't really start until you actually get in the arena. Like there was, I think this was the first movie that I ever was involved in was called King Kong Lives. It was one of the all-time worst movies ever. I know.

I've heard you talk about. this. I wasn't going to ask you about that. Well, the, you know, the review in daily variety said, quoted my writing partner in me, he said, said, Ronald Chesadette and Stephen Presfield, we hope these are not their real names for their parents' sake. And when I read that review and other stuff, you know, I was just crushed. And my dear friend, Tony Kettleman, said to me, you know, hey, you're doing it, you know, you're in the arena, man. You know, you're getting stumped by the bull, but you're out there. So be grateful for it.

And he was absolutely right. Is it safe to say that if you take a look around and you're not getting stomped and you're not experiencing a lot of the setbacks, letdowns, and icky feelings? Is it safe to say you're not in the arena? I mean, is that just something that is expected? I think it is. I mean, you see people, successful people on TV or wherever all the time, right? Somebody has a hit movie.

I found in real life that's a very, very rare moment. And it's only kind of a faint moment when it happens. So, but it's hard to remind yourself as you're getting stomped by the bull that this is what you're supposed to be, where you're supposed to be. But it is where you're supposed to be. I'm somebody that has been foolish enough and I've got a return on it to spend a lot of time in the arena. but what have you learned about life in itself from being in the arena? You can only learn it from inside the arena. You can't learn by watching.

It's a great question. You're asking a lot of really good questions. I've got to give you credit for that, J.C. For a writer, the arena, quote, unquote, is a whole other world because you're not in public. It's not like you're Michael Jordan out on a basketball court and everybody's looking at you. Instead, you're alone in a room, and nobody knows you're there. Nobody knows what you're working on. Nobody cares.

You try to get anybody to read it as like, you know, you had to pay my $1,000, you know, to read a paragraph. But you are in the arena in the sense that you're facing your own demons. You're dealing with a, you know, you're like Sisypah's trying to roll a big boulder up a hill. You know, you're forever. You've bitten off some hard project that might take you two years, two and a half years, three years for no money, all on the comments. if you're a fiction writer, right? And so you're in the arena in that sense, but it's only in your own head.

It's just a private. And the other thing about being a writer, which I say to anybody that's listening that is a writer to encourage them, when you do succeed, when you have moments in the writing, not in the public thing, when you have a great day

or you finish a section or finish a book, nobody knows. You're all alone. You can tell your spouse, you can tell. They don't care. Nobody can really understand. And I'm sure you know this from working on your own stuff, Jason, right?

So it's a real quiet, totally internal self-validation. A lot of people, I think, that try to do this, that's not enough. And they kind of, but if you are going to do this for a long-term thing, you've got to make it enough. You've got to somehow teach yourself to self-reinforce, self-validate, and give yourself the crops that nobody else has given them. That's so fascinating. Yeah, that's part of the resistance or even the voltage of being in the arena is going through those seasons without a return on investment.

You have to make it for yourself. You have to cheer for yourself. It's fascinating that everybody, because the people in the stands are not always cheering. They're actually the biggest experts and skeptics in the room, right? Yeah, yeah. Or they're totally indifferent, which is the real thing. You know? Yeah, that's even worse.

They couldn't care less, you know. They don't give a shit about what. Which I understand because I'm totally indifferent to a lot of stuff that's out there, too. What would you say? I mean, I would assume that during those 30 years, there were many times where you just thought about retreating and saying, what am I doing? You know, I know that back in the old days, we were all taught, if you don't succeed, try and try again. But we've kind of somehow ended up in this place now where it's like, if you don't succeed, try something else. So we used to work longer before we would retreat.

but I would assume that you had these moments before you figured it out. Because somebody that is watching right now that is a fantastic writer and has got some fantastic ideas, you know that they could end up having a career like yours. But it's probably just a matter of their relationship with their own resistance. What would you say to that person? I know that it's not your job to talk to that person because they probably have to navigate their own way there. But just that person that is having that disbelief.

in themselves because they've failed so many times. Like how many times do we fail before we realize that we're not going to succeed? To me, the single superpower of beyond denial or denial sort of fits in it, is just the ability to keep going. You know, if you can keep showing up day after day after day, sooner, you know, the thing is you do get better. Yeah. It's not like being an athlete where you hit age 34 and it's over.

If you're a songwriter, a comedian, or a filmmaker, or a writer, you get better. I mean, I look back at some of the stuff that I've done much as I'm like, you know, pull it out of the drawer and hope it's good. I look at her, no, this sucks, you know. I am a lot better than that just from the time putting in. So I would just say dealing with self-doubt is another superpower that they don't teach you in school and nobody ever talks about. But any creative person that, particularly if you're working alone and you're not part of it,

of an acting company or something like that. You're feeling self-doubt constantly. And you just, whatever it takes to make yourself do it, you got to do it. There have been so many stories about, like in advertising, let's say, you go into an ad agency where they're copyrighters and you open up a drawer in your desk. Everybody's got a screenplay or a novel or five of them or ten of them. And how many of those are really good, a lot? And how many, even if they're not really good, If you project ahead, say the next one or the one after that or the one that isn't written yet, that's going to be great. If you can just hang in, you know, don't quit. Keep going.

Would you say the goal could be to just hang in? You know, I mean, sometimes I wonder, why can't that be achievement enough to, you know, end up at the end of the road saying, yeah, I never quit. I'm that guy that never quit. I think the problem with the never quit strategy is, yeah, but how long, how long, you know? So I think there's got to me this commitment to the no matter what. Again, I'm not a witness to this, but it isn't just staying there for a long time. It's staying there and really being in it with both feet and really busting your ass. If it's a part-time thing, if you're just sort of fucking around, if you're just kind of, you know,

sometimes people will say, you know, I've been working on this. this book for now for seven years, you know, forget it. You know, in seven years, you should have written seven books, you know? Or, you know what I mean? So there are people that are really in it, and then there are people that are people that are sort of convincing themselves that they're in. But I do think, you know, it's a victory just to keep going, just to keep hanging in there. And sooner or later, it's going to pay off. And again, it's like for me, it's not like I have any great success. Here I am. I'm, you know, I'm struggling just like the next guy. So I don't think that there's a, the idea that there's a moment where you suddenly break through and you become Marlon Brando, that's not going to happen.

It's a working man's thing. It's a lifetime commitment. Whatever it is, one has to just be able to live with that, you know. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's to, you know, God bless us for being able to participate in this thing, you know, to communicate with heaven, you know, and do our calling, whatever it is, to produce. work as good as we can do it. That's from, from us alone. This is, I think this is where the, the concept of half-ass comes from. It's like, this is, I always tell my kids, I said, this is going to require a whole ass effort. Yeah. Half-ass. So I love, and you'll see that it very, very much

connects to just, just, you know, shocking that is going on in my life. But you've described what you call the wilderness. And I've never heard anybody talk. about that before. A lot of people, I think, could get that confused with something like failure or the way I interpreted is that you're going through a tough season, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I almost, listening to you talk about the arena of play, I almost feel like the wilderness is like a passageway to the arena of play sometimes. So how would you define what the wilderness is? Are you in the wilderness right now? I'm in a form of wilderness right now, but I'm also in the arena as well.

Sure. Just because of a stage of my career. But if you remember Kurt Warner, who was the quarterback for the Rams when they won the Super Bowl, he has a great story where he was the quarterback at Ohio State, I'm not Ohio State, Iowa State, played in the arena football league. And the famous story was that he was working in a grocery store as a checker for the guy. And then a year later, he was the MVP of the Super Bowl. So that's the wilderness, you know, when you're not in the game and you wonder if you're ever going to get back in the game, you're not getting any kind of validation for anybody.

I love stories like that because it's like, what kept him going while he was doing that? He was, obviously, he had the talent as he's there restocking shelves in the, you know, in the produce section or whatever it is. The guy has a talent, maybe the MVP of the Super Bowl, because he was. like a year later. So that's an amazing, that's the wilderness, right? Right. When you're just not getting validated for whatever it is that you do well. And to be able to hang in in that era. So is the trick about the wilderness knowing or embracing or believing that it's not a, I've heard you say it's not a destination, it's a passage. So if you reframe and you look at the wilderness

and start wondering with open curiosity, what is this preparing me for? Where is this taking me? Is that the way you get through the wilderness and not let it swallow you up? Another way to look at it, JC, is to think of it as a hero's journey, which it is, right? In a hero's journey, Joseph Campbell, I know we're all familiar with this, you know? The protagonist kind of goes from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world. They're kind of lost in space, right? They're like Odysseus trying to get back from the Trojan War, right?

He's just blundering from one adventure to another and seemingly getting nowhere. That if we think of it in those terms, if you think of it that, you know, heaven or the universe or whatever has something in mind for us, and it's only we who don't trust it, who feel like we're lost. And we do feel like we're lost. But we're really not. You know, that passage, if we keep on it, keep persevering, keep our eyes open, eventually you do get home, just like Odysseus does, and things change. I'm a believe, I know you, you know this, J.C., from my stuff that I believe that we have a hero's journey in our life, which is where we're struggling to find our calling.

And once we find it, or songwriter, comedian, whatever it is, then we enter a different journey, and I call the artist's journey. and all of a sudden you say to yourself, like if you're a writer, you say, okay, God damn it, this is what I'm going to do. But now the question becomes, well, what am I going to write? What is my voice? And what do I have to do in my material life in terms of supporting myself, maintaining my composure, maintaining my discipline? How do I make this body and this mind into an instrument that can deliver? the goods. Okay, I'm now, and like, I think when you get on your artist's journey, your life from the outside looks incredibly boring. Like, if you're a dancer, you just go to the studio every day, right? You get on the subway, you go to the studio, you bust your ass, you know, etc. Or if you're a writer, you go into your office and you just, but in here, it isn't boring. In here, you finally found what you're looking for. So to me, there's a hero's journey. that's the wilderness. Right.

Where you're lost. And then there's the artist journey when you've kind of found what you're meant to do, and now your job is to do it and really ask you yourself, what is my voice? Who am I? What material, you know, what am I supposed to bring forth? But it almost seems in the grand scheme of things, and you look at the hero's journey and you, you know, you're on the other side. I always say, isn't it mysterious that God in the universe have placed everything that we desire most inconveniently on the other side of a big pile of shit. Right.

So, and I like to, I like to poke fun at the shit because what that implies is that the goal of life is becoming a shit navigator, you know, like, that's my version of the wilderness. Which it is. Yeah. So, you know, I guess that's why they say, this is the shit. The kids say that, you know. But it almost seems like you should be looking for the shit. If you've decided that you want to be in the arena and you find yourself going through what people would say a tough season, I'm going through a tough season, and I'm going to share something interesting that happened with me.

I almost feel like, to a certain degree, you should feel lucky and blessed because you know that something's coming. I think you should feel lucky and blessed. It's so hard to do, though, while you're there. And if you can do even more than that is keep your eyes open and really appreciate it. eyes open. Some interesting things have happened as of recently are going to make this conversation very interesting. So I am in the best shape of my life. I've been in the arena for a long time. And we don't have enough time to talk about my shit stories, my shit navigation, but I've, I've navigated some shit that I'm proud of. And, you know, I've reached that phase of being

in the arena and traveling through multiple wildernesses where, you know, I would. wasn't anticipating it, but I'm excited to see that a lot of things are starting to come into play. You know, a lot of meeting the right people, you know, my podcast is blowing up. Like a lot of things that I've worked very, very hard for are coming into play. So four days ago, completely randomly, just the sequence of events that had this happen are almost impossible. I got diagnosed with kidney cancer. Oh, wow. I always like to see people's reaction when I at first. And I have some funny stuff about that. But I find myself, my question to you is I want you to dissect what you think it means, because here I am, I could easily suck my thumb about this.

But I'm taking a different path because of this conversation that we're having right now. I know this sounds crazy and I have to be careful saying this in front of my family and stuff, because everybody loves to get worried about this stuff. But I almost feel, I've never. felt so alive in my life. I've always practiced present time gratitude. You know, I've done a lot of personal growth work, but never been this alive before. I've never been this clear and full of gratitude and things like that. My question is, how would you define what you, you know, in your, in your words, what I'm going or growing through right now. I'm looking at it the right way. And of course, I get my moments where I get scared and all that stuff. It's hard not to. But is this resistance? Is this

the voltage that you speak about? Or is this another form of the wilderness? Because I'm definitely still in the arena of play. You know, and I'm forging forward, maybe even with more fortitude right now. And I would say I'm like a third generation version of Telemann where I'm not like just this stupid, hardworking warrior. Like I'm contemplating a lot of stuff. I feel great, you know. But what are your thoughts on that? When you talk about gratitude and really feeling gratitude, did that come as a rush after you got the diagnosis or were you already in that mode? I was already in that mode. Dare I say, I didn't even know how much gratitude I could experience.

You know, it's like I have been practicing gratitude. I meditate every day. I know that you're a big morning guy and you're in the gym before everybody. I'm that guy as well. I've been doing that for a while. I'm 54. I don't know. It's almost like I took some sort of a hit of some drug.

And I'm like, everything's amplified. And if somebody asked me, would you like to feel the way you feel right now? I would say yes. It comes with this other thing. Isn't that fascinating? The one thing, you know, when you're talking about getting diagnosed like that, if you think of it from the point of view of a character in a novel, that could be like the first sentence of a novel.

Today, I was diagnosed with kidney. Did we just create the first sentence of your next novel there? of your next novel. But I think as we would read that, we would say, ah, this guy's going to go through a really interesting story here. He's going to be up against his own mortality. He's going to have to, you know, it's not theoretical anymore. Now it's the, he's going to go.

And I think we would go, oh, I want to read this book. Because I know this guy's going to go through some real changes. It sounds like you've got a great attitude. I just have, I have a friend who had, I forgot what kind of cancer he he had, but he just, after like two and a half years, came out of the treatments and he's free of the, you know, cancer free. So it is possible, you know. Oh, for sure. There is a, there is a happy ending here, you know, I will be really curious. I'd be asking you, what are you projecting as you, as you go forward? You know, if we take the, the idea of the C word, because that, you know, that's been

defined by other people. So you don't, you don't always get to, to shape it the way you want it because you have experts telling you things, right? And then there's statistics and all that. And then you feel the worry and concern of people around you. So that's the only, that's the wilderness part of it. It's, it's hard to navigate it because there's a lot of outside resistance trying to get in. I would always say that if it was just me, get my mind right and fight against it and no doctors with thumbs up and thumbs down, I'm 100% sure I could crush this.

but I can't like exile myself from my life, right? So that's the hardest, that's the hardest part of it. But what I would say is, I don't know, this is what's funny. And maybe you'll appreciate this. We're all terminal, right? I mean, we joke about living in denial of your 82 years old, but nobody knows how long we're going to live. But we kind of like assume that we've got a pretty decent shot if we don't get run over

or something like that to live, whatever. You've already lived beyond expectations, you know, so you're doing great. Well, I mean, if you look at the average. Yeah. So, but as soon as you get a diagnosis, all of a sudden, everybody knows how long you're going to live. And that I find that funny because, you know, you hear all these stories of people that have what I have that live for 25 years and all of that stuff. I just find myself saying, I'm going to live as long as I can live, just like I was going to before, you know, and do the best that I can. And I, but I love the idea of placing myself, as I often do, as the main character of me.

of a novel, making it a great story. It really is. This moment for you is the start of a hero's journey. Exactly. You left the ordinary world and you're now in the inverted world, right? And what will happen? You'll make all kinds of people on this journey. Totally.

Some will be negative. Some will be positive. Then eventually you'll come face to face, you know, with the darkest. hour, wherever that may be, we all have to do that, right? So the way I explain it to people is I go, this is not the hardest thing I've ever been through. I've already been through some. Tell me what was harder. At a phase of my life, I went through a phase where I was the most confident borderline cocky

person in the world. And then due to a sequence of events, all of a sudden just got completely lost and completely contemplated the idea of ending my life. So that's how my chapter opens up. I'm sitting in front of a therapist. So that actually was the beginning of my hero's journey because when I woke up, that's where the brand makes sense comes from.

I woke up and I said, oh my God, I correlated that the reason why I felt that way is I had believed in a story too much and all of that stuff. And it set me forth to, you know, be here with you today. That was all good.

So I already have some of that ammunition in my trunk to understand what happens with these things. But I just find, it fascinating. I don't think that you can step into the arena. I think I've heard you say that the bigger the goal, the bigger the commitment, right? The bigger the everything, the bigger the resistance, the bigger the voltage. So I think that this makes complete sense of what I'm trying to create, which is huge. You know, I don't think the universe is just going to hand it to me. I mean, one thing I would imagine you must feel, tell me if you do. Yeah. It's like all of us sort of live

and dread of that moment when we go into the doctor's office and he says, you know, you've got it. You're fun. And now you've had that moment. So in a way, is it a relief in a sense? Or, uh, it's funny that you say that. I know that feeling. I'm telling you, the only hard part about it is watching people that you love get upset. Ah, yeah.

I bet. I bet. That's it. That's the only hard part about it because, you know, for me, I have, I'm just all in. I don't know what tomorrow brings and I'm just living for the day before this and after this. And I'm symptom free. I mean, I feel amazing. So that's an I, I now have to go start playing the role of the sick person as well.

Ah. Is there any chance that they're mistaken in the diagnosis? I mean, like, these guys are pretty excited about how I'm sure they are, you know. So I've gone through all the scans and everything like that. Don't say that to them, you know, because they'll be like, you know, what we're talking about. And then, of course, everybody. in the world is trying to save me with their protocols. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.

Anyway, I just was curious to throw that into your brain because it's real. It's happening. And I don't know, I'm kind of just like anything else embracing it, you know, and maybe getting stronger from it. Ah. Well, it sounds like if anybody can handle this, it's you. Yeah, that's right. So God bless you, J.C.

So let's switch gears now because you've got all these amazing books. And by the way, I've had so many people send me books. I've never seen such a beautiful presentation when you sent me a man-in-arms with Arcadian and that wrapped in this thing with it. And I believe that this is the pen from the horse, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, so nice.

I was like, wow. That's my partner, Diana, who's in the back room here. Well, tell Diana that she made me say, I got a lot of work. It's really nice. but I'm so fascinated. I want to hear about this book. And obviously you've got so many other books. And I realize when we were having this conversation,

we could get into hours and hours on resistance and stuff. And anybody that is looking for more information on resistance, you know, first of all, read the War of Art. And I always say, not the art of war. Might be a totally different experience. The War of Art. And, you know, just look up Stephen Presfield. You'll hear everything you can about resistance.

But I want to talk about this new book. Because it seems that this character, Telemont, you know, began, well, first of all, he's got this unique perspective where he's living his life, but then he's coming back at different realities of life. And that's a fascinating. I'd love to know how you came up with that concept. It seems that each time he relives his life, he's going through a different type of a hero's journey. And it seems like it's becoming less about brute force and more about self-contemplation.

you know, why am I here? And, right? So I'd love to know the creative process behind that and how you came up with this idea, having this man like jump into different. It's so fascinating. I was reading, you know, the first chapter of Arcadian about the horse. And you're just always like, okay, what's this about? And then you realize, like, that's his horse, you know?

And like, so I almost wonder, is the universe like taking care of this guy, you know? and who does Telemont represent in your life? Why did you create Telemont? I'll give you kind of a long version. Yeah, I try to. The character of Telemon is kind of is a solitary mercenary of the ancient world, a major ass-kicking guy like a Kleeney's wood type of guy of the ancient world. So he first appeared in a book of mine called Tides of War that was like the year 2000.

And then I sort of thought, oh, it's a really interesting character. He was a minor character in that story, and I left it alone. Then a few years later, I was working on a book about Alexander the Great, and I somehow, Kelamon came back as, and I had him, again, now like 150 years later, unchanged. He's still in kind of a similar role, but he's evolved a little bit. And I began to think he deserved a book of his own. So that became a book, A Man at Arms, which now is set in the, around the time of the

crucifixion. So I've got this guy in three different lifetimes. He's never ages and he's always a warrior. And so from that, I asked myself, what's going on with this guy? And I figured that he has been, damned by heaven in some way or another, to live lifetime after lifetime, always as a soldier, because of some crime he committed in the past. It's almost like, it's the resolution of karma. Yeah, it's exactly. It's karma. So in this book, the Arcadian, this is a, it's, it's, it's, this one is now set in Spain in the 1500s, around the time of discovery of the new world. And the question sort of becomes, how is he going to get off this wheel of karma? Is he going to find, is this the lifetime where he finally has kind of served his time?

The story of the horse, for our listeners, is I don't want to bore anybody, but I'll give it to you a little more detail. He's fighting in some certain campaign in Spain. at this. And he notices this horse is kind of following his outfit, keeping out of touch. And he notices that the horse has an X brand on the side. And he recognizes the horse as his horse from 1,500 years ago when he served as in the Roman, in the 10th Legion, the X is the Roman number 10. And then on his forearm, a tattoo like they used to have military marks on their of an X begins to appear, getting darker and darker. So he's asking himself, where did this freaking animal come from?

Did somebody send this? Am I getting off of this wheel of karma in this lifetime? So anyway, that's kind of what the story is about. And it does deal with those issues of not just kicking ass, but what is this all about? I find it so fascinating. There's not a lot of writers like you that do fiction and nonfiction. And it's kind of like, it must be wonderful to be that author because it's like a totally different way of getting the same thing accomplished, you know. It's like even your fiction books are kind of like personal growth books as well.

So how did you first come up with the idea of doing both? That's another great question. I had only done fiction. Yeah, I had only done fiction until the idea of the War of Art came to him. And that was for, when I say or you say that I do nonfiction, mostly not. nonfiction is sort of self-helping. Sure. You know, personal device.

It's not, I've done a couple of nonfiction books that were straight out, you know, historical stuff. But so in any event, I just sort of did the war of art just because, uh, in about two months, came incredibly fast just because I, uh, I wanted to help people out of who were struggling with procrastination, self-sabotage and all that. And then when that found a little bit of traction, I thought, well, let me do a follow up to that. And so that became a bunch of other, other.

books, but primarily I am a fiction writer, and that's what I do. Unfortunately, for me, the war of art has become, you know, a bigger enough seller than nobody even knows I write that. Isn't that funny? Yeah, when I tell people about you, sometimes they're like, yeah, it sounds familiar. And I'm like, the war of art, you know, do the work. And they go, oh, yeah, I love those books. And then I say, well, you know, he's written a bunch of other books. And they're like, what, like what? And I always say, well, do you like the legend of the bagger vans? And they're like, God, I don't think anybody ever thought that somebody wrote that. You know, it's just like a movie with Matt Damon or something like that.

Like, what a beautiful story. Do you feel like they did your book justice with the movie? You know, when you sell a book to the movies, you have to realize that it's no longer your book. You know, it becomes the directors, you know. So I'm grateful that they made a movie. And I recognize it's not easy. You always have to eliminate stuff. You have to cut stuff out of a book.

Sure. And so they did the best they could. And I'm happy that a movie got made of it, you know. Yeah. This is why my kids are avid readers. You know, just by nature of being friends with Jim Quick, we're cursed with reading a lot. But my kids always tell me that they, the book is always better than the movie, you know. So I'm glad to see that they're kind of hanging on there.

This is a tough question. Out of all the books that you've written, do you have a personal favorite? probably gates of fire which i don't know if you are familiar with yeah sure of course yeah that's yeah that's probably my favorite but you know it's like your kids you know i love them is there any particular reason why i mean did you just feel like you why that book yeah it's just it's such a it's such a great story i didn't write the story it's this it's about the battle of thermoplin this 300 spartans against the persian so i didn't come up with that story but i tried to write it in such a way that you felt like you were there and you were part of the reality of it.

And it's just such a great story, such a moving story. Yeah. You know, the willing self-sacrifice, guys going to their death, knowing they were going, great characters in it. Yeah, I think that's the one that would be, of my books, the one that would be the most like a knockout punch. When you're writing books, you always have to wonder, you know, am I writing this book because I like it or am I writing a book that they'll like?

because, you know, it appears that War of Art was the one, you know, the big, the big, big one, right? The big seller, is that correct? Actually, Gates of Fire has sold more than the War of Art. But the War of Art is catching up, so in any bit, I'm happy anybody buys anything. In looking at everything that you've learned, this is a pretty crazy deep question, but what do you believe that we're as humans fully here to do? That's another great question. I think that I believe that reality exists on at least two levels, probably an infinite number of levels.

But let's say two, just for our start. One is the material plane that we're on here, where we have a body, where we're mortal, we're going to die. We have anxiety. We have fear. We experience love, all the messy shit emotions, right? And then the higher plane is our nobler self, you know, or... heaven, where the gods live, whatever you want to call. And I think, you know, people say that thing of we're spiritual beings living, having a material

which I believe completely. And we are living in a kind of a matrix, you know, where we think there's a world out there, you know, of the senses. But in fact, there's a much deeper, truer world beyond it. And for me, what writing, what art is about, is about reaching to that higher plane. somehow bringing a song, a joke, a musical, something down from that plane, and hopefully trying to live according to the laws of that higher plane here on this planet, which of course we never do.

But I think that's, for me, it's sort of about the world that we see in front of us. That's a false world and the world behind it and trying to reach to that. Are you almost describing like enlightenment? Yeah, absolutely. In fact, what you said before about like the character of Telemann that he seems to be a warrior at the start of these stories. By the end of the stories, he's reached a whole other level of about what, if you asked him what life is about, he would give you a completely different answer. And I think that's kind of what that's the journey. You're really going on big time right now, you know? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that. And maybe that's why you're kind of excited about it because I think you think, you know, I'm going to get the answer somewhere. Well, I mean, I'm excited for the challenge. I'm excited for being the guy that inspires people and wins and all of that stuff.

But I'm also excited that I get to experience something that I might not have. I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list. Uh-huh. No? Yeah, well, you're going everywhere now. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

And if my wife hears this episode, she's going to be like, you've lost your fucking mind. No, final question, and, you know, I hope that we have a lot more work from you. And I hope to God that you don't just like start chilling out, you know, because what you do is amazing. Like I always get curious to see, like, is there another kind of a war of art like thing? I mean, what you did with resistance massive. I mean, when you go to a seminar, like a network market. like seminar and there's like 15,000 people in the crowd and like almost every one of those people has read a book that you've written. I mean like that's pretty pretty nuts. So I'm always curious

to know it's like he's going to wake up one day and come up with like a new resistance type thing. So I welcome you to do that. What is it that you hope remains behind that eventual day or long after you're gone? What is it that you hope you leave behind as a footprint and your legacy? were a musician, I would hope that I had a song or two that people loved to listen to. I would hope that a book or story or a character or something would linger in somebody's mind and say, I love reading that, you know? That's pretty amazing. I will tell you that meeting you and learning more about you, and this is something that maybe somebody that just reads your books wouldn't know,

you're actually a pretty fucking cool guy. Like you're pretty laid back and you're funny. And I love, I love, I love when you go into this mode on interviews where you start doing interviewing and stuff. It's a lot of fun to have a conversation with you, just on behalf of everybody that you've impacted. And I mean, I know a lot of those people, you know, it's quite extraordinary what you have sat down and written about, you know, so thank you on behalf of everybody. Well, I say the same to you, J.C. You're a pretty cool guy. I wish you all the best. Let's keep in touch here. You know, even though you went to Rye High School.

That's right. In Pleasant way. Yeah. I apologize. And God bless you. I apologize for all those times that the Garnet. This is Stephen Pressfield. And this podcast makes sense. That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share as well as follow the makes sense substack for free daily quotes live streams and blogs and remember learning without action is just another form of distraction if something hit home and you

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