Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Resistance - Summary of Steven Pressfield's War of Art - Episode 81

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Make Sense podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. What we know is that when you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Makes sense. Great morning, humans. Great morning world. This is your boy, Dr. J.C. Dornick, and I want to welcome you to another episode of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. Very excited about the podcast, by the way, for those of you that are listeners. that sucker's getting like 120,000 downloads a month now and has paid advertising on it and everything like that.

Starting point is 00:01:09 And I just want to let everyone know that that's not something that I planned for. You know, that's something that came about on the other side of just having this idea that was more important than my excuses than following through. So if anybody's out there and you have this creativity, we're going to talk a lot about that today in correlation with the book. If you have an idea and you want to put it into play, just go for it and just make that everything. Make that everything. Always connect it to the things that matter most in your life as I do with my career. But anybody can have anything that they want if they just put their nose down and go for it. And the chances are the thing that you're

Starting point is 00:01:56 wanting to accomplish, but for whatever reason afraid to move forward with, chances are that it is probably what you're meant to do. We'll be addressing a little bit of that today too. Let's get started with this. This is making sense of resistance. As you know, on Mondays, I review a book. I read a lot of books. Shout out to Jim Quick for that. What I like to do is take the ones that really, really impact me the most and share them here. I would say every book impacts me, but some of them just rock my world. What I want to do here is make sense of resistance, and that would be a summary of one of my all-time favorite books, and just one of the many books that this guy has written. The author is Stephen Pressfield, and this is the War of Art.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Now, what I always like to remind people, when I refer to this book, of course I'll put all the links in the description. I didn't say the art of war, which is another book by Lao Tzu, which is a heavy, heavy, deep book and it's got a lot of meaning and stuff, but it is not the war of art. This episode is really in turn about going to war with resistance, that mysterious force that holds us back. So every single day, there's a force that is working against us. you wake up with a new idea this happens all too often some sort of calling some sort of a message from above but somehow something always seems to get in the way isn't that correct you put it off you tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow fear creeps in distractions take over and just like that another day passes

Starting point is 00:03:40 without progress and you'll be in that oscillating pattern until another idea comes out that you'll do that same oscillating pattern with and then you'll say, hey, what was that last idea I had? So Stephen Presfield calls this mysterious force resistance. It's invisible, but it's very, very real, and it's universal. And if you've ever felt blocked, unmotivated, or sabotaged, some sort of a victim of your circumstance and your thoughts, well, you've met resistance firsthand. So you know it well. You might just not have called it at that at first. But what if resistance wasn't the enemy. What if it was actually proof that you're onto something and you're maybe on the right path? What if every time you felt fear, self-doubt, or hesitation, you figured out that it was

Starting point is 00:04:31 actually a signal to push you forward instead of pulling you back? That's some good shift right there. So our guest today is Stephen Presfield and we're diving into the War of Art and we're going to explore the powerful insights of overcoming resistance, showing up like a pro, and doing the work that matters most. We're also going to explore how this fits into my own system that I call the interface response system. It's really important when you learn a new concept to always interpret how it fits into your life and your structure because you don't have to drop everything that you're doing. It might just validate and give more meaning and upgrade your structure. So we're going to look at that correlate it with the interface response system and how we can use steps one through three of the

Starting point is 00:05:20 interface response system, which are perception, pause, and process to break free from mental traps that keep us from the creative process. If you've ever struggled to start, stay consistent, or break through the invisible walls keeping you from your true potential, this episode is for you. So let's go to war with resistance. A couple things about the author, Stephen Pressfield. If you've never read any of his stuff, you'll love it all. He's a novelist, screenwriter, author of several influential works on creativity, self-discipline, and inner battles of the human spirit. Very, very much my style of author and writing. Best known for the one we're going to cover today, The War of Art, he has tons and tons of other books, countless other works,

Starting point is 00:06:08 helping massive, massive, powerful people break through the barriers of resistance and step into their highest potential. Before finding his success as a writer, Pressfield faced years of struggle bouncing between jobs, battling self-doubt, always being reminded that these juggernauts out there that we enamor have had the same problems that you might be having right now that I've had, that I have. Battling self-doubt and dealing with a relentless, firm grip of resistance. His own journey overcoming obstacles informs his work, making his writing deeply relatable and incredibly impactful. of his other books that you might have read, and if not, you might want to consider, putting them all in the resources, turning pro, do the work, the artist's journey, and then he also writes

Starting point is 00:06:54 novels, which are really, really fascinating, each one of those books expanding on the themes of things like discipline, commitment, and the deeper meaning behind our creative pursuits. This is a quote supposedly from Jesus, one that he loves. If you bring forth what is in you, it will save you. If you don't bring forth what is in you, it will destroy you. And that is from Jesus. Pressfield loves that because he believes that most of our suffering and even disease, he thinks it comes from not expressing our creative genius inside of us.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Now, this is a very, very interesting concept because what this alludes to is the reason why he's so interested in conquering, overcoming, and bypassing, and breaking through this force called resistance, he feels that it's his. calling to fulfill and release his creative genius, which he does in his books. Think about how that interprets in your life. He creates something called the Daily Press Field. That's a book where you can read 365 days a year. You could read this little insight that will just teach you something valuable. So let's get into some of the major highlights and takeaways of the war of art. So obviously, the book is very, very heavily loaded about this concept of resistance. He says that resistance is the

Starting point is 00:08:12 enemy. So I'm just going to read some of these nuggets that I took from it. This is some really good shift right here. It's a universal force that tries to stop us. Once he realized, Pressfield, once he realized that it was a universal force and not something uniquely happening to him, only to him, he realized in that moment that he, as well as anybody else, could make the decision and choose to bypass it, get over it and overcome it. Resistance tends to strike, he says, certain times, like before we start something. This is a really, really cool thing that you know, but sometimes you have to be reminded.

Starting point is 00:08:48 It tends to come on strong before we start something or before we finish it. So this is why people, maybe you, never start. They fail to even start, and then when they get to the end, they fail to follow through and finish. It's because of this force called resistance. In fact, he points out,

Starting point is 00:09:06 and I believe this wholeheartedly, that the bigger and more valuable task, the more powerful the resistance. Isn't that true? What's interesting about that is that if you reverse engineer it, what does that mean resistance means, right? It could be a metric that you could measure your success and placement in the arena of play.

Starting point is 00:09:23 So this is why his mantra had become start before you're ready. He always says that. Start before you're ready. Isn't that one of our biggest challenges? As it helps everyone to overcome resistance. Resistance shows up in the form of things like distraction. I like to call that fake work. This is a hard pill to swallow for people.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Pressfield points out that doing research or getting extra credentials or following continuous education all of the time have the tendency of creating an illusion that you're doing the work. He says research becomes resistance. Isn't that interesting? Fake work gives the illusion that you're moving forward. But it actually creates more resistance because it moves you further away from actually doing the work. He points out that while you're researching and learning, you're not actually doing anything to move forward. Rather, you're just getting ready to get ready. And I've been in that situation,

Starting point is 00:10:20 and I see that a lot. He reminds us that writers don't write to express themselves. He says that writers write to discover themselves. When a human being gets an idea, he asks, where does it come from? This is something I want to challenge all of you to do in your own lives. When you get an idea in your head, Did it come from your head? Well, Pressfield has a different way of looking at that. Pressfield believes in other realms, and you know I do as well. He believes in other realms of reality, and he feels, and I want to know what you think about this, that ideas come from these alternate realities and our purpose in life.

Starting point is 00:10:55 I love what Victor Frankel says. He says, the meaning of life is to find the meaning of life. So Pressfield is saying our purpose in life is to take those ideas that were given specifically for us and take action on them. Almost as if his meaning of life was to take ideas that he gets, like in the shower or while walking, he makes them his duty, his job. He actually shares something about Bob Dylan that is really cool.

Starting point is 00:11:21 He says that Bob Dylan, who was just an amazing songwriter, doesn't remember ever writing any of his songs down. He says they just came to him. Pressfield believes that ideas are assigned to us from another realm. And I think that's fun. You know what? You don't know where they come from.

Starting point is 00:11:38 You can try to use man-made science to identify that, but have some fun with it. He's a big fan as well as me, a big fan of music producer Rick Rubin. So he likes to quote Rick Rubin a lot. And he says that Rick says, whatever a creative force is, which is the opposite of resistance, Pressfield says, we tend to immediately reject it because we're not yet in tune with it. That's what Rick Rubin says. Pressfield says a real creator is somebody that is alert, an open and curious and alert to these ideas and will grab them before they go somewhere else.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Or before the universe takes the idea and says, J.C. is not going to do it. I'm going to find somebody else for the job. Have you ever had an idea that you didn't take action on? And then a short time or a long time after you see somebody else came up with the same idea and fulfilled it? And you go, that's my idea. Well, I think the universe just gave up on you.

Starting point is 00:12:34 It was your idea. Gave up on you because you didn't make it your job. So I love that. When I get an idea, I write it down and I talk to you guys about it. And that's made my podcast. Are you doing that? Maybe your first step is to just write it down. He likes to think of his daily work as practice.

Starting point is 00:12:49 I like to look at it as training as well. So I resonate with that. When he enters his work day, he leaves his ego at the door and his troubles outside. And we kind of know that we need to do that. He says that when he looks at his work day, He's only there to practice what he has committed to to leverage his goals and dreams. So that's all he does. He's practicing and working.

Starting point is 00:13:10 I call that fraction. That's kind of like the fourth P of the interface response system is once you've made a conscious logic, goal supporting decision of how you're looking at things and its value, and it's time to actually choose your response, it's important to understand that when you go into action, you have to practice it for a second because you're not good at it at first. Again, he quotes Rick Rubin, don't be attached to the outcome. Just do the work. Identify who you are and what you do and say, I'm going to do this with all I got until they

Starting point is 00:13:44 take me out feet first. That's an all in commitment. I love that. I'm going to do this podcast and my transformation coaching and my writing and my substack and all and my parenting and my role as a husband, my health and all of these things I'm committed to, I'm going to do it with all I got until they pull me out. Feet first. Where do you stand? Pressfield says that once you finally commit to your calling, your life becomes forward moving and productive. This validates one of my core tenants, and that is, it's who you are that

Starting point is 00:14:19 determines how well what you do works. I always say that your career requires a whole ass effort. you can't put half of your ass in, you won't collect the prize. And this is something he speaks on too. He's a very, very determined, disciplined, self-disciplined person. So he talks a lot about discipline. Discipline is imposed from the outside, just plain old discipline. I'm coming out with a 21 days to discipline. That's going to be out soon that I'm working on with my wife, 21 days to manifestation. We're actually creating a group called 21 Days 2 and all of these cool things are going to be in there. So when I look at discipline, I'm very, very serious about reminding you that I'm talking about self-discipline. So discipline is imposed from the outside. Self-discipline is imposed from the inside.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Pressfield suggests that we should be our own sergeant in command, giving ourselves orders, but also edifying and debriefing ourselves. Be your own boss. Practice self-discipline, but also practice self-validation. Validate yourself when you do something. Hey, JC, great job today. self-improvement. So congratulate yourself at the end of every day and like a boss, point out some areas that you could improve in without creating this illusion that you did something because you like read a book or you listen to this podcast. That's why I always say if you learn something today, give it away, that's how it's going to stay. So here's some other highlights, a little bit shorter. Turning pro he talks about. And that's a mindset shift. Amateurs versus pros. Amateurs wait for inspiration. Professional shows. up regardless. A professional does not take resistance personally. They expect it and work through it. Commitment is everything. Acting despite fear is what separates pros from amateurs. Remember this. I've said this before. Both successful and unsuccessful equally have the same fears. The same challenges, the same fears. The only thing that separates them is successful people. Do it anyway.

Starting point is 00:16:22 That's a relationship with resistance and obstacle. that's some good shift right there. So he talks a lot about the muse. He says the muse rewards action. Pressfield from this alternate realm, Pressfield leans into ancient mythology, claiming that the muse, the creative force that's giving him the ideas, rewards those who show up consistently. So not only is he think that he's getting his ideas from an alternate place, which I think is super cool, but he's saying that that alternate place rewards those that show up consistently. You might call it God. You might call it the universe. He's talking about it as if it's his muse. Waiting for inspiration is a trap. I believe in that. Waiting for inspiration is a trap. Doing the

Starting point is 00:17:07 work creates the inspiration. Listen to that again. Write it down. Waiting for inspiration is a trap. Doing the work creates the inspiration. If you've been misled to think that things like timing, motivation, and self-belief are precursors. for you to go out and succeed, you've been misled. Those are things that actually come about from doing the work. Decide what you want, decide the vehicle that will give you what you want and leverage it and do the work. All those things that you thought you needed first come along the way, including getting good at it. Fear is a compass, he says.

Starting point is 00:17:44 The things that we're most afraid of often are the exact things that we need to do. Isn't that true? Fear doesn't mean stop. It means pay attention. That's delicious. big is happening. It's caught your attention. This lends really, really well to the stoic principle of the obstacles away. And if you read his books, you'll see that Pressfield has many stoic characteristics and qualities. Number five, resistance works through rationalization. That's a big interface response system

Starting point is 00:18:14 concept. Look at things logically and rationally from multiple vantage points. It tells us when we don't have time, or we say that we're not ready, we need more training, or that it's not the right moment, those are rationalizations that are kind of like a side hustle or a partner of resistance. Those are lies that you're telling yourself, and that's where procrastination is bred. Those are just excuses. The truth is, the perfect time will never come. So start now. If you're looking for the best time to start something, it is an OW now.

Starting point is 00:18:49 Number six, the higher self versus the ego speaks a lot about this. Our higher self is always calling us towards purpose, creation and expansion. The ego, however, works in coordination with resistance. The ego is on the payroll of this force called resistance, and it's there to keep you small, afraid, comfortable, safe. So your ego has good intentions, but it is there to prevent you from taking big risks and things like that and moving forward. And then number seven, he says there's magic behind just simply doing the work.

Starting point is 00:19:24 Pressfield insists that once we commit and step into our craft, our genius and our craft daily, life begins to shift and opportunities emerge. The universe meets us, this is big, oh God, this is one of my favorite takeaways. He says the universe meets us halfway when we step forward with action. I love that. You know that idea that you're hoping and praying, which I do all the time, like, oh, please, give me a break. Like, right now my wife and I are in a season where we're putting everything we have into

Starting point is 00:19:56 some projects. And we understand why, but we're not seeing a lot of the return on investment other than potential. With all this shit, there's got to be a pony somewhere, right? So we can easily slip into this idea that the universe and God have to pick up the slack. He says the universe, God, or the muse, only meet you halfway. and match your effort. So we often expect the universe and God to handle more than our share.

Starting point is 00:20:22 Pressfield reminds us that they meet us halfway. Guess what that means? We control what that halfway is. You can control how much help you get from above. So how the war of art fits into the interface response system, Pressfield's concept of resistance is what I consider the perfect parallel to the unconscious programming of the mind.

Starting point is 00:20:44 Our thoughts, fears, and limiting beliefs are not entirely our own, are they? I call it their programming. They've been shaped and persuaded and leveraged into our program by our MFTPSE, our mother, father, teacher, preacher, society, and the paying forward of evolution. The automatic sense-making machines that exist in our brain are designed to keep us safe, not fulfilled. Your conscious mind seeks fulfillment, not your automatic, subconscious, unconscious mind, which is why. resistance exists. That's the groundwork for resistance, that idea that we're looking to stay safe and unfulfilled. Resistance is actually very, very much attached to our ego. Resistance works for the

Starting point is 00:21:31 limited programmed mind that was formed to keep us away from harm and avoid risk. So let's break it down quickly in the IRS framework. Step one of the IRS. And by the way, if you want to learn and work with the IRS. These are some things that we do in the Make Sense Academy. You can go back in my podcast and learn about it, but in our Make Sense Academy, which is our low-cost group format, collaborative community, our psychological safe haven, where everything that I've ever created exists. Just say the words make sense, and I'll send you that information. But in there, we very much use the interface response system to phase place everything. So step one, perceive is about recognizing and understanding resistance.

Starting point is 00:22:13 Step one of the IRS is about brain awareness, understanding how the brain works. Resistance thrives in the unconscious. That's 95% of your brain. If we don't recognize it, which is how the interface response system works, it controls us. The moment that we identify resistance

Starting point is 00:22:30 as an external force, not our truth, not who we are, we begin to reclaim our power. How do we do that? Step two. And we call that the point. pause. That's where we interrupt the pattern and create space to actually look at it from a different

Starting point is 00:22:46 vantage point. Resistance desires urgency. Just like somebody that wants to fight with you, if you take time to think about it, they're going to hate you for it. Resistance is the same way. Resistance is used to getting a quick knee-jerk reaction from you. It wants us to believe that we're too busy, too tired, not ready to do what we want to do. It doesn't want to be disputed, so it comes on hard and very, very convincing. By pausing, taking a breath and as we say, saying, hmm, which stands for HMM, I haven't made up my mind yet, we create space between the impulse and the action.

Starting point is 00:23:26 This pause weakens the resistance grip and allows us to make an intentional choice. That moves on to step three, where we make that assessment of what's the best choice. we call that process where we choose the higher path. We can now examine our choices based on what we want and why. We go through our sorting filter and we start to ask questions in our sorting filter. Should I follow resistance and stay comfortable? Which is a choice, right? Sometimes I'll stay comfortable.

Starting point is 00:23:55 Typically when it's not connected to my highest needs. Or should I step into action? Should I take the red pill instead of the safe blue pill knowing that fear means growth? get uncomfortable. Eventually you'll get comfortable being uncomfortable. So the conscious mind must take over here. You have to allow it. And there's only one way to do that and that's the pause. Allow yourself space. You have to stop the knee-jerk programmed response. The professional mindset is built in this phase. It overcomes and bypasses the amateur mindset. He talks a lot about going pro. So you can look at your subconscious mind as an amateur mind. Your conscious mind, which is only 5%,

Starting point is 00:24:35 but a powerful 5% is your conscious mind, and you have to look to have your conscious mind become the pro and make the amateur get overridden by it. I love that. And then finally, we make our decision. We practice, right? We put it into play. We proceed. We use that concept of traction. We practice doing the work. The final step is just that action. Show up, do the work, no excuses, be patient, and focus more on accomplishing the goal of doing the work versus projecting the outcome of the work. That's what it means to detach from the outcome. It means focus on the income, doing the work, detach from the outcome.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Think about it. If the work is what leverages the outcome, it's all you should be focused on. The more we act despite resistance, the weaker resistance comes. It's like you're starving it. If you want to eradicate something in your life, starve it. and the way you starve resistance is by being in consistent action. That's delicious. Over time, our identity shifts, we no longer battle resistance, we dominate it. We become like, this is my visual, we become like Pac-Man, and the resistance becomes the power pellets,

Starting point is 00:25:50 and we just chomp those suckers up. Some final thoughts. For me, personally, the War of Art is a manual of self-mastery. It isn't just about writing, painting, or building your business. It's about reclaiming power over your internal interface response system. Oh, I love the alignment there. So happy Stephen was on our show today. Every moment we hesitate, every time we let fear dictate our actions, what we're doing is surrending to something that isn't real and we're surrendering to it. What sticks is this relationship between resistance and our purpose. The stronger the resistance, the more important the work. If resistance comes on strong,

Starting point is 00:26:35 and you know what that looks like? The shit hits the fan. And you think that you're just, you look up and you go, really? That's what it looks like. So that reason that you have as an excuse, your ball pass perhaps, you get out of work for free pass,

Starting point is 00:26:52 which we've been trained to do since we were a kid, the more valid your excuse, the more valid your problem, and there's some big ones, right? the more important the work, the more reason to do it anyway. Isn't that an interesting shift? This is huge. Imagine if every time you felt self-doubt, procrastination, or fear, you just simply flipped the switch and you made it a confirmation that you're on the right path. That's what Pressfield is offering us here, folks. Resistance is not a barrier. It's a guide,

Starting point is 00:27:25 not an obstacle. I love that. It's not even an obstacle because we say obstacles away. Resistance is this guide that says, come with me, we're onto something. And here's the kicker. We always feel resistance. You're never going to not feel resistance. But what we can get better at is moving through it. Just like the interface response system helps us shift in our perspective, the war of art is a system for taking back control from the part of our brain that wants to keep us small.

Starting point is 00:27:56 I call it the little liar. The question isn't, how do I stop? feeling resistance. The question is this, will I choose to act despite it? Let's go to war with resistance. Make sense? Hey, love and appreciate you all. Thank you so much for being here. And I told you what I was going to say at the end. If you learned something today, give it away. It's only that way that it's going to stay. Have an amazing day. I'll see you next time.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Resistance - Summary of Steven Pressfield's War of Art - Episode 81

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