Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Here's Why You Should Read "The War of Art"

Episode Date: November 10, 2017

Contrary to the title, it’s not just for artists. It’s for anyone that wants to make a good life for themselves and their families. It’s a tribute to persistence and industry, and some of its core messages are… Don’t just wander through life from pillar to post. Find something that matters to you and pursue it passionately. Don’t whine about how much hard work it takes to succeed. Learn to love the work and despise failure and quitting, instead. Don’t let your feelings dictate your actions. What you want is rarely what you need, and you can create the right feelings by taking the right actions. Don’t wait for inspiration. That’s how amateurs stay amateurs. Do the work, grind it out, and eventually you’ll get inspired. These bits of advice are all well and good, but what really makes it stand out among the many other books that say many of the same things is it doesn’t just tell us what we “should” be doing to succeed, which is pretty commonsensical, really, but it goes deeper, and tries to get at WHY we find it so hard. The biggest obstacle in our way, Pressfield says, is something he calls “Resistance,” which is the central theme of the book. He defines Resistance as a mysterious force within us that works to sabotage our dreams and abilities and prevent us from creating the life that we really want. Pressfield points out that most of us have two lives, the life we live, and the unlived life within us, and Resistance’s sole mission is to ensure that we never realize that unlived life. That we remain small, weak, and unhappy. That’s why Resistance resists any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. It will tell us anything to keep us from doing any of those things. It will feed us all kinds of enticing excuses, justifications, and bargains. You know...we’re too tired right now...we can just do it later...we’ve been working hard enough or maybe even too hard...why not start next week...does it really matter?...is it really that important? We’ve all been there, and I think Pressfield is right that this alone is one of the biggest barriers that we face in creating the type of life that we want. Want to be notified when my next book recommendation goes live? Hop on my email list and you’ll get each new installment delivered directly to your inbox. Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

The fact that something is hard isn't a sign that you don't belong in the arena. The struggle is how you prove you're worthy. Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life, and I'm often asked about books. People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me what book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read and what my favorite books are and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well. I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound interest benefits your bank

account in that the more you learn the more you know and the more you know the more you can do and the more you can do the more opportunities you have to succeed and on the flip side i also believe that there is little hope for people who aren't perpetual learners. I know that might sound a little bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let's face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic. And if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant. So if you are a bookworm and you're on the lookout for good reads, or if you'd like to just get into the habit of reading more, then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week, I'm going to share a book that I've particularly liked, and I'm going to tell you why I liked it and give you several of

my key takeaways from it. I'm also going to keep these episodes short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not. Okay, so let's get to this week's book, and it is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Now, contrary to the title, this book isn't just for artists. I think it's for anyone that wants to make a better life for themselves and their friends and their families and everyone else that might be in their sphere of influence. It is a tribute to persistence in industry, and some of its core messages are don't just wander through life from pillar to post. Find something that really matters to you and pursue it passionately. Don't whine about how much hard work it really takes to succeed.

Instead, learn to love the work, embrace the work, and to despise failure and quitting instead. Don't let your feelings dictate your actions. Unfortunately, what we want is rarely what we need. And what we want to do in many cases is rarely what we need to do. And if we know that we can create the right feelings by simply taking the right actions. It also tells us to not wait for inspiration because that's how amateurs stay amateurs. Instead, we need to learn how to do the work, grind it out, and eventually we will feel inspired. Now, these bits of advice are all well and good, but what really makes this book stand out among

the many other books that say many of the same things is The War of Art doesn't just tell us what we should be doing in order to succeed, which for the most part is pretty commonsensical. in order to succeed, which for the most part is pretty commonsensical. Instead, it goes a bit deeper and it tries to get at why we find it so hard to do the things that we know we need to do. And the biggest obstacle in our way, Pressfield says, is something that he calls resistance, which is really the central theme of the book. He defines resistance as a mysterious force within us that really works to sabotage our dreams and abilities and prevent us from ultimately creating the life that we really want. Pressfield points out that most of us have two lives, really. We have the life that we live, and then we have the unlived life within us, the life that we wish we were living. And resistance's

sole mission is to ensure that we never realize that unlived life. Resistance wants to make sure that we remain small, weak, and unhappy. And that's why it resists any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. It will tell us anything to keep us from doing any of those things. It will feed us all kinds of enticing excuses and justifications and bargains. It'll say that we're too tired right now, or we can just do it later, or maybe it's not really as important as we thought, or maybe we've been working really hard and maybe even too hard. Maybe we can just do it later, or maybe it's not really as important as we thought, or maybe we've been working really hard and maybe even too hard. Maybe we should just take our foot off the gas and take a break. Why not start next week? Is it really that big of a

deal? I mean, really, is it even all that important at all? Should we really even do it? Those are the siren calls of resistance and we've all been there. So I really think that Pressfield is spot on with his observation here in that one of the biggest barriers that we face in creating the life that we want is resistance. And this isn't really even a new concept. It isn't Pressfield's idea per se. Freud said as much back in the early 1900s when he wrote that psychoanalytic treatment may in general be conceived of as such a re-education in overcoming internal resistances. So in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Pressfield swiped the idea from Freud. But regardless, Pressfield does a great job explaining how it works and giving some practical ideas on how

we can overcome it. So let's get to the takeaways here. Here's the first one. Quote, if the muse exists, she does not whisper to the untalented. And my note here is that the famous painter and photographer Chuck Close is famous for saying that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. And I think that that is 100% spot on. And I think you can also just replace inspiration with motivation and it is equally valid. So if you or I or anyone decide to wait for the just right mixture or intensity of feelings before we will allow ourselves to do the things that we know we really should be doing to get to the

places where we really want to go, we are doomed. The only reliable way to feel inspired or motivated is to create those feelings through action. It's the feeling of forward motion and momentum that inspires and motivates us to keep on going, not the mysterious workings of our unconscious minds. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Takeaway number two, quote, like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, resistance will unfailingly point to true north, meaning that calling or action at most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must

follow before all others. Rule of thumb, the more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. And my note here is that the fact that something is hard isn't a sign that it's probably not worth it. The struggle is the point. The struggle is how it signals its worth and potential to transform. So the fact that something is hard isn't a sign that you don't belong in the arena. The struggle is how you prove you're worthy. Epictetus, the influential Greek philosopher, wrote about this in his discourses. He said, What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra,

stag, or boar, and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously, he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort, he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul without crises or conditions to stir him into action? And the moral of this simple little allegory extends far beyond just Greek mythology. I think it really strikes at a fundamental aspect of human nature, and that is we really can only be as great as our circumstances demand. Okay, takeaway number three, quote, grandiose fantasies are a symptom of resistance. They're the sign of an amateur.

The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by symptom of resistance. They're the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a byproduct of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like. My note here is that I'm all for hitching your wagon to a star and dreaming big dreams, but if you're not willing to work at least 10 times as hard as you think you'll have to work to actually see those dreams come to fruition, you're almost guaranteed to fail. So much so that I would probably say don't even try. One of the hallmarks of a true professional is that he or she focuses almost exclusively on the work involved and rarely mentions anything else. Takeaway number four, quote,

Someone once asked the Spartan King Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied, contempt for death. For us artists, read failure. Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue. And my note here is, this of, extends to everyone, not just artists. And I think it should include not just contempt for failure, but contempt for hard work, contempt for pain, discomfort, setbacks, naysayers, anything physical, emotional, or even spiritual that might get in our way. Many of the greatest achievers in history all had this type of dismissive attitude toward

obstacles and barriers. They didn't care how difficult their goals were going to be. They didn't care how hard they were going to have to work. They didn't care how much they were going to have to sacrifice. They just threw themselves wholly and completely into their endeavors. And a perfect example of this is how Elon Musk described his founding of SpaceX to Ray Dalio, whose book Principles is very good and is going to be featured in one of these episodes, by the way. And Elon said, for a long time, I've thought that it's inevitable that something bad is going to happen on a planetary scale, a plague, a meteor that will require humanity to start over somewhere else like Mars. One day, I went to the NASA website to see what progress they were making on their Mars program, and I realized that they weren't even thinking about going there anytime soon. $180 million when my partners and I sold PayPal. And it occurred to me that if I spent $90 million and used it to acquire some ICBMs from the former USSR and sent one to Mars, I could inspire the

exploration of Mars. And when Ray asked him about his background in rocketry, Elon said he didn't have one. I just started reading books, is what he said. And that's just how people like Elon think and act. If you spend some time reading biographies of people like him, you really can't miss it. And if you want to do that, and if you want a few recommendations, I really liked Ashley Vance's biography of Elon Musk, Philip Freeman's biography of Alexander the Great, Ron Chernow's biography of John D. Rockefeller, and Edmund Morris's biographies of Theodore Roosevelt. And all of those people very much embodied this trait that I'm talking about. All right, last takeaway, quote, the years have taught me one skill, how to be miserable.

I know how to shut up and keep humping. Now, this one strikes at what I think is one of the greatest single predictors of long-term success and achievement. And that is simply how much distress and comfort can someone endure on a given path before giving up? Or if you want to view it differently, how much does he or she value being comfortable? And simply put, the more effort and pain that someone is willing to push through, and the more that he can resist the desire to just lie around and consume things that make him feel good, the more likely he is to be able to make his dreams a reality. I once saw a video where a guy talked about an ultra marathon that he did with his friends

where they all ran different legs of a 100 mile stretch. And there was a retired Navy SEAL in the marathon named David Goggins who did the entire thing on his own. Insane, 100 miles. David's ankles were swollen to the size of grapefruits and he had broken several bones in his feet. And the narrator of the video, the guy, he asked the Navy SEAL how the hell he did it and also asked if David would train him. So later on, they met at a gym and David told him to do as many pull-ups as he could. So the guy did eight. That's what he had the first time. So David told him to go again and he did six. Again, David said, and the guy got about four, barely. David then said that they couldn't leave the gym until the guy had done 100 more pull-ups. And of course, the guy thought it's impossible, but David insisted. And so he did it rep by rep over the course of a couple hours.

and so he did it rep by rep over the course of a couple hours. After finishing that 100th rep, David told him, whenever you think you're done and entirely ready to give out, you're only 40% of the way there. The moral of this story is simple. It's that you can push yourself a lot further than you realize and you can endure far more hardship than you think. So don't sell yourself short. You don't have to break yourself every day, but you can easily go well outside of your comfort zones regularly without any real consequences. And furthermore, the more you do this, the more your capacity to stretch yourself expands. And that allows you to accomplish more and more without feeling like you're really exerting yourself or suffering any more than you were before. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be

better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in,

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