Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – Steven Pressfield

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – by Steven Pressfield
Date read: 2/7/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Similar to The War of Art, Pressfield continues his tried and true method of packing concise inspiration into a quick read. The main message of the book is about shifting your creative center of gravity from the superficial and fearful ego to the deep and fearless self. This requires committing for the long haul. Must read for any entrepreneur or artist trying to create something from nothing.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Show up:
“When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day’s work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don’t judge myself on quality. I don’t hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?” SP

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” Goethe

“Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, ‘Maybe we can do this some other time.’ There is no other time.” SP

“Putting our ass where our heart wants to be is the equivalent of Alexander charging into the breach at the Granicus River or at the Issus or Gaugamela. We too are risking it all. We too hold nothing back. We too have hurled ourselves headlong into the unknown.” SP

Location matters:
You must leave the place where you live and move to the hub of the creative world where your dreams are most likely to come true. There’s no substitute for being in the heart of the action. Ernest Hemingway moved to Paris. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. 

Commitment:
“The positive face of commitment is self-empowerment. The very act of putting our ass where our heart wants to be makes a profound impression, not just on those we wish to work with or be mentored by, but on ourselves.” SP

“In myth and legend, when the hero commits to an intention by taking bold action, he enacts a Cosmic Overthrow. He ‘crosses the threshold.’ Like Luke Skywalker heading with Obi Wan Kenobi for Mos Eisley spaceport or Dorothy being swept away from Kansas by a cyclone, the hero moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World. She has gone from the Known to the Unknown.” SP

“The universe responds to the hero or heroine who takes action and commits. It responds positively. It comes to the hero’s aid.” SP

Perseverance:
“For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.” SP

“Resistance is always strongest at the finish.” SP

“Killer instinct is not negative when we use it to finish off a book, a screenplay, or any creative project that is fighting us and resisting us to the bitter end. Steel yourself and put that sucker out of its misery.” SP

Visualization:
“What fascinates me about the character of Alexander the Great is that he seemed to see the future with such clarity and such intensity as to make it virtually impossible that it would not come true—and that he would be the one to make it so. That’s you and me at the inception of any creative project. The book / screenplay / nonprofit / start-up already exists in the Other World. Your job and mine is to bring it forth in this one.” SP

Turning Pro – Steven Pressfield

Turning Pro – by Steven Pressfield
Date read: 7/2/19. Recommendation: 7/10.

A solid follow-up to Pressfield’s earlier book, The War of Art. Short, concise, and relevant for any artist or entrepreneur. Highlights the difference between amateurs and professionals, and what it takes to reach the top of your craft. Pressfield discusses shadow careers, the power of concentration, navigating fear, and standing on your own. He also emphasizes that habits are the primary difference between amateurs and professionals. Professionals have better habits that help them simplify life.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Shadow Careers vs. Your Calling

• Shadow career = metaphor for real career. Shape is similar but entails no real risk. No skin in the game. No consequences.

• Pressfield’s version was driving trucks instead of writing…took pride in it, felt powerful + manly, the work was interesting, romance of being on the road.
  

Power of Habits

• Habits are the primary difference between amateurs and professionals.

• Professionals have better habits that help them simplify life.

• “The Zen monk, the artist, the entrepreneur often lead lives so plain they’re practically invisible.” SP

• Pros face just as much fear, but structure their day to confront and overcome it.
  

Overcoming Resistance

• To overcome resistance, you need concentration and depth.

• If you’re shallow and unfocused, you’ll never make it out.

• The draw to failure or trouble is so strong because its incapacitating, let’s you off the hook.

• What you’re must afraid of is what you must do.
  

Signs of an Amateur

• Fear dictates decisions (fear of being different or rejected leads to inauthenticity, fear of solitude and silence).

• Avoid resistance through drama, denial, distraction.

• To combat this, you need self-awareness.
  

Signs of a Professional

• Seek wisdom and instruction from masters without surrendering self-sovereignty.

• Doesn’t sit around waiting for inspiration, acts in anticipation. Orderly, workmanlike in habits and routine.

• Trusts and examines the mystery. “The place we write from (or paint from or compose from or innovate from) is far deeper than our personal egos. That place is beyond intellect. It is deeper than rational thought.” SP

• “The best pages I’ve ever written are pages I can’t remember writing.” SP
  

Life is a Single Player Game

• There is no tribe. The artist and the entrepreneur enter the arena alone.

• “In the hero’s journey, the wanderer returns home after years of exile, struggle, and suffering. He brings a gift for the people. The gift arises from what the hero has seen, what he has endured, what he has learned. But the gift is not that raw material alone. It is the ore refined into gold by the hero / wanderer / artist’s skilled and loving hands.” SP

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

The War of Art – by Steven Pressfield
Date read: 4/15/18. Recommendation: 8/10.

Worth the investment for any creative. It's a short read and a manifesto that many hold dear. Pressfield cuts through excuses which embody what he defines as Resistance. He offers blunt advice to eliminate distractions and get on with the work you should be doing. The only thing that matters is sitting down and putting in the effort, every single day. The more you're able to remove your ego from that equation, the less interference there will be. We've all struggled with Resistance in some form–procrastination, fear, low self-confidence, rationalization. The War of Art is a call to overcome that and move yourself into a higher sphere by dedicating uninterrupted time to your craft. 

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews. 

My Notes:

A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.

How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don't do the thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?

Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity...will elicit Resistance.

The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

Fear doesn't go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher.

The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight.

Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance. 

A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat.

The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky. He was born in the right place...The fundamentalist cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats to the past. 

The truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

The professional takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself...the professional turns down roles that he's done before. He's not afraid of them anymore. Why waste his time?

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-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.

Rationalization keeps us from feeling the shame we would feel if we truly faced what cowards we are for not doing our work.

The professional steels himself at the start of a project, reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash. He conserves his energy. He prepares his mind for the long haul. 

A pro views her work as craft, not art.

Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all compromise the ground over which the campaign must be waged. The field is level, the professional understands, only in heaven.

The professional is prepared at a deeper level...His goal is not victory (success will come by itself when it wants to) but to handle himself, his insides, as sturdily and steadily as he can.

The ancient Spartans schooled themselves to regard the enemy, any enemy, as nameless and faceless. In other words, they believed that if they did their work, no force on earth could stand against them.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code or the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now." -Goethe

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

An individual who defines himself by his place in a pecking order will:
-Seek to elevate his station by advancing against those above him
-Evaluate his happiness/success/achievement by his rank within the hierarchy
-Act towards others based upon their rank in the hierarchy

Qualities of a territory:
-A territory provides sustenance
-A territory can only be claimed alone
-A territory can only be claimed by work
-A territory returns exactly what you put in