Turning Pro - Steven Pressfield

Turning Pro - Steven Pressfield

3-Sentence Summary:

Overcoming the Resistance you feel towards accomplishing something important requires that you “turn pro”.

This involves following your true ambition, creating the work you want to create, showing up every day, and being patient.

Ultimately, turning pro must become manifest as a practice, a somewhat repetitive but consistent ritual, from which the creative process can take place.

Notes:

• When you find yourself disliking your life or yourself, there are a few ways of thinking about it. One is that you’re ill in some way and need a cure or medication. Another is good and evil, where you are doing something wrong and therefore are being punished. Another, presented here, is that you are living as an amateur when you should be a pro.

• When you turn pro, you find your inner voice and self-respect, and are able to live the life you've always wanted to but were afraid to.

• "To feel ambition and act on it is to embrace the unique calling of your soul."

• Sometimes, when you're afraid to embrace your true calling, you'll embrace a shadow calling instead, and therefore live a shadow life. This calling/life may be somewhat similar to our true calling, but will not entail any risk and will have us following goals we don't truly want to.

• The difference between the amateur and the professional is in their habits.

• Living as an amateur can lead to addiction in various forms, as you try to achieve the feeling that you would feel from following your calling and creating what it is you want to create. Addicts try to either transcend the pain of resistance or anaesthetise it.

• We are all amateurs at some point, but we must make the choice to turn pro.

• Amateurs are afraid and let that hold them back. Pros are also afraid, but what differentiates them is how they act in the face of fear.

• Qualities of the professional:

  • The professional shows up every day

  • The professional stays on the job all day

  • The professional is committed over the long haul

  • For the professional, the stakes are high and real

  • The professional is patient

  • The professional seeks order

  • The professional demystifies

  • The professional acts in the face of fear

  • The professional accepts no excuses

  • The professional plays it as it lays

  • The professional is prepared

  • The professional does not show off

  • The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique

  • The professional does not hesitate to ask for help

  • The professional does not take failure or success personally

  • The professional does not identify with his or her instrument

  • The professional ensures adversity

  • The professional self-validates

  • The professional reinvents himself

  • The professional is recognized by other professionals

  • A professional is courageous

  • The professsional will not be distracted

  • The professional is ruthless with himself

  • The professional has compassion for himself

  • The professional lives in the present

  • The professional defers gratification

  • The professional does not wait for inspiration

  • The professional does not give his power away to others

  • The professional helps others

• To defeat the self-sabotaging habit of procrastination, self-doubt, susceptibility to distraction, perfectionism, and shallowness, [the pro] enlists self-strengthening habits of order, regularity, discipline, and a constant striving after excellence.

• This may seem boring and like it takes away the magic of inspiration and flashes of genius, but in fact, this allows for these things to come through. "The humble produces the sublime".

• Artists and entrepreneurs (or anyone really) who turns pro gets 2 salaries: financial and psychological.

• Turning pro must become a daily practice, and this practice generally includes a specfic space, time, and intention, and should be approached both as a warrior (ready to face the inevitable resitance) and with humility (“we have the right to our labour, but not to the fruits of our labour”).

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