#501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey

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No seen it. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal metal scale. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job each and every episode to interview world class performers to try to tease out the habits, routines, frameworks, favorite books, and so on, favorite serials, maybe, who knows, that you can apply to your own. Life and my guest today is

is Steven Pressfield. I've wanted to have Steven on this podcast for a very long time. You can find him on Twitter at S. Pressfield. Steven is a former Marine and graduate of Duke University. He became an overnight success as a writer after thirty years of abject failure. Those are his words, not mine. So we'll dig into that. Identifying the omnipresence, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, of resistance. The interior force of self-sabotage he described in The War of Art, one of the best book titles of all time, has saved his own artistic life and helped many others struggling to find their creative calling. Pressfield's novels of the ancient world, including the nonfiction, the warrior ethos, are required reading at West Point, Annapolis, and in the Marine Corps. lives in Los Angeles. His newest book.

is a man at arms, an epic saga about a reluctant hero of the Roman Empire and the rise of a new faith. You can find him online, Steven with a V, stephenpressfield.com on Twitter at S Pressfield and Instagram. Steven underscore. Pressfield. Steven, welcome to the show. It's great to be here, Tim. I've been wanting to have a conversation with you as well. So I'm I'm excited about this too. It's great. And we are gonna run out of

We're gonna run out of time well before we run out of content. I think in part because I have all these notes in front of me. I have all these questions. And then there is, I'd say at least 51% of me that just wants to turn this into a selfish opportunity to have therapy from you. Uh so we'll see what what blend of all of those elements. We'll see what blend I was hoping for the same thing. Oh, wonderful. Okay. So it's uh From you. From me. Well, you know what, we can we can turn this into a a mutual therapy session in that case. All right. So let's let's

Go Back in time for those who don't have much context. On your life. And perhaps a good entry point. is a prompt that you provided, and that is ask me about my house for$15 a month and the backwoods cat I made friends with. So that's where I'm gonna start. Please tell me about this house at fifteen dollars a month and the backwoods cat.

I went uh the when you talked about uh thirty years of abject failure, that's r that's really true. I mean from the time that I originally tried to start writing quit a job Like you did. And uh And actually had a book published was about

You know, about twenty eight years, thirty years, something like that. And at one point I was uh I was driving trucks, tractor trailers in North Carolina, and I had just come out of living in a half way house. The which which was um you know, when people are released from mental hospitals, not me, but everybody else was there.

And I finally found I found this house out in the country for fifteen bucks a month. It had no doors. No electricity. No kitchen. No toilets, nothing. I just basically lived in my van, which I parked on the dirt road there. And um

I used to cook, there was no way to cook. So I used to have a little fire, I'd make a little fire out in the back behind this little house, and it was right up it's you know in North Carolina's a lot of pine woods. And this was right in the middle of the pine woods around Raleigh. And there used to be this Feral cat, this wild cat that lived in the woods.

behind me and when I would come out and cook, and I'd be sitting on the back stoop and the wood started like maybe only five feet from the house. This cat would sort of materialize. He was an old battle scarred Tom cat, you know, and he would sit there across from me while I would make, you know, hot dogs or whatever I was doing. And I could never feed him, he would never take anything from me, you know. I think it was sort of like He didn't want to be a pet. You know? And he would sit there. This is all this is all true, Jim. I'm not making this up. I believe you. He would sit there

Across from me. Just kind of eyeballing me and there was no doubt Which one of us was the superior being? You know, and no doubt which one of us had his shit together and the other one didn't. And and he would look at me.

Like he was trying to decide whether or not to kick my ass or not, you know? And But I felt That this cat was a great omen. I felt that in some way, you know, why does a cat materialize like that? Why does anything happen like that, you know? Like in the Native American tradition when an animal is kind of a spirit animal or something. Right.

And uh So I've I took A lot of courage from that cat appear. I sort of felt like in some way My energy had sort of drawn him out of the woods'cause he kept coming back. But this wasn't a one time thing.

And uh so anyway, that's that's uh That's for a little c I don't know if that's context. That's quite a while ago, but it was that was sort of at the heart of my darkest hours. Well, it it provides a bunch of fertile ground for exploration. Before we leave the cat though. What meaning did you

Take from that. What what effect did that have on you? And then we're gonna come back to the halfway house because you mentioned everyone else was there after being released from a mental hospital or something along those lines. So I wanna know how you ended up there, but first what Meaning Did you imbue this cat with? After these repeated visits.

Well, I f I felt like the cat was a little bit of a of a role model for me. that it was it was a cat that was obviously completely self sufficient know lived in the woods, didn't require anybody to feed him, wouldn't let anybody feed him, was you know a totally autonomous individual. And I thought to myself kind of First of all, why did anything come out of the woods? But

If this is what came out of woods, that it was such a positive kind of person, you know? And uh so I thought if if this cat has come here, maybe he's come here to kind of encourage me and tell me That Steve, you can do that too. You know, you can be like me too. You can be autonomous, you can be self sufficient, you can take care of yourself. You know, it makes me think a bit of the

poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. I'm not familiar with that. Tell me. I'll tell you the first the first few lines are you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. That's the beginning. Wow. And I think about That quite a bit. And contact with nature and uh man's tendency and what I'm I what I mean by that is mankind's tendency, men and women both, to view themselves as apart from nature as opposed to a part of Nature and

The halfway house. So let's connect the dots from the beginning to the Tomcat at the end of that first response. How did you end up there? And what was your state at the time that you were there? I don't know. We're getting into some deep stuff really early here. I know it's a first date and everything, but I'm gonna skip the ball play a bit, if that's okay. Well I was In North Carolina at the time. I had married a a gal from North Carolina. We'd been you know, married for like five or six years at that time.

And we were at the state where We were desperately trying to You know, we were coming apart at the seams and we were desperately trying to hang on together. And We we had come back from North Carolina and we're living with our mother out in the woods.

And um I had This uh job. Delivering industrial food. I drove a little truck. And I would deliver things like Salisbury steaks and uh

Frozen crinkle cut. French fries. restaurants and stuff like that. And uh Without going into a long story, I got fired from that job.

And in an a state of uh Great shame. I was just like Totally to shame in front of my wife, in front of her mother. And I just sort of I just couldn't stay there anymore. I couldn't

You know, I couldn't stay with them. So I kind of I moved into town trying to find a job desperately. And the only place I could find was this sort of boarding house. that uh this is in Durham, North Carolina. That was also a halfway house for you know, where the gov the state government would pay for

people who had been released from mental institutions and uh we're on their way back into the real world. And so I found a a room in the basement there. And um that was how I came to that that halfway house. Well.

And I have a theory about halfway houses and about the people who are in there. If I do you want to hear this, Jim? I do. Because I've been in a bunch of other kind of situations like that. And you think you would think that people were really struggling mentally, but in fact the people in this halfway house, and we used to hang out in the kitchen and talk all night long.

were among the smartest people that I ever met. And the funniest and the most interesting And what I concluded from hanging out with them and from others in a similar situation was that They weren't crazy at all. That they were actually the smart people.

Who had sort of seen through the bullshit. Mm. And because of that, they couldn't function in the world. They couldn't hold a job. You know, because they just couldn't

Take the bullshit, you know? And that was how they kind of wound up. In institutions. Because the greater society thought well these people are absolute rejects, they can't fit in. But in fact, to my mind They were actually the people that really saw through everything.

So in a way I felt kind of bad when I had to leave. This this house'cause I like the people so much. It also speaks It seems like to

Not to say it isn't worth it, but some of the Possible risks. Of Seeing through the thin veneer that is what we consider civilization. Yeah, yeah. And just it's a dangerous thing. Just how slippery it can be to

Sort of realize. How arbitrary so many of these social constructs are. You you have A Just an incredible resume. I mean it it reads like

Yeah. I I don't want to say hero's journey because we'll probably come to that and clarify that a bit later, but you have an eclectic, to put it mildly, collection of Professions. You have tractor, trailer driver. Cab driver. school teacher.

You picked fruit as a migrant laborer. It it and the list goes on. Uh of all of those, does one stand out as having been especiative for who you then later became. As a

writer as a creative. Driving tractor trailers was probably the most formative thing for me in that sense. In the sense that Once you're out on the road. Delivering a load. You're completely on your own.

And if anything goes wrong, I mean obviously you can call for help if you're really desperate. But pretty much you've got to get it together. One way or another and Other people are depending on you. Whatever that load is, you've got to deliver it. The shipper wants it, the people it's being shipped to want it, and there's really sort of no mercy.

You know, you're you have to be a professional, you have to do it. And at the time That I was doing this job. I was really dealing with my own Tendency to sabotage myself. I mean, I was like a self destruction machine. You know, where I would just screw up constantly and I had to be

constantly you know monitoring myself that I wouldn't act out in some crazy way and destroy everything that I was you know trying to do, which was just to survive. So First of all, the help from the people that I worked with. from the other drivers from the dispatcher who was kind of a mentor to me, a guy named Hugh Reeves, who really saved my life in a lot of ways.

And also just the The need to deliver to really actually deliver the goods. And the self imposed pressure of that. That really helped me. And yeah, there were a bunch of instances

When I found myself really up against it. And having to get it together completely on my own. And when I thought I never could And each time that I was able to do that, it reinforced that and kinda like the cat that came out of the woods.

I sort of felt like I was being a little bit of my own role model. And that there was hope that I that I could get it together one way or another. At that time. In that period you you mentioned the self sabotage and I'll I'll give you two questions and you can take a stab at either or both. What was the particular form or most common form of self sabotage if you could

give an example or just describe that because there are so many different types. And then also Hugh Reeves as a mentor. What type of mentor was he? What did you Clean Or learn from him. I'll give you a a specific when I was driving the little trucks and delivering institutional food to these little restaurants like Toddle Houses and stuff like that.

The way I got fired was it was uh early in the morning I had just finished delivering to a to a restaurant. I hadn't had breakfast and I was coming back out through the through the sort of the warehouse section at the back of the restaurant. And they had a whole bunch of rows of little cans of tr of fruit juice, you know, pineapple juice and stuff like that. And so I just reached out and I grabbed one for myself.

And the boss Caught me. And you know Bump bum but bum. I'm fired. And

I really feel like Me doing that. was an act of self destruction. that I had and I'm I absolutely am certain of it. You know?

I just sort of knew, you know, why do you do something? Yeah. So that was Kind of The sort of thing that I would do kind of over and over.

And um Yeah, and Driving trucks. I could tell a bunch of stories, but one of them was where I dropped the trailer one time delivering it, meaning

I pulled the tractor out from under the trailer. in this uh warehouse parking lot right in front of about five hundred people and just dropped this entire trailer nose down onto the thing and was just a complete fiasco. So that was the kind of thing that I would do where I would just be careless. You know, you you know you need to like if you're an airline pilot you and you're doing your your checklist, you know you have to before you take off, you gotta hit check the flaps and the engine and blah blah blah, whatever it is. I would there was something in me

That would make me forget to check the one most important thing that I had to do. And as soon as It went wrong. I knew it. You know, it wasn't like, Oh, what a surprise. It was like oh shit. I've done it again. Yeah. And

Getting back to your Hugh Reeves, who is a dispatcher, who is my mentor in this thing. He After I got fired. I'm really I don't know. I guess this is interesting. I don't know. I find it interesting. After I got fired. for stealing that can of pineapple juice.

I was in a state of utter shame. I didn't even tell my wife or her mother. I just And I I had already applied for I had gone to a truck driving school and I had applied to like fifty companies throughout North Carolina.

And couldn't get on anywhere. And I was just leaving town in my sixty five Chevy van. Heading for the oil fields in Louisiana where I'd worked once before, and where I knew I could at least get a job. All you needed was a pulse. You and then take you on.

And So on my way out of town in uh like uh the dead of winter, worst possible rainy North Carolina stuff. I stopped at this one trucking company that I had already applied to a couple of times and they rejected me. And Hugh Reeves was the dispatcher. And uh he was a former Marine and he knew that I had been Marine.

And I just stopped just for the hell of it. I thought this is where you know nothing's gonna happen any higher. So that kinda saved my life right there. But throughout the whole Uh my struggles to learn the business and stuff like that. There was I'll tell you there was one one moment where he kind of sat me down.

And uh I had kept screwing up, like I said. And he sat me down alone in his office and he said, Uh, you know, son, and I was like, I don't know, like twenty five years younger than him. He said um I don't know what's going on in your head, son. I don't know what journey you're playing out here. I don't know what your issues are.

I don't know what you're trying to solve in your own inner mind. But this Company. Is a business. We're in business to make money.

You are a driver. You represent this company. When I give you a load to take somewhere, you better fucking deliver that load, you know? And And so that was a great thing for me, you know, to You know, it was like a slap in the face.

'Cause I in my mind I definitely was kind of on this odyssey. I was living on an inner world, I don't know what it was. And he was absolutely right. This is a business. You know, this is for real. I have a real job. People are depending on me. I have to I have to And that really helped. It's just sort of

Think of myself as much as I could as a professional and not somebody on some crazy adventure. I can definitely see how that ties into a lot that came later. That's a great story. Yeah. That's a great story. Let's flash forward. We're gonna bounce around quite a bit and In doing so I want to

maybe first bring up Just a common belief or sentiment that I hear a lot, which is like you're gonna do your best work in your twenties, it's like a professional sport. You do A, B, and C, and you've kind of reached escape velocity or not. by the time you're thirty, thirty five, whatever the number might be, but it tends to be around there.

your first novel you mentioned in Some comments a few minutes ago, and I mentioned it. The bio, Thirty Years of Abject Failure. Okay. So your first novel. Published After around thirty years of effort, the the legend of Bagger Bance, how old were you? When

That was published. I think that was fifty three. All right. Maybe fifty four. Okay. So Now a lot happened. Up to that point, obviously in your life, you had a lot of experiences

Where I want to go next is is to ask how you developed Your facility with words because you are a very good writer. The the jobs we've mentioned so far seem to have nothing to do with with wordsmithing. You have you have an incredible vocabulary.

How did this Happen. I'll accept thank you for saying that too much. But through the through the whole time that um You know, I I wasn't only doing blue collar jobs. I I worked in advertising like

In New York. Three or four times. And I h also had about a ten year career as a s as a screenwriter. And uh In Los Angeles, where I am now.

And um So through that time You're uh trying to learn what what a writer is and what being a what writing is. And also, of course, I was I was writing novels through that time. You know, I wrote'em that never got published.

So and each one took about two years full time. What drove you to do that? If I could just pause there for a second, because most people don't write periods. So what was driving you or compelling you or inspiring you to do that? You know, I don't know. It's why does anybody write or why does anybody paint or anything? I um It sort of originally started for me. I ne it was not a dream I had as a kid. You know, I didn't

You know, like uh Jack Carr. The the thriller writer and former Navy SEAL. He always wanted to be a thriller writer from the time he was like six years old. But nah. Not me, it never occurred to me. My first job was in advertising in New York and I had a boss named Ed Hannibal.

Who wrote a novel Uh quit, wrote a novel, and it was a huge success overnight. And I sort of thought, Well shit, why don't I do that too? Seems like a seems like an easy gig. Let's try it. Right. I mean uh he he's in that office. I'm in this office. Why can't I do it? So that sort of at least started this kind of dream for me. You know, and then once I had failed at it really badly, I thought

I was even more motivated to do it, right? I've got to like Somehow I've gotta You know, right my way out of this thing. One way or another. So That was how it initially started, Tim, in terms of

Just the intention to do it to finally Make it work. I wanna allow people to peek behind the scenes here for a second just to see sort of how the sausage is made with this podcast. And I'm looking in front of me at A whole yeah Raft of papers.

One of them. Contains. Prompts and exploratory bullets. Ask guests if they would like. to provide any prompts that might lead to interesting or fun stories.

fertile ground, as I like to say, for exploration. And You learn a lot about guests. Looking at the bullet they provide or the lack of bullets they provide. And your bullets. And I I this this uh this will be tied into what we're talking about in just a second. But so for instance, right, ask me about the house for$15 a month in the back would Cat I made friends with.

Another one which we're not going to get into right now, but we'll probably come back to. We might come back to is ask me about the time when I was driving trucks when they told me, quote, Whatever you do, don't in all caps go past that last right turn. End quote. Now to me, then speaking as I did go past. Of course you did. Now now as someone who has read, I want to say it was John Caples and all these books on copywriting. I can see very clear. And I say this as compliment. the influence of

your time as a copywriter. working at agencies. It's it's so obvious to me because it's you can't not ask. I mean it is is very well crafted in that sense. Could you speak to your learnings. in the world of advertising, what did you gain from

working as a copywriter, whether at I think Benton and Bowles, is that one of the the names of the Yeah, that was one of the places. Yeah. Yeah. And I do think in many ways I learned a tremendous amount in advertising. I mean, I hate advertising. I hate it when it's on the screen. I hate watching TV commercials. I hate the whole concept of it. But I met a lot of great people there and I learned a lot and One of the things, you know, one of the books that I've written about writing, as you know, is called Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit. Yeah, please for those people who don't know it, this is just a spectacular piece. If you could and yeah, describe it. Yeah. And the the sort of the this is to me like

the number one lesson that any writer or artist should know before they know anything else. And you learn this in advertising because as you're as you're trying to write an ad or a T V commercial, one thing you have to always keep in mind is that nobody wants to see it. In fact, they hate it. Sight unseen, they hate it. If it's a TV commercial, they've got their remote in their hand, and I'm gonna click right through it as fast as I can, you know? Or if it's an ad that's in a newspaper or magazine, they're gonna turn the page as fast as they can because they hate it. They don't want you to sell them preparation H or anything like that, right? So The lesson for that as a writer knowing that you're facing that with so much resistance from the from the reader.

Is that Whatever you're gonna put on that page or on the TV screen It's gotta be so good. And so compelling and so interesting. that people will have no choice but to watch it.

And so it makes you work really, really hard. And also makes you really project yourself into the mind of the of the viewer or the reader in an empathetic way, in a really good way. and try to say what would be interesting to them, what would cat their interest and what would hold their interest. And you realize too that

Writing. Is it or and reading is a transaction. that the reader or the viewer is giving you a very valuable commodity, which is their time and their attention. And you've got to give them something.

You can't just put some crap out there and expect that they're obligated to read it or watch it because they won't watch it, you know? So that was that that was a great lesson for me that applied in writing novels or movies or anything at all that you're gonna do. A restaurant, if you're gonna open a restaurant, you know, nobody wants to come in there and and buy your greasy cheeseburger. You know, you've got to come up with something. that makes them say, I've got to go in there, you know? And um That's where the work comes in and that's where the creativity comes in.

And another Sidebar to that, Tim. of what you learn in advertising is A thirty second commercial. cannot have more than sixty words in it.

Two words per second,'cause an announcer or people speaking, actors speaking, can't deliver it. It becomes so fast that you can't hear it. So There's pressure on you every time you write a piece of copy. Like I would bring a piece of copy into my boss, whoever he was or she was. And they would say, Get out of here. This is way too long. Go back to your cubicle and cut it down.

And I'd spend like hours cutting it down and bring it back and then they'd say, Cut it down again. And so That was a A wonderful skill to learn. To find that you can say maybe in twenty five words.

What you had said in two hundred and fifty words before. So you're you're right, Tim, you're right on target that there was a lot of lessons that came out of that experience of writing ads. I mentioned in passing and I'm by no means an expert here, but mentioned in passing heroes journey. in in reference to your your life in a sense. But

Uh my understanding is that you consider The hero's journey. as perhaps we know it in the Joseph Campbell sense. Different. From the artist's journey. Could you please

Elaborate. On that? Uh. I definitely feel this time that you and I are talking about now when I was driving trucks and doing things like that. And being sort of lost and in the wilderness. as my quote unquote hero's journey.

I mean I think we all have many heroes' journeys, but we probably have one sort of overarching one. And to me, the hero's journey of our lives. is takes us from Believing that we are

What our parents told us we are, or what society told us we are, or what we imbibed from the culture. Shedding that. and finally finding out who we really are. And that's sort of the moment the hero's journey always ends in Joseph Campbell terms. with the hero coming home, right? Like Odysseus coming back to Ithaca.

And At at that point The We've we've hopefully we've kind of found who we are and what our calling is.

And for me You know, that was it was a long it was a long journey, but at that point A new stage of our life takes over. Like I'll say for me it was When I finally got a novel published, The Legend of Bagger Vance.

So that took me like twenty eight years of quote unquote heroes journey. And in my view, this is me thinking about this later, I had no concept at the time. At that point At that point I said to myself, I'm a writer. I'm a real writer. I can do it. I've paid my dues. And then the next question became, okay, now what am I going to write about?

What is my gift? If I'm here to bring kind of a gift to the people as the hero's journey Uh template says My question to myself is What is that gift?

So for the rest of my life I feel at that point I got on my artist journey. And now I I'm a writer. I'm gonna write one thing, I'm gonna write another, I'm gonna write another, and the question I'm asking myself is What is what is book one? What is book two? What is book three? What is my gift? What am I here to give? And You know, um

I'll I'll blather on for a bit here, Tim, if you don't mind. I love I love your blathering. Um If you've ever heard of Richard Rohr. Who wrote uh Falling Upward, I think it is. He's a he's a Franciscan monk. And um

A very deep thinker and he kind of divides life into two halves. First half and second half. And the first half of your life he says Is when you're sort of finding your identity and kind of establishing your presence

on the planet, you know, like maybe you're a mom. And you say, Oh, okay, I'm a you know, I'm I'm that, or I'm a lawyer. I bought a house, I have a wife, I have children. You're sort of in his words, Richard Rohr's words, R O H R If you want to look it up, I highly recommend anything by him.

You're creating the vessel. That is your life. And then in the second half of your life You're filling that vessel. Mm. So you sort of ask yourself, Okay, now I can do it. I've got a house. I've

Whatever. Um, I have a profession. What am I gonna do with this? Am I just gonna be another crappy person that's That's you know, uh

continuing the the societal garbage that we have? Or am I going to try to find My gift that's unique to me. And bring it forth to the world and try to help. one way or another. So that to me is there's the hero's journey comes first. And when the hero's journey is over

Our artist journey begins. I love that. And I would define art as as the broadest possible terms. Anything that That is a gift. to the to the wider world.

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LinkedIn.com slash Navigator. Yeah. Part of the hero's journey, as I understand it, and please correct me if I'm getting this wrong, is What is sometimes referred to as refusal of the call.

Right. Like when Luke Skywalker is just bitching and whining and doesn't want to go see Yoda, et cetera. Like d you know, he's just being a pain in the ass, to Obi-Wan Kenobi. You everyone should rewatch Star Wars if you don't remember this part. Or this section. Was there that element? In

Your hero's journey, getting to the point of having created the vessel. Was there a refusal of the call? Did that did that play any role? Oh, a absolutely. And I think it does in everybody's Life, you know, the ref in in the hero's journey, as Joseph Campbell lays it out. There's a bunch of stages.

And The the hero's journey usually it starts in what Joseph Campbell would call the ordinary world. And it's just, you know, you're living your regular life, but something is wrong. Like in the case of Luke Skywalker, he's on uh Uncle Owen and Aunt Varu's evaporator farm on Tatooine, I guess is the planet, right? You got it. And he's just Right. And

And this is his ordinary life, right? He's stuck He's nowhere in fact I think there's a Somebody asks him at some point, Where are you? And he says If there's a spot that's the farthest point away from the bright center of the universe, then That's where I am. Right. And that so that's kind of the ordinary and then what the next day, this is very early in the hero's journey.

And then the next stage is the call. And it's something Happens. That tends to pull you out of this ordinary war, like in

The Wizard of Oz, it's Dorothy gets swept up in the tornado. In Star Wars it's That Luke Skywarker finds R two D two Any And unplugs the little hologram that says

Princess Leia, help me, Obi-Wan, Kenobi, you're my only hope, right? So that's the call, right? Suddenly he realized, Uh oh, I've got to do something here. And then what follows immediately after that. in Joseph Campbell paradigm. It's the refusal of the call.

For Luke, he goes, No, I can't leave. I've got responsibilities. The Aunt Vareo and Uncle O and blah blah blah. And that seems to be across the board. If you if you remember The first rock

The movie. when Rocky, when Apollo Creed or the promoter calls Rocky into his office and says, I'm gonna give you a shot to fight the champ. And Rocky's first reaction is no. I can't do it.

You're crazy. This is a joke. I can't do it. Or if we want to go back to another one. When Odysseus Is being summoned.

to go fight in the Trojan war. His first reaction is no, no, no, I don't wanna do it. And if you remember the myth, he pretends to be crazy. And he goes out and he's sowing his fields with salt. And The messenger who was sent to summon him.

Takes his baby the young Telemachus, Odysseus' baby. And puts them in a furrow in the path. Of the of the plow. And when Odysseus comes to the baby, he veers around it, right? He's not gonna run over his baby.

And the messenger says some ah, you're faking, you're really not crazy. Get on the boat, we're going to the Trojan War. So That's the refusal of of the call. And for me It was the first novel that I tried to write. Which I had no

This is doing. I got like Two minutes from the end. And I just blew it up. and blew my my whole life up it was that was my refusal I refused

to go into this the unknown world. How did you blow it up? Do you mean that you just stopped? You throw out. I'm not gonna tell you actually details, but I did something that made my wife hate me and kick me out. I got it. Okay. So that's why I act it out what as I would say in psychological terms. In other words, another form of self destruction, you know, that That was that was my those were my demons forever. They may be your demons forever, but perhaps you're getting

Or have become better at dancing with them instead of struggling against them. It seems like At least referring to your mentors and lessons learned. That in some Respect.

And please correct me, disabuse me of this, so it's not true, but that you've that you've been able to at least like strike a deal with these demons because you went you went you went from being unable to finish a novel to producing many works. What is that deal? Or how How has that come to be the case? Well, let me just talk about a novel for a second.

Please. After the first one that I wrote That I couldn't finish and that I Went on v these various, you know, spiraling down the rattle type of things. I I finally got it together. I saved some money. I saved twenty seven hundred dollars working in advertising in New York.

And I moved out to a little town in in Northern California. determined to write a novel and finish it. And I rented this little house. And I was just by myself. And through that whole time again I was

Aware every second. of my tendency to sabotage myself. So I just said to myself, I'm gonna finish this son of a bitch or I'm gonna kill myself. And When I finally did and I write about this in the war of art. When I finally did finish it.

And I've typed those words the end. I felt like My DNA changed. You know? And I will say that

as an encouragement to anybody that's listening that's struggling with the same stuff. Once I was able to finish that. Thing that novel? I've never had any trouble finishing anything ever again. That's interesting.

Just sheer willpower. Driven on by shame. No, that I just couldn't. Sh I I think shame is a great thing. Yeah. But I think But I'm just couldn't stand myself if I failed yet again.

Mm. So I just had to keep going, keep going, keep going. It seems like Yeah, it's possible. And I'm speculating here, but the When you finish that novel and you had the end.

Right, because confidence is just not something you can fake, right? In this in the respect that you you your your true self knows whether You've earned it, or it's unearned. When you typed the end. The story of I Always self-sabotage now had a counterexample. That that statement was no longer

Ah, I never thought about it that way, Tim, but I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. A counterexample. Yeah. With the Legend of Bagger Vance, so Finishing a novel is one thing, getting a novel published is quite another endeavor in many respects. So thirty year Overnight success. What happened?

Did you end up like drawing straws and you became the bridge partner of a book agent? Like what what actually happened? That Allowed. This this publication. Publishing your first book.

Well like like I said. I wound up writing three novels Mm-hmm. That never got published. Right. And uh when I finish the third one

that was sort of like another kind of an all is lost moment, a suicide moment for me because I couldn't get any even my friends wouldn't read it. And I knew that I just didn't have the wherewithal to do this again. You know, to save up money to work for two years. That's it. I just didn't have the wherewithal. And so I decided, uh

uh or sort of came to me as a flash. that I would go to Hollywood. Oh let me write A screenplay. Let me write let me try Hollywood. I failed as a novelist, let me f go fail as a screenwriter.

So I did go out to Los Angeles and after about No, four or five years. I got my a I did have an agent. I kept writing screenplays that d also didn't sell. And finally I got kind of teamed up with an established writer.

Guy named Ron, Shucette, who did the first alien. Among other things. A real brand name and a real uh, you know, a guy that really could get work. How did you get teamed up with them? I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but like like Alien turned into an iconic film. I mean that created a franchise. Great. Yeah. How did you get teamed up with them? I had an agent.

A wonderful agent named Mike Werner, who tragically died at a young age. But uh And you know, he had other clients and Ron was one of his other clients. And Ron usually worked with a part. And at that time

'Cause he was more Ron was more of a producer writer than a writer writer. What is a producer writer? A writer writer. is the the guy that actually sits down at the page at the typewriter and actually writes the scenes and so on and so forth. A producer writer is somebody who is great at coming up with the ideas, the big ideas And also sort of shepherding a story through.

Uh from start to finish. And also as a producer in the sense of being able to Get financing. And right and take the meetings and make a deal. So whereas Ron was not the kind of writer that could actually sit down and write the screenplay.

You know? But he could say You know, I would sit there and come up with like thirty ideas. What if we do this? What if we do that? What if we do that? And he would say twenty nine of them suck. Do this one. He's the guy who would say It's jaws in space.

Acts one, two, three. Here's the deck. He could line up. All of the ducks in a row to get the financing in the Yeah. For instance the great scene in Alien where the thing bursts out of

John Hurt's chest. Right. You know that scene? That is Ron's scene. You know, he that was his idea. Which is burned into ever anyone's mind who has ever seen one of the aliens movies. So you can't say just because maybe he didn't actually physically write it at the typewriter That was his, you know. So So it's a very creative thing to be a producer.

So he usually works with a partner. He's more of a producer writer instead of the writer writer. You have the same agent. Please continue. So the agent said, Mike said to us, So let me team you guys up and you'll be a you'll be a team. So that From my point of view, I now became like an apprentice. I was like the junior partner of this team.

And when we'd go to meetings in Hollywood, nobody wanted me, they wanted Ron. He was the brand. And I was just you know, you know, I was the guy that actually sat at the keyboard. So in any event. For maybe ten years or so.

I did have a career as a screenwriter. So that was gaining credibility for me and also I was learning what a story is. You know, by You know, the process that you go through.

And then at one point I just had this idea for the legend of Bagger Vance and I had it as a book. Not as a movie. And so When I told that to my

Agent then at the time. He basically fired me. Un story is I fired him, but his story is that he fired me. But basically he uh He was absolutely right, because what he said to me was

I've spent the last five years trying to get your career going. And we're now just about to get going, and you're telling me you're gonna write some stupid golf novel? that nobody's gonna buy and nobody's gonna read. It's gonna take you a year to write it. And by that time everybody will forgotten who you are here in the business in Hollywood. And I'm back to square one and I've spent a lot of time working with you, so get out of here.

Mm-hmm. So but in any event That was how an actual novel that I wrote actually got published. So it was it was sort of a smooth transition and when you know the actual the actual passage there. Didn't just come out of nowhere. So if you broke up with this agent or he broke up with you. You go off to write this thing.

The agent has these these doubts. And believes that you're going to sort of sink into Oblivion and become irrelevant, right? You're just gonna be I completely forgotten.

You march off. to pursue this This dream. In this project. from there, not to be the dead horse about this, but like how does it then find a home?

With the publisher. You know, it was like I had joked that I was an overnight success after thirty years. And I think sometimes Uh your bad luck builds up to such an extent that it turns into good luck, right? The law of averages starts to work for you, right? And what happened was

To try to get a you have to get a literary agent, right? Which I didn't have. I had a Hollywood agent. So I went to my lawyer, I had an entertainment lawyer named Larry Rose. And he sent me To uh An agent named Jody Hatchis in New York who worked for

Sterling Lord, who's a a a big literary agent. who is still my agent and just turned a hundred years old. Wow. By the by the way. And so almost overnight that manuscript just found a buyer, boom, boom, boom, it found a buyer, found a movie buyer, found everything right away. So it was I think it was just the law of averages finally evened out a little bit. That's just incredible.

What a story. So I'd like to Ask you about Momentum in your life. And I'm asking this is this is where I might segue at least

indirectly into some therapy for myself. So I Um I am looking at An interview you've done here. And

It's Discussing the little successes approach. And I'm just gonna read a first paragraph and then you can tell me if things have changed. But The first paragraph, and this is your response to a question, I think this is on writingroutines.com. I'm at the gym at five thirty every morning, but it takes me until around eleven thirty to actually sit down and start work. I used to be able to put in four hours, but these days two and a half is my outer limit. I close the office then. I never work later or at night. And then you talk about your friend Randy.

Could you speak to the little successes approach and what this what this schedule represents. Randy is Randall Wallace who wrote Brave Heart. And has directed a bunch of movies as well. Mm-hmm. And uh he's a good friend of mine out here and he has a theory

W that he calls little successes. And it means that from the moment he gets out of bed, and I believe this too exactly. He's looking to build up He's he's looking ahead to the moment when he actually sits down and and has to write. Whatever time that may be for him, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, whatever.

And he's trying to Produce a series of little successes. Between now and then to generate momentum. And he counts like brushing his teeth as a little success. And I do too. And one of the one of the reasons I like to go to the gym early or do something physical early.

is because I'm trying to build up little successes. So that by the time I get to sit down at the at the page I feel like I've got some momentum going, you know, I've done I've done this, I've done that, I've done I've taken out the garbage, you know, I've uh you know fed the birds. Uh And I've got a little momentum going'cause I and I think it's very important. I mean, even if you think about Let's say a basketball player. Think about Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or anybody

Steph Curry or whatever, going to the a game tonight. You know, they're at the at the stadium like three and a half hours early. And even before then, they've been at the gym. Or they've been getting a massage or they've mentally they're preparing themselves and they go through, you know, they do their

If you watch Steph Curry do his routine. It you know, it's like I don't know what, it's amazing what he does. No. ba rubber bands between his knees to strengt strengthen his knees and then he does Yeah, all of it.

A hundred shots from you know. But beyond the arc. And he's trying to build up Little successes. So that when the game starts

He's in the flow immediately and he's at the highest possible level. That's the theory anyway. What is your preferred Exercise routine. Do you have any favorite exercises or workouts?

I'm in the now in the COVID thing where I'm doing it on out on my deck. But for up until the Covid thing I train with a wonderful trainer named T R Goodman. At uh place called Pro Camp, Gold's Gym in Venice.

And he has a you know, a whole thing that he does with us who train with him. You should train in a group of two or three guys. And uh it's basically just just really straight Basic weight training. Yeah.

Squats and curls and stuff like that, you know. legs on one day, you know, this just very basic stuff. Mm-hmm. That's a very iconic location. As far as gyms go.

Yeah. Yeah. It's now it's all in a tent in the parking lot. Right. So it's changed a bit during during pandemic times. So the little successes approach makes sense to me and really appeals to me.

And there's there's so much variation, of course, when you talk to writers about process, right? So I've I recently interviewed Joyce Carroll Oates and I've uh when I was an undergrad Took a Just a wonderful seminar with John McFee. And both of them seem to basically sit down, chain themselves to a desk and write for eight hours, and their feeling is you can't wait. for mood. You can't wait for

The muse to strike, you really just need to start writing and that will produce the conditions for writing. I have Sometimes had the experience of that working, but perhaps it's just a weakness of character I often break. I also just break. I'm just like, God, this is fucking terrible. And I stop and uh Then you have

maybe a contrast. And I'm not saying this is all or nothing, one approach or the other, but Folks like uh BJ Novak, who people might recognize, who spends quite a lot of time getting himself into a good mood. So he might take a few hours to get himself into the proper mood to write. And he's Prolific. And very successful. Uh and then there's this little successes approach. I suppose

The question Piggyback off of this is How should someone think about Developing a routine for their own writing process or creative process. Let's stick with writing just because it's it's what we're talking about, even though I think the discussion extends to many other areas. How should somebody think about figuring it out? Because uh even

For me personally. I have uh we'll we'll talk about this. afterwards, but I've I've been having quite a lot of challenges writing in the in the past few years. And so I've tried to reach into the grab bag of different

routines and I found it challenging because so many of them are diametrically opposed or seem to be. Yeah. How would you talk someone through finding something that works for them or making sense of conflicting advice. The one thing I would say is that it seems to me that Every writer or artist f has a unique way of doing it. And I don't think there's any kind of one size fits all type of thing. Like There was an article in the LA Times a few years ago where they interviewed screenwriters who

They were asking what was their routine. They interviewed like five writers. And three of them wrote in their cars. And this is true. And one of them wrote in the car when it was moving. Yeah. I don't know how they did this.

But It just goes to show you that whatever works, works. You know, uh Like Joyce Carolotes or John McFeed doing eight hours.

That is beyond my comprehension. I just can't imagine. It's just I mean, that's yeah, that's like Alex Honnald and free solo, but for the writing world, I yeah, I I can't can't process that. But I I do agree with them That You know, there's a famous quote uh And I quoted in um In the war of art and now I'm

I'm blanking on who who it was the famous writer who they asked him, uh Do you write on a schedule or only when inspiration strikes you? Oh, Somerset Mom. And he said uh I write only when inspiration strikes me. She says fortunately it strikes me every morning at nine thirty sharp.

So he was a believer in routine, right? Mm-hmm. And uh Another person there's a wonderful book uh by Twilith Arp. I'm sure you're aware of this, Tim, called The Creative Habit. And she kind of describes her habits. And she's kinda like me. She goes to the gym at the crack of dawn. Every day she

She catches a cab at exactly the same time, goes the exact same place. And she's trying to build up those little successes. for when she gets to the studio and actually has to work. But to go a little deeper than that. You know, in in my book, The War of Art. I talk about the concept of resistance with a capital R.

Which is again that force of self sabotage is a big theme in my life. that will try to stop you as a writer. Or an artist or anybody. From Achieving your best work from following your calling will try to distract you.

undermine your self confidence, make you procrastinate, make you quit, make you give in to fear. Or on the other hand, make you such a perfectionist that you spend all day on one paragraph and you accomplish nothing. And The whole thing of little successes, the concept of little successes

Or of a routine. is to help you overcome that resistance. to help anybody over that's the wall that you know you're gonna hit. No? Right. You're mentally preparing yourself.

for that moment when you sit down and that negative force hits you. that you've you've got enough momentum And enough self confidence or your friend who gets himself in a good mood. You're in enough of a good place. You got enough good karma and good juju going for you. that you could get through that wall of resistance and then just get into a rhythm and get into the flow.

And then just keep it going. That's the whole sort of concept behind Little successes or a routine or habits. And I'm a big believer in habits.

Me too. When I have been I suppose what we might call successful in writing, just getting anything. Consistently on pages. It's been with some form of scaffolding in the form of routine. And one that actually worked for me, I hadn't thought about this.

to finish at least one book, maybe two. was copying what I believe it was uh My Angela, maybe. Who would rent a hotel room.

to work out of to put herself in a different environment that was dedicated to writing. And when I was in living in San Francisco, I remember Hotel Vitale was this this hotel right on the embarcadero, and I would I would rent A room.

When I got really stuck. to put myself in a different environment and for whatever reason, I mean, let's I'm I'm sure it's placebo effect because how could it not be, right? It's gotta be harn harnessing the mind and kind of pulling a Aikido move on your own psyche. It really, really helped. You've mentioned A number of books. So the the war of art I think everyone should read, certainly.

Then Twilight Arp's a creative habit. Uh I've also read you mentioned Stephen King's on writing, Ernest Hemingway on writing, Larry Phillips and Henry Miller on writing. Henry Miller's just incredible. One that I'm not familiar with. I would love to hear you just expand on for a second. Uh, and the the line here that I'm reading is for integrating the editor's mindset into the writing process. The best book is The Story Grid by Sean Coyne, I think it is, C O Y N E. What does that mean?

the editor's mindset into the writing process. Before I say to that I wanna say that y your idea of checking into a hotel room I think is a great idea. And it is and that's something that uh might be unique to you, Tim. That might be a trick that works for you. It's safer than driving in a car and writing. But it is kind of an Aikido. It's a way of tricking yourself to somehow You know, oh I can I can't work there, but I can work here. If it works, it works, you know? Right, right, totally.

But the story grid, Sean Coyne is actually was my first editor. He was the editor who bought Gates of Fire. Oh no kidding. And we are we're best we're really good friends and we're partners in a little publishing company that we have. Call Black Irish. Books. So I know Sean very well. And Sean is he's a Harvard guy.

And um He's uh has evolved this concept of editing. That he calls the story grid. And it's incr it's incredibly deep. If you and I were looking at this, it would it was like it's like Einstein, you know. I can't even grasp begin to grasp what it is, but he really has a whole concept from A to Z of what a story is.

what a scene is, and so on and so forth, that he calls a story grid. And he actually I highly recommend His website wwwstorygrid.com If you want to be an editor, if you want to be a writer. He teaches this whole

Concept. And it's great. But Getting back to integrating the editor's mindset. To the writer's mindset. A lot of times

I found me as a writer. I will just sort of spew stuff out in a novel. That's right. I'll just be consumed with uh a story and I'll just take it from A to Z without even thinking about it.

And then I have to bring it to Sean. And he kind of tells me what the story's about, which I never had any clue what the theme is. And also will help to shape it into an actual story that really works. And

A lot of the editor's mindset has to do with the hero's journey. And that whole concept of act one, act two, act three refusal of the call that we were talking about earlier. And Sean has a Another company of his own that he calls genre management.

And he's a big believer in genre. In the sense that like a thriller A certain Obligatory scenes and conventions. A love story has certain obligatory scenes and conventions. A Western has certain And you and you have to know them.

And that's what an editor does. You know? For instance, if if you're gonna have a love story There always has to be a rival. That's a big thing. Think of any story in love story in the world.

And There's also almost always has to be The lovers part. In the middle? Or towards the end, and then they come back together at the end, or they fail to come back together at the end. And that's kind of what an editor brings.

to uh to a writer's huge pile of papers that you bring and dump on the editor's desk. Is He or she is kind of aware of the various structures that actually work. And the the kind of the principles of storytelling.

And when you violated them An editor can Bring you back from that. You know? Or when you have left certain things out.

that need to be in there. An editor will say, You know, you need to do this. And So if you can Educate yourself as a writer in that editor's way of thinking.

You can sort of become your own editor in a sense. And it really helps you. I mean I do maybe fifteen drafts of a book. And You know, seventh, eighth, ninth, I'm really thinking like an editor. I'm looking at this and saying, What's missing? What have I done wrong? What uh you know, what

What conventions have I violated? And if I If I have violated them, do I have a good reason for it? Mm-hmm. So I'm not sure that's an answer, Jim, but that's That is. I highly recommend anything to do with Sean Coyne and Story Grit.

I'm going to ask you about a man at arms. First I wanna take this opportunity to paint a picture of the last week in my life, if I may be self indulgent for a second. Please do. Please do. So I I have this newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. It's it's five short bullets of things that I've found interesting or Helpful. Or

novel throughout each week. And I had the experience. Subscribe, by the way. Oh, wonderful. I appreciate that. So I know all about it. I love doing it. And it serves as a diary of sorts for me. And

I had the experience in the last week of one of those bullets expanding dramatically and ultimately becoming uh close to a a 10 page blog post, uh which if people want to check out, it's related to s to conservation and ethical choices in the world of of psychedelic compounds. Uh they can find it at Tim.blog, but the point that I want to make, or the contrast maybe, is I wrote this piece. I was very happy to have finally written this piece, even though I'm catching heat from certain factions within the psychedelic communities for it. because it's been a very long time since I've written a blog post, a long form blog post. And

That having been said I was I was interviewed yesterday by a friend of mine, Harley of Shopify fame. And He read a passage from the four hour work week in the course of that interview because he was he's read the book, he's very kind, he wanted

as a launching pad for discussion. And he read a few paragraphs from the four hour work week and and here's what I you can probably Guess here here's what I thought to myself. God damn. I have done nothing but become worse at writing.

Since I was twenty nine. What in You know, for fuck's sake, what am I doing with my life? And I and I became hyper self. critical. I was like, man, like look at how many M dashes I have in this this long form blog post I just put up. Like what kind of crutch is this? I'm using M dashes, like they're they're going out of style, and so on and so forth. So this just like litany of abuse, just uh

kind of kinda rolled off the brain. While it attacked itself. And That this has been a large part of my own resistance. The feeling that my best work is behind me and I can't replicate it. Or not replicate it, because I don't want to become an imitation of myself, but that for whatever reason, like the pixie dust. has has been lost or that I've atrophied. I've so let the muscles atrophy that there's just

I'm past the point of no return. Yeah, have you ever contended with this? Uh if you haven't, like what advice or or even if you have, what advice would you give for people who are bumping up against this because it's been a real hindrance, I recognize it's self imposed, but it's been a real hindrance to me actually Putting pen to paper, so to speak.

Here's my uh thoughts on that, too. Resistance with a capital R, the force of self sabotage, Із тремнослі діаболико. And Nuanced.

and protein and that it will uh and subtle, incredibly subtle. And it will attack us. At our weakest point. And it'll usually will attack us. In in an area where there's some truth.

To what we're what we might fear about ourselves, you know? So I would say for sure, Tim, that thought that you have is bullshit. It's resistance. It's totally resistance. There's nothing wrong with you. You haven't lost any pixie dust. That is pure resistance.

You it it's finding a weak spot in you, you know? It's it it just knows it, you know? It's like the alien knows how to get after you, right? And So um You know, the form it takes for me might be different.

the you know, the the weak spot it might find in me might be different, but I think it's just finding that in you. And I think the only way To deal with it is to just dismiss it. Take my word for it. It's bullshit. There's no grounding in it at all. Just keep doing what you're doing. You know? And uh

I'm sure. That uh I remember I had a friend When I first came out into uh To Los Angeles, a fellow screenwriter, and he got on the phone with me one night. He was in hysteria because he was sure that he was over the hill. And I asked him, I said, Tom, you know, how old are you? He said, Twenty two.

And so this is true. So Resistance will find that weak spot, that chink in our armor. But uh I you know, don't pay any attention to it, Tim. Dismiss it. It's bullshit.

Thank you for that. And I have to follow up by asking what Purpose does resistance serve, right? Like why does it exist? Like I try to think of things in evolutionary terms. Maybe this is just some sort of vestigial m mutation that has just persisted but doesn't actually have uh utility, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on why it exists.

I'm not sure like I like Seth Godin thinks it's the The lizard brain, the What is it, amygdala, whatever it is, that I never have quite understood. But to me. And I'm gonna get a little airy fairy here, a little metaphysical.

I think that uh we If we think of our identity We can say that there's there's at least two parts of it. One I would call the ego. And the other I would call the self with a capital S in the Jungian sense of self. And the ego

Yeah. A rational mind is It's the part of our of us that uh pays taxes and goes down and gets a driver's license. And Becomes a lawyer or whatever, whatever, right?

And that ego. is our I the letter I And We obviously have to have an ego. Right. We have to have that eye that we know how to

You know, stop at a stoplight and all that sort of stuff. And then there's the other thing that That Jung would call the self with a capital S. And that self includes the deep, deep unconscious. The collective unconscious The hero's journey, the archetypes.

All of these things that we're we're not aware of. Until Freud, you know, finally discovered this. But that are driving us. You know, in a good way. Many times in a really good way.

And um Uh also according to Young. The self with a capital S butts up against what they call the divine ground. And

I love that. It's what I would say is Where inspiration comes from. It really is divinity. It's beyond mortality. It's the muse. It's inspiration.

It's any time you get into the zone. That's where you are, right? As an athlete, as an artist, or whatever. So I'm getting back to resistance. Trust me.

I believe you. What I think is When we As artists or as athletes or as anything. begin to m shift our identity.

From our ego to our self. When we start trusting in intuition, when we start trusting in our deep dreams. in our deep inspiration From sources that we don't know what it is. Like for me writing

The novels that I wrote that I never thought that just came out of nowhere. Right? It had no made no sense. But are coming from a deeper source. Anyway When we start to identify with the self.

And turn over our Nexus of control to that. The ego becomes threatened. Because the ego realizes that it's gonna lose. The ego strikes back.

and creates resistance. And Its goal is to try To hectic to Convince us.

that this other world of inspiration of intuition of the muse or what the self is a phony world. It's it's bullshit. Don't pay attention to it. Stay here with me, mister Ego. I'm the ego. That that's what it is to me. And I you know, I just was uh I just had an email I've got into a an email correspondent with a monk

From self realization fellowship, brother Kivashananda. Are you familiar with self realization fellowship? I'm not. Anyway, it's it's a wonderful thing. It's Yoga N uh Paramahansa Yogananda's thing that he started. And

He was telling me about the Beyond the Bhagavad Gita and the story of Arjuna and Krishna There's the the uh in this great battle in the Bhagavad Gita is the Ego is a character named Bishma.

And Arjuna finally slays the ego. Shooting him with a hundred and eight arrows. And he shot so full of arrows. That he's on his back supported by the arrows. And eat and he takes him a month to die.

And even as he's dying, Bishma He's constantly spouting his bullsh about how he's still in charge, he's still in charge, he's still in charge. And I think that We as artists are athletes, I think. Are trying to get beyond the ego.

Or Buddhist meditators or people doing ayahuasca or whatever. We're trying to get beyond the ego. Into whatever is next. But the ego doesn't want us to get beyond it and the ego will hang on. And take a month to die.

That's what I think resistance is. It's the ego's way of trying to hang on. to control of us. I really like that. And it rings true to me.

In so many respects. I mean the ego If we are not what our ego believes us to be, a lawyer, a this we're not right, someone who does X, someone who always Or never does why, then what are we? And that uncertainty is very Threatening.

So th it makes a lot of sense that there would be There would be a violent opposition by the ego too. Who I mean I may be completely wrong, but this is my theory. Mm. Yeah.

I it's Certainly helpful. Two think of. It's a it's a useful lens. Yeah.

And This may be very related. Uh I would love to hear you Define or describe what a what a shadow career is. I read a short relatively short blog post of yours that discussed this. And I think it's I think it's it could be very

helpful to explore. I'll give you kind of an example from the movie business. As you know, in the movie business there are you need a lawyer. There are law firms, entertainment law firms. Um in fact Rich Roll.

wonderful podcaster and uh athlete used to be an entertainment lawyer. You did. And Entertainment lawyers. directors, if you're a director, an actor, a writer, you have to have a lawyer'cause when deals come up You know, they make the deals for you, right? They get the contract, right.

And I have found That When you talk to Not all entertainment lawyers, but some entertainment lawyers. Secretly they want to be writers.

Or they wanna be directors. Well they very and what they have done in becoming lawyers to some extent. Is their the their law career is like a shadow career. It's like adjacent.

They really want to direct. But they really want to write. But they for whatever reasons they were afraid to do it. So they thought, Well, let me I can go to law school and that will give me uh a trade that I an occupation, a profession I can count on.

And so the law becomes kind of a shadow career for them. And another instant instance of that is a lot of times People will work as other people's assistants. Right. They'll pick up their dry cleaning. They'll do all of that sort of stuff. Which can be

And that's a shadow career. Which can be, of course, it's also a legitimate thing. It can be an apprenticeship. Or you're working for a photographer or whatever, whatever and you're learning. But it also can be because A lot of times those

People who are people's assistants. really want to do what their boss is doing. But be a musician, be a rock star, but whatever it is. But for whatever reason they're afraid to, and so they're just they have a t uh they pick a profession that's kind of adjacent. to where they want to be, but is not actually doesn't have the same risk.

I wanna underscore this for folks because I think it is It is exceptionally common I see the temptation in myself and around me and In certain

capacities. So it's it's really worth having on the radar, I think. I'm gonna read just a little bit. Of this blog post from two thousand twelve, which is on your website, studentpressfield.com. And I think this is more from Turning Pro.

At least that's the URL. So here we go. Sometimes when we're terrified of embracing our true calling, we'll pursue a shadow calling instead. The shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Its shape is similar, its contours feel tantalizingly the same, but a shadow career entails no real risk. If we fail at a shadow career, the consequences are meaningless to us. Are you pursuing a shadow career? Are you getting your PhD? An Elizabethan. That's how you say that, studies because you're afraid to write the tragedies and comedies you know you have inside you. Are you living the drug and booze half of the musician's life without actually writing the music? Are you working in a support capacity for an innovator because you're afraid to risk being an innovator yourself? These are really good questions.

I think they're really important questions and The the Dragon Boost half example, I think, is is also very important because it's possible to Grab the Romanticized Risky portions.

Of a possible Real Passion and emulate them in A shadow career.

In a way that actually has quite a lot of downside risk with none of the upside potential. Yeah, true. I mean, I think, you know, not to overstate it, but sometimes. Addiction. Is a shadow career. You know that uh You're you're acting out the kind of uh wild and crazy lifestyle.

rather than actually doing the work to do to be a musician or to be a whatever. And what what do you say to people who Would answer yes. in this in the sense that they are able to be honest with themselves and say, You're totally right. I am actually doing that. But

Like you said, this is low risk and the Pursuit. of what I really want to do does entail risk. And I'm afraid. Well, there's sort of uh there's kinda no way around it except to actually do it.

It's it would be If I were advising anybody or advising myself, if I were in that condition, I would I would say, you know, get get into some kind of therapy. Get into something that will help you elevate your consciousness about this, let you explore it introspection. And at some point it will become pretty clear. What your real dream is, you know?

Maybe uh if you're a photographer's assistant You really say, Oh, I want to be a cinematographer. I'd love to be Vilmos Zygmunt, you know? I want to shoot Scorsese's next movie. Whatever. That's I'd love to do that. Then it's sort of a matter of kind of I hate to talk about the ego, but getting back into rationality and saying, okay, how do I pursue that? Should I go to school? Should I apprentice myself on a track that will actually take me there?

Or should I uh You know, uh No, whatever. Figure out what the actual track is that will get you to that dream. And then

The other thing I'd say is talking to myself again is be very aware of your own tendency to self sabotage. of resistance. And watch out for any of those mental

Self conversations. that will try to talk you out of doing it. You know? Build up your professional habits. And and just go for it.

You know? Just go for it. I'll add one thing to that, which has been very helpful to me. So I'm saying this to myself also because it's probably time for me to do this again with respect to to writing. And that is take a look at an exercise. You can find it online called Fear Setting, that I've written quite a bit about. And I also did a TED talk related to the subject because it's saved my life in some ways.

And it's really just a rephras and presenting of An exercise From The stoics

This is just a practice. of actually putting to paper what the worst things are that could happen, how you might mitigate against them, how you could minimize the damage or reverse the damage and

It's uh Seneca the younger. Has said Um and I'm paraphrasing here, but we We suffer more in imagination than in reality. And uh it it's easy to to believe or to

Overestimate the the threats. that exist from action while underestimating the risks of inaction when they're trapped in your head. But when you put them on paper, it actually loses oftentimes a lot of its force. That's all I would just recommend people take uh take a look at fear setting with a hyphen in the middle. Let's talk about a man at arms. You have

Your creative how to books, The War of Art, Turning Pro, Do the Work and so on. Then you have your historical fiction. Which is just outstanding. It's a fire tides of war, the Afghan campaign. And now A man at arms. Yeah.

Why Did you write this new book? How did it come to be? What was the Genesis story? Before we go away, let me talk go come back and talk about fear shedding. I want to say something after that when we're done. I have there's only been like one recurring character in uh my in my historical fiction. And he is this sort of uh gunsling of the ancient world, Telamon of Arcadia.

uh a one man killing machine of the ancient world. And he's been in three books of mine. And as a minor character. But I've always been fascinated by this guy, and in fact a lot of readers have been fascinated by him too. And I've always wanted to write a book only about him.

And this is another kind of weird Think Tim about the creative process. A lot of times I will block out a story and I know exactly what each character represents and who they are and what they're gonna do. But this one character, Telamon, the one man killing machine of the ancient world came on the page to me.

Fully formed. I didn't plan him. I had no idea where he came from. And he not only was he fully formed But he had a deep philosophy.

And a very dark philosophy, a real warrior samurai philosophy. And So I wanted to write this book about him because I uh only about him. Because I wanted to follow his journey. It's really He was really sort of in the other stories at the end of his hero's journey.

And I was wondering where was he gonna go from there? And For like Thirteen years I tried to come up with a story that would work. And I just did outline after outline. I never could find it.

And Finally I just had a flash about adding to his world. A young vulnerable girl. A nine year old girl, a mute girl. And somehow that sort of

Crack the story for me. And so This book came very fast. It's set in First century A D, right after the crucifixion.

in Jerusalem and in the Sinai Desert. And I just really I just wanted this guy character of Telamon. is sort of an ar alter ego for me. I know on some crazy Unconscious level I'm bound to this character in some way.

And his story is my story in some way, although I don't know what it is. So I I wanted You know, writing as you know. Particularly fiction. It's like a dream.

And that in that you you enter Another dimension of r of reality when you're sitting down to write And you don't know what's gonna come. A lot of times. The the work takes on a life of its own and it'll pull you along.

So that was this book for me. I wanted to see where Telamon would go and what his arc would be. And I know I'm gonna have to write another one because I haven't got to the end of it yet. But that's where that was the genesis of a man at arms. And when you write a book like this, since I have no experience with fiction, although I'm endlessly fascinated by it. I think I'm afraid of it, honestly. Um because I read good fiction and I think to myself, there's a good reason to be afraid of good fiction. Good Lord, I can just cannot I just don't know how humans do this.

Do you write a book like this? Simply because You are a a writer and fiction is a way of exploring This alternate.

reality? Is it because you hope it to impart certain messages or lessons that people will learn from? What are the reasons behind An undertaking. I'm absolutely a believer, as you know, of the in the muse. You know, I believe in another dimension of reality. I believe that there is

That books or songs Or businesses Exist In the in the realm of potential. Before they exist in the real world.

And I believe that as a You know, as a writer I I am a servant of the muse, and I believe this book, A Man at Arms, is Existed. It existed in that other dimension. And I was called on to bring it forth.

in this in this dimension. So I'm really not I really don't have a message. I really don't have uh I do want to explore certain aspects of the character, but mainly This story Just kind of sees me.

And I felt like I've got to tell this story. I've got to get it. I've got to make it work. In a hero's journey terms, and I've got to tell it. in the right way and and solve all those problems. But mainly I just I just wanted to tell this story. Like uh

Like a singer would want to sing a certain song. Or a dancer would want to dance a certain dance. So that that was the reason. It's just the story just seized me. And um Came very fast and very easy.

What would you say if if you have an answer for this distinguishes the books that come fast and easy from those that are more difficult. Those that are maybe a a just a hard slog. It seems the hard ones don't work and the easy ones do. You know? It's almost like if it's hard, maybe it's a reason why it's hard. Why are you pushing a boulder uphill.

are hard in the sense that um There are a lot of technical problems to solve. Like I just was doing a I just did a video on Instagram I was talking about the original manuscript of Gates of Fire. was eight hundred and two pages long.

And I and the book was finally three hundred and eighty four. So I had to cut basically Cut it in half. So that was like a technical problem that was hard. But the book itself was easy.

Right. You know, came with a lot of energy. Just like a man in arms just kinda came, you know. In fact, I don't even have really a memory Of writing it. No, I know I wrote it last year, but

It just came in a real rush. I would love to experience more of that in my writing. So it sounds like I just have to Get on the playing field a bit more often. You know, sight unseen, Tim. We don't know each other. It's the first time we've really talked for a long time. And if you'll forgive me for uh being your psychotherapist here for a second. Yes, please. I think maybe you should think about writing fiction at some point. I I agree with you. I agree with you. I do. I do. I think I am psyching myself out and and I think it would be so freeing for me to do it because my

Nonfiction books are so carefully, meticulously architected. There are no surprises. I mean there everything is intended to be as clear, which is fine. And prescriptive and represent such a logical

sequence and building. Right. I know what you mean. That for the writer, for me uh there there's very little element of surprise that that harnessing of the muse is minimal in a sense. Right, it exists. With turns of phrase and certain Uh thoughts about

composition, but I appreciate you saying that and uh and I agree. I would like to try some fiction and You know, just write it maybe for a handful of friends. Although let me make one comment. Actually coming way back to something you said at the very early beginnings of this conversation when you said you wrote a novel and even your friends wouldn't read it. I wanted to just say that If you write

For those people out there who haven't written much. Don't be overly offended or demoralized if your friends don't read it because My friends and especially my family I'm not gonna name out names.

are the last people who will ever read my stuff, including now. And I think it's just kinda like uh sometimes. It's absolutely true. I couldn't agree more, Tim. And there's there's a reason for that, too. They they are the last people who I couldn't get my mother to read anything. No It's because they are the people who are close to you Since when you write something or you take a chance.

They sense you changing. You're becoming a different person. And Their their fear is they're gonna lose you. And so they want to make you stay the way you are.

And and that's It's i in a crazy way, it's love. It's out of love. But it's a dark side of love. Let me say a couple of things to you, Tim, for whatever this is worth. Forgive me for being um presumptuous. But if you do deciding

Right fiction. Here's what I would suggest. First of all Don't start small. Don't say, Oh well, let me write a short story.

Because that's kind of a pushy way of doing it. Seriously, an amuse doesn't like that. She wants you to go big, you know? So go for something big, I would suggest. And also

The way you'll know the idea is that it will be terrifying to you. Prospect of of Of exposing yourself to do this. And that's the one you should do.

Uh I I love that. And I encourage you to to do that. So don't don't piss off the muse with small ambitions. Really? Or maybe not piss off. Don't insult the muse. I mean a a four hour work week was a big idea. A huge idea, you know? And an idea that could have you could have fallen completely on your face. You know?

But You did it, you know, and it worked. So I would say you know

To the same concept only with fiction. Thank you. I I'm gonna take that to heart. Let me get back for one second to fear setting. There's just one thing I wanted to say. Yes, please. Um To reinforce what you were saying.

Um A few years ago I wrote a book called The Lions Gate. which was about the nineteen sixty seven Arab Israeli war. The f the six day war. And I went over to Israel and I interviewed a bunch of fighter pilots.

And I had never really Talk to him. The fighter pilots before. And the thing that was that is in cr that they have in common The mindset of a fighter pilot is exactly what you were saying, like when before they would go up on a mission.

They would sit down and for hours In solitude. Run The mission in their mind. Thinking of every possible thing that could go wrong.

You know, what if I get a flame out? over the Sinai Desert, you know? What if my guns don't fire? What if I'm attacked from Out of the sun, whatever.

And they would sort of in their mind play out all of these Worst case scenario. And when they had played them out and they knew what they were going to do, then they were ready to go. And I thought that is a great way to think about things. You know,'cause the last thing you always want to have half uh to be able to have to say of something is, Oh, I never saw it coming.

Right? Mm-hmm. So I I heartily agree with that. that idea of fear setting that whole stoic concept. I think it's a great thing. Let's use that.

As a jumping off point. to something I know very little about, but I've seen it come up In in some discussions, and that is the concept of I'm not gonna get the pronunciation here correct, but Yetzerhara. That's a hurrah.

What is Yetzer? No, I wish I had my rabbi, Rabbi Mordecai Finley here to explain it to us, but He uh Apparently. It's a it's a phrase from Genesis.

And uh It's translated by Rabbi Finley as a turning toward evil. And He has said to me That this is a concept in Kabbalistic thought and Jewish mysticism.

And it's the equivalent of my concept of resistance with a capital R. It's that force. That exists in the world. To stop us. from going to a lower level to a higher level. Like in

to realising our calling. The coming into our own. It's that negative force. And In Jewish mysticism. There's a concept uh

Yeah. Life happens on more than one dimension. And that We live on the material dimension, and above us. is a higher dimension, it's called the Neshamah.

And that is the soul. And The the what they talk about the soul is that Above every blade of grass. Is an angel

Saying Grow, grow. The soul, or what I would say would be the unconscious or the muse, is actively engaged in our life. And trying to help us.

And we are trying to reach up to the soul. At the same time the soul is trying to reach down to us and help us. And In between the two is this force called the Yetzer Hura, this negative force of self sabotage. And

When Rabbi Finley told me that, that that was something that existed in Jewish thought for years and years I thought ah, I'm not crazy. Other people have thought about the same thing. And So

Actually in Genesis As I understand this right, I may be getting it wrong. But the the is the story where God decides to destroy the human race. And he he regrets and repents that he made us.

And he looks down and he sees what and he sees everywhere A turning toward evil. Meaning this is the Yetza hurrah. And this is when God decides to send a flood. You know, to wipe us out and and noah survived, right?

So It's In in this kind of spiritual sense, it's almost a flaw. In the universe. That um

When God created us, at least according to Kabbalistic thought. He made a mistake, he screwed up. A bug bug in the software. Yeah, a bug in the software. And If you certainly if you look at the human race, there is a turning toward evil everywhere, right? There's something wrong with us.

And um I would say it's a lack of connection to the soul. What we were talking about about the self and the ego of resistance and everything. So in any event, that's what that's what the Yetza hurrah is. As I understand it.

I may be wrong, but as I understand it in uh Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism. So I would love to ask just a few more questions and the first few are going to be Related to my homework assignment. Or recommendation of writing fiction.

Go big. Uh and Uh in my mind I'm thinking that Could mean Yeah.

Novel? could mean a screenplay. So I'd like you to elaborate on what that means, but also I know that I have a tendency

Perhaps excessively. often as a form of procrastination, right? I can read Ten bucks. uh before I ever set pen to paper. Since I have no exposure or experience with fiction writing.

Are there any books I should read or things I should consider before I begin? Or literally should I just say to myself, I'm going to write a novel. I don't even know how novels are structured, but I'm gonna start with page one. today. So there's the question of what is big? What does that actually mean to you? And then How much preparation, if any or education is the right amount before

Beginning. I think When I say go big I think that um The the muse likes it, you know, fortune favors the bold.

And I think when we When we try for something big We're taking the initiative. And we're kind of um Invoking a tailwind behind us.

Whereas if we're kind of timid. And we say, Oh, well just let me do this small little thing that I'm gonna do. I don't think the Muse likes that. And I don't like in advertising, when I was working in advertising I used to come up with the tiniest ideas. It was really pathetic, you know, and I bring them in the boss and they would like

Just throw me out. You know, it's a This is an idea the size of a postage stamp, you know. Get the fuck out of here, you know, come back with something big. And it was really hard for me to do, you know. 'Cause I was afraid of it. So I do think going big

Help invokes the muse in a good way. And Sort of as a parallel to that, Tim, I would say even though Eventually you are gonna have to learn what the story principles are. I would say just plunge in. Um

And Follow just do something that you love. I mean, I have it's too bad we're not on video here because I have behind me a book by a friend of mine, Mike McClellan, called The Sand Sea. And it's like seven hundred and eighty pages long or something, and Mike is a is a lawyer, he's a functioning lawyer, he's got a wife and kids. And over like a thirteen year period.

He would get up at the crack of dawn. And you know, go out to his garage. Where you had an office. And he would put in. He would write five hundred words a day.

But this this book, The C and C is a huge book. It's like a Tolkien type of book. And uh You know, with all kinds of crazy characters from everywhere. And I really applaud that he did it that way. And uh now he's on to the second book in the trilogy. There's gonna be a third one.

So for him, going big really worked. And I and it it has gone it's has worked for me too. That doesn't mean it necessarily has to be eight hundred pages long. But Just a big idea. An idea is kind of a scary idea.

That you you say to yourself. When I show this to people They're gonna look at me and go, What happened to you, Tim? Are you okay? You know? That that's where uh What I mean by big. And should I just assume this is never gonna be read by anyone? Is that a helpful assumption to make. A couple of follow up questions.

Do it only for yourself. Yeah. Do it only for yourself. And is the because when I hear stories of someone working on things, say in the mornings, like the Kite Runner, right? But I mean it's same it's a similar I story. I think the author was working in uh medicine at the time and would wake up super early and worked for a long period of time on this book. When I think of my first foray into fiction If I think it's going to be

a homework assignment, like a daily homework assignment for years. There is a a very large part of me that just does not want to do it. Unless the purpose behind it is therapy or This is going to be cultivating your connection. With this other dimension you've described, and that's the purpose of doing this.

Do you have any thoughts on those points or concerns? I mean it may be. Tim that Writing fiction is your caller. I don't know.

It could very well be. You could say that Nonfiction books and and And podcasts and stuff like that might be, if you'll forgive me, might be a shadow career for you. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, could be um. So in that case

The exercise of of writing fiction would be uh like a lifelong calling. You know, a practice from now till the end. And And I would think that

It's I think it's a good idea to hope that it will be successful, that it'll find a market that people will love it, you know? But At the same time, I think. It's very important, and I'm talking to myself too.

To turn off the self sensor. And not start to think, oh shit, are people gonna like this or is this have I gone too far in this scene? You know, in other words, trying to second guess the audience. Because an audience, if it's out there, it'll find it. Now it'll find the work.

Um and if it isn't, it won't. But I would say just write to please yourself. And always take the brave choice. You know, should I write this scene this way, which kind of a chicken way, or should I go really go for it and and write it the big way? And I would say always take the brave choice.

And monitor yourself as you go because it what should happen. is once you're into this. you should really start to feel good. You should really feel a tailwind. And really feel like, Oh shit, my feet are on the ground, you know, I'm this you know.

I may be a beginner, I maybe I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm on the right path. If it doesn't feel like that, then maybe it's not the right idea. Well, I uh if it's okay with you, I may I may reach out to you as my Yeah, please do. In fact, please do. Absolutely.

as my uh my stabilizing wing uh at at at at some point and uh No, I'm serious, Jim. Please do. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Uh Steven, this has been so much fun. I would love to do another round at some point, have another conversation like this. There's there's put me down in the books, whenever there's no shortage of of topics to cover. And uh maybe after I've actually given this a shot. I think that should be the stakes for me. That should be the accountability is I can't have you on again until I have actually Spent some time on this scary thing.

Cult fiction. And Well just a few last questions. And this one doesn't always work out, but I like to ask it. It's not an easy question necessarily, but if you had a billboard

Metaphorically speaking. Two get a message or a quote or a question or an image out to billions of people, assuming they would all understand it. What might you put on that billboard? Ah, and you're actually this was a question and tribe of mentors that I actually won't give an answer to. It was. But

What I said in that in Tribe of Mentors was uh I would not put up any billboard at all. And I would tear them all down. But to answer your question a little more seriously. You know,'cause you're sort of saying, Well what's What would be kind of a if you had to say one thing somebody to Help'em.

Exactly. I would say Life is is long. This is what a friend of mine, Phil Slott, once said to me. He said they always tell you Life is short, but actually life is long.

And If we find ourselves making mistakes or we haven't yet found our real calling Don't Drive yourself crazy with that, you know? There's plenty of time.

Everybody thinks Oh, if I don't do it in the next six months, I'm gonna kill myself, you know? And I thought that too, forever. But look at me, it took me forever. to break through into anything. And I still feel that I've got a a a whole other lifetime ahead of me. And

You know, you two, you've got like three lifetimes ahead. So be patient with yourself. I would say to people, be kind to yourself. You're on a journey whether you realize it or not. We all are. There's no way not to be. And things will reveal themselves as they go, but

Don't Beat yourself up too much. Steven, uh this has been so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time. And people can find you at Steven Pressfield again with a V

StevenPressfield.com, Twitter at S Pressfield, Instagram, Steven underscore Pressfield. We'll link to All of your books, including the newest, and one that I'm quite excited about, A Man at Arms, an epic saga about a reluctant hero, the Roman Empire, and the rise of a new Faith. Uh Checking all the boxes for me. And uh are there any other

comments you'd like to make, any requests of my audience, any Uh Parting questions or anything at all that you'd like to add before we bring this this conversation to a close. No, I think that billboard, that's that's my billboard. Yeah, that would be that would be the final thing other than just say, you know, thanks for having me, Tim. It's great talking to you, getting to know you a little bit.

And I hope I didn't overstep my bounds and uh You know. giving unsolicited advice, but uh Um I hope I hope what I said helps a little bit.

And uh You know, we'll we'll talk again. I I think I think you know if this writing thing doesn't work out for you, maybe that's your shadow career for for becoming a psychoanalyst. Maybe that is your real calling. And I have found this very helpful personally and I'm sure it will help many other people out there. So thank you again, Steven. And to everyone listening. Once again you can find links to

everything that we mentioned at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off. for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out. And just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

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