YouSaid · the spoken record

Steven Pressfield

lines on the record: 107
first: 2021-02-26
most recent: 2021-02-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“No, I think that billboard, that's my billboard. Yeah, that would be the final thing other than to 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. Giving unsolicited advice. But I hope what I said helps a little bit. And we'll talk again.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say life is long. Is what a friend of mine Phil Slot 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 they've got, oh, if I don't do it in the next six months, I'm going to 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 whole other lifetime ahead of me. And, you know, you, Tim, you've got like three lifetimes ahead of me. 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But what I said in that tribe of mentors was I would not put up any billboard at all and I would tear them all down Answer your question a little more seriously because you're sort of saying what would be kind of if you had to say one thing to somebody to help them?”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To turn off the self-censor and not start to think, oh shit, are people going to like this or is this, have I gone too far in this scene? In other words, trying to second guess the audience. Because an audience, if it's out there, it'll find it. It'll find the work. And if it isn't, it won't. But I would say just write to please yourself and always take the brave choice. Should I write this scene this way? It's kind of a chicken way, or should I go really go for it and write it the big way? And I would say always take the brave choice. And monitor yourself as you go because what should happen is once you're into this, you should really start to feel good. You should really feel a tailwind. Really feel like, ah, shit, my feet are on the ground. I may be a beginner, I maybe I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm on the right path.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in that case, the exercise of writing fiction would be like a lifelong calling, you know, a practice from now till the end And I would think that 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it may be, Tim, that writing fiction is your calling. I don't know. It could very well be. You could say that nonfiction books and Podcasts and stuff like that might be, if you'll forgive me, might be a shadow career for you. I don't know.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's like 780 pages long or something. And Mike is a lawyer. He's a functioning lawyer. He's got a wife and kids. And over like a 13-year period, he would get up at the crack of dawn and go out to his garage where he had an office. And he would put in, he would write 500 words a day. But this book, The San Sea, is a huge book. It's like a Tolkien type of book. with all kinds of crazy characters from everywhere. And I really applaud that he did it that way. And now he's on to the second book in the trilogy. There's going to be a third one. So for him, going big really worked. It has worked for me too. That doesn't mean it necessarily has to be 800 pages long, but just a big idea, an idea that's kind of a scary idea, that you say to yourself, when I show this to people, they're going to look at. Me and go, What happened to you, Tim?”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just throw me out. 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, because 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 going to have to learn what the story principles are, I would say just plunge in. Just do something that you love. I mean, I have, it's too bad we're not on video here because I am behind me a book by a friend of mine, Mike McClellan, called The Sand Sea.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think when I say go big, I think that the muse likes it. You know, fortune favors the bold. And I think when we try for something big, we're taking the initiative and we're kind of invoking a tailwind behind us. Whereas if we kind of timid and we say, oh, well, just let me do this small little thing that I'm going to 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 to boss. And they would like.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, a bug in the software If you look at the human race, there is a turning toward evil everywhere, right? There's something wrong with us. And I would say it's a lack of connection to the soul. What we were talking about, about the self and the ego, resistance and everything. So in any event, that's what the Yetza hurrah is. As I understand it, I may be wrong, but as I understand it in Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Decides to destroy the human race. And he regrets and repents that he made us. And he looks down and he sees everywhere a turning toward evil, meaning this is the Yetzahura. And this is when God decides to send a flood, you know, to wipe us out and Noah survived, right? So in this kind of spiritual sense, it's almost a flaw in the universe that when God created us, at least according to Kabbalistic thought, he made a mistake. He screwed up.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And 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. In between the two is this force called the Yetzahura, 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 is the story where God...”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish I had my rabbi, rabbi, Mordecai Finley here to explain it to us, but he apparently, it's a phrase from Genesis. And 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 to realizing our calling, to coming into our own. It's that negative force. And in Jewish mysticism, there's a concept that life happens on more than one dimension and that we live on the material dimension. And above us is a higher dimension that's called the Neshama. And that is the”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Worst case scenarios. 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, because the last thing you always want to have, to be able to have to save something is, oh, I never saw it coming, right? So I heartily agree with that idea of fear setting, that whole Stoic concept. I think it's a great thing.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To reinforce what you were saying. A few years ago, I wrote a book called The Lion's Gate, which was about the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Six-Day War. And I went over to Israel and I interviewed a bunch of fighter pilots. And I had never really talked to fighter pilots before. And the thing that they have in common, the mindset of a fighter pilot is exactly what you were saying, like 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? 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the 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. But you did it, you know, and it worked. So I would say to the same concept only with fiction.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 exposing yourself to do this. And that's the one you should do.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's absolutely true. I couldn't agree more, Tim. And there's a reason for that too. They are the last people who I couldn't get my mother to read anything, you know? 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 fears are going to lose you. And so they want to make you stay the way you are. And 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 things to you, Tim, for whatever this is worth. Forgive me for being presumptuous. But if you do decide to write fiction, here's what I would suggest. First of all, don't start small. Don't say, oh, let me write a short story because that's kind of a pussy way of doing it.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No 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 being your psychotherapist here for a second.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is not to say even the easy ones are hard in the sense that there are a lot of technical problems to solve. Like I just was doing a video on Instagram. I was talking about the original manuscript of Gates of Fire was 802 pages long. And the book was finally 384. 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. The book came with a lot of energy, just like I'm in at arms, just kind of came. In fact, I don't even have really a memory of writing it. You know, I know I wrote it last year, but it just came in a real rush.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right way and solve all those problems. But mainly, I just wanted to tell this story. Like a singer would want to sing a certain song or a dancer would want to dance a certain dance. So that was the reason. It's just the story just seized me and came very fast and very easy.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm absolutely a believer, as you know, 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 realm of potential before they exist in the real world. And I believe that as a writer, I am a servant of the muse. And I believe this book, A Man-at-Arms, existed. It existed in that other dimension. And I was called on to bring it forth in this dimension. So I really don't have a message. I really don't have, I do want to explore certain aspects of the character, but mainly this story just sort of seized 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's set in first century AD, right after the crucifixion in Jerusalem and in the Sinai desert. And I just really just wanted, this character of Telamon is sort of an 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. And so I wanted, you know, writing, as you know, particularly fiction is like a dream in that you enter another dimension of reality when you're sitting down to write and you don't know what's going to come a lot of times. 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 Teleman would go and what his arc would be. And I know I'm going to have to write another one because I haven't got to the end of it yet.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't plan him. I had no idea where he came from. And 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 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 going to go from there. 13 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 cracked the story for me. And so this book came very fast.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I will block out a story, and I know exactly what each character represents and who they are and what they're going to do. But this one character, Telamon, the one man killing machine of the ancient world, came on the page to me fully formed.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before we go away, let me talk, come back and talk about fear setting. I want to say something after that when we're done. I have, there's only been like one recurring character in my historical fiction. And he is this sort of gunslinger of the ancient world, Telamon of Arcadia, 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 thing to him about the creative process. A lot of times.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or should I 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. Build up your professional habits and just go for it, you know, just go for it.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there's kind of no way around it except to actually do it. It would be if I were advising anybody or advising myself, if I were in that condition, I would say 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 if you're a photographer's assistant, you really say, oh, I want to be a cinematographer. I'd love to be Vilmos Zigmund. 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?”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, too. I mean, I think not to overstate it, but sometimes addiction is a shadow career, you know, that you're acting out the kind of wild and crazy lifestyle rather than actually doing the work, to be a musician or to be a whatever.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 where 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, whatever it is. But for whatever reason they're afraid to, and so they just pick a profession that's kind of adjacent to where they want to be but is not actually doesn't have the same risk.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And entertainment lawyers, directors, if you're a director, an actor, a writer, you have to have a lawyer because when deals come up, they make the deals for you, right? They get the contracts 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 want to be directors. And what they have done in becoming lawyers to some extent is their law career is like a shadow career. It's like adjacent to what they really want to do. They really want to direct or 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 a trade that an occupation, a profession I can count on. And so the law becomes kind of a shadow career for them. Another instance.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. In fact, Rich Roll, the wonderful podcaster and athlete, used to be an entertainment lawyer.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anyway, it's a wonderful thing. It's Ramahansa Yogananda's thing that he started. And he was telling me about the beyond the Bhagavad Gita and the story of Arjuna and Krishna, in this great battle, in the Bhagavad Gita, is the ego is a character named Bhishma. And Arjuna finally slays the ego, shooting him with 108 arrows. And he's shot so full of arrows that he's on his back supported by the arrows. And he takes him a month to die. And even as he's dying, Bijma, he's constantly spouting his bullshit about how he's still in charge, he's still in charge, he's still in charge. And I think that we as artists or athletes, I think, are trying to get beyond the ego.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of intuition of the muse or the self is a phony world. It's bullshit. Don't pay attention to it. Stay here with me, Mr. Eg, I'm the ego. And that's what it is to me. And I just was into an email correspondent with a monk from self-realization fellowship, brother Kivashananda. Are you familiar with self-realization fellowship?”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I think is when we as artists or as athletes or as anything begin to 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. 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 going to lose. The ego strikes back and creates resistance. And its goal is to try to convince us that this other world of inspiration”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Also, according to Jung, 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 anytime 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the other I would call the self with a capital S and the Jungian sense of self. And the ego is our rational mind. It's the part of us that 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 I that we know how to stop at a stoplight and all that sort of stuff. And then there's the other thing 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 not aware of until Freud, you know, finally discovered this, but that are driving us in a good way, many times in a really good way.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not sure. Like Seth Godin thinks it's the lizard brain, the, what is it, a mygdala, whatever it is, which I never have quite understood. But to me, and I'm going to get a little airy fairy here, a little metaphysical. I think that we, if we think of our identity, we can say that there's at least two parts of it. One, I would call the ego.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Might be different, 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. And I'm sure that I remember I had a friend when I first came out into 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, 22. So, this is true. So, resistance will find that weak spot, that chink in our armor. But don't pay any attention to it, Tim. Dismiss it. It's bullshit.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here's my thoughts on that tip. Resistance with a capital R, the force of self sabotage, is tremendously diabolical and nuanced and protean in that it will and subtle, incredibly subtle. And it will attack us at our weakest point. And it usually will attack us in an area where there's some truth to what we might fear about ourselves. 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. It's finding a weak spot in you, you know. It just knows it, you know. It's like the alien knows how to get after you, right? And so, you know, the form it takes for me.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 15 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 conventions have I violated? And if I have violated them, do I have a good reason for it? So, I'm not sure that's an answer, Tim, but that's an”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a big thing. Think of any story in the love story in the world. And there's also almost always has to be the lover's 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 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 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot of times I found me as a writer I will just sort of spew stuff out in a novel, let's say. I'll just be consumed with 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 is 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 1, Act two, Act 3, refusal of the call that we were talking about earlier. Sean has 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 has certain obligatory scenes and conventions and a love story has certain obligatory scenes and conventions. A Western has certain. And you have to know that. And that's what an editor does. You know, for instance, if you're going to have a love story, there always has to be a rival.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're really good friends and we're partners in a little publishing company that we have called Black Irish Books. So I know Sean very well. And Sean, he's a Harvard guy. And he has evolved this concept of editing that he calls the story grid. And it's incredibly deep. If you and I were looking at this, it was like Einstein. I can't even 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, www.storygrid.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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. But it is kind of an Aikido. It's a way of tricking yourself to somehow. Oh, I can, I can't work there, but I can work here. If it works, it works, you know.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before I say to that, I want to say that your idea of checking into a hotel room, I think, is a great idea. And that's something that might be unique to you, Tim. That might be a trick that works for you. It's safer than driving in a car.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so you're mentally preparing yourself for that moment when you sit down and that negative force hits you, that 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.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 into 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 success is the concept of little successes or of a routine is to help you overcome that resistance, to help anybody, that's the wall that you know you're going to hit.”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And she kind of describes her habits. And she's kind of like me. She goes to the gym at the crack of dawn every day. 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,”
2021-02-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT