Title Turning Pro

Author Steven Pressfield

Year Published 2012

Kind of Book Creative Process

How strongly I recommend it 5/10 

My Impressions This book outlines the key difference between the amateur and the Pro. Pressfield gives accounts of his journey as well as giving readers encouragement to make the transition in their own lives. Nothing new from "War of Art" and "Do the Work"

Date Read May 2021

Practical Takeaways

  • If you're dissatisfied with your current life, ask yourself what your current life is a metaphor for

  • Ask yourself "who am I?" "Why am I here?" "What do I want?" -Stanislavsky

  • Have empathy for yourself

  • Don't seek permission

  • Don't fear solitude and silence

  • Be patient

  • Stop identifying with your ego

  • Stop being a narcissist

  • Stop letting your worth be defined by others

  • Stop putting off what you are going to do until tomorrow

  • Listen to the still, small voice in your head

  • Remind yourself that no one actually cares what you do

  • Stop running from your fears, turn around and face them

  • Re-commit to your goal every day

  • Take things one day at a time

  • Validate yourself

  • Don't show off

  • Don't hesitate to ask for help

  • Reinvent yourself

  • Endure adversity

  • Be prepared

  • Be both ruthless and compassionate with yourself

  • Don't hoard your knowledge and wisdom. Share it with others

  • Do the work for the sake of doing the work

  • Play hurt ie. Don't think conditions have to be perfect to do the work (eg. You can be tired, sick, distracted, in an airplane etc.)

 

Big Ideas

There are two models for viewing the road to salvation for people who hate their lives or themselves.

  1. The therapeutic model: One of the roads to salvation Steven Pressfield identifies for people who hate themselves or their lives. In this model we are told (or tell ourselves) that we are 'sick.' What ails us is a condition or disease which may be remedied by a treatment which will make us happy and allow us to function in society

  2. The moralistic model: One of the roads to salvation Steven Pressfield identifies for people who hate themselves or their lives. The model is about good and evil. The reason we are unhappy we are told (or tell ourselves) is that we have done something 'wrong'. We have committed a crime or sin

 

  • Becoming a pro is really the same as growing up

  • Addicts are often extremely interesting people

  • Addiction itself is excruciatingly boring

  • When you turn pro your life gets very simple

  • Because

  • When you turn pro you no longer have to spend time deliberating over what you should be doing, you just do the work

  • Addictions are oftentimes ways to avoid doing the hard/scary creative work

  • The professional is just as terrified as the amateur, but the professional acts in spite of her fear and the amateur does not

 

The amateur is

  • a narcissist

  • continuously rates himself in relations to others

  • The amateur identifies with his own ego

  • The amateur sees himself as the hero

  • The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others

  • The amateur craves third-party validation

  • The amateur fears solitude and silence

  • is impatient

  • The amateur seeks permission

  • The amateur hoards his knowledge

 

  • Nobody actually cares what you do

  • When you realize that nobody actually cares what you do, you are free

  • When you start facing your fears, people in your life (friends and family) will likely start undermining you, and trying to sabotage you by making you feel guilty etc. (if they are not facing their own fears)

  • When you start facing your fears, people will start coming into your life who are facing their fears.

  • We never forget where we were when we decide to turn pro

  • Epiphanies happen when we are able to strip away self-delusion and bullshit to see what is true

  • We posses the qualities of the ideals we project onto others

  • Fiction writers can write characters that are smarter than they are

 

Surprising Facts

  • During trench warfare in WWI it was not uncommon for soldiers to shoot themselves in the foot with their riffles to get out of battle. They would then say the gun went off accidentally

  • Carl Jung believed a person might have 5 big dreams in their life that provoke a shift in consciousness

 

 

Unknown Terms

The therapeutic model: One of the roads to salvation Steven Pressfield identifies for people who hate themselves or their lives. In this model we are told (or tell ourselves) that we are 'sick.' What ails us is a condition or disease which may be remedied by a treatment which will make us happy and allow us to function in society

The moralistic model: One of the roads to salvation Steven Pressfield identifies for people who hate themselves or their lives. The model is about good and evil. The reason we are unhappy we are told (or tell ourselves) is that we have done something 'wrong'. We have committed a crime or sin

Shadow Career: a career that some people pursue when they are terrified of embracing their true calling. This career usually is a metaphor for what they really want to be doing or puts them in position to be near people who are doing what they want to do. (eg. Someone becoming a copy editor who really wants to be novelist)

Malingering: to deliberately inflict injury upon oneself so as to avoid service (usually in the military)