Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 104

The Free Agent Mindset, Part Two

The artist’s mindset has always been that of the free agent. The painter, writer or filmmaker by definition can only follow her own vision. She has to know (or teach herself) how to be self-defining, self-motivating, self-reinforcing, self-validating.

And yet artists have always run in schools. Paris in the 20s, Rome in the late 50s and
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The Courage to do Nothing

If you‘re like me, you want to clear your desk every night before you head home. You want to make sure that anything that might impair you that evening at home is off the to-do list and out of your mind. Then you’ll be able to relax without having unresolved work issues hanging over your
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The Free-Agent Mindset

What is the Macro Change that’s going on in the world today? As fish never realize they’re swimming in water, is there something happening all around us that’s so apparent that we can’t see it?
I think there is, and here’s how I’d define it:
We—meaning anybody now living in the globalized/digital/satellite-linked/worldwide-web world—are faced with the challenge
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Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose and Sometimes it Rains

The story of David and Goliath is one of history’s greatest reruns—played out on repeat in books and boardrooms and battlefields.
Big Guy goes after Little Guy.
Little Guy finds inner strength.
Little Guy taps into inner strength.
Little Guy fights Big Guy.
Big Guy falters.
Little Guy knocks Big Guy’s lights out.
The David and Goliath story is the story of
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Self-Doubt and Self-Reinforcement

[The blog is on vacation this week. Herewith an "encore presentation" of a fave from the past:]
I never talk about a project I’m working on. It’s bad luck. But something happened a few nights ago that made me think I should make an exception, both for the sake of my own thinking and for sharing
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Getting Screwed is a Compliment

Obviously, Steve and I are not Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. We’re just average Joes with average business acumen. So sometimes we get short-sticked.

Someone reaches out to one of us and we like the Chutzpah and ideas presented so we pull the other one into the hare-brained scheme. Now one of the principles that Black
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“In the End, We’ll Succeed”

Not long ago I took a wilderness trek with an old friend who had been the commander of a Recon company in the army. We were out in the boonies for five days, with no check-ins with civilization. I had never done this kind of thing before and I noticed two things:
One, my friend was
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Louis C.K.: Give It A Minute

In a recent New York Time interview with Louis C.K., Dave Itzkoff commented, “You have the platform. You have the level of recognition.”
Louis C.K. replied with a question: “So why do I have the platform and the recognition?”
Itzkoff answered, “At this point you’ve put in the time.”
Pause after you read Louis C.K.’s follow-up:
There you go.
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“One for Love, One for Money”

A friend who’s a painter sent me this in an e-mail:
When you write, are you coming from your gut/heart, or from a merchandising view? Both?

It got me thinking about the old Hollywood axiom, “One for love, one for money.” This is the wisdom proffered in good faith to writers, actors and directors by their agents.
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Inside/Outside

On my very first day in book publishing (way back in the typewriter days), I was forced to confront an age old dilemma.
Even though I stupidly claimed that Beowulf was my favorite book at my interview, I’d been hired as editorial assistant to the editor in chief of a big mass market paperback publisher. As
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