Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 116

The Professional Mindset

Have you ever wondered why so many CEOs and high-achievers (including sports superstars like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky) are so taken with the game of golf? It's not just because they get to wear white belts and plaid pants.
(With apologies to everyone who lives along the banks of the Cuyahoga, here is Tom Wolfe's
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What's the Five Star Experience?

Best Buy and Five Star in China
Last week I caught the tail-end of the CNBC show "Best Buy: The Big Box Strikes Back."
According to the show, Best Buy "closed its nine American style stores in 2011." In China, Best Buy had become the Brick portion of the "Brick and Click" method of buying. Consumers went
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Betting on Yourself, Part Two

In the past few weeks we've been talking about risk, specifically the universe of hazard that the artist and entrepreneur willingly and consciously inhabit. We've talked about operating on two tracks—the commercial track and the pure-soul track—and about betting on yourself. Today I want to take the discussion deeper into the realm of nuts and
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Rethinking Book

I hesitated when I read the words video book in one of Steve's upcoming posts.
Maybe video? Or video series? But, not book.
My early definition of books:
My childhood favorites—Tikki Tikki Tembo and Blueberries for Sal—are heavy on images. The images faded in grade school, forcing an egg-headed edition of Ramona Quimby, and Meg, Charles Wallace, and
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Betting On Yourself

If you're an artist or an entrepreneur, your working life is by definition about risk. You're already rolling the dice or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. But beyond the inherent hazards of the artist/entrepreneur's life, how should you manage risk?
(I'm not referring, by the way, to the Seinfeld episode featuring George Costanza and
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Vacation

I'm on vacation and a couple of things popped upped for Black Irish Books. They aren't the end of the world.  Steve found a typo on one page of his next book.  We both agree that it is crucial that we fix it.
No problem.  I'm the liaison with the printer so it falls in my
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"Keep Working"

When I came out to Tinseltown from New York in the 80's, one of my first paying gigs was working with a grizzled, old-time director on a low-budget action script. (This post is picking up from last week's, about "Track #1" and "Track #2.")
The director and I used to work at his house in the
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Thank You, Steve

What do you do with an author, when he doesn't do outreach like other authors?
You thank him.
I don't always agree with Steve.
When he makes a decision I don't agree with, I nudge him toward my preferred direction.
He replies.
And then I 1) am thrilled we are on the same page; 2) find myself nudging a little
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Working on Two Tracks

When we complete a work of art or commerce and expose it to judgment in the real world, three things can happen:
1. Everybody loves it.
2. Everybody hates it.
3. Nobody notices that it even exists.
All three responses present you and me—the artist or entrepreneur—with serious emotional challenges, and all three drive deep into the most profound
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DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

The front page of The Wall Street Journal's Thursday March 8, 2012 edition had with the following headline: U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers; Justice Department Threatens Lawsuits, Alleging Collusion over E-Book Pricing.

I wrote about this mishigas last fall. For an overview of what it's all about, check out "The Fox, the Hawk, and the Keepers
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