Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 3

A New Home

My apologies, friends, for falling behind on these updates … a lot has been happening.

Diana and I have found a long-term (one-year) rental—a nice little house on a nice little street, close enough to the burn area for us to be able to stay on top of developments. We got lucky. The owners showed the house only to us; they have been redo-ing it with great care for a couple of years. It’s spotless, sunny, and the neighbors are great.

Our new home in Mar Vista, L.A.

Meanwhile the massive rebuild process for L.A. continues. For our side of town, the first order of business is clearing the debris—i.e., the remains of houses that burned down—along Pacific Coast Highway. This is a world-class disaster area that goes on and on and on. But the crews and trucks and excavators are in there now, behind barricades that have turned PCH (which was a major commuter thoroughfare) into a one-lane road open only to emergency crews, contractors, and residents with passes. The National Guard is still there, operating checkpoints.

Our specific neighborhood, which is a mile up a steep hill off PCH, has had only the odd Debris Removal operation—a couple here, another one there. Our neighbors two doors down had their property “scraped” and another neighbor a few doors farther had a giant excavator digging yesterday. But that’s all we’ve seen. 170 houses on our hill remain piles of junk.

Supposedly the Army Corps of Engineers will phone us a few days before they come out and give homeowners a chance to plead with them not to be too brutal with their clearance swings. We haven’t heard anything yet.

The big emotional takeaway from developments seems to be this:

Don’t get too fixated on news you hear today. Keep breathing, hang onto hope … stuff may change. I don’t want to complain in these updates, so I won’t vent here. Suffice it to say that the idea that local government was going to help victims of this catastrophe and make a rebuild of their lives easier … we have seen pretty much the opposite . I will say no more for now, remembering the mantra above. It may all work out in the end.

Keeping a positive attitude has been very hard for me. I try to keep in mind how lucky we are in so many ways—and we are!—but sometimes three in the morning looks pretty grim.

What’s keeping me together is Diana (who is a champ in bad-news situations), my friends and family (who have without exception been great) … and the work.

I refuse to let this shit knock me off my writing rhythm. I just won’t let it happen. And surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) I’m stumbling and bumbling and grinding and the juice is still there.

“Don’t got ahead of yourself!” “Don’t be shy about calling friends.” “Keep your head down and keep working!” That’s what I tell myself.

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COVID!

We just got it. Diana and me. Third time for me, second for her.

The good news is it’s been pretty mild so far. I was down hard for two days but beginning to come back today. April 1 we move into our longer-term rental house. We should be recovered enough by then.

“How is the rebuild going?”

The answer is, “Pretty glacial.”

It’s not that people aren’t trying or working hard. They are. But the logistics are overwhelming, as I’m sure they were in Katrina and every other large-scale natural disaster.

To wit: on the Palisades side of Los Angeles (and this is true with different specifics) for the Altadena side) there are only a few roads—Pacific Coast Highway, Sunset Boulevard, Topanga Canyon, Temescal Canyon. It’s just the geography. There’s only one road possible along the coast and only a few others through the canyons. All of these are major commuter arteries and they’re all now closed except to residents.

It’s no one’s fault. It just has to be that way, so that infrastructure repairs (power, water, phone lines, etc.) can be made. On the smaller roads, like ours, further repairs have to be finished before others can begin, like power lines being ‘undergrounded”—something that should have been done forty years ago. What this means for the restoration is that the heavy equipment for debris removal, i.e. the wreckage that used to be everyone’s homes, can’t get in.

The Army Corps of Engineers, who will be doing most of the work, has of necessity had to prioritize. The miles of destroyed homes along Pacific Coast Highway must be addressed first. This makes perfect sense. The road is indispensable. It has to be cleared.

We heard last night that our area is scheduled for May. I’m trying, personally, not to get ahead of myself. This ain’t easy for types like me. I keep asking myself, “What lesson am I supposed to be learning from this?”

Is it to give up the illusion that I have any control? Is it to “live in the moment?” Is it to focus on gratitude for all the incredible blessings we still have? Is it to try harder to influence events?

My answer so far is to stick with my work and not let nocturnal catastrophizing drive me insane.

This ain’t easy either, I must confess.

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The Game of Numbers

My friend Nick Murray is an advisor and guru to financial planners, i.e. the guys and gals who manage your investing portfolio if you’re lucky enough to have one.

Nick wrote a book a few years ago called The Game of Numbers. I can’t recommend it highly enough to you add me—artists and writers and creative people of all kinds—and NOT for any advice about money.

Apparently in the financial planning biz, a huge part of the game is COLD CALLING. You gotta pick up the phone and pitch yourself to potential clients.

Can you guess where this is going?

Resistance.

My copy of “The Game of Numbers”

Financial planners HATE cold calling. It’s agony. It’s rejection. You feel like a cheap hustler.

Many aspiring planners avoid it. Result: their business stalls or even fails.

Nick’s advice to these young planners:

Make three calls a day, no matter what.

Take no notice of your success rate.

Keep making those calls, no matter how much you hate it.

He calls this “the game of numbers” because as the number of calls pile up, just by sheer attrition you will get a few successes. Then a few more. And a few more after that.

The trick, Nick says, is to trust the numbers. Keep dialing. Keep cold calling.

The ability to do this, Nick believes, is the difference between success and failure.

I love The Game of Numbers because it applies absolutely to you and me as writers and artists.

Keep grinding. Keep showing up. Keep putting in the work.

Take no notice of how “good” your stuff is at the end of each day. Just get up the next day and keep striving, keep hammering, keep working.

The Muse is watching. When she sees the numbers pile up day after day, she smiles. Ah, she thinks, this gal or guy is for real.

And sooner or later, just like the financial planner making cold calls, the numbers begin to pay off. The work gets better. Our stuff begins to be noticed. We ourselves begin to believe, “Yes, I AM an artist. Indeed I AM a writer.”

Michael Jordan did not learn to shoot the turn-around fadeaway from the corner by magic. He played the game of numbers.

Get Nick’s book. It’s a life-changer. The Game of Numbers by Nick Murray.

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“Believe! Believe! Believe!” #2

If you and I had a great coach/mentor/spouse/guru who had our absolute best interests at heart, he or she would stand at our shoulder always … but particularly when we faced adversity (which means every day in almost every circumstance).

What would that avatar tell us?

Without fail, she or he would say, “I believe in you. I believe in your gift. I believe in your Self. I believe in your capacity for work, courage, grit, selflessness and perseverance.” 

(I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.)

That coach/mentor/counselor must be ourselves.

I call this, in my own mind, self-reinforcement.

For me, it’s more important than talent and almost as critical as hard work.

In other words, as Anthony Hopkins says, “Believe! Believe! Believe!”

In the face of political and Constitutional catastrophe, inevitable adversity in our personal and professional lives, the constant “friction” of real life, not to mention the ever-present, intelligent, diabolical force of Resistance that we all must face each morning the instant we open our eyes, you and I must tell ourselves—on the deepest emotional and spiritual level—that we believe in ourselves and in our gift … we believe in the work we feel called to in our soul … and we believe in the inexhaustible source of creativity that powers the universe.

I do this literally, every day. I have to.

Self-reinforce! Self-reinforce! Self-reinforce!

“Believe! Believe! Believe!”

P.S. see Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad, Lao-Tzu, et al.

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“Believe! Believe! Believe!”

I’m not sure where I saw this. It was a clip of Anthony Hopkins on some late-night talk show. The host asked, “If you had one piece of advice to give a young actor … or just a young person struggling these days, what would it be?”

Anthony Hopkins—the REAL Anthony Hopkins, not Hannibal Lecter—is a pretty cool guy, totally unpretentious and very available with a kind word and a helpful smile. He answered without hesitation and with great passion:

“Believe! Believe! Believe!”

Here’s another version of the speech that Anthony Hopkins delivered for the Class of 2020.

Anthony Hopkins message to the Class of 2020

“Believe in yourself,” he said. Believe in your destiny. Believe in your capability.

Even if you must force yourself, Believe! See your dream realized and believe in it.

Even, Anthony Hopkins meant, when your own crazy mind (read Resistance) is beating you up with self-doubt, even when your friends and loved ones are undermining your self-confidence, even when there are truly legitimate reasons to question your project or your dream … peer in the mirror and tell yourself with all your heart, “You can do it! Believe! Believe! Believe!”

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The Unlived Life

I started The War of Art with this thought:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

What does that mean? In the deepest metaphysical sense?

It means that our lives exist on two levels.

The first level is the material plane. The practical world. The level of kids and cars and mortgages and taxes.

The second is the plane of potentiality.

The unlived life within us.

The books we might write, the enterprises we might initiate, the realized self we might become.

Are you unhappy? Frustrated? Miserable? Do you engage in rants on Facebook and Twitter? Do you take your frustrations out on loved ones, rivals at work, shoppers in the produce aisle at Piggly Wiggly? Have you recently bought a gun? Are you looking for ways to move to Zamboanga?

I’m not saying things aren’t crazy out there.

I’m not saying that dark energies haven’t been loosed upon the world.

I’m as freaked out as the next guy.

But what I am saying is that some of our angst, some of our anguish comes not from the travails of the moment, however dire they may be, but from something deeper.

I mean the gap between our lived lives and our unlived lives.

I mean Resistance.

When you and I know … when we feel in our bones the unrealized self we are or could become and know that we’re not living it out … the result is pain. The result is shame and anguish and self-reproach.

What we hate is not our fellow citizens across the political aisle.

What we hate is our own failure to step up to that unlived level.

I’m not saying the time of action isn’t imminent. It may be inevitable that you and I, as citizens of a constitutional republic, will have to stand up and defend the principles our country stands for.

But when that fight is over and we find ourselves still as pissed off and miserable as we were before it started, we might remind ourselves that our deeper struggle—our “war of art”—is against that invisible, insidious, indefatigable negative force whose sole aim is to block the part of us that resides on the Material plane from reaching out and opening itself to the part of ourselves that participates in the Plane of the Potential.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

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With the New Breed

The first critical hurdle in any home rebuild (I’m learning this now) is Debris Removal. In other words, getting rid of the mess that was your house. The way it seems to work is you can hire a private contractor and pay him … or the Army Corps of Engineers will do it for free. (If you have Debris Removal insurance, the Army Corps will be compensated by that.)

Today, Diana and I were up in our neighborhood along with some local friends who were also faced with rebuilding. We met with three officers—two Majors and a Captain—of the Army Corps. They had come to answer our questions and to relieve our concerns and anxieties. Here’s my takeaway:

First, all three were great guys and super-professional. The Army Corps of Engineers is apparently not some vast standing formation; it’s only eight hundred or so full-time military men. The primary work force is civilian contractors and heavy equipment operators hired on a job-by-job basis. These young officers were the core cadre. They organize and oversee the operation.  

Our house—Diana’s and mine—is out in the boonies. Roads are narrow. There are rockslides and mudslides and retaining walls … it’s a hairy drive even in a civilian car, let alone at the controls of a 30-ton excavator that rolls on steel treads—not to mention the set-of-doubles haul trucks that must negotiate the same twists and switchbacks.

A young captain from Tennessee drove with us as we four-wheeled our way to our neighbor Jurgen’s property. I had never been there. It was like the Road to Mandalay, only narrower and steeper. Diana and I both turned to the captain. “Can your guys possibly get in here?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “No problem.”

We asked him how.

“We’ll figure it out. That’s our job.”

If you’ve ever read E.B. Sledge’s classic WWII memoir, With the Old Breed, about the Marines on Peleliu and Okinawa, you know how much the young Eugene respected the vets of the Old Corps.

That’s how I feel about these new guys. I want to have their attitude. I want to be as cool as they are. I want to look at my own work and my own issues and be able to say, as that young captain did today, “We’ll figure it out. That’s our job.”

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20% for New Business

When I first went to work as a neophyte copywriter in advertising, back in the Mad Men era, the thing that surprised me most was how much time was allocated (and required) by the agency for New Business.

Jon Hamm as “Don Draper” in MAD MEN

When we filled out our weekly time sheets, we had to show 20% at least under that heading. “New business” in agency terms meant pitching potential clients. (As a sidebar note, the same companies seemed always to be targets of New Business pitches—Burger King, Seven-Up, Avis Rent-a-Car.)

In other words, the agency—like every other business—was aware of attrition. Clients would dump us. To make up for this, we had to be constantly seeking new ones.

My boss and good friend Phil Slott (who was always very canny about stuff like this) observed that this principle applied in our personal and individual lives as well.

We too were always “losing clients,” he said. Shit happens. Losses roll in. Bad stuff shows up in our Inbox.

“The first reaction for most of us,” Phil said, “is to downsize. Cut back. Stop the bleeding. But the smart thing, even though it’s really hard, is to do the opposite. Do what the agency does—reach out aggressively and creatively, trying to bring in fresh action, something new to keep us excited and energized.”

I’m in that exact place now. Every bone in my body is screaming, “Trim your sails, pull back on all fronts, stop the outflow.”

But Phil is right. Hard as it is, we have to keep pushing forward, putting out new stuff, reaching beyond what our fear and self-doubt tell us is possible.

20% for New Business.

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Report From the Trenches #13

All prior reports in this series have been about battles with internal Resistance. This one’s about the real world.

First, thanks to everyone who has written in with kind wishes and good vibes. I never realized how many people were in my corner and looking out for me and Diana. Thanks to everyone!

Here’s what’s been happening and where we stand:

After most of a month in hotels and friends’ guest houses, Diana and I have found an Airbnb in Venice. We’re safe and dry. There’s a place to write and it’s close to the gym—my two big mandatories.

We’re here for three months, meanwhile looking for something to rent longer-term—a year or two. Our plan is definitely to rebuild. May be crazy, as these fires are becoming a way-too-regular thing, but we love the place and we’re gonna go for it.

The hell of it is the bureaucracy and red tape. Despite govt promises to streamline the process, the grim reality is everybody does have to rebuild safely, on cleaned-up sites, according to code, etc. and that takes time. One of the most frustrating parts (and I’m sure this was true for Katrina or Lahaina or any other natural disaster) is the roads are closed. It makes sense of course because the infrastructure rebuild is so massive—power poles, drainage, clearance. The topography of New Orleans or Hawaii or here is that there are only a few roads in and out.

We’ve been up to see our house a couple of times. Everything is ashes down to the ground. The good news is the trees survived. We have two sycamores, a great old oak, and a massive eucalyptus that mean the world to us. They are scorched but they’ll be back.

Diana and I feel the same. I must thank as well not just the firefighters and first responders, who believe it or not are still here working, but the insurance people (at least the ones we’ve dealt with, at the CA FAIR Plan) and the hotel folks and so many others. At one point we checked in to the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. The reception dude who helped us (Daniel from Honduras) was so kind that Diana just started sobbing. Almost without exception, friends and strangers have been generous and supportive.

And don’t let me forget the Goddess. The Muse is there for all of us and nothing in the material world can touch her or her gifts. Keep digging, brothers and sisters. That underground river keeps flowing for all of us.

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Headwinds

A few years ago, after a surgery, I came home with two infections—staph and yeast. Without going into the gory details, the cure was fresh air on the site. Was this gonna knock me out of my working rhythm?

I wound up writing standing up, naked from the waist down, with an electric fan blowing on me.

The amazing part? I did some of the best work I’ve done in years.

Me and my great friend Joe Tye outside the Reel Inn in 2022. Alas, the place is long gone in ’25.

You and I as writers and artists are always facing headwinds in our “real” life—caring for aging parents, a divorce, a lost job, illness, troubles with the kids. Not to mention the unrelenting and diabolical opposing gales of RESISTANCE.

But that underground river of creativity keeps flowing. It doesn’t know about our real-life problems. It has a life of its own. It wants to be brought forth into material existence. It’s as if we were pregnant with it, this new life inside us.

We have to serve it. One hour a day if that’s all we can squeeze in.

The payoff is that river saves us. It’s saving me right now in the aftermath of the California wildfires. I would be coming totally unpeeled if I didn’t carve out that one hour or two to DO THE WORK.

P.S. The electric fan did save the day.

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