More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Turning pro is free, but it's not easy. You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind.
the law of metaphor
Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.
If you're dissatisfied with your current life, ask yourself what your current life is a metaphor for. That metaphor will point you toward your true calling.
Becoming a pro, in the end, is nothing grander than growing up.
The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits.
Miyamoto Musashi's dojo was smaller than my living room. Things became superfluous for him. In the end he didn't even need a sword.
The payoff of living in the past or the future is you never have to do your work in the present.
I applaud your story of how you hit bottom, because at the bottom there's no one there but yourself.
When we truly understand that the tribe doesn't give a damn, we're free. There is no tribe, and there never was. Our lives are entirely up to us.
When we turn pro, we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
Epiphanies hurt. There's no glory to them.
A horse that loves to run will beat a horse that's compelled, every day of the week.
Never train your animal to exhaustion. Leave him wanting more.
The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.
The professional refuses to be iconized.
Our intention as artists is to get better, to go deeper, to work closer and closer to the bone.
The sword master advancing into ritual combat has inwardly made peace with his own extinction. He is prepared to leave everything, including his life, there on the fighting floor.
For us, there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hunt. When our hearts burst... then we'll go out, and no sooner.
When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well.
The trick is, there is always something inside the box.
You and I can do it, too. We can work over our heads. Not only can we, but we must. The best pages I've ever written are pages I can't remember writing.
Our work is a practice. One bad day is nothing to us. Ten bad days are nothing.
Athletes play hurt. Warriors fight scared.
The pro sits chilly.
The clash is epic and internal, between the ego and the Self, and the stakes are our lives.
In the end, the enterprise and the sacrifice are all about the audience.
We're the audience.
The hero wanders. The hero suffers. The hero returns. You are that hero.
