Do the Work

The following is a list of the forces arrayed against us as artists and entrepreneurs: Resistance (i.e., fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing, perfectionism, etc.) Rational thought Friends and familyRead more at location 83 • Delete this highlight Add a note Any program of spiritual advancement. Any activity whose aim is the acquisition of chiseled abdominals. Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction. Education of every kind. Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves. The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others. Any act that entails commitment of the heart—the decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship. The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity. In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.Read more at location 94 • Delete this highlight Add a note Resistance is a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.Read more at location 107 • Delete this highlight Add a note Rational Thought Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneur’s worst enemy. Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.Read more at location 135 • Delete this highlight Add a note Stupidity Stubbornness Blind faith Passion Assistance (the opposite of Resistance) Friends and familyRead more at location 153 • Delete this highlight Add a note Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness. I like the idea of stubbornness because it’s less lofty than “tenacity” or “perseverance.” We don’t have to be heroes to be stubborn. We can just be pains in the butt. When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery.Read more at location 166 • Delete this highlight Add a note Fear saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.Read more at location 186 • Delete this highlight Add a note Good things happen when we start before we’re ready. For one thing, we show huevos. Our blood heats up. Courage begets more courage. The gods, witnessing our boldness, look on in approval.Read more at location 203 • Delete this highlight Add a note A Research Diet Before we begin, you wanna do research? Uh-unh. I’m putting you on a diet. You’re allowed to read three books on your subject. No more. No underlining, no highlighting, no thinking or talking about the documents later. Let the ideas percolate. Let the unconscious do its work. Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.Read more at location 211 • Delete this highlight Add a note 2. Swing for the Seats My first job was in advertising in New York. I used to bring ideas to my boss that were so tiny, they made him apoplectic. “This idea is the size of a postage stamp! If it were any more miniscule, I’d need an electron microscope just to see it! Go back to your cubicle and bring me something BIG!” If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. A home-run swing that results in a strikeout is better than a successful bunt or even a line-drive single. Start playing from power. We can always dial it back later. If we don’t swing for the seats from the start, we’ll never be able to drive a fastball into the upper deck.Read more at location 226 • Delete this highlight Add a note In this book, when I say “Don’t think,” what I mean is: don’t listen to the chatter. Pay no attention to those rambling, disjointed images and notions that drift across the movie screen of your mind. Those are not your thoughts. They are chatter. They are Resistance.Read more at location 312 • Delete this highlight Add a note Research can be fun. It can be seductive. That’s its danger. We need it, we love it. But we must never forget that research can become Resistance.Read more at location 356 • Delete this highlight Add a note The inner critic? His ass is not permitted in the building. Set forth without fear and without self-censorship. When you hear that voice in your head, blow it off. This draft is not being graded. There will be no pop quiz. Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect. You are not allowed to judge yourself.Read more at location 381 • Delete this highlight Add a note We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”Read more at location 911 • Delete this highlight