About This Book DO THE WORK
On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.
Our Enemies
The following is a list of the forces arrayed against us as artists and entrepreneurs:
1. Resistance (i.e., fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing, perfectionism, etc.)
2. Rational thought
3. Friends and family
This book is designed to coach you through a project (a book, a ballet, a new business venture, a philanthropic enterprise) from conception to finished product, seeing it from the point of view of Resistance. We’ll hit every predictable Resistance Point along the way— those junctures where fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, and all those other demons we’re all so familiar with can be counted upon to strike.
“A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”
― Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
DO THE WORK BOOK SUMMARY
Start Before You’re Ready
Don’t prepare. Begin. Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account.
Th e enemy is Resistance. Th e enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do. Start before you’re ready.
Good things happen when we start before we’re ready. For one thing, we show Huevos. Our blood heats up. Courage begets more courage. Th e gods, witnessing our boldness, look on in approval.
W. H. Murray said:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Begin it now.
A Research Diet
Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
Three-Act Structure
Break the sheet of foolscap into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Th is is how screenwriters and playwrights work. Act One, Act Two, Act Three.
How Leonardo Did It
Here’s The Last Supper in three acts on a single sheet of foolscap: 1. Supper table stretching across the width of the canvas. 2. Jesus standing in the centre, apostles arrayed in various postures left and right. 3. Perspective and background tailing off behind. Th at’s all Mr. Da V needed to start. Th e rest is details.
Start at the End
Here’s a trick that screenwriters use: work backwards. Begin at the finish. If you’re writing a movie, solve the climax first. If you’re opening a restaurant, begin with the experience you want the diner to have when she walks in and enjoys a meal. If you’re preparing a seduction, determine the state of mind you want the process of romancing to bring your lover to.
Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.
Yes, you say. “But how do I know where I want to go?”
Answer the Question “What Is This About?” Start with the theme. What is this project about?
What is the Eiffel Tower about? What is the space shuttle about? What is Nude Descending a Staircase about?
Your movie, your album, your new start-up … what is it about? When you know that, you’ll know the end state. And when you know the end state, you’ll know the steps to take to get there.
The Universe Is Not Indifferent
When you and I set out to create anything—art, commerce, science, love—or to advance in the direction of a higher, nobler version of ourselves, we uncork from the universe, ineluctably, an equal and opposite reaction.
That reaction is Resistance. Resistance is an active, intelligent, protean, malign force—tireless, relentless, and inextinguishable—whose sole object is to stop us from becoming our best selves and from achieving our higher goals. The universe is not indifferent. It is actively hostile.
Every principle espoused so far in this volume is predicated upon that truth. Th e aim of every axiom set forth thus far is to outwit, outflank, outmanoeuvre Resistance. We can never eliminate Resistance. It will never go away. But we can outsmart it, and we can enlist allies that are as powerful as it is.
One thing we can never, never permit ourselves to do is to take Resistance lightly, to underestimate it or to fail to take it into account.
Fill in the Gaps
David Lean famously declared that a feature film should have seven or eight major sequences. That’s a pretty good guideline for our play, our album, our State of the Union address.
A video game should have seven or eight major movements; so should the newest high-tech gadget, or the latest fighter plane. Our new house should have seven or eight major spaces. A football game, a prize fight, a tennis match—if they’re going to be entertaining—should have seven or eight major swings of momentum. That’s what we need now. We need to fill in the gaps with a series of great entertaining and enlightening scenes, sequences, or spaces.
Do Research Now
Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time. 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. Soak up what you need to fill in the gaps. Keep working.
How Screenwriters Pitch
When movie writers pitch a project, they keep it brief because studio executives’ attention spans are minimal. But they, the writers, want their presentation to have maximum impact and to deliver, in concise form, the feel and flavour of the film they see in their heads.
One trick they use is to boil down their presentation to the following: 1. A killer opening scene 2.Two major set pieces in the middle 3. A killer climax 4. A concise statement of the theme . In other words, they’re filling in the gaps. Th e major beats.
Any project or enterprise can be broken down into beginning, middle, and end. Fill in the gaps; then fill in the gaps between the gaps.
Cover the Canvas
One rule for first full working draft s: get them done ASAP. Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything.
Suspend All Self-Judgment
Unless you’re building a sailboat or the Taj Mahal, I give you a free pass to screw up as much as you like.
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.
The Crazier the Better
Suspending self-judgment doesn’t just mean blowing off the “You suck” voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work “ought” to be or “should” look like. Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart.
Ideas Do Not Come Linearly
Ideas come according to their own logic. Th at logic is not rational. It’s not linear. We may get the middle before we get the end. We may get the end before we get the beginning. Be ready for this. Don’t resist it.
The Process
Let’s talk about the actual process—the writing/composing/ idea generation process. It progresses in two stages: action and reflection. Act, reflect. Act, reflect. NEVER act and reflect at the same time.
The Definition of Action and Reflection
In writing, “action” means putting words on paper. “Reflection” means evaluating what we have on paper. For this first draft , we’ll go light on reflection and heavy on action.
When we say “Stay Stupid,” we mean don’t self-censor, don’t indulge in self-doubt, don’t permit self-judgment. Forget rational thought. Play. Play like a child.
Our job is not to control our idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)—and then bring it into being.
The Answer Is Always Yes
When an idea pops into our head and we think, “No, this is too crazy,” … that’s the idea we want.
The Opposite of Resistance
Th e universe is also actively benevolent. You should be feeling this now. You should be feeling a tailwind.
Th e opposite of Resistance is Assistance. A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope. This is serious juju. The universe responds to this. It has no choice.
Your work-in-progress produces its own gravitational field, created by your will and your attention. Th is field attracts like spirited entities into its orbit.
Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality
THE BELLEY OF THE BEAST
Principle Number One: There Is an Enemy
Th e first principle of Resistance is that there is an enemy. In our feel-good, social-safety-net, high-self-esteem world, you and I have been brainwashed to believe that there is no such thing as evil, that human nature is perfectible, that everyone and everything can be made nice. We have been conditioned to imagine that the darkness that we see in the world and feel in our own hearts is only an illusion, which can be dispelled by the proper care, the proper love, the proper education, and the proper funding. It can’t. Th ere is an enemy. Th ere is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us. Step one is to recognize this. Th is recognition alone is enormously powerful. It saved my life, and it will save yours.
Principle Number Two: This Enemy Is Implacable
Th e hostile, malicious force that we’re experiencing now is not a joke. It is not to be trifled with or taken lightly. It is for real.
Th is enemy is intelligent, protean, implacable, inextinguishable, and utterly ruthless and destructive. Its aim is not to obstruct or to hamper or to impede. Its aim is to kill.
Principle Number Three: This Enemy Is Inside You
Pat Riley, when he was coach of the Lakers, had a term for all those off -court forces, like fame and ego (not to mention crazed fans, the press, agents, sponsors, and ex-wives), that worked against the players’ chances for on-court success. He called these forces “peripheral opponents.
Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. It does not arise from rivals, bosses, spouses, children, terrorists, lobbyists, or political adversaries. It comes from us. You can board a spaceship to Pluto and settle, all by yourself, into a perfect artist’s cottage ten zillion miles from Earth. Resistance will still be with you. Th e enemy is inside you
Principle Number Four: The Enemy Is Inside You, But It Is Not You
What does that mean? It means you are not to blame for the voices of Resistance you hear in your head. They are not your “fault.” You have done nothing “wrong.” You have committed no “sin.” I have that same voice in my head. So did Picasso and Einstein. So do Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga and Donald Trump. If you’ve got a head, you’ve got a voice of Resistance inside it.
Th e enemy is in you, but it is not you. No moral judgment attaches to the possession of it. You “have” Resistance the same way you “have” a heartbeat. You are blameless. You retain free will and the capacity to act.
Principle Number Five: The “Real You” Must Duel the “Resistance You”
On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon
Th ere is no way to be nice to the dragon, or to reason with it or negotiate with it or beam a white light around it and make it your friend. Th e dragon belches fi re and lives only to block you from reaching the gold of wisdom and freedom, which it has been charged to guard to its final breath. The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.
Principle Number Six: Resistance Arises Second
What comes first is the idea, the passion, the dream of the work we are so excited to create that it scares the hell out of us. Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self. Resistance is the shadow cast by the innovative self ’s sun.
What does this mean to us—the artists and entrepreneurs in the trenches? It means that before the dragon of Resistance reared its ugly head and breathed fi re into our faces, there existed within us a force so potent and life-affirming that it summoned this beast into being, perversely, to combat it.
Th e opposite of fear is love—love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off .
Principle Number Seven: The Opposite of Resistance Is Assistance
In Native American myths, our totemic ally is often an animal— a magic raven, say, or a talking coyote. In Norse myths, an old crone sometimes assists the hero; in African legends, it’s often a bird. Th e three Wise Men were guided by a star. All of these characters or forces represent Assistance. They are symbols for the manifested. They stand for a dream.
Th e dream is your project, your vision, your symphony, your start-up. Th e love is the passion and enthusiasm that fill your heart when you envision your project’s completion.
Th e seventh principle of Resistance is that we can align ourselves with these universal forces of Assistance—this dream, this passion to make the unmanifest manifest—and ride them into battle against the dragon.
The Big Crash
We were doing so great. Our project was in high gear, we were almost finished (maybe we actually were finished). Then inevitably … Everything crashes.
Th e Big Crash is so predictable, across all fields of enterprise, that we can practically set our watches by it.
Crashes Are Good
Crashes are hell, but in the end they’re good for us. A crash means we have failed. We gave it everything we had and we came up short. A crash does not mean we are losers. A crash means we have to grow.
The Problem Is the Problem
A professional does not take success or failure personally. That’s Priority Number One for us now. Th at our project has crashed is not a reflection of our worth as human beings. It’s just a mistake. It’s a problem—and a problem can be solved.
Killer Instinct
Fear of Success
I’ve never read anything better on the subject than this from Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Finish the first work
“From the day I finally finished something, I’ve never had trouble finishing anything again.”
Once you beat resistance once, you’re better equipped to do it again.