Do the Work (5 page)
Authors: Steven Pressfield
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.
The enemy is inside you.
Principle Number Four:
The Enemy Is Inside You, But It Is Not You
The fourth axiom of Resistance is that 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.
The 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.
There 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. The dragon belches fire 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.
The contest is life-and-death,
mano a mano
. It asks no quarter and gives none.
This is the fifth principle of Resistance.
Principle Number Six: Resistance Arises Second
The sixth principle of Resistance (and the key to overcoming it) is that 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 fire 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.
It means that, at bottom, Resistance is not the towering, all-powerful monster before whom we are compelled to quake in terror. Resistance is more like the pain-in-the-ass schoolteacher who won’t let us climb that tree in the playground.
But the urge to climb came first.
That urge is love.
Love for the material, love for the work, love for our brothers and sisters to whom we will offer our work as a gift.
In Greek, the word is
eros
. Life force.
Dynamis
, creative drive.
That mischievous tree-climbing scamp is our friend.
She’s us, she’s our higher nature, our Self. In the face of Resistance, we have to remember her and hang onto her and draw strength from her.
The 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 myths and legends, the knight is always aided in his quest to slay the dragon. Providence brings forth a champion whose role is to assist the hero. Theseus had Ariadne when he fought the Minotaur. Jason had Medea when he went after the Golden Fleece. Odysseus had the goddess Athena to guide him home.
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. The three Wise Men were guided by a star.
All of these characters or forces represent Assistance. They are symbols for the unmanifested. They stand for a dream.
The dream is your project, your vision, your symphony, your startup. The love is the passion and enthusiasm that fill your heart when you envision your project’s completion.
Sometimes when Resistance is kicking my butt (which it does, all the time), I flash on Charles Lindbergh. What symphony of Resistance must have been playing in his head when he was struggling to raise the funding for his attempt to fly across the Atlantic solo?
“You’re too young, you’re too inexperienced; you’ve got no credentials, no credibility. Everyone who’s tried this has failed and you will, too. It can’t be done. Your plane will crash, you’re going to drown, you’re a madman who is attempting the impossible and you deserve whatever dire fate befalls you!”
What saw Lindy through?
It can only have been the dream.
Love of the idea.
How cool would it be, in 1927, to land at Le Bourget field outside Paris, having flown from New York, solo and non-stop, before anyone else had ever done it?
The 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.
Resistance’s Two Tests
Resistance puts two questions to each and all of us.
Each question has only one correct answer.
Test Number One
“How bad do you want it?”
This is Resistance’s first question. The scale below will help you answer. Mark the selection that corresponds to how you feel about your book/movie/ballet/new business/whatever.
Dabbling • Interested • Intrigued but Uncertain • Passionate • Totally Committed
If your answer is not the one on the far right, put this book down and throw it away.
Test Number Two
“Why do you want it?”
- For the babes (or the dudes)
- The money
- For fame
- Because I deserve it
- For power
- To prove my old man (or ex-spouse, mother, teacher, coach) wrong
- To serve my vision of how life/mankind ought to be
- For fun or beauty
- Because I have no choice
If you checked 8 or 9, you get to stay on the island. (I know I said there was only one correct answer. But 8 and 9 are really one.)
If you checked any of the first seven, you can stay, too—but you must immediately check yourself into the Attitude Adjustment Chamber.
The Attitude Adjustment Chamber
Did you ever see
Cool Hand Luke
? Remember “the Box”? You don’t get to keep anything when you enter this space. You must check at the door:
- Your ego
- Your sense of entitlement
- Your impatience
- Your fear
- Your hope
- Your anger
You must also leave behind:
- All grievances related to aspects of yourself dependent on the accident of birth, e.g., how neglected/abused/ mistreated/unloved/poor/ill-favored etc. you were when you were born.
- All sense of personal exceptionalness dependent on the accident of birth, e.g., how rich/cute/tall/thin/smart/charming/loveable you were when you were born.
- All of the previous two, based on any subsequent (i.e., post-birth) acquisition of any of these qualities, however honorably or meritoriously earned.
The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.
This ends our special section, “Belly of the Beast.” We return now to programming already in progress:
You and me, two-thirds through our project and stuck in a hell of Resistance.
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.
If our project is a movie, the star checks into rehab. If it’s a business venture, the bank pulls our financing. If it’s a rodeo, our star bull runs away with a heifer.
The Big Crash is so predictable, across all fields of enterprise, that we can practically set our watches by it.
Bank on it. It’s gonna happen.
The worst part of the Big Crash is that nothing can prepare us for it. Why? Because the crash arises organically, spawned by some act of commission or omission that we ourselves took or countenanced back at the project’s inception.
The Big Crash just happened to me. My newest book, a novel called
The Profession
, was done—after two years of work. I was proud of it, I was psyched, I was sure I had broken through to a level I had never achieved before.
Then I showed it to people I trusted.
They hated it.
Let me rephrase that.
They HATED it.
The worst part is, they were right. The book didn’t work. Its concept was flawed, and the flaw was fatal.
I’d love to report that I rallied at once and whipped that sucker into shape in a matter of days. Unfortunately, what happened was that I crashed just like the book.
I went into an emotional tailspin.
I was lost. I was floundering.
Ringing the Bell
Navy SEAL training puts its candidates through probably the most intense physical ordeal in the U.S. military. The reason is they’re trying to break you. SEAL trainers want to see if the candidate will crack. Better that the aspiring warrior fails here—at Coronado Island in San Diego—than someplace where a real wartime mission and real lives are at stake.
In SEAL training, they have a bell. When a candidate can’t take the agony any longer—the 6-mile ocean swims or the 15-mile full-load runs or the physical and mental ordeals on no sleep and no food … when he’s had enough and he’s ready to quit, he walks up and rings the bell.
That’s it. It’s over.
He has dropped out.
You and I have a bell hanging over us, too, here in the belly of the beast. Will we ring it?
There’s a difference between Navy SEAL training and what you and I are facing now.
Our ordeal is harder.
Because we’re alone.
We’ve got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our butts to keep us going. We’ve got no friends, no fellow sufferers, no externally imposed structure. No one’s feeding us, housing us, or clothing us. We have no objective milestones or points of validation. We can’t tell whether we’re doing great or falling on our faces. When we finish, if we do, no one will be waiting to congratulate us. We’ll get no champagne, no beach party, no diploma, no insignia. The battle we’re fighting, we can’t explain to anybody or share with anybody or call in anybody to help.
The only thing we have in common with the SEAL candidates is the bell.
Will we ring it or won’t we?
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.
A crash means we’re at the threshold of learning something, which means we’re getting better, we’re acquiring the wisdom of our craft. A crash compels us to figure out what works and what doesn’t work—and to understand the difference.
We got ourselves into this mess by mistakes we made at the start. How? Were we lazy? Inattentive? Did we mean well but forget to factor in human nature? Did we assess reality incorrectly?
Whatever the cause, the Big Crash compels us to go back now and solve the problem that we either created directly or set into motion unwittingly at the outset.
Sartre said “Hell is other people,” but in this case, hell is us.
Panic Is Good
Creative panic is good. Here’s why:
Our greatest fear is fear of success.
When we are succeeding—that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level—that’s when panic strikes.
It did for me when my book crashed, and it was the best thing that happened to me all year.
When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.
Have you ever watched a small child take a few bold steps away from its mother? The little boy or girl shows great courage. She ventures forth, feels exhilaration, and then … she realizes what she has done. She freaks. She bolts back to Mommy.
That’s you and me when we’re growing.
Next time, the child won’t run back to Mommy so fast. Next time, she’ll venture farther.
Her panic was momentary, a natural part of the process of growth.
That’s us as we rally and re-tackle the Big Crash. This time we’ll lick it. We’ll fix this jalopy and get it back on the road.
Panic is good. It’s a sign that we’re growing.
Back to Square One
In the belly of the beast, we go back to our allies:
- Stupidity
- Stubbornness
- Blind faith
We are too dumb to quit and too mulish to back off.
In the belly of the beast, we remind ourselves of two axioms:
- The problem is not us. The problem is the problem.
- Work the problem.
The Problem Is the Problem
A professional does not take success or failure personally. That’s Priority Number One for us now.
That 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.
Now we go back to our sheet of yellow foolscap.
Where did we go wrong? Where did this train go off the tracks?
Somewhere in the three sections on our sheet of foolscap—beginning, middle, and end—and in the final section, the summation of the theme … somewhere in there lies the answer. Why is it so hard to find? It’s hard because it’s hard.
I’m not trying to be cryptic or facetious. We went wrong at the start because the problem was so hard (and the act of solving it was so painful) that we ducked and dodged and bypassed. We hoped it would go away. We hoped it would solve itself. A little voice warned us then, but we were too smart to listen.
The bad news is, the problem is hell.
The good news is it’s just a problem.
It’s not us. We are not worthless or evil or crazy. We’re just us, facing a problem.
Work the Problem
Here’s what crashed in my book—and how I solved it:
The book, as I said, is called
The Profession
. It’s a military/political thriller set a few years in the future, when mercenary armies have replaced conventional ones.
Scene after scene almost worked. But they all ran onto the same rocks: the events were so proximate time-wise that they could be doubted and second-guessed. The reader could say, “That’s bullshit, I was there and it didn’t happen like that.” And the events were too emotionally charged (9/11 played a role and so did fictional withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan) and involved such painful real-world issues (did our troops die in vain?) that they overwhelmed the basically simple story and pulled it off its politically speculative-future theme.
Remember what we said before about friends and family? The answer came from there, from two people very close to me (they know who they are) who thrashed in and banged around inside the problem. They couldn’t see the full solution, but the ideas that they stirred up helped me see it.
The answer was to move the book out farther into the future.
That was the stroke that split the diamond.
In other words, nothing mystical, nothing New Age-y, nothing involving the Law of Attraction.
The solution was mechanical.
It was like saying “Get the drive-wheel back on the pavement; then the car will come out of the ditch.” Or “put the ship-date off one month to give us time to repair the glitches first.”
It worked. It took an extra year, but it solved the problem.
And yes, the book did crash a second time after that, requiring a second trip back to Square One.
What else is new?
Moby Dick
When It Crashes
Just for fun, let’s imagine that
Moby Dick
crashed 9/10ths of the way through and Herman Melville texted us in a panic, pleading for help. What would the rescue operation look like?
We hurry over to HM’s house and read the manuscript. Mel already has feedback from other friends and colleagues. All agree the book isn’t working. We ask our Big Question: “What’s missing?” The consensus focuses on the captain.
One comment: “He’s kinda like Captain Queeg, an unbalanced neurotic.” Another: “He reminded me of Captain Bligh—an autocratic prick.”
Let’s go to the foolscap. What does it say about the skipper?
Next: a mortal to challenge the monster. He must be monstrous himself. Obsessed, arrogant, monomaniacal. Ahab.
Hmmm. Let’s dig deeper. What does the foolscap say about the theme?
… the clash between human will and the elemental malice of nature.
Melville is freaking a little; he’s too close to the material, he has identified his hopes with it too much. Plus he’s broke and the rent is due. We’ve given him a couple of stiff tots of rum; he’s lying down in the bedroom. But still, the Problem. What exactly is it?
Two things.
First, Ahab as he stands now is weak; he’s not a worthy opponent for the White Whale. We have to beef him up.
Second, the theme is incomplete.
Again we ask, “What’s missing?”
Ahab needs to be more monstrous, more monomaniacal. How can we accomplish that?
- Give him a peg leg. (Remember, this wasn’t a cliché in the 1850s.)
- Not just any peg leg, but one made of whale ivory.
- Add that Ahab lost the leg, fighting a whale.
- Not just any whale, but Moby Dick himself.
- Let Ahab tramp the quarterdeck nightlong, obsessed with vengeance—and let the echo of that whale-ivory leg resound through the crew’s quarters below like a knell of madness.
- Add a crazed white streak running through Ahab’s hair and beard, as if metaphysical hatred-lightning had carved a scar upon his soul.
- Add beats to heighten Ahab’s obsession. Here’s one: When the
Pequod
passes another whaling vessel, the
Rachel
, which has just seen and fought Moby Dick and lost beloved members of the crew, including the captain’s son, for whom they’re searching now, let Ahab spurn all appeals for help and drive his own ship faster in pursuit of the white whale. - Let Ahab renounce his whaling contract and denounce the for-profit nature of the voyage. The hell with killing other whales for their oil! Ahab will hunt Moby Dick for vengeance alone!
These changes are helping. Ahab is much better than he was before, with two good legs and regular hair. But we need more.
We need to take the theme one level deeper …
The story can’t just be about “the clash between man’s will and the malice of nature.” That’s not enough. It must add the element of man-as-part-of-nature-himself. So that Man is dueling the evil
inside himself
and being consumed by it.