“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”
-Steven Pressfield
The War of Art, which the excerpt noted above comes from, will never make its way onto a recommended book list of World Wide DreamBuilders (WWDB). Throughout, Pressfield’s language is too coarse, too raw, to join the likes of How to Win Friends and Influence People and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
But many of the principles in the book, as well as its unapologetic, no-nonsense truths, echo some of the best, most life-changing teachings that I have learned in those and other WWDB-recommended books. And Pressfield’s voice is much like that of talks by WWDB leaders such as Glen Baker, Brad Duncan and Bill Hawkins as they seek to encourage and inspire Amway Independent Business Owners.
The book isn’t just about “art,” although it is told from that vantage point. It details how the creation of art, particularly writing, is a vulnerable activity. You expose yourself, through your work, to be judged, to be criticized, to be deemed inadequate. Especially by your internal, self-sabotaging voice.
As a result, many back off instead of “going for it.” To borrow from the central concept in The War of Art, those are the ones who succumb to “Resistance.”
At the heart of Resistance, says Pressfield, is fear. In that way, the struggle that he describes is universal, reaching well beyond what we consider “art” through the entirety of life, for everyone.
He lists 11 “activities that most commonly elicit Resistance,” and they include “the launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise” as well as “the taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity.”
In chapters that range from a few sentences to a few pages, Pressfield writes in a conversational style that comes across with authority and humor. Here are some chapter names, with excerpts, that offer a glimpse at his from-the-gut approach:
*Resistance and Fear
“…Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
*Resistance and Rationalization
“What’s particularly insidious about the rationalizations that Resistance presents to us is that a lot of them are true. They’re legitimate…What Resistance leaves out, of course, is that all this means diddly. Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace.”
*You, Inc.
“If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally.”
Pressfield communicates with such power largely because Resistance, as he puts it, rendered him utterly powerless for a time in his life. Then, moment by moment, he conquered it. Many years later, despite repeated rejections from publishers, he achieved renown as an author and screenwriter. (Among other works, he wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance.)
Well before gaining public success, though, he achieved a pivotal private victory. It came one night when he spent two hours “torturing out some trash” before immediately tossing it away and then turning his attention to cleaning dishes that had piled up in his kitchen.
Then, he writes:
“To my amazement I realized I was whistling. It hit me that I had turned a corner. I was okay. I would be okay from here on. Do you understand? I hadn’t written anything good. It might be years before I would, if I ever did at all. That didn’t matter. What counted was that I had, after years of running from it, actually sat down and done my work.”
The analogy for Amway IBOs can take many forms: it’s pushing through your fear to make phone calls that scare you; it’s saying “hello” to people you meet on a consistent basis and seeing where it takes you; or it’s sharing the Sales & Marketing Plan, maybe even to those who are not really qualified or interested, so you can bust through an imaginary wall that you have manufactured in your mind.
Along the way, you are getting equipped and ready for those who are qualified and are interested.
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