A Turn On to TURNING PRO

Stephen Pressfield is the author of the book-to-movie The Legend of Bagger Vance. His better book, I say (because it both educated AND entertained me), is The War of Art (@ Amazon), Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (2002). According to WikiP, It's "a motivational book that investigates the psychology of creating art." It's more— much.

And so is Pressfield's latest, Turning Pro (also @ Amazon).

It's about "pulling the pin on being an amateur and becoming a pro: A pro parent, paraglider, waiter, writer, what-ever. It's a book about Transformation (with a capital T). It is a book about Breaking-Through... to You. Here:

We usually think of breakthroughs as ecstatic moments that elevate us from a lower level to a higher. And they do. But there’s a paradox. In the moment, an epiphany feels like hell. Like Rosanne Cash’s dream, an epiphany trashes us. It exposes us and leaves us naked.We see ourselves plain, and it’s not a pretty picture.

The essence of epiphanies is the stripping away of self-delusion. We thought we were X. Now suddenly we see we’re minus-X. We’re X divided by infinity.

There is great power in this moment.

We ‘ve lost something, yes. A cherished self-delusion must be abandoned, and this hurts.

But what we have gained is the truth. Our bullshit falls away. The scales drop from our eyes. In that moment we have two options:

We can reconstitute our bullshit. Or we can turn pro.

— Steven Pressfield. Turning Pro. Black Irish Entertainment LLC.

If there is anything-anywhere in your life & work where you are "Sitting here la la. Waiting for my Ya Ya a hm ahm," know this:

LIFE GETS VERY SIMPLE WHEN YOU TURN PRO 

What happens when we turn pro is, we finally listen to that still, small voice inside our heads. At last we find the courage to identify the secret dream or love or bliss that we have known all along was our passion, our calling, our destiny.

Ballet.

Motorcycle maintenance.

Founding a clinic in the slums of Sao Paulo.

This, we acknowledge at last, is what we are most afraid of. This is what we know in our hearts we have to do.

Get the book. If...

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Thanks.
I appreciate you.

 

 

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