#115 - Steven Pressfield - Why We Resist The Work We’re Meant To Do

Steven Pressfield shares what it feels like to spend decades pursuing work that the world refuses to validate before finally becoming who he knew he always was. We talk about resistance, self-sabotage, obsession, loneliness, and the quiet moments that keep you going when nothing seems to be working. This conversation also explores the difference between chasing external success and finding work that genuinely makes you feel alive, and why creating may be the most important thing that keeps us connected to ourselves.

Timestamps:
00:00 How A Cat Helped Steven Pressfield Realize He Could Build A Meaningful Life As A Writer
02:57 Why Steven Pressfield Couldn’t Throw Away His Dream Of Writing
04:36 The “Shadow Activities” That kept Steven From Becoming A Writer
06:11 What Driving Tractor Trailers Taught Steven Pressfield About Discipline & Creativity
08:46 How White Collar Culture Helped Steven Realize He Was Creative
10:47 The Moment Steven Pressfield Decided To Pursue Writing Seriously
13:31 Living Out Of A Chevy Van While Chasing The Dream Of Becoming A Writer
14:32 Becoming A Screenwriter
17:39 “Write What You Don’t Know” - The Creative Breakthrough That Changed Everything
22:30 “I Would Sit Down Crazy & Get Up Sane” - How Writing Became Therapy
24:07 The Danger Of Obsessing Over Timelines Instead Of Mastering Your Craft
29:33 What Success Actually Felt Like After Decades Of Rejection & Resistance
31:49 Family Pressure & The Unconscious Drive To Prove Yourself
33:43 Steven Pressfield Breaks Down Resistance & The War Of Art Philosophy
40:17 What Happens When You Ignore Your Creative Calling For Too Long
43:18 The Burden Of Becoming A Mentor After Writing The War Of Art
45:08 Steven Pressfield’s Philosophy On The Muse
49:12 Losing His Home In The Palisades Fires & Rebuilding His Life
50:47 Discovering He Was Jewish At 13 & Feeling Like An Outsider
55:06 Why Intellectual Work Gets Better With Age & Steven’s new novel, The Arcadian
56:53 Parting Words

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Transcript

Steven Pressfield shares what it feels like to spend decades pursuing work that the world refuses to validate before finally becoming who he knew he always was. We talk about resistance, self-sabotage, obsession, loneliness, and the quiet moments that keep you going when nothing seems to be working. This conversation also explores the difference between chasing external success and finding work that genuinely makes you feel alive, and why creating may be the most important thing that keeps us connected to ourselves.

Tim Doyle (00:08.109)

How did a feral cat in the woods of North Carolina show you that you could build the life that you wanted for yourself?

Steven Pressfield (00:15.514)

Wow, that's a hell of a question. This was when I was kind of at one of my lowest ebbs and I was living in this house that I paid $15 a month for with no windows, no door, no running water, no nothing. And I was just, I had just started work at a trucking company training to be a driver, but I was working then in the body and fender shop.

stocking company. And I just was at really lowest, one of the lowest ebbs. And I used to have to cook my meals on the back of the, on a little open fire, like a campfire outside, you know, just hamburgers and beans or something like that. And there used to be this feral, red-headed feral cat that lived in the woods behind me. And he would come out and sit across from me while I would eat. And he was a total wild cat. You know, they'd been scarred, big old Tom.

And he would never take, I would toss him some scraps of food and he would never take them because he was, he just wasn't anybody's pet. And I didn't even know why he came, but he would just sit across from me, kind of looking at me. And there was no doubt in either of our minds, which one of us had his act together and which one didn't, you know? And I just felt that, that this, fact that this cat materialized for me was like a sign from the universe that

But because he was like a role model to me, I knew this cat could totally take care of himself. Nobody had to feed him. He was out in the woods. He would hunt, you know, and when he got tired of hanging out with me, he just disappeared back into the woods. And so he became like a hero to me, a little role model to me. And I just felt maybe I can get it together, too. And let me ask you, Tim, why did you pick that question as the first question you wanted to ask me?

Tim Doyle (02:11.501)

because I think that's just a great place to start where first wanted to show you that, I dug into you a little bit, but also just being able to find meaning in experiences that you would have never expected to find meaning. I wanna now go 500 miles south from that to the

Steven Pressfield (02:19.13)

yeah, I see you have.

Steven Pressfield (02:33.144)

huh.

Tim Doyle (02:41.131)

Chattachoochee River in Georgia, you literally almost threw away any hope of a writing career by almost throwing your typewriter into the river, but you didn't. What would giving up, why would that have been so much more insufferable than needing to take the long way around to where you were trying to get with your writing?

Steven Pressfield (03:06.991)

That's another great question. I was kind of on an odyssey of living in my van, my Chevy van, and I was really running away from writing. I had tried to write a novel for about a year and half at age 22 or something like that. And it was a total disaster as anybody could have predicted. know, nobody wanted it. It was terrible. So I wound up on the road.

in my van, but I kept my typewriter with me as if, you know, in someone in the back of my mind that I would somehow turn around and start writing at some point. But I just, at this particular point, driving over this bridge over the Chattahoochee River or wherever it was, I just kind of said to myself, my kidding, I'm never going to do anything with this typewriter. Let me just throw it in the river. But for some reason I couldn't. So I guess something inside of me said,

hang on to this thing, you know, maybe someday you'll use it. And I did a few years after that, but at that particular point, I was, it really was tempting to throw it in the river, but something inside me wouldn't let me do it.

Tim Doyle (04:17.889)

What were the main shadow activities that you think made your journey longer than it needed to be?

Steven Pressfield (04:24.495)

First of all, it's another great question. What I would define as shadow activities as is like a shadow career is a career that's kind of adjacent to your real calling, but it's not your real calling. Like you may work as an assistant for a creative person when you really want to be the creative person yourself.

And of course there are many, many different ones like that. But for me, my escape was driving. For whatever reason, I wanted to get on the road. And I guess the thought of moving physically made me, told me, I'm getting somewhere. So for quite a while I drove trucks and stuff like that. And, but finally I just realized I am going nowhere here.

I'm just going from place to place, but my real calling, I'm not doing anything about that. So that was probably the main one, either professionally driving or just driving like, I know, know you know this, Tim, I drove back and forth across the United States 13 times during this particular era for no particular reason. Just, you know, that was sort of my drug of choice, running away from writing.

Tim Doyle (05:52.908)

You have shared though that driving tractor trailers was a very formative experience for you because of all that alone time and it taught you the valuable lesson of, you know, no matter what you always got to deliver. What does that lesson mean to you of always needing to deliver?

Steven Pressfield (06:10.761)

that's good.

There was a moment, kind of a formative moment when, you know, sometimes we all have mentors, right, that appear in our lives. And one of mine for me was my boss at this trucking company. His name was Hugh Reeves. He was a dispatcher. He was in charge of everything. And at one point I had screwed up completely on a big, cost like 300 grand of load that I dropped. And

He was ready to fire me and he really should have fired me. And, but he said to me, he said, one thing, son, I don't think you understand. He said, I can tell you're going through some kind of odyssey in your mind here, some emotional thing you're doing. says, but while you're working for me, you're a professional driver and your job is to deliver loads. You know, you're not out there for fun. People are waiting for the stuff that you're, and you can't screw around. You can't, you know.

screw up like you're doing. And that really hit me hard. And I really kind of incorporate that into my life. So then when I finally did start writing for real, and I would start on a novel, something that might take two years to do, for me, the idea of delivering was I got to finish this son of a bitch and it's got to be good, or at least as good as I can make it. And I can't screw up along the way.

So the idea of delivering, know that you must be familiar with Seth Godin, am I right? You know, he has a phrase he always uses, shipping. And what he means by that is like, if you're Steve Jobs and you've been working for 15 years on the iPhone, there comes a point where you have to stop noodling around with improvements and just say, we've got to ship this thing, know, ship it to the stores. This is it, it's done, it's good.

Tim Doyle (07:49.346)

Yes.

Steven Pressfield (08:10.511)

And for me, that's the same thing as delivering, you know, a book or any kind of creative work to me is kind of like a load that you travel with it in the back of a truck, right? You got to deliver it. Open those trailer doors and deliver the damn thing.

Tim Doyle (08:27.21)

Your first corporate job setting was as an office worker at Gray Advertising in New York, and then that ultimately leads you to becoming a junior copywriter at Ben and Bulls. What did you learn about yourself when you got exposed to that white collar culture?

Steven Pressfield (08:45.388)

well you've really done some research, Tim. I take my hat off to you.

That was the first time that I ever really thought of myself as quote unquote creative, as opposed to like all of the males in my family, my uncle's grandfather, father, everybody, they were all in business. They all wore a suit, they wore a tie, they went and worked, you know, for a company. And there was nobody in my whole family that I would call an artist of any kind.

No painters, no writers, no nothing. So when I finally was in an ad agency, which at least was still a business, but I was in, as a writer, you're in the creative department, quote unquote. And so I think that was the first time. And then of course, the people that you work with in a job like that are all very creative. Like, you know, the guy in the office next to me was a playwright.

you know, other people were novelists. Everybody had something going on in their drawer, you know. So that was the first time I ever thought I might be creative. I might be, you know, that so that, in other words, on the sidebar of that is it also felt like if I'm neurotic, if I'm anxious, if I'm worried, if I'm, you know, that that's not, that's only a sign that I'm a creative person. It's okay. You know, everybody else is neurotic too.

So that kind of freed me up a little bit too to sort of be who I really was. Instead of trying to fit myself like a round peg into a square hole of being a businessman like everybody else in my family.

Tim Doyle (10:30.4)

Your boss at Hannibal, your boss at Ben and Bulls, he wrote a novel and it was very successful. When you witnessed that for yourself, do you think it was the writing itself that sparked you or was it the success from the writing that was the spark?

Steven Pressfield (10:49.173)

It was a success. fact, hang on one second. I have that book right here.

Steven Pressfield (11:06.745)

This is the book that my boss wrote and that it became like an overnight success. And he immediately quit to become a full-time novelist. And I was about 22 at the time. And so I thought, well, shit, why don't I do that? Piece of cake, right? He just did it. So that was, after that, know, in a way it was a terrible decision because

I had no business writing anything at that point. I didn't know what I was doing at all, but it did kick me out into the real world. Cause you know, like I said, I spent a year and a half working on a book and it totally fizzled.

Tim Doyle (11:47.648)

What was the process like that for that year and a half from start till finish?

Steven Pressfield (11:54.064)

You know, I wrote later, as you know, in the War of Art about a force called resistance with a capital R. That's a negative force that will always try to sabotage us in any kind of our creative journeys. And not only, you know, when we sit down in front of one of these things, it's going to try to distract us and push us away from the keyboard or the blank page. And so at that time, of course, I had no clue that there was such a negative force.

And it just totally defeated me. I got, you know, this far from the end. It was terrible anyway. The book was terrible that I was working on, but I chickened out. I just couldn't finish it. didn't, you know, resistance got me and I just sort of blew up my whole life, know, blew up a marriage, et cetera, et cetera. So that was a great lesson in the long run that there's a real negative force out there that can really

sabotage you and really lay you low if you're not aware of what it is and ready to fight it.

Tim Doyle (13:00.78)

So junior copywriter, that doesn't turn into senior copywriter for you. That would be, that would just make too much sense for you. It would be too linear of a path. Junior copy...

Steven Pressfield (13:09.209)

Well, know what? This book was what got me, took me off that course, you know?

Tim Doyle (13:13.204)

Yeah. And what, the, the course that you go on because of that is, and you mentioned it earlier, you end up living out of your Chevy van and you've shared that, that experience of living out of your van. Most days you would have to have like these five minute pep talks with yourself about like understanding, like, all right, who am I? And telling yourself, what am I trying to do with those days?

Do you remember exactly what those sort of internal talking sessions were like?

Steven Pressfield (13:45.328)

I don't know if I did too much talking to myself, but I did have a few sort of mystical moments, know, or insights or epiphanies, like with that redheaded cat type of thing. Cause I was pretty lost at that time. I certainly didn't have any sense that I was, would someday write anything or that anybody would pay attention to it.

I was just trying to get from one paycheck to another.

Tim Doyle (14:22.367)

That ultimately then drives you west where you become a screenwriter. Did you see screenwriting as a shadow activity at the time where you're like, okay, I wanted to be, no, you didn't at all? Okay.

Steven Pressfield (14:33.709)

No.

No, I didn't. In fact, the way that came about, and thanks again, Tim, for doing such great research and being able to ask such good questions. After the first novel that I tried to write was a total failure, you might know, I wrote two more and I would save money. Both never got published. And by this time I was maybe my mid early thirties, something like that. And when the third one kind of,

you know, it was one of those things where you would show it to your friends and they would get those plastic smiles on their face, you know, like, you know, they were just embarrassed to read it because it was so bad. And I kind of thought to myself, I can't do this again. You know, I've been doing this three times. I just don't have it in me to do it. And I didn't know what, what to do. I was really sort of at the point of, you know, was I going to hang myself or shoot myself? I didn't know which one would be harder on my cat.

And then I sort of had the thought, well, why don't I go to Hollywood? I'm in New York at the time. And I thought, why don't I try to write screenplays, you know? I've failed as a novelist, let me try and fail as a screenwriter. So I went out there and stumbling and bumbling wound up having like maybe a 10 year career as kind of a B level screenwriter. But it was really good thing because being immersed in that world.

you really, you have no choice but to learn what a story is, at least in Hollywood terms. Act one, act two, act three, all that sort of thing. So it was really like a great PhD, college education. And so, no, I didn't think of it as a shadow career at all. But at that time I thought I'll never try to write a novel again. You know, that was just a terrible mistake. And I really wanted to succeed as a screenwriter. But at some point I did have an idea for a novel that came.

Steven Pressfield (16:33.165)

became the legend of Bagger Vance. And having done that, I thought, well, let me just stick with this.

Tim Doyle (16:43.647)

pivotal thing when it came to screenwriting for you also that you've shared is that you were working on this screenplay and for some reason you have this light bulb moment of

I don't need to identify with what I'm writing about or this doesn't need to come from personal experience. And going back to your mentor, Paul Rink, again, he shared with you, write what you don't know. Why was that such an unlock for you?

Steven Pressfield (17:17.999)

I know they always tell you write what you know, right? If you know about horses, write something about horses, right? That kind of thing. But for whatever reason I've found, it makes, much, works much better for me to write what you don't know. For instance, the first screenplay that I ever wrote on spec, just trying to get an agent, was a prison story. And I've never been to prison. didn't know a damn thing about it.

So I just was making it up, you know, just pulling it out of, you know, thin air. And to my amazement, when I showed this to my friends, they said, wow, that is so real. You know, whereas when I would write my real story, they would rate it and say, boy, that sounds fake. You know, I don't believe this. So I think when you write what you don't, let's say you want to write a fantasy fiction thing like Game of Thrones.

or a world that happens on another planet 20,000 years ago. Since you don't know anything about it, you have to throw yourself back purely on imagination and on inspiration, on the muse, on the goddess, on whatever. And you just start, it's very freeing to do that. And the amazing thing when you start to do it is how real you can make something sound that you don't know anything about.

And it's happened to me a number of times where I'll show something like, for instance, one of the subjects that I've written about is horses. And I don't, you know, I have stories with cavalry, that kind of thing. I don't know a damn thing about horses. I'm terrified of horses. I'm afraid they're going to step on my foot and break my, you know, whatever it is. So I've just kind of made up a lot of stuff. And when I show it to people who really know horses, they go, wow, that's exactly what it's like, you know? And so it's sort of,

a mystery to me how that can happen, but I think it is a very freeing thing. And one of the things I will say when I talk to young writers, a lot of times they might start out very modest, like writing a short story or something like about, you know, their exact life. And I always advise them, write something much bigger than that. You know, go for like a big, and write something that you have no idea what it's about. And you'll be amazed at what comes in.

Steven Pressfield (19:44.666)

from inspiration, from the goddess, from the muse. So that was a big lesson to me, never to write what I know about, only write what I don't know about. And of course you research it, but that's another story.

Tim Doyle (20:03.359)

With that in mind, was it challenging at all for you to write your memoir or uncomfortable?

Steven Pressfield (20:08.015)

Only in that I thought, who's going to be interested in these stories, right? Everybody's got stuff in their life, right? And it's usually really boring, you know? Actually, Diana, who you just saw, my girlfriend, she was the one who encouraged me, you know, these stories are really interesting. You should tell them, you know? And I thought, who's going to care about, you you know? So that, I did have a lot of self-doubt telling these

stories about driving trucks and stuff like that. But I thought, hopefully this kind of thing would be helpful to young people who want to be writers or artists or filmmakers or have a dream. if they, you know, if I tell my story, maybe they could say, look, if this guy can do it, I know I can do it. So that was sort of what kept me going to try to, that it would be helpful to people.

Tim Doyle (21:04.639)

Yeah, I think nowadays...

Steven Pressfield (21:04.953)

The book, by the way, is called Government Cheese, in case anybody wants to read it.

Tim Doyle (21:10.655)

Yeah, I mean, I think nowadays it's not just the work or the craft or the final product that people are really interested in, but they also want to be able to understand and relate with the person behind that craft. Because like you were saying, that's where the true inspiration can come from for doing that work themselves. And when you started to put the pieces together on your writing, you've described your writing sessions as

you would sit down crazy and then get up sane. What exactly does that mean?

Steven Pressfield (21:44.153)

Mm-hmm.

that's another great question, Tim. I would find like when I would work at an ad agency, which I did from time to time in New York, save money, save enough money so I could quit and write a book. So at the end of the day, when I would come home from the office and it was not a terrible day, nice people, really liked the people working on projects that I thought I was trying to do good on, but I would be so depressed.

And I would just say, I can't keep this shit up too much longer, you know? And I felt so far away from my real self that I had to sit down at the typewriter or the keyboard and try to write a story or a novel or something that really came from my heart. And I would sit down anxious, depressed, so on and so forth. At the end of a two hour, three hour session, I felt fine.

I felt calm. I felt like I've earned my place on the planet today. I tried, maybe it wasn't very good what I did, but I tried. I threw myself against the wall and I did it. So that's what I meant by I would sit down crazy, I would sit up sane. And that really has kind of saved my life, you know, on and on decade after decade.

Tim Doyle (23:11.572)

That sanity ultimately leads you to becoming a published author. The first novel that you mentioned earlier, The Legend of Bagger Vance gets published when you're 52 years old. And something that I've been reflecting a lot on recently when it comes to finding the work that really lights us up or understanding what we're supposed to do with our lives. I feel like the natural inclination when we start some new type of work is our first question.

ourselves is, okay, how long is this going to take? Like, how long is this going to turn it into something? When in actuality, what that first question needs to be is, is this something that I've found that I don't want to stop? How is that? Yeah, how has that played a big role within your life of transitioning from surrendering a timeline to focusing on the craft?

Steven Pressfield (23:54.253)

I would agree with that completely, yeah.

Steven Pressfield (24:08.345)

You know, if you think about becoming a concert pianist or becoming a brain surgeon, if that's your ambition, you immediately realize, well, if I'm going to be a brain surgeon, got to go to college, I got to do pre-med, I got to go medical school, I got to do an internship, I got to have a residency, you know, it's going to take me 15 years. But yet when people think, I want to make a movie or I want to write a book, they think, well, I'll just write it like I did.

you know, trying to copy my lost book, you know. But it doesn't work that way because it's hard, right? It's like being a rock star or something like that. How many people are out there that are so great and you're trying to compete against them? You're going to be as good as Eric Clapton or whatever. So the answer I think to me is it is going to take a long time. There's no getting around that.

But like if you can find something like for me, once I found that I would, at the end of the day, I felt like I'd earned my place on the planet. If I was writing, trying, once I had that, I felt like, okay, I'm good now. It might take me forever, but at least I found something that works. I'm not lying to myself. I'm not kidding myself. This works for me. So I would say to any young person that's struggling with that.

If you can find what it is, hang onto that, you know, and just be patient. And the other thing is that learning the craft, whatever it is, is fun. I mean, if you finally decide you want to be a filmmaker and you have to start out as a production assistant on a movie or, you know, writing or making your own films with an iPhone or something like that, it's fun. You know, you might not be making any money.

but that's your hero's journey. And as long as you're on the right journey, you know, you're living the life you're supposed to be living. And the other side to it is, is I don't think that quote unquote success, i.e. money or a house or whatever it is, is all it's cracked up to be. It's really about the craft. And do you get satisfaction from that? Is it fun from that?

Steven Pressfield (26:32.623)

Cause a lot of times someone will succeed, get a big house, get married. Next thing you know, they're divorced, know, they're in court, you know, where they're trying, fighting for custody of kids and you go, well, what is the success is, you know, it sucks, you know, but as long as you have the work, that's the important thing. At least that's the way I see it.

Tim Doyle (26:54.25)

When you were working on Legend of Bagger Vance, when you were going through the outline and the writing process, did you kind of have like a conscious awareness of, this feels different and I think this is gonna work? Or was it kind of just like, okay, here's my next shot at this?

Steven Pressfield (27:10.895)

it's a great question. It definitely felt different than I had written up to that point, maybe 33, 34 screenplays, so that I knew what it felt like to work on something, even something good, or that I hoped would be good. But writing Bagger Vance as a book, as a novel, and the novel's a lot better than the movie. Trust me on that.

I definitely felt like something different is happening here. I'm writing from another place. And that again was another book where I didn't really know what I was doing at all, but it was coming to me. I was seized by it. You know, I had to do it. And the other thing about that book, writing that book was I thought the idea was a really dumb idea and really not commercial at all. I thought I am an idiot.

for taking however long it's going to take to write this. Nobody's going to care about this. You know, a mystical golf novel is like a dumbest idea I could possibly think of. So I didn't at all think, this is going to succeed. I was amazed when it did succeed. But it was great fun to do and I was absolutely possessed by it. Couldn't do anything else but it.

Tim Doyle (28:37.203)

tying things back into success because obviously for you, you know, wasn't about like, you know, I'm selling a lot of books now. When that first book gets published, feel like success for you was on the identity type of level where you said like it was for the first time in 30 years that you could say with a straight face that Steven Pressfield is a writer. And I think that's a big...

going into resistance as well. There's a big separation, I think, for people, especially when you're first starting out, that separation between who you feel you are on an internal level and what you think you can say you are to other people. How did that newfound feeling of, okay, the external material world is starting to align with my internal world. How did that?

Steven Pressfield (29:20.537)

Mmm.

Tim Doyle (29:34.169)

shape your writing in a way that you hadn't experienced before.

Steven Pressfield (29:37.338)

That's another great question, Tim. It really did. That's exactly the experience because getting published by a mainstream publisher and having a certain level of success really did sink in for once. It really was validation. And I really, I really could say I'm not a wannabe writer now. I actually am a writer. Of course, the

flip side of that is what do do next? You know, and you realize, okay, I'm in a whole new world now. I've landed on another planet and I've got to figure out, you know, like Matt Damon on Mars, know, how I'm going to, you know, keep alive. But I definitely did feel at that point in many ways like, my life is worthwhile now, you know, I did what I,

dreamt I could do, but never really believed I could do. It did happen. So it did give me more confidence. Yeah. But again, when you go to the next, what are you going to do next? You're back to zero, right? Because there's no guarantee of anything.

Tim Doyle (30:53.117)

want to talk about the relationship between your family and your work as well. You mentioned previously, you know, lot of your family members, your uncles, was kind of just the, the foundation was, you know, working for a company and not being creative, not being writers. And you've described your immediate family as being the black sheep compared to your extended family. And that was because

A lot of your uncles had had more success than your dad and wasn't until relatively recently that you realized, that was a huge motivation for me and wanting to find success. What do you think facilitated you being able to become consciously aware of that?

Steven Pressfield (31:38.768)

It is like something you uncover in therapy or in just introspection where you do start to ask yourself, know, why am I working so hard to do this? What's it for? What's it about? And I do think that to some extent I am living out the unlived life of my father and my mother in different ways, you know, that

I was just thinking about this the other day. Like if I could beam myself back and talk to my mom and my dad, I would very much encourage them to do, you know, they came out of the depression where just, you know, to get a loaf of bread was a big deal, right? So they didn't have the options that you and I have, but I would have

I would have encouraged them to follow their own dreams, you know, which was really not an option in those days. You just had to survive.

Tim Doyle (32:46.547)

Yeah, it's really, really fascinating. wanna, we've been talking a little bit about it, the whole philosophy around resistance, your book, The War of Art, just personally speaking, The War of Art has had a massive impact on me and my work, especially this podcast. So I can't thank you enough for that. And...

obviously helped a ton of people all around the world. And when I was reflecting on why that is, I think it's because, I mean, it goes to the power of writing, but you you bring language to

something that so many people feel, but they just never knew how to understand it for themselves, or they were never able to bring language to it themselves. Can you just give a, to lay the groundwork, can you give a breakdown of what resistance is and your understanding of it?

Steven Pressfield (33:35.599)

Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield (33:48.611)

Well, first, you know, thanks, Tim, for saying that. I appreciate that. One of the things that you learn, the first thing you learn, it kind of as a writer, when you sit down in front of one of these things or in front of the blank page is that a force radiates off that blank page that's resisting you, right? It is not, the playing field is not level. It's stacked against you and there, and

this force, I called it from my own mind, resistance with the capital R, because it resists you. Just like at the gym, the weight is the resistance, right? And that way you train is you go against that resistance, right? So the form that resistance will take is first it will tell you,

that you're not good enough to do whatever it is you think you want to do. It will say to you, Tim, who do you think you are to start a podcast? There's like 20 million podcasts out there. Why is yours going to be any better? You don't have any background in this. You're too young, you're too old, you're too fat, you're too skinny. You know, it's been done a million times and you know, way better than you could ever do it. So that's kind of the voice of resistance in your head.

And then it will sabotage you and telling you any million other ways why you're not worthy of doing this. The other thing resistance will do is it will try to distract you so that as soon as you sit down, it'll say, well, let's go to the beach, let's get stoned, let's get drunk, let's chase women, let's do whatever. And then,

It's a diabolical force, this thing called resistance. It's really, I believe like a living thing. It's intelligent, it's smart, it knows your weaknesses. It'll play right to those, it appears as a voice in your head. And what you need to do to overcome this, I think, is just dismiss it. Anything that, any negative thought that pops into your head, to be able to say to yourself,

Steven Pressfield (36:05.271)

That's not me thinking that, that's resistance. That's this other force trying to stop me. And so, and the answer of course is just to sit down and do your work, whatever it is. If you're a dancer, go to the studio. If you're a painter, get in front of the easel and so on and so forth, right? Action is the answer to all that thing. And you know, I could go on for a long way about this, but that's sort of, that's the definition of resistance. So just,

Being aware, as I'm sure you found Tim, that there's an opponent, there's an enemy. You're not there alone starting your podcast. There's an invisible fighter there that wants to stop you. And it's diabolical. And it's a war, it's the war of art. It's the war between your ears.

And it is a war and you've got to fight it to the death. But if you do fight it, you can overcome it.

Tim Doyle (37:07.59)

and it's an incredible feeling when you do overcome it.

Steven Pressfield (37:10.317)

Yes, it is. And the other weird part about when you do overcome it, and this is really interesting to me, and I think young people need to know this, is the moment of overcoming it, and it happens every day. It's day by day. It's not something that happens like winning the Super Bowl and stays with you for the rest of your life. It's a struggle day by day. You did it Tuesday, but that doesn't mean anything's going to happen Wednesday.

But the thing about the good feeling is you're alone when you feel it and you really can't share it with anybody else. I mean, maybe you can talk to your wife and say, you know, I had a good, but they don't really understand, you know, it's like, I can understand you Tim and I'm sure you can understand me. But you do have to sort of learn to take that satisfaction inside your own head.

private moment where you just say to yourself, I did it today. Maybe it wasn't very good, but I hung in there and I did it today and I'm going to do it again tomorrow. That's sort of what victory feels like. It's not like winning the Superbowl at all.

Tim Doyle (38:27.91)

And I think the benefit behind that as well, and this is from my own personal experience when it came to the podcast is that the, the doing of it feels like the result. Like when you actually break through that wall and you can have that thought to yourself of like, I'm actually working on the craft. That's what the result feels like. And then the external results are just like, you know, the cherry on top basically.

Steven Pressfield (38:57.859)

Yes, exactly. It's like in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna, you have a right to your labor, but not to the fruits of your labor. It's the whole thing of being detached from the outcome that it's about the work, it's about the process. And if you have a success, great. If you don't, on to the next one.

Tim Doyle (39:23.976)

I think another major point is that we think we can have a choice in the matter of overcoming resistance or not tapping into it. if we don't create and we don't take what's living within us and bring it out of us into the real world, what you've shared and I completely agree with it is that it can turn malignant or it can turn bad on us. Where do you...

see that happening within our culture today.

Steven Pressfield (39:56.015)

It's everywhere if you ask me.

Steven Pressfield (40:03.897)

creative force that we have within us. Let's say we're born to be a dancer, we're born to be a comedian, whatever it is. As you were saying to him, if we don't follow through on it, that's like an underground river that's flowing inside us. That river doesn't go away. What happens is that that force gets channeled into something malignant. And I think like to me, the

huge polarization in society today. A lot of it is about that. Because so many people are not living out what they really should be living out. And so they have this pent up energy demon inside them, this river that's flowing, that's backed up or into a dark channel. And so it turns into rage at the government, at

people on the right, people on the left, whatever it is, and clever politicians and ambitious people know how to milk that, right? And this thing here is not helping either, you know, because the algorithm is all designed to distract you. It's like, this is like an engine of resistance. It's like, you know, all it does is put out ways to distract you and

or make you compare yourself to other people who look like they're living much better lives than you are. So yeah, I see it everywhere. And I think it's no, it's no contradiction that this country today is so sick in terms of like healthcare is like the big industry because everybody's sick, you know? They've got one and where, in my opinion, a lot of these maladies come from not living out.

whatever, you know, it is we should be. So that force gets channeled into addiction or abuse of others or abuse of ourselves or, you know, that kind of thing. So I see it everywhere.

Tim Doyle (42:10.588)

Yeah, I think it gets into this relationship between creation and consumption. And within our culture today, we're heavily on the side of consumption and we need to be living and acting more so in terms of creation. When it gets to the war of art and the deeper impact on that, obviously it brings you success and further validation as your identity as a writer.

But I would say it also challenges you where it puts you into the identity of mentor and guide and the one having the answers rather than just like, hey, I was writing this for myself. I was just writing this to synthesize and collect my ideas on this because this is what I was struggling with. How have you gone about navigating that as people seeing you as the therapist or the one with the answers?

Steven Pressfield (43:07.695)

That's another great question. And it really is kind of an issue for me because, you're describing it exactly right. I do not want to, you know, I consider myself a writer of fiction, you know. If you'll forgive me. This is my newest book, The Arcadia, that's coming out in about a month. it's, it's a lot of times it's hard for me.

to get people to be interested in my fiction, you know, cause they sort of see me as, you know, the guy that wrote the War of Art type of thing. Whereas exactly as you said, I really did it for myself just to get my own ideas down on paper. I really had no idea that the phenomenon of resistance was as widespread as it is at the time. And I certainly never thought that the book would find as big an audience as it has. And...

So I try to be helpful, but I figure that's not really where I get my satisfaction. That's not really what I

Tim Doyle (44:17.831)

And I think what's also critical to that is that you see yourself as the servant of these ideas or the one who's being the channel and the conduit for these messages rather than the creator. Can you share more of your philosophy on the muse?

Steven Pressfield (44:27.363)

Yeah.

Steven Pressfield (44:35.567)

I'm a believer, you know, let me, I'll give it a little bit of a longer buildup here. In Greek mythology, there were goddesses called the Muses, nine sisters, the daughters of Zeus and Nemosyne, which means memory. And their job was to inspire artists. And the classic image of the Muse would be something like Beethoven sitting at the piano.

And at his shoulder, whispering in his ear is this kind of goddess-like figure. And she's like supplying him with, know, da-da-da-da, you know? And I absolutely believe that that's reality. You know, that our ideas as comedians, as filmmakers, as writers, whatever, come from another place. You know, we've certainly heard so many stories about songwriters driving along the freeway.

And all of a sudden a song pops into his head, melody, lyrics, everything. has to like screech to a stop on the side of the freeway and write it all down before, you know, he forgets it. And that's kind of an extreme example. But certainly I think that's kind of the process. That's sort of what happens. So if somebody would ask me what my vocation is, I'd say I'm a servant of the muse.

I'm a servant of that force, that mysterious force that we can't control. We can only, you know, offer a prayer, you know, and make ourselves kind of the instrument of that idea. And I think in terms of books, a book comes to you and then the next one comes to you and then the next one comes to you. And your job is just to sort of to get it down and

but it's not some purely mystical channeling like process. You also have to be a hardcore professional that knows how to go through the dry times, knows how to grind and knows how to fashion something, just like a carpenter knows how to, you know, build a house or something like that. So you have to train your instrument to be able to handle that voltage that's coming in from another place.

Steven Pressfield (47:01.945)

So I'm definitely a believer in the goddess and I'm here to serve her.

Tim Doyle (47:08.401)

Yeah, I like how you lay out that there's these two different realms where it's us on the material world and then there's the higher self or the muse on this higher realm and there's this constant access or there's this constant give and take between the two realms. To put my own little understanding of it as well for my own personal experiences, the way that I see it as well is like...

The ego is like our hard exterior shell and the soul lives within us and we need to break that shell so that the soul can seep through to the surface. So then that can have higher access to that higher realm and time this in with the muse and how you got exposed to it. Going back to your mentor, Paul Ranke originally shared the invocation.

of the Muse from the Odyssey with you and

This ultimately leads to a little bit of a breaking for you. And what I mean by that is he printed out an original copy for you and you always had that until you lost it with your house burning down in the Palisades fire. How was that a breaking moment for you within your life and how have you gone about rebuilding yourself?

Steven Pressfield (48:23.726)

Yeah.

Steven Pressfield (48:30.443)

Give me the fire or the beginning the.

Tim Doyle (48:31.951)

Yeah. Yeah. The, fire, well, losing, you know, obviously a memento for you within your entire life, but then, you know, losing your house and needing to rebuild after that.

Steven Pressfield (48:46.575)

It's been really hard, the kind of the lesson of it is like this house that I'm in now is a rental house in down, you know, in Venice, part of Los Angeles. And the good news is that the goddess is still there. I can still work. This room that I'm in is actually the dining room. We just have a table in the dining room.

but it works. You know, I'm able to work here and that's kind of the most important thing. So I have learned that, and I knew this all along, that the goddess is portable. She's really there with you no matter where you go. You could be working in a Starbucks or working in an airport or working on an airplane and the connection remains intact. So.

That's been the number one kind of takeaway for me during this period of trying to, you know, being in exile kind of away from your home.

Tim Doyle (49:56.507)

I want to bookend that with another pivotal experience that really deconstructed who you are. When you were 13 years old, you learned from your dad that you were Jewish and you had no idea about that before that. How did that shake up the way that you saw yourself and your place within the world?

Steven Pressfield (50:17.095)

That's a great question. I think, you know, if you believe that we choose the families that we're born into, or that our soul kind of, you know, decides where it wants to be, I think the sort of absolute essence kind of of the Jewish experience is to be an outsider always. You know, that wherever you are,

unless it's the state of Israel, you're a stranger in a strange land. You're not the, in the majority. And from time to time, there are always like sweeping pogroms and holocaust, and people hate you without knowing you, et cetera, et cetera. And in many ways, I think that's the artist's position as well. Nobody understands you.

even in your own family, they think you're crazy. You yourself think you're crazy. You have, but the upside of that is that you do have a vision that more mainstream people in any society don't have because they're really part of that society. They're not, so that it's, in a way it's a gift to be kind of an exile.

But in any event, I think it's even beyond that, it is the human condition to be, I think, in exile. We're in exile from wherever we existed beyond the stars before our soul came in here, into this material world. So although it was kind of a shock at age 13, I think I see that that's who I really am.

who the artist really is. And in many ways it's who we all are, even though people will not necessarily admit it.

Tim Doyle (52:20.026)

The Lions Gate, one of your non-fiction books, was that a very cathartic experience for you?

Steven Pressfield (52:26.543)

It really was. mean, The Lions Gate is a book about the Six Day War, 1967, the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, that I know practically none of your readers have even heard of, but was kind of an amazing situation where in six days it went from, it looked like the state of the, the infant state of Israel that had only a population of about 2 million at the time.

looked like it was going to be absolutely wiped off the map by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, the whole Arab nations. And six days later, Israel had basically defeated all of its enemies and sort of really became a really going concern for the first time. So for me, I went over there to Israel a few years ago and interviewed like 70 veterans of that war.

pilots, fighter pilots, tankers, infantrymen, that kind of thing. And it was a total eye opening thing for me because my family was really, we didn't really have any religious training at all. So I really, know, technically I was a Jew, but I really didn't know anything about the religion or certainly about, you know, the culture. So immersing myself in that for like nine weeks that I was over there meeting people.

That was a real eye-opener, being on the ground in the spot where everything happened. So it was definitely an eye-opener.

Tim Doyle (54:03.47)

Yeah, I think that's the power of writing where you can bring what lived dormant within you for so long back to life and back to your present self. And I think what also the power of writing, but just intellectual crafts in general, you know, when it comes to, I know you work out a lot when it comes to our physical pursuits, you get to a point where

Steven Pressfield (54:11.597)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Doyle (54:30.534)

time and age start to work against you a little bit, or people say that I'm not in my prime anymore, but I feel like when it comes to intellectual pursuits, what can be so invigorating about it is that you can feel like your best work is always in front of you because you're always refining your craft and you're always getting sharper. The book in front of you, you mentioned a little bit earlier, The Arcadian, that's gonna be released later this month. Talk more about that.

Steven Pressfield (54:36.441)

Uh-huh.

Steven Pressfield (54:58.383)

This is, I have a recurring character in my stories and his name is Telemann of Arcadia. That's where the Arcadian comes from. And he's kind of like the Clint Eastwood man with no name Gunslinger of the ancient world. Only his weapons are not a six shooter, but a sword and spear and that kind of thing. And this is, he labors under a curse. He has been cursed for crimes he committed in the deep past.

to live lifetime after lifetime, always as a soldier. So he kills and is killed and killed and is killed over and over again. And this is the second book that's entirely about him. I just finished the third book as well. And it's about his odyssey of trying to find redemption for things. So he is a character that's kind of a damned character.

which is I relate to completely.

Tim Doyle (56:02.342)

Steven, it's been incredible talking with you today. Like I shared a little bit, the War of Art has had a massive impact on me. You've been a major idol and mentor from afar for me. So I just, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to speak with me.

Steven Pressfield (56:18.125)

And thank you, Tim, for really, for immersing yourself so much. You know, in my story, I feel like you know my life better than I know it. But thank you for making, for such good questions that really, hopefully for our listeners, get to the deep reality of what will be helpful, I hope. So thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the great questions.

Tim Doyle (56:27.398)

Ha

Tim Doyle (56:43.462)

100%. Any final words that you would like to share about either your work or where people can connect with you and.

Steven Pressfield (56:50.447)

That's one. Pick up the Arcadian. You won't regret it.

Tim Doyle (56:55.524)

And when's the release date so people know?

Steven Pressfield (56:57.391)

May 26th, so about three weeks from now, yeah.

Tim Doyle (57:01.134)

Awesome. Awesome. Well, was, like I said, great speaking with you today.

Steven Pressfield (57:05.911)

All right, thanks a lot, Tim. Till next time.