#501: Steven Pressfield on The Artist’s Journey, the Wisdom of Little Successes, Shadow Careers, and Overcoming Resistance

They always tell you 'Life is short,' but actually, life is long. And if we find ourselves making mistakes or we haven't yet found our real calling, don't drive yourself crazy with that. There's plenty of time.

Writing and reading is a transaction. The reader or the viewer is giving you a very valuable commodity, which is their time and their attention, and you've got to give them something. You can't just put some crap out there and expect that they're obligated to read it or watch it—because they won't watch it.

As Seneca the younger has said... 'We suffer more in imagination than in reality.' And it's easy to believe or to overestimate the threats that exist from action while underestimating the risks of inaction when they're trapped in your head, but when you put them on paper, it actually loses, oftentimes, a lot of its force.

To me, the hero's journey of our lives takes us from believing that we are what our parents told us we are or what society told us we are or what we imbibe from the culture, shedding that, and finally finding out who we really are.

When I say 'go big,' I think that the muse likes it. Fortune favors the bold. I think when we try for something big, we're taking the initiative and we're kind of invoking a tailwind behind us. Whereas, if we're kind of timid... I don't think the muse likes that.

I would define art as the broadest possible terms: anything that is a gift to the wider world.

If you can educate yourself as a writer in that editor's way of thinking, you can sort of become your own editor in a sense, and it really helps you.