Author: Sam

Basic Points from ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield

Sam

I came across a post somewhere with Steven Pressfield and then listened to his interview on Rogan. Interesting stuff. Many books talking about ‘success’ fall into two buckets. One is very academic and sterile sounding with a focus on outlier achievers like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg that no one will every be able to copy due to lack of crazy intellectual abilities, competitive drive & point in time opportunities. The second is more realistic, raw, bordering on cruel description of the toll that success takes on the person chasing it. This book was more of the second type. A lot of his suggestions are against inspiration or positive feelings and more about the commercial, blocking & tackling of doing something for money.

I spent a decade in consulting and every year we’d get asked how we embodied professionalism in the prior year. I was always perplexed by the question – I wore professional business attire, showered everyday before work, etc. but none of that really clicked in terms of what it meant to be professional. The closest thing I’d come up with was the idea of redundancy from my brothers who work in construction. They own 3-4 of each power tool so that if one breaks during a job they don’t have to leave, go to the store for a replacement and then come back to finish. WOA covers this idea and a bunch of others along with some helpful ways to deal with psychological challenges and setbacks.

Here are a few main points as suggested by grok:

In *The War of Art* by Steven Pressfield, the concept of being a “professional” is central to overcoming Resistance, the internal force that prevents creative and meaningful work. Pressfield outlines specific behaviors and mindsets that distinguish professionals from amateurs. Below is a summary of the key things professionals do, based on the principles in the book.

1. Show Up Every Day: Professionals commit to their work consistently, regardless of mood, inspiration, or external circumstances. They don’t wait for the perfect moment to create.

2. Start Working: Professionals don’t procrastinate. They begin their work promptly, treating it as a job rather than a hobby.

3. Stay on the Job All Day: They dedicate focused time to their craft, maintaining discipline even when distractions or Resistance arise.

4. Commit for the Long Haul: Professionals are in it for the long term. They don’t abandon their work after a few setbacks but persevere through challenges.

5. Stakes Are High: They treat their work as serious and meaningful, understanding that it’s tied to their purpose and identity, not just a pastime.

6. Don’t Overidentify with Their Work: Professionals don’t let their self-worth hinge on the success or failure of a single project. They separate their identity from their output to maintain resilience.

7. Master the Craft: They continuously hone their skills, studying and practicing to improve, rather than relying solely on talent or inspiration.

8. Work Through Resistance: Professionals recognize Resistance (e.g., self-doubt, procrastination) as a natural part of the creative process and push through it without succumbing.

9. Don’t Wait for Inspiration: They treat inspiration as a byproduct of consistent effort, not a prerequisite for starting work.

10. Accept Failure and Rejection: Professionals see setbacks as part of the process, learning from them instead of being paralyzed by fear of failure.

11. Focus on the Work, Not the Reward: They prioritize the process over external validation, money, or fame, finding satisfaction in the act of creation itself.

12. Take Themselves Seriously: Professionals treat their work as a calling, setting boundaries and creating structures like schedules or dedicated workspaces to support it.

13. Don’t Take Failure Personally: They view criticism or lack of immediate success as feedback, not a reflection of their worth or potential.

14. Endure Adversity: Professionals keep going despite obstacles, whether it’s internal (self-doubt) or external (lack of resources, time, or support).

15. Play the Game as It Is: They accept the realities of their field—whether it’s competition, market demands, or criticism—and work within those constraints rather than resisting them.

16. Delay Gratification: Professionals are willing to put in years of effort without immediate rewards, trusting that persistence will pay off.

17. Don’t Seek Permission: They don’t wait for external validation or approval to pursue their work but take responsibility for their own path.

18. Organize Their Lives Around Their Work: They prioritize their craft, making sacrifices in other areas of life to ensure they can show up consistently.

19. Treat Themselves as Business: Professionals approach their work with discipline, like running a company, managing time, resources, and energy efficiently.

20. Recognize Resistance’s Tricks: They become adept at identifying Resistance in its many forms (fear, distraction, perfectionism) and counter it with action.

Notes from ‘On Becoming A Leader’ by Warren Bennis – Chapter 9

Sam
  • Change can’t be seen to the enemy – instead it is the source of both personal growth and organizational salvation.
  • 5 forces working on the world:
  • Technology
  • Global Interdependence
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Deregulation and Regulation
  • Demographics and Values
  • The organization is – or should be – a social architect. This requires its executives to be social architects too. First, they must guarantee their organizations are honest and ethical institutions. Then they must redesign their organizations in order to redesign society along more humane and functional lines (lead not manage).
  • Workers are unique assets NOT interchangeable liabilities. This type of attitude allows the organization to dismiss the potential contributions of all its members and prevents it from fully using its major resource in its effort to remake itself.
  • Vision, like the world itself, is dynamic, not static, and must be renewed, adapted, adjusted. And when it becomes too dim, it must be abandoned and replaced.
  • Just as no great painting has ever been created by a committee, no great vision has ever emerged from the herd.
  • When visionary leadership is combined with sound _____ (IMG_0332, near end) practices, the results can be success that lasts.
  • “We must be the change that we wish to see in the world”. -Ghandi
  • Advice to young executives:
  • Take advantage of every opportunity
  • Aggressively search for meaning
  • Know yourself
  • Give young employees opportunities to lead.
  • If you don’t make mistakes you aren’t trying hard enough.
  • Risk taking must be encouraged.
  • Mistakes must be seen as an integral part of the process, so they are regarded as normal, not abnormal.
  • Corrective action rather than censure must follow.
  • 2 kinds of people: those who are paralyzed by fear, and those who are afraid but go ahead anyways. Life isn’t about limitation, it’s about options. A healthy organizational culture encourages the belief in options.
  • Organizations should serve as mentors for their people.
  • The organization is only half itself; the other half is its expression.
  • The new 3 R’s: retreat, renewal, return. Those moments when nothing is in the way. It’s in such moments that meaning begins to emerge, and understanding, and new questions and fresh challenges.
  • Just as thought should precede action, reflection should follow it, on the organizational as well as the personal level.
  • An organization by definition, should function organically, which means that its purposes should determine its structure, rather than the other way around and that it should function as a community rather than a hierarchy and offer autonomy to its members, along with tests, opportunities and rewards, because ultimately an organization is merely the means, not the end.
  • Since the release and full use of the individual’s potential is the organization’s true task, all organizations must provide for the growth and development of their members and find ways of offering them opportunities for such growth and development.
  • In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
  • “These are the hard times in which a genius would wish to live… Great necessities call not great virtues.” Abigail Adams
  • Leaders are people who understand the prevailing culture, even though much of the culture is latent, existing only in peoples’ minds and dreams or unconsciousness. The leaders of the future will be those who take the next step – to change the culture.
  • The philosopher, not the tycoon or mandarin (IMG_0334, near top) is king, because history proves that sooner or later ideas take root.
  • The leader knows chaos is the beginning, not the end. Chaos is the source of energy and momentum.
  • 10 characteristics for coping with change, forging a new future, and uniting organizations:
  • Leaders manage the dream- all leaders have the capacity to create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place and then translates that vision into reality.
  • Leaders embrace our (IMG_0334): failure is not the crime, aiming too low is!
  • Leaders encourage reflective back talk. (Many leaders are still married to their first spouse, it’s important to have someone you can trust for honest feedback).
  • Leaders encourage dissent.
  • Leaders possess the Nobel factor: optimism, faith and hope.
  • Leaders understand the Pygmalion effect in management. (Behavior is a function of how you are treated not just how you behave) Stretch, don’t strain.

[Mangers treatment and expectations of subordinates largely determine their performance and superior managers create high performance expectations that subordinates fulfill, poor managers do not. And subordinates, more often than not, appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.]

  • Leaders have the “Gretzky Factor”, a certain touch (Don’t worry about where the puck is, but where it will be)( Know where the organization’s culture is going).
  • Leaders are the long view.
  • Leaders understand stakeholder symmetry. They know that they must balance the competing claims of all the groups at stake in the company.
  • Leaders create strategic alliances and partnerships.
  • Next generation of leaders will have certain things in common:
    • Broad education
    • Boundless curiosity
    • Boundless enthusiasm
    • Contagious opinion
    • Belief in people and teamwork
    • Willingness to take risks
    • Devotion to long-term growth rather than short-term profit
    • Commitment to excellence
    • Adaptive capacity
    • Empathy
    • Authenticity
    • Integrity
    • Vision

And as they express themselves, they will make new movies, new industries, and perhaps a new world.

If that sounds like an impossible dream to you, consider this: it’s much easier to express yourself than to deny yourself. And, much more rewarding too.

Notes from ‘On Becoming A Leader’ by Warren Bennis – Chapter 8

Sam
  • “I think one of the biggest turn-ons is for people to know that their peers and particularly their bosses not only know they’re there but know pretty intimately what they’re doing and are involved with them on almost a daily basis, that it’s a partnership, that you’re really trying to run this thing well together, that if something goes wrong our goal is to fix it, not see who we can nail.”
  • You can’t lead unless someone is willing to follow.
  • Very difficult to make/force people to do things, they need to be inspired or confident in the leader and their vision.
  • 4 leadership traits that build trust:
  • Consistency: Whatever surprises leaders themselves may face they don’t create any for the group. Leaders are all of a piece; they stay the course.
  • Congruity: Leaders walk then talk. In true leaders, there is no gap between theories they expose and the life they practice.
  • Reliability: Leaders are there when it counts; they are ready to support their co-workers in the moments that matter.
  • Integrity: Leaders honor their commitments and promises.
  • Leading with your voice: taking charge without taking control; must inspire people, not order them around. The best people working for organizations are like volunteers since they could probably find good jobs in any number of groups, they choose to work somewhere for reasons less tangible than salary or position. They want a covenantal relationship, not a contractual one.
  • Competence, vision and virtue must be in careful balance (can’t only have one or two of the three).
  • The chief object of leadership is the creation of a human community held together by the work bond for a common purpose.
  • Goals are not ends, but idea processes by which the future can be created.
  • Lack of integrity (without a solid sense of ethics)
  • You should preserve the ability to say, “Shove it” and go your own way. That really frees you.
  • One of the hardest lessons any novice skier has to learn is to lean away from the hill and not into it. The natural inclination is to stay as close to the slope as possible, because it feels safer and more secure. But only when the skier leans out can they begin to move and gain control, rather than being controlled by the slope. The organizational novice does the same thing. Leans close to the organizational slope, submerging their own identity in that of the corporation. The leader stands tall and leans out, taking charge of their own course, with a clean view of where the course is going.

Notes from ‘On Becoming A Leader’ by Warren Bennis – Chapter 6 & 7

Sam
  • What we do is a direct result of not only what and how we think, but what and how we feel as well. It’s how you feel about things that dictate how you behave. Most people don’t process their feelings, because thinking is hard work. And, abstract thinking doesn’t usually lead to a behavior change. It leads to a conflict about change.
  • Most people only reflect when there is a big negative event in their lives. It’s important to make reflection a constant habit so it goes on when other things are going well also and things can be learned from both positive and negative experiences.
  • Try to reflect on negative events AFTER you have gotten over it.
  • Resolution:
  • A course of action decided upon
  • An explanation or solution
  • The time to reflect is in tranquility- then it’s time to resolve.
  • The point is not to be the victims of our feelings, jerked this way and that by unresolved emotions, not to be used by our experiences, but to use them and to use them creatively. “Any sorrow can be born (IMG_0326, near bottom) if we can put it in a story.”
  • Too much intellectualizing tends to paralyze us. But true reflection inspires, informs, and ultimately demands resolution.
  • The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.
  • Once you have learned to reflect on your experiences until the resolution of your conflicts arises from within you, then you begin to develop your own perspective.
  • If you know what you think and what you want, you have a very real advantage.
  • Anyone who wants to express himself fully and truly MUST have a point of view. However, it can’t be borrowed or copied, it must be your own, original and authentic.
  • How can you best express yourself? The first test is knowing what you want, knowing your abilities and capacities and recognizing the difference between the two. The second test is knowing what drives you, knowing what gives you satisfaction, and knowing the difference between the two. The third test is knowing what your values and priorities are, knowing what the values and priorities of your organization are and measuring the difference between the two. The fourth test: are you able and willing to overcome those differences?
  • Being in sync with your organization is almost as important as being in sync with yourself.
  • Whatever it is you want to do you shouldn’t let fear get in your way. Fear, for most leaders, is less a crippler than a motivator.
  • The greatest opportunities for growth lies in overcoming things you’re afraid of.
  • It is entirely possible to succeed and satisfy yourself simultaneously,  but only if you are wise enough and honest enough to admit what you want and recognize what you need.
  • The difference between desire and drive is the difference between expressing yourself and proving yourself.
  • If you hold your ground and make your convictions known, people will come around.
  • You can’t make “being a leader” or “happiness” goals. They are the result, not the cause.
  • First step of leadership is mastery of the task at hand!! Such mastery requires absolute concentration, the full deployment of oneself.
  • There are some people who are so obviously “on” that they give us a lift just by walking into the room, they can demonstrate mastery just by the way they stand.
  • They path of mastery is built on unrelenting practice, but it’s also a place of adventure… Those we call masters are shamelessly enthusiastic about their calling, the genius has the ability to give everything and hold nothing back.
  • It’s important to have a desire to create something in spite of whether others agree, good ideas borne of personal vision are good regardless of others opinion.
  • “It [the process of mastery] should be fun, the process ought to be exciting and fun. The person who’s not having any fun is doing something wrong. Either his environment is stultifying or he’s off base himself.”
  • Thoughts teach something that can’t be broken down into smaller, repeatable steps that are always executed the same way. But with something art on leadership you reinvent the wheel every single time you apply the principle. Leaders aren’t technicians.
  • First, you must know where you are going, what’s the goal. Second, make a map of highly probable paths, flush them out, elaborate them, revise them, make a kind of map of them, complete with possible pitfalls and traps as well as rewards. Third, examine the map as if you weren’t the creator, locate its soft spots and change or eliminate them. Finally, get into action.
  • The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
  • Unless you are willing to take risks, you will suffer paralyzing inhibition, and you will never do what you are capable of doing. Mistakes- missteps- are necessary for actualizing your vision, and necessary steps towards success.
  • When young we lose track of ourselves due to all the stuff going on around us, as we age, this goes away allowing for more creativity.
  • Leaders differ from others in their constant appetite for knowledge and experience and as their worlds widen and become more complex, so do their means of understanding.
  • First you have to figure out how to organize your job, the management of time, what your responsibilities are. Second, you have to learn to lead, not contain. Third, you have to have a clear sense of who you are and a sense of mission, a clear sense of who you are and a sense of mission, a clear understanding of it, and you must be sure that your principles are congruent with the organization’s principles. Fourth, you have to demonstrate your behavior all the things you believe a leader and a follower should do. Fifth, you need a great sense of freedom and scope so that you can free the people who work with you to live up to their potential. If you believe in the team approach, you must believe in people and then potential. And you must demand a great deal of them but be consistent.
  • Leading is about guiding and providing vision and inspiration rather than supervision.
  • How you attract and motivate people determine how successful you’ll be as a leader.
  • Leaders always have faith in themselves, their abilities, their co-workers and their mutual possibilities. But leaders also have sufficient doubt to question, challenge, probe, and thereby progress. In the same way his/her coworkers must believe in the leader, themselves, and their combined strength, but they must feel sufficiently confident to question, challenge, probe and test too.
  • Vision, inspiration, empathy, trustworthiness are manifestations of a leader’s judgement and character.
  • You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather is.
  • Leaders consciously construct their own lives and the contexts in which they live and work. They are not just actors, but playwright, hammer and anvil and each in their own way is altering the larger context.
  • Leadership is first being, then doing. Everything the leader does reflects what they are.
  • If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. Leaders = innovators.
  • Good judgement comes from experience, which comes from “getting kicked around a bit”.
  • Experience is the best tracker.
  • Learning to lead is learning to manage change. However, unless the leader continues to evolve, to adapt and adjust to external change, the organization will sooner or later stall.
  • The world can only be grasped by action, not contemplation… The next powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and having done it well, he loves to do it better.
  • Leaders know the fundamental problems of life are insoluble but persists anyway and continues to learn.
  • I think getting up in the morning is more exciting when you’re nervous. If you’re not nervous, you’re dead… It’s time to change your life or your work the moment you stop having butterflies in your stomach.
  • Screwing up teaches you that mistakes aren’t the end of the world. Adversity has a great deal to do with the development of leaders. Either it knocks you out or you become a bigger and better person.
  • Adversity instructs, successful executives ask endless questions, they surpass their less successful compatriots primarily because they learn more from their experiences, and that they learn early in their careers to be comfortable with ambiguity.
  • Everywhere you trip is where the treasure lies. That’s learning from surprise, as well as adversity.
  • The difference between a difficult boss and a bad boss is that a bad boss teaches you what not to do.
  • Difficult bosses really test your beliefs and you learn all the things you don’t want to do or stand for.
  • If we think more about failing at what we’re doing than about doing it, we will not succeed.
  • Leaders transform experience into wisdom and in turn transform the cultures of their organizations. In this way society as a whole is transformed.
  • There is magic in experience as well as wisdom. And more magic in stress, challenge and adversity and more wisdom. Crisis is so often the crucible in which leaders are formed.