How to Overcome Inner Resistance | Steven Pressfield

For years when I was struggling and

could never get it together, I realized

that at one point that I was just

thinking like an amateur and that if I

could flip a switch in my mind and think

like a professional that I I could

overcome some of the things. A

professional shows up every day. A

professional stays on the job all day or

the equivalent of of all day. A

professional, as I said this before,

does not take success or failure

personally. An amateur will, right? An

amateur gets a bad review, bad response

of this and they just crap out. I don't

want to do this anymore. A professional

plays hurt. Like if uh Kobe Bryant,

Michael Jordan, you know, if they've

tweaked the hamstring, they're out

there. You know, they'll die before

they'll get be taken off the court.

Whereas an amateur when he or she

confronts adversity will fold.

>> Oh, it's too cold out. You know, I've

got a I got a you know, I've got the

flu. that kind of thing. An amateur

worries about how they feel, like, "Oh,

I don't feel like getting out of bed

this morning. I don't feel like really

doing my work today." A professional

doesn't care how they feel. They they

they do it. So, an amateur has amateur

habits, and a professional has

professional habits. Welcome to the

Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss

science and science-based tools for

everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Steven Presfield. Steven

Presfield is an author of numerous

historical fiction and non-fiction

books, including the now iconic War of

Art and also the book Do the Work, which

both focus on understanding the forces

in our minds that barrier us from being

our most focused, creative, and

productive selves, and more importantly,

how to overcome those barriers. Perhaps

it's because Steven worked hard physical

labor jobs and was in the military prior

to becoming a book author and

screenwriter. Or perhaps it's because he

published his first book at age 52 that

Steven really understands how to

persevere and overcome inner doubt and

procrastination and turn creative blocks

into important creative works. As you'll

hear during today's episode, Steven

doesn't talk in inspirational slogans or

metaphors. So none of this get after it

or you know, you just have to do the

work. Instead, he gets very concrete

about how to structure your day, how to

frame your goals and your setbacks, and

even how to make your creative

environment more conducive to focus and

effort. We also talk about how to

capture your best ideas, which by the

way often occur away from the work that

you're actually trying to do, and how to

implement them. So, if you have an idea

or you're searching for an idea for a

creative project to share with the

world, this conversation will be

immensely useful to you. It will also be

extremely useful to anyone who suffers

from procrastination and self-doubt,

which frankly I think is all of us at

some point or another. I read Steven's

book, The War of Art, some years ago,

and I loved it. It transformed the way

that I did my science, how I approached

the podcast, and many, many other

aspects of life. You'll also notice that

at 82 years old, Steven is incredibly

sharp and fit. So, we talk about his

physical regimen and the important role

that it plays in keeping his mind

active, productive, and overcoming

resistance. Steven is not only very

accomplished, he is also truly wise and

generous. And today he shares a wealth

of practical wisdom with us. Before we

begin, I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford. It is

however part of my desire and effort to

bring zero cost to consumer information

about science and science related tools

to the general public. In keeping with

that theme, today's episode does include

sponsors. And now for my discussion with

Steven Presfield. Steven Presfield,

welcome. Andrew, it's a pleasure to be

here. We're former neighbors, you know,

so we've been talking about this for a

while. It's great to be here.

>> Yeah. I've been wanting to do this for a

while. I've been reading your books for

goodness couple of decades now or more.

Um, first War of Art, then I started uh

through the library. You've written a

lot of books, non-fiction and fiction.

It's been super impactful to me and many

other people. I think everybody deals

with procrastination. you'll tell us

about resistance. Um, but there's a

quote out there they claim is you. I'm

going to assume it's you. And um,

>> I'm laughing already.

>> And I recommend um, accepting that it's

you even if it's not, cuz it's a it's a

beautiful quote.

>> It's a good quote. I'll take credit.

>> It's great. Um, and I'd like your

reflections on it and what you intended

when you said it, which is quote, "The

more important to your soul's growth,

the stronger the resistance will be,"

which for me was very counterintuitive.

>> We all imagine the creative process as

one of, you know, being inspired. ah

this is my soul's work and and having a

ton of motivation to get the work done a

ton of desire and drive but the more

important to your soul's growth the

stronger your resistance will be

interesting

>> well that's absolutely true and what I

what I meant by that was that um

when we conceive an idea for something

we want to do a movie we want to make or

book we want to make it's not like at

all like what the fantasy was, "Oh, I'm

really charged up. It's going to be

great." What happens is waves of what I

call resistance with a capital R start

coming off that keyboard or whatever it

is to try to stop us from doing it. Make

us procrastinate, make us, you know, go

to the beach, make us, you know, be

dist, you know, give into distractions,

so on and so forth. And but the weird

principle is, and this is why I always

say if you want to know which one of

three or four projects that you should

do, you should do the one you're most

afraid of, because

that fear is a form of resistance with a

capital R. And the more important a

project is to your soul's evolution, not

to your commercial success, but to your

own evolution as an artist, the more

resistance you will feel to it. So, in

other words, the thing that you really

should be doing is going to be the

hardest and is going to punch you in the

face the hardest, which is why so many

artists have such a hardcore

professional attitude because they have

to have it to be able to kind of stand

up to that resistance to trying to push

them away from from doing their their

project, whatever it is.

>> The more important to your soul's

evolution, the more resistance you're

going to experience. But that's the

project you should be doing.

>> Yeah. Um here's here's an analogy that I

use sometimes, Andrew, and you may have

heard me say this before. I think about

um if you can imagine a tree in the

middle of a sunny meadow. As soon as the

tree appears, a shadow is going to

appear. And the shadow is going to be

the tree is your dream, whatever it is,

right? A book, a movie, whatever. And

the shadow is the resistance you're

going to feel. And they're directly

proportionate to each other. The bigger

the tree, the bigger the shadow. So when

you feel that shadow, you feel that

massive resistance. Oh, I want to quit.

I don't want to I'm not good enough to

do this, etc., etc. That's a good sign.

And then it says that the tree, your

dream is really big. And so you got to

do it. That's not the you don't want to

take a little tree, you want to take the

big tree.

>> You have military training and

background. And you were a Marine,

correct?

>> Yeah, I was a reservist Marine

infantryman.

>> Mhm.

>> Uh, how much does your training as a

Marine impact this concept of resistance

and your suggestions for people and your

ability to push through resistance

>> a tremendous amount. You know, I think,

you know, when I was going through uh

boot camp and, you know, infantry

training and stuff like that, I hated it

and I thought I just can't wait till I

get out of this and just just be a

regular civilian again. But as I've

grown and lived through the the artist

life of, you know, writing, you know,

being in a room with your own demons for

two or three years at a time. I've

learned that kind of the virtues that

you learn in the military um are the

same virtues that you have to call upon

to live that war of art, the war inside

your head. You know, the virtues of uh

of stubbornness, of uh the willing

embracing of adversity, of patience, of

selflessness, of courage because it's

about fear. And so, yeah, then it's

influenced me tremendously. And I found

sort of to my amazement as I started

writing fiction that I was drawn to

themes of war, even though I've never

actually been in a war, but the it's the

it's the inner war that interests me,

the metaphor of war. So, yeah, a lot. It

meant a lot. Do you think the physical

training that you took part in when you

were in the Marines has impacted a your

current physical regimen? By the way,

everybody, Stephen is 82 years old. Uh,

I see him at the gym. Um, he's there

every morning very early. What time do

you get there?

>> I get there at quarter to 5.

>> Quarter to 5:00 a.m. Um, which is why I

see him from time to time cuz I'm not

there at home.

>> You're coming in, I'm going home. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And and I sometimes train there

and elsewhere. But you are very

consistent. You train very early. So

clearly um you're in great physical and

mental shape. It's awesome to see. you

are, you know, with all the discussion

about longevity, you are living proof.

Uh, so I am curious about your physical

regimen and the extent to which your

physical regimen impacts your ability to

lean into and against resistance to do

your creative work at the keyboard or

with pen and paper.

>> That's a great question. um going to the

gym early first thing for me is um a

rehearsal for when I get home and I go

sit at the keyboard and I actually have

to face the resistance of working that

day. Right? So to me the gym is about

something that I don't want to do. I

hate to get up that early in the morning

and get there. It's something that is

going to hurt, right? We all know about

that. And it's something that I'm afraid

of because as you know there are all

kinds of ways you can hurt yourself and

and you embarrass yourself and so on and

so forth. But having done that in the

morning. So it's for I've got like um I

think we have a mutual friend in Randy

Wallace, right? Do we have Yeah. Randy

has this thing Randall Wallace who wrote

Braveheart and his secretary directed

that and many others. He has a thing in

the morning that he calls little

successes. And what he's trying to do to

build momentum for when he's actually

going to sit down and write is, you

know, achieve something that he can say,

"Okay, I did something good here and

then I did, you know, so going to the

gym for me is that it's not so much

about the physical aspect of it. It's

the uh the rehearsal for kind of facing

like so I feel like when I finish at the

gym, nothing I'm going to do for the

rest of the day is going to be as hard

as what I already did. So, you know,

there we go. The the ways are greased

and I can go forward. That's the theory

anyway.

>> So, when you wake up in the morning,

you're not looking forward to working

out.

>> [ __ ] no. I mean, we can can we say that

here?

>> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

>> Absolutely not. It's a drag. I hate to

go. You know,

>> you prefer to stay in bed.

>> Absolutely. I wish I could stay in bed,

you know, on and but uh on the days I do

stay in bed, Sunday, I I don't feel so

good about myself, you know. I wish I

had gone to the gym. I mean, you must

feel the same way, Andrew, about

whatever you do, being an old

skateboarder and, you know, a fitness

guy your whole life. What is it? How

does it fit in with your regimen?

>> Well, the problem for me is that I love

working out.

>> Oh, you do?

>> So, wow.

>> I do and I always have. Um, I have

noticed in the last maybe 2 3 years that

occasionally I have to push myself a

little bit more, but I I

loathe rest days, but they are

important. You know, I do believe in

taking one full day off per week,

letting my body recover.

>> Um,

>> but that's the problem is I really enjoy

working out. And so by the time I'm done

working out and then I shower up and I

eat and I'm sitting down to do some

work, I'm like, "Oh, now comes the

really hard workout." Um, but I notice

that I learn things during those

workouts provided

>> that I don't have my phone with me. Ah,

>> I might listen to music on my phone,

sometimes a podcast or an audio book,

but I do my very best not to be on

social media or text during those

workouts because during those workouts,

something always comes to mind that I

find useful

>> for elsewhere in life

>> and it usually pops up during a rest

period between sets. You know, I think

exercise takes our brain and body into

these unfamiliar states.

>> Yeah. And I think that our unconscious

mind geysers stuff up. And

>> uh I think it was the great Joe Strummer

of the Clash that said, you know, when

you have a thought that feels important,

write it down because

>> you think it will be there later, but

certain thoughts and ideas are offered

up and they don't last, at least not in

that form. You need to catch them. And

so I have a mode of catch usually in

notes. Do you have a do you have a

capture method for ideas whether or not

you get them during workouts or

>> I don't have during workouts. I I I

don't seem to get ideas during workouts,

but I completely agree with that that

you know there the those ideas when they

come like in the shower or when you're

on the subway or when you're driving

along the freeway, your mind is occupied

in something else, right? Your ego is

involved and somehow it opens the

pipeline and things burble up and you

always think, "Oh, I'll remember that

that." But you forget it's like a dream,

you know? They just go away. So yeah, I

I mean I'll just dictate it into my

phone. I mean, my phone now is, you

know, full of stuff that I've got to

transcribe. But I I couldn't agree more

with that.

>> Yeah. There's something about the way

that our unconscious mind I feel like it

kind of tosses things up for the

conscious mind to catch. And in those

moments, just like in a dream, we think,

"Oh, I'll remember this later."

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Uh and we don't.

>> It's amazing how they go away. They just

eancence, you know,

>> eancence. It's a beautiful word and it

captures it perfectly.

>> See, I'm a different belie. I don't

believe it's really coming from the

subconscious. I'm a believer in the

goddess. I'm a believer in the muse. I

think it's coming from someplace else,

you know, and that they're they're

playing with us a little bit, you know,

like I know Stephen Spielberg says when

an idea comes, he says it whispers

rather than shouting, which is his way,

I think, of saying, you know, it just

it's a very subtle thing that goes away

very fast, you know, and you got to grab

it while it's there.

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>> Tell me more about this the from the the

goddess or the gods or the muse, you

know, that from outside us or from God.

>> Ah, well, you know, if you um go back to

the ancient Greeks, right? every um the

Iliad or the Odyssey or any of those

other great works always start with an

invocation of the muse, right? Homer

writes, you know, goddess, you know,

tell this story, you know, and basically

the artist is stepping or taking his ego

out of the picture and saying, I'm not

the one that's going to tell you this

story about ancient Troy. The goddess

will tell through me. So they're sort of

asking, you know, help me, show me, you

know, that kind of thing. And um I had a

mentor, you know, Rob, we were talking

about that earlier, a guy named Paul

Rink. He's like, can I get into the

weeds on this thing, Andrew?

>> Please.

>> And um he sort of introduced me to this

concept. This was like the first time I

tried to write a book. I was like 27 or

something like that. And I Well, I had

actually tried and failed before, but it

was the first time I ever finished one.

And I used to have breakfast every

morning. This was in Carmel Valley, not

so far from where you grew up. And uh in

with my friend Paul Rank, who's a who

was a maybe 30 years older than me. He

was an established writer. He knew John

Steinbeck, knew Henry Miller from Big

Surf. And he told me about the muses,

the Greek goddesses, the nine sisters

whose job it was to inspire artists.

Right? The classic image of the muse is

Beethoven at the piano and a kind of a

shadowy female figure is kind of

whispering in his ear, you know,

bringing him da da da d right. And so he

wrote out for me, my friend Paul, the

invocation of the muse from he typed it

out on his Remington manual typewriter,

the invocation of the muse from the

Odyssey, from Homer's Odyssey

translation by TE Lawrence. And I've

kept that. It burned up in the fire.

Lost it in the fire. But I've kept that

for like 50 years. And every morning

before I sit down to work, I say that

prayer, you know, out loud and in full

earnest, you know, God has helped me.

And um I'm absolutely a believer in

that, you know, that that ideas come

from another place. And it's our job.

And I don't think it's the subconscious.

It's our job to open the pipeline and

and get out of the way.

>> I love it. I And I'm totally open to the

idea that it's not the unconscious mind

or the subconscious, whatever people

want to call it. Um I'm sad to hear that

this uh um this write up of Invocation

of the Muse burned. We should probably

just mention that we used to be

neighbors.

>> Yeah.

>> Um your home burned in the fires, sadly.

Uh the home that I lived in um it was

not my home. I was renting it. Also

burned in the fires. Um so my guess is

at some point during today's

conversation we'll talk about

>> loss of objects and items. But sounds

like this one was pretty precious.

>> Yeah, it was a sad thing to lose that,

you know, but you know it's it's in my

head, you know.

>> How long is it?

>> Um it was on one page double spaced.

>> I would say it takes to recite it takes

maybe 90 seconds. Do you have any uh

interest or desire in calling it up now

or a portion of it?

>> Uh I'll I'll call up just the opening of

it because the middle part is Homer sort

of describing the whole story of the

Odyssey. But it starts like this. It

goes, "Oh divine poisey,

goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for

me this song of the various-minded man,"

meaning Odysius. And then he kind of

goes on to talk about da da da da and at

the end it says um make this tale live

for us in all its many bearings oh muse

which I think is a great you know make

it live make it come alive in all its

many bearings. And so you know that's uh

thanks to my my friend Paul that's been

a thing that's been with me for you know

40 years.

>> I love it. Well we'll provide a link to

the full uh

>> it's in the war of art actually. I I

wrote this out in the in the War of Art.

I think it's on page 114 or 115.

>> Yeah. And if anyone hasn't read War of

Art, it's an absolute must-read. I've

read it many times. It's have an

audiobook form, uh, hard copy form. It

is awesome. It is just awesome.

So, when you sit down to write after

you've you've recited this, um, how many

times in the first 10 minutes do you

think your mind flits to something else?

I mean, you're now a pro. like you've

written many books and you know what to

uh what is noise and you know what is

signal and you know if you really need

to go to the bathroom or if you don't

you know well these are these are the

things that pop up right as you point

out resistance comes in oh you know I

need another glass of water or I'm not

caffeinating enough or there's not

enough sunlight coming through my window

whatever right um

>> how many times in the first 10 minutes

on a typical day just give us an average

uh do you think your mind flits to yeah

like I wonder what's going on in the

news

>> that's a great you know, like what's

going on in the world. I mean,

>> how many times? One,

>> two, never.

>> Never. Now, that's not to say when I

first started many, many moons ago that

I didn't have a lot of that sort of

stuff, but I have I don't know whether

just over the years, um, I'm I'm

absolutely a believer in, you know, like

diving straight into the pool, you know,

I don't sit there for one second, you

know, wondering what I'm going to do. I

just plunge right in. And uh you know,

thank goodness I'm somehow I've learned

how to do it and I just focus full tilt

on it. Uh so yeah, I don't I don't have

those thoughts at all. H

>> how long do you write in that first

bout?

>> Um maybe an hour.

>> Mhm.

>> Uh and then I'll take a a little bit of

a break.

>> Um I love to do laundry. That's my big

thing. You know, I'll go I'll change the

I'll put in the laundry at the start,

you know, and it'll be the lo the load

will be done. Then I can put it into the

dryer. I take a little break and then I

come back and start again for for

another hour.

>> You enjoy it or you enjoy clean laundry

or both?

>> I just I enjoy the sort of the ritual of

it and the craziness of it, you know.

>> Not me. Not one bit. The only thing I

enjoy about doing laundry is clearing

the lint trap. There's something very

satisfying about what I hate. I don't

want to do that.

>> Interesting. All right. Well, we're not

considering, but we'd make good

roommates.

>> Um interesting. So, for an hour, you're

locked in and you're just typing. Wait,

how often does your inner critic pop up

nowadays versus at the beginning?

Meaning the I don't know if this is

going the right direction. Um, I've

heard before that you're just supposed

to create and then edit later. What's

your process there?

>> Uh, it almost never comes up. The inner

critic again. It used to, you know, used

to all the time was a terrible struggle

I had for years.

>> You know, you sit down and you think,

well, is Hemingway would Hemingway write

this sentence, you know, right? or or

you know what will the New York Times

think when I write you know but

eventually over time you learn you just

can't deal with that [ __ ] you know

it drives you insane

>> you know so so no I don't I don't let

that inner critic come in you know and

I'm definitely a believer um at the end

of the day I never read what I wrote

>> and I never look back on it the next day

um I believe in multiple d somebody

taught me this one time that uh think in

multiple drafts. Um this was Jack Eps,

the writer of the original writer of Top

Gun. Um I was working for him on a on a

movie project and he said he said always

think in multiple drafts and uh and you

can only fix so much in one draft. You

can only fix one thing in one draft. So

I usually will think of and I start a

book maybe 13, 14, 15 drafts. the last

seven or eight will be really small, you

know, really slight changes, but I won't

look back on the day's work because I

figure on my next draft then I'll then

I'll read it fresh and it'll look a

million times a much more clear sense.

Is this any good? Because if you do it

when it's too fresh, you start to drive

yourself crazy. You start to, you know,

perfectionism, another form of

resistance comes in. So, yeah, that's

that's my process. I know a lot of other

people don't do it that way, but that's

the way I do it. I never when the when

the day is done, the the bell rings, the

office is closed, that's it. I turn off

my mind and just let you let the muse

take care of it overnight and I don't I

try not to worry about it at all. All I

ask myself, I know I'm getting into the

weeds here really. No, it's very

important that you get into the weeds

because I think um you've offered many

times through books and uh their

podcasts the the contour and and a lot

of depth, but I think the more detail

the better because everyone will do it

slightly differently,

>> but I think it's very important. We

rarely hear what people's real process

is. So, please don't don't edit yourself

here. At the end of the a day's session,

all I ask myself is did I put in the

time and did I work as hard as I can.

Quality will take care of itself later

in the next draft and the next draft

after that. But I'd never judge it, you

know. And it took a long, long time to

get to that place to learn that, you

know, because I would drive myself

insane for years and years judging along

the way.

How long is the total writing session at

depending on how much laundry you have

to?

>> Great questions. I used to be able to

write for four hours. Now I can only

write for about two. What I tell myself,

and I think it's true, is that I can do

in two hours now what I used to do in

four.

>> Um, but I stop when I start making

mistakes. When I start having typos and

things like that, then it's kind of like

a workout at the gym. you know, when

you've reached the end, you know, I'm

just going to hurt myself if I do

another set, you know, um the point of

diminishing returns. So, when I get

tired, I stop and I don't question it at

all. I don't say I don't make myself

feel bad about, oh, you can get another

10 minutes. Um like Steinbeck used to

say that um pressing forward at the end

of a long day to get just a little bit

more is the falsest kind of economy

because you pay for it the next day. And

Hemingway used to say he always stopped

when he knew what was coming next in the

story which I also believe in that too

because that'll help you in that hairy

first moment when you're sitting down

because at least you know oh okay this

is what's going to happen. Ah, so you

leave sort of an ellipse in your mind.

So the next morning you know exactly

where to pick up and that the entry

point is a little easier.

>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

>> The analogy to uh working out is a great

one. Um

years ago when I started resistance

training I learned from Mike Menser. I

don't know if you ever overlapped with

Mike at Golds. No.

>> He died some years ago.

>> Just interrupt for a second. They call

it resistance training which is exactly

what we're talking about for art. Yeah.

So but please continue.

>> Yeah. Excellent point, Noah. please. Um,

you know, there are a lot of theories

out there about resistance training and

how best to get muscles to grow and to

get stronger, etc. At one extreme is,

you know, you warm up and then you do

one set to absolute failure, maybe a

second set you push through. That's kind

of the mener high intensity thing. At

the other extreme is it's volume, just

lots and lots and lots of sets. There's

been debate about this endlessly and has

to do with all sorts of factors, but the

literature is now coming to a place

where it's pretty clear that after

warming up the first one or two sets

that you do are really the most valuable

of a given exercise. And I didn't know

that

>> almost certainly you need more than one

set um overall you certainly do, but

that it's really the intensity that you

bring. But here's the the point that is

strongly analogous to what you're

talking about when you say you used to

be able to write for four hours a day.

Now you do two and you tell yourself

that you accomplish the same amount in

those two. That's almost certainly true

based on what we understand about

neuroscience and believe it or not

resistance training in the gym. And the

the argument is that as you resistance

train or write

>> or play volleyball or do any activity,

>> you develop a better ability to recruit

your nervous system to do the necessary

work. You said you didn't used to be

able to just sit down and focus for an

hour with minimal interruption in your

mind. Now you can. You learned that

>> the more intensity that we can bring to

something, the more focus we can bring

to something, the more taxing it is.

>> Like if I do one set in the gym with

total concentration to absolute failure,

which is very difficult to do when you

first start training. You barely know

how to do the movement, right? You're

still learning. Your nervous system is

still learning. You can't inflict the

same stimulus

>> with one set that you uh that you can

later after you're practiced.

>> Makes a lot of sense.

>> So, and so there's this counterintuitive

thing that people in the high

performance field are really starting to

adopt. And I talked to people in a bunch

of different high performance fields,

not just exercise and creative works,

that the better you get at something,

the shorter your real workouts should be

>> and the more intense they should be.

It's almost like a knife that's getting

sharper and sharper. you can cut deeper

and deeper whereas at the beginning we

have sort of a dull blade and we have to

you know route over the same path. So

>> I think this is a nervous system feature

>> and that's why it transcends physical

and mental creative and other types of

works.

>> Um because if you talk to great

musicians, they're not practicing 11

hours a day anymore. They're practicing

for three or four extremely focused

hours, sometimes divided up by naps and

meals, you know, the So, in any case,

>> so you so you put in your two very

focused hours with some laundry in

between.

>> Yeah.

>> And then you you rack it, you hang it

up, and you don't look at it. Are you

thinking about it throughout the day?

>> Um, no. But like we were talking about,

if an idea comes to me, then I grab my

phone and I dictate that. And let me say

one thing here for anybody that's

listening to this and would be want to

be writers, aspiring writers. Um, so I'm

a full-time writer. I don't have another

job. I don't have to do anything. But

yet I can only get two hours of time

basically in the day. So, if you guys

have a full-time job and kids and a

family and a wife and a spouse,

whatever, if you can squeeze out a

couple hours a day, you're doing you're

on the same level with me, same level

with a with a full-time writer, so that

it is possible to uh have a full-time

job and still do do a your artistic

thing to a full tilt version.

>> Excellent point. How important do you

think it is for you to start that

writing session at more or less the same

time each day? You're not saying two

hours in the morning or two hours in the

evening. Two hours in the morning or

hour in the morning, hour in the

afternoon. It sounds like it's very

regimented.

>> It it is. I think it's really important.

And when life was more predictable for

me, I would always do it. But like since

the fires and other things like that,

um, sometimes I have to shift time

frames around and be ready to do that,

you know. Um, I have a good friend Jack

Carr, the thriller writer who did the

terminal list and and uh, you know, he's

uh, he's a master of writing in

airplanes and writing at Starbucks

because he's always traveling and doing

all kinds of stuff and just finding the

time. God bless him. I don't know how he

does it, you know, to and and he is

incredibly productive. Um, I I don't I

don't know if I could do that. I maybe

my I will shift from writing from 11 to

1 to writing from one to three but

that's about the the most you know uh

variance I can put into it.

>> Do you have your phone in the room when

you write and is the internet engaged on

your computer? Not at all, you know. No.

I mean, my phone is there maybe to

dictate a note or something like that,

but otherwise, no. I don't, you know,

absolutely not. And and uh Yeah. I can't

even imagine that.

>> Music.

>> No. No music. No.

>> Just the sound of your own breathing.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. What's that?

>> Because you're in your own head, right?

You're in that universe, you know?

>> This is what I find so odd about writing

is

you're in your head.

It's your voice in your head, but you're

in a conversation with the potential

audience.

What

is the actual dialogue? Are you

thinking, this gets a little

philosophical, but at the end of the

day, it's very concrete. Are you

thinking about a conversation with the

audience or are you just translating

thoughts into words and the audience

doesn't exist yet? Uh, I'm very aware of

of the reader in the sense of

um,

let's say it's a scene that I that I'm

writing and I know certain things have

to happen in this scene. Character A has

to do something, character B, da da da

da. And so I'm I'm trying to put that

down, but I'm thinking,

is the reader understanding what have I

got this in the right order for for

them? you know, am I am I boring them?

Is it did I did I say that, you know,

two pages ago and now I'm repeating

myself? So, I'm but I'm not having a

conversation. I'm just trying to to make

it as as easy and as interesting and as

fun as I can for the for the reader and

and always make trying to make sure that

I'm I'm leading I'm leading them. I'm

seducing them. I'm trying to reel them

in, you know, all you know, and not bore

them. You know, by the end of of this

chapter or scene, I want the reader to

be thinking, "Oh, I can't wait to turn

the page and see what happens next."

>> Growing up, were you a storyteller among

your friends?

>> I never even thought about it as a kid.

>> Like, you didn't hanging out with

friends, you wouldn't tell a story about

what had happened three days ago.

>> I mean, just like anybody else would,

but no, I was never like a, you know, a

storyteller or anything. I was not a kid

that wanted to be a writer. I never

thought about it at all.

So, you just kind of tripped and fell

into all that.

>> I mean, my first job

>> was in advertising in New York City out

of right out of college.

>> This is like the Mad Men thing.

>> Yeah. Yeah. But I guess at the time I

thought, oh, I'd love to write a

commercial that people said, uh, oh,

that was great. It was so funny. I love

that thing. So, that sort of um got me

kind of a little bit started into the

idea of storytelling. And then I had a

boss. His name was Ed Hannibal. and he

wrote a book kind of at home and it

became a hit, you know, and uh it was

called Chocolate Days, Popsicle Weeks,

and he quit to become like a novelist.

And so I thought, well, [ __ ] why don't

I do that, you know? So that was what

sort of started me into it, you know,

being completely naive and totally

stupid, you know, and having no idea of

what I was doing. That's wild. So I

imagined you as like the kid who was

always coming in telling stories and you

were writing in the background.

Advertising is pretty interesting though

because it it's the same process. You

have to get into the mind of the

audience. You have a story to tell and I

guess with advertising the goal is a

purchase and with writing the idea is

they they uh buy into the next page.

>> Yeah.

>> Something like that.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Very similar in that sense.

You know

>> what? Any ads that you recall

particularly enjoying?

>> No, I was terrible. I was never any good

at it. You know, I never made any money

at I was never successful at all. Um,

but I met a lot of nice people and I

learned a lot of stuff in that. You

know,

>> you said that was in New York City.

>> It was in New York City. Um, in fact, if

I can if I can hype one of my books,

it's a small follow-up to The War of Art

called Nobody Wants to Read Your [ __ ]

And it kind of a lot of it is about what

you learn in advertising because nobody

wants to read your ads or listen to your

uh commercials or anything like that.

And so one thing you learn in that

business is to make it so good or so

interesting, so intriguing that people

will overcome their hatred of having to

listen to your stupid Preparation H

commercial. Um, so that was uh anyway

that was that was what that was what got

me started. But I was never a

storyteller as a kid. No, I'd like to go

back to the quote that we started with.

The more important to your soul's

growth, the stronger the resistance will

be.

I think many people will hear that,

including myself, and we'll think, okay,

what is what is my soul's growth? Where

does it want to go? You know, I think

when we hear the word soul and growth,

particularly when it's about us, we

think like there's going to be this big

sign written on the heavens about what

we're supposed to do and we're going to

feel compelled to do it. You're saying

the opposite. That the thing that we

need to do most sometimes is hidden from

us. The muse perhaps can reveal that.

And it's through the act of writing

without knowing what the work even is

that sometimes we arrive there. So for

people that don't have a crystallized

idea yet and they want to explore their

creative sense.

They might want to do it through

writing. They might want to do it

through pottery. They might want to do

it through music. They might want to do

it through making movies. Any number of

things.

What's the translation from the thing

you need most is the thing you're

resisting most to actually getting into

the process of evolving that thing out

of us? It's like it sounds like an

extrusion process like you're trying to

like push push semiolid concrete through

a filter. But I want to know what the

filter is.

>> Um I mean I know that young people today

there's a tremendous amount of pressure

on people to find their passion, you

know, and follow their passion and so on

so forth. And I and I know for for me I

would as a young person I would go what

the [ __ ] is that? I don't know what what

it is that I want to do you know um I'm

lost. I'm you know struggling. But I do

think that we are all born with some

sort of a of at least one a kind of a

calling of some kind. And it may not be

the arts, you know, it may be helping

other people through some kind of a

nonprofit or something or like what

you're doing, Andrew, you know, where

you're bringing neuroscience and and the

scientific, you know, to personal

development, so on and so forth. Um, I

think we do all have some sort of some

sort of calling and like

we we know it.

Like if if we could somehow put somebody

in here and say, "I'll give you three

seconds. Tell me what you should be

supposed to be doing." It will pop into

somebody's head. You know, they go, "Oh,

you know, I knew I know I've always

wanted to do to you be a motorcycle,

whatever." You know, so but then that

sort of whisper urge to do this thing is

immediately countered by this force of

resistance, you know, because it's

trying to stop us. It's the devil. It's

trying to stop us from being our true

selves and becoming self-realized,

self-actualized or whatever. So,

resistance will immediately say to us,

like if you were to say, "Oh, I want to

have a podcast and I want to talk about,

you know, science." Immediately,

resistance would say, "Who are you,

Andrew, to do this thing? I mean, you're

a professor, you know, at Stanford. You

know, we don't have any experience doing

this." Not to mention, it's been done a

million times by other people. They've

done it a thousand times better than

you. Nobody's going to give a [ __ ]

You're gonna put this out or you're

gonna embarrass yourself. you had a

certain level of prestige at Stanford.

Now you're an idiot. You know, you did

it's gonna be that voice, right?

>> Some people actually said Stanford's not

going to like it. Why would you do this?

You're tenured at Stanford. What What

are you doing? You're you you're funded.

Your lab's publishing. Well, one of

those people was my father. Um who's

also a scientist. Um my process of

pushing back.

>> I rest my case.

>> Yeah. And the true part here, the really

kind of interesting part is a lot of

times those voices will be the voices

closest to us, our spouse, our father,

you know, because well, I can get into

that. I'll get into that and if we if we

want to continue, but in any event, um,

so that voice of resistance will come

up. In addition, resistance will try to

distract us. You know, it'll try to make

us procrastinate. it'll try to make us

yield to perfectionism where we we

noodle over one sentence you know for

three days you know or we or fear all of

the other things will stop us. So many

people live their entire lives and never

do and never enact their real calling

you know um but we were talking about

the more important to the growth of your

soul that was what the we started with

this right so that calling whatever it

is to be a writer a filmmaker whatever

it is

if we don't do that in our life we we

that energy

doesn't go away it becomes it goes into

a more malignant channel, right? And it

shows itself in maybe an addiction,

alcoholism,

uh cruelty to others, abuse of others,

abuse of ourselves, porn, you name it.

any of the sort of vices that people

have uh because that original creative

divine energy that really wants to be

the odyssey or something like that. If

we

yield to our own resistance and don't

evolve that then bad things happen. On

the other hand, if we do follow that, we

kind of open ourselves up to, you know,

to becoming who we who we really are.

And,

you know, a lot of people in the

podcasting and in the uh human

development or whatever they call it,

personal development world, they sort of

promise like some sort of nirvana is

going to happen if you do XYZ. But what

I'm what I'm promising is a [ __ ] of a

lot of hard work that's probably never

going to be rewarded, but you'll be on

the track that you know your soul was

meant to be on. And God bless you, you

can't ask for any more than that.

>> And sometimes it works out at

spectacular levels of whatever income,

fame, whatever it is that people think

they might want, but that's not really

the thing to chase. We'll talk about

that.

>> Yeah, we'll talk about that. Sometimes

it's the lottery of of life sometimes,

but that absolutely should not be the

thing that people are chasing.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I um I only know my own experience

and I couldn't help but reflect a little

bit on, you know, when I was

deciding to do the podcast and I did get

some voices back like, hey, like maybe

that's, you know, what are you doing? I

I um

I not clinically diagnosed with

Tourette's or anything like that, but I

felt um at that point that I had a

certain amount of knowledge in me uh

based on 25 years of studying and

research in neuroscience and related

fields. And I felt like if I didn't let

it out, I was going to explode. Uh-huh.

>> And so Rob, my producer, and my my

bulldog Costello, and I went into a

small

>> closet in Topanga, set up some cameras,

and I exploded onto the onto the camera.

I just like I it just poured out. I

think for the entire first year, we were

doing almost all solos. Hardly any

guests because it was pandemic and we

weren't quite sitting down with guests.

I didn't know. And I don't even remember

thinking about the the hundreds of hours

of preparation. We did hundreds of hours

of preparation for each episode, but the

just I just feel like it just kind of

like geysered out. So, I think there's

some benefit to having um something

build up so much within us that it has

to come out.

>> And I can certainly relate to the

dangers of suppressing something. I

think

>> how old were you when you when you

started that?

>> 45 years ago.

>> 45.

>> Yeah. So, I was kind of late to it. Now

I had lectured in front of students and

given seminars and lectured in front of

donors which is

>> in some ways similar to the podcast in

the in the sense that you're

>> teaching science often to non-scientists

or diverse fields but uh for me it was

just inside I couldn't couldn't help it.

There was my only answer was I couldn't

help it. And um to his credit by the way

my my dad has been immensely supportive

of the podcast. He actually was on the

podcast

>> and gave us a chance to bond and learn

about him and um

>> and he's a scientist so I got to learn

some physics. The audience got to learn

some physics as well. But um but yeah,

when you take on something that people

are not familiar with you doing or they

are projecting on to you the sense that

they want you safe and secure because

sometimes it's a it's a real um it's a

genuine

>> feeling of support for somebody, you

know, a mother or father or siblings

like, "Hey, so you're going to give up

your job as a lawyer to go write movie

scripts like and you got three kids and

like uh they're scared for you because

they don't want to see you take your

life off a cliff.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh what's your response to that?

>> I mean, there's validity to that

obviously.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think what happens um is that each

person is dealing with their own

resistance,

>> their own calling, their own that they

know that they really should be doing.

And 99.999%

of them are not doing it or are

unconscious of it. Right. It's sort of a

niggling thing, but they don't know

about it. So then when they see you,

Andrew, starting your podcast, that's a

reproach to them and they say, "Well, if

Andrew can do it, why can't I do it?"

You know, and so then it becomes kind of

malicious. And it's I don't think it's

deliberately malicious a lot of times,

but people will then try to undermine

you and say and and under the guise of

uh we're only looking out for you. We

don't want your children to be starving

and in the street. They will try to try

to undermine you and stop you from doing

it and make fun of you or ridicule you.

Like um the filmmaker David O. Russell,

I don't know if you know who I'm talking

about. He did the fighter with Mark

Wahlberg. I love that movie. He did

Silver Linings Playbook um you know with

Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.

And I did not see that one, but I did

see the

>> joy about the lady who invented the

miracle mop with which was Jennifer

Lawrence. And all of these stories are

about sabotage by the people closest to

you particer

right? and he's got seven sisters and he

also has an older brother and they're

like and his mom is his manager and

she's like booking him fights where he's

outweighed by 20 pounds and he gets

massacred. You know,

>> true story of Mickey Ward.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> And the story is, you know, he finally

meets a girl who's like really

supportive of him. But anyway, it's a

real theme that the people closest to us

will will try to they don't want us.

They're happy the way, you know, we like

you, Andrew, the way you are. You know,

our son, we know he's working at

Stanford. He's doing his thing. We don't

want to see him, it may be unconscious.

I'm not knocking your dad. We don't want

to see him suddenly burst out of the uh

the cocoon and become a butterfly and

wing away from us, you know, so they

like you the way they are, you know, the

way you are.

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We've had several clinical psychologists

on the podcast and a resounding theme

from them has been that it is astounding

and yet consistent that people will

remain in a not so great place that they

understand and is predictable in

exchange for what they could do stepping

into some new life even getting over

their their anger about something. In

fact, I I was thinking uh throughout

today's conversation, I couldn't help

but think that perhaps the two most

dangerous things to the creative process

to really doing the important work are

the many many things that exist in the

world now that basically sell us the

opportunity for free to be angry or to

numb out.

>> I mean, I again, if people want to drink

a little bit, I'm not going to disparage

that. I've done an episode on alcohol.

It's not good for you. But some people

can have a couple drinks a week or

whatever. Okay, I'm not judging there.

But but things

>> like alcohol, like certain forms of

social media, and I say certain forms

because I do think social media can be

informative and educational in the right

context and the right amount. Um certain

forms of media more generally, the news,

right? um any number of highly

processed, highly palatable foods uh

which are not delicious. They but they

allow us to kind of numb out numb out

our senses and just kind of mindlessly

eat.

>> Um and on and on. I feel like anger and

numbing out

>> are how the world is trying to pull us

away.

>> And someone gets paid for that. We think

we get it for free, but they get paid

for that very well. We give our time,

our soul according to what you're

saying. Yeah.

>> And then more close to us within our

inner circle, people that genuinely care

about us are, from what you're saying,

kind of in their own psychological

entanglements and they really care. They

want us safe. They want to keep us where

they know they can find us. And as a

consequence, it's really tough to even

get to the process of resistance at this

point. It's all around us.

>> Yeah.

>> It's all around us.

>> Hit the nail on a lot of heads. So I

feel like do you think the world is

>> set up now in ways that it's more

difficult to get to that chair and to

meet the inner resistance? That's I I

phrased it poorly before. There's

resistance all around us. There's uh in

the things that are being sold to us

quote unquote for free.

>> The cost is immense. It's true. You're

not putting a coin in a in a slot and

pulling a lever, but it's your time.

It's your soul. It's your essence. It's

your life. Yeah.

>> And then it's close to us with family

members and friends and significant

others. Sometimes um dogs are immune

from this. Cats are immune. They want us

to do the real work cuz we'll be they'll

be right next to us. Um

>> and then with all that, then we sit down

and then the resistance comes up from

right up in the middle.

>> Yeah.

>> It's like this is a this is a minefield.

>> Yeah, it is. I agree with you

completely. It's I don't think it's ever

been harder. It's like I always said

that if you want to make a billion

dollars, come up with some kind of

product that feeds into people's natural

resistance like potato chips or social

media or something like and they did

come up with a product and it's called,

you know, the internet, you know, it's

called social media. And you're right,

people make a lot of money off of that

because they they and I don't think

they're even aware of what they're doing

or aware of what they're tapping into,

but they're just allowing people, you or

me, who who has a a calling that we know

we should be doing. They're allowing us

to not do it, to be drawn over here for

whatever reason. And I think a lot of

the anger and polarization in politics

is about that today, you know, because

people can't face, you know, to sit down

and do whatever they were they were born

to do. So, it's much easier to hate the

other person over here or get completely

caught up in all that rabbit hole of all

that sort of stuff, you know. Um, yeah,

it's uh to follow your calling is a

really hard thing, you know. It's not uh

we were born to be by evolution to be

tribal creatures, you know, through all

those evolution. And the opposite, the

one thing that the tribe hates the most

is somebody that goes his own way or her

own way, right? Follows their own thing

and doesn't, you know, hue to what the

tribe wants them to do. So for us to do

that as individuals is a [ __ ] you

know, and take and and it's it's usually

like what you said, you sort of exploded

out of you when you got you have to

almost reach a a breaking point, you

know, almost hit bottom in some kind of

a sense before it just kind of explodes

out of you because we'll all resist that

so much. It's so scary.

>> It's so interesting. I think it was in

high school uh that I first realized how

silly humans are and it was the

following. At the time I was into

skateboarding. Um skateboarding has gone

through various evolutions of being

popular. Now it's in the Olympics of

being unpopular of being profitable.

When I got into it, it was really

unpopular. It had gone through one big

two big waves. There was the kind of Dog

Town and Z Boys wave like the back

discovering backyard pools. this kind of

thing that the surfers did. Then there

was a second wave for those that care.

This was like the classic Bones Brigade

wave. There were only two or three big

companies. Tony Hawk was early in this

because he was young. Stad Frank Hawk

ran the National Skateboard Association

and then it disappeared just kind of,

you know, that kids that were into

soccer. They were into other sports.

Skateboarding wasn't a big thing. It was

small. And and there was this really

kind of weird trend in the early 90s

where skateboarders started wearing

really baggy clothes. No one wore really

baggy clothes. And I'll never forget

because I was part of that community, we

wore these what now wouldn't even be

considered baggy shorts. So we're not

talking about like a deep sag on the

shorts, but it was like baggy shorts.

>> Uhhuh.

>> And I'll never forget the amount of

teasing and ridicule that we received.

People like, pull up your pants, you

know, why by the athletes, by the cool

by the water polo athletes, the the

jocks, the the everything. But not just

at school, but elsewhere. leave for the

summer, come back,

and over that summer, the someone in the

world of rock and roll and in hiphop had

kind of um picked this up from

skateboarding culture and baggy pants

and shorts hit the mainstream.

>> Oh, I never

was into it. And that's when the the

bell went off. I was like, they don't

actually know what they like is this is

just the the essence of peer pressure.

They have no concept of what they

actually like.

>> And I think that was a big one for me. I

was like, well, first of all, I thought

they're hypocrites. I thought they're

idiots. And then I realized they're but

they're none of those things. It's that

for most people, what they like is sold

to them.

>> It's and they're tracking someone else.

And so throughout my life, I've had

mentors um that didn't know me. I would

I literally have a list of different

names. Some some of these people live,

some of them dead. Amazingly, some of

them are now my close friends. Um, I

embarrass them all the time by telling

them that they're on this list.

>> But I think that the concept of

mentorship is so much different than the

concept of looking to

>> the other members of our species more

broadly

>> for what is cool, what's worth pursuing.

>> How valuable for you have mentors been?

I know you're you've been a mentor to

many people, by the way. You're on the

list. Just to embarrass you. I can show

you that list from from from the late

'9s late 90s 2000s transition. How

important are mentors and how do we

differentiate mentors from the voice in

our own head? How important is it to be

self-guided versus encouraged and guided

by these mentor voices? Because I

believe that the general public is the

absolute wrong signal. I think that I

think that signal

>> I agree with you takes you off the

metaphorical cliff.

>> Yeah. Mentors have been really important

to me. very important. Um, in fact, I I

wrote a memoir called Government Cheese.

I don't know if you've heard about this

one at all, but it's it's the chapters

are named after the various mentors that

I've had and um many many of them and a

lot of them are not in the writing world

at all. Um, and um, like my my friend

Paul, he was in the in the writing

world, but um, you know, I had a boss at

a trucking company that I worked for

that was like a real mentor to me. I

once I picked fruit in uh, Washington

State, you know, and as a migratory

worker, you know, for a while and I had

a mentor there. I never even knew his

um, last name. He was a fellow fruit

picker, you know, former marine from uh,

the Cho who was at the Chosen Reservoir

in Korea. I'm sure nobody listening to

this know knows what that is, but it was

like an amazing

>> horror show of heroism. And anyway,

>> what what was it about those two mentors

that you can uh maybe summarize that you

extracted? Was it a work ethic? Was it a

a style of being?

>> It was it was a work ethic in both

cases. Um in in the one in the one,

again, I'll sort of get a little into

the weeds here a little bit,

>> please. Um, I was uh I had gone to a

tractor trailer driving school and I got

hired and to work for this uh company in

North Carolina and I was, you know, a

beginner and um I really I I [ __ ] up

big time one time. I dropped a trailer

with like $300,000 worth of, you know,

industrial equipment in it. and and um

my boss, his name was Hugh Reeves, uh

took me out to this hot dog place called

Amos and Andy's in Durham, North

Carolina. And he sat me down and he

said, "Um, son, I don't know what Trump,

you know, uh internal drama you're going

through. I know you're going through

something, but let me tell you this.

While you're working for me, you're a

professional and your job is deliver a

load. And I don't care what happens

between A and B, you got to do that, you

know, and I was like, you know, and I

knew he was just absolutely right. And

that uh and I thought, man, I got to get

my [ __ ] together here, you know? I

can't. And so that obviously stuck with

me forever. And the uh um my friend John

from Seattle in the fruit picking world

was again, I'm going to do a longer

story than probably needs to be here.

Um,

in the uh in the fruit picking world, at

least when I was doing this, it was most

of the work was done by fruit tramps, by

guys that like were riding the rails

from the old days. And the big um one of

the phrases that they that they used was

pulling the pin. Have you ever heard

this thing? And what pulling the pin

meant was quitting too soon. Like

pulling the pin came from railroad. If

you want to uncouple one car from

another, the trainman would pull a heavy

steel pin and the cars would uncouple.

So like you would wake up one day in a

bunk house six weeks into a season and

so and so would be gone. He'd say, "Oh,

you know what happened to Andrew?" And

oh, he pulled the pin. So at the time

that I was there, I was trying for the

first time to finish a book and I'd run

out of money and I this is why I was

working to get the money and I realized

that in my life I had pulled the pin on

everything that I'd ever done on my

marriage on this that the other and this

friend of mine John would I I wanted to

quit before the season ended you know

and he would not let me do it you know

he sort of just had a he you know he

took me under his wing. And so that was

another thing that was just drilled into

my head in the sense of um am I going to

finish this project? [ __ ] yeah, I'd

rather die. I will die before I'll give

up on this project. And it was all

because of him. So that those are two

mentors that weren't writing mentors,

but that I used there those those

lessons stuck with me forever. And I

will say one thing too for anybody

that's struggling with finishing

anything. Once I did finish that book,

which I did, I've never had any trouble

finishing anything ever again.

>> Whereas it was my bet noir for years. I

would fumble on the goal line, you know,

>> resistance, former resistance.

>> I love that those two guys are uh now

alive and present in 2025. I don't know.

They may still be alive uh in general,

but um

perfectionism,

you talked about it as the enemy. Um I

learned two very disperate schools of

thought in research science. One was

no one study can answer everything. So

when it, you know, you get to the point

where you have a clear answer what the

data mean, you write it up, you ship it

out, you publish. And I feel very

fortunate that I work for people that

encourage that. Um because many people

get caught up in the idea that every

paper has to be a landmark paper.

Actually, that's one of the major causes

of scientific fraud by the way

>> when people feel that their papers have

to be published in the top tier

journals. It's it's probably the

strongest driver of scientific fraud. Um

there probably some bad apples that come

in and are seeking ways that they can

build narratives to get prizes and

stuff, but that I think they're

exceedingly rare that um those people

are driven to other fields where there's

more money involved, more fame involved.

>> But in science, a lot of bad stuff comes

from people feeling that they have to

have a landmark paper. And I was taught

early on some papers end up in solid

journals and some end up in spectacular

journals. And some projects go nowhere.

That's just the reality. Mhm.

>> The key is to figure out which one is

which and but finish things.

>> At the other end of the spectrum is this

idea that if you are able to make

something better, you should

>> and uh this is the reason I delayed my

book release for a year. I felt like I

could make it better. There was there

are new data. I want to add

illustrations, but at some point it's

got to ship. So I think we can all agree

that perfectionism is not great because

it limits our ability to complete things

and ship things off sometimes even our

ability to do the work in the first

place. But at some level if we can make

something better we probably should.

That that's also you know part and

parcel with meeting resistance and

pushing through it. So how do you

balance those th those two? They're

they're in a strong push pull for me.

>> I think that uh it's another great

question. I mean, it's so easy to as a

writer to noodle all day with one

paragraph, you know, and and of course,

it's obviously, you know, uh resist

resistance is watching and laughing at

you, you know, oh man, look at this poor

idiot. I've gotten him to completely

blow the day on this one thing. So, that

sort of perfectionism is a form of

resistance and really has to be avoided

at all costs. Um, on the other hand, you

do want to produce something that's

really good, you know, and not but, you

know, like Seth Goden says, when it's,

you know, ship it, right? When it's

ready to go, you know, there comes a

time when, you know, I'm just noodling

with this because I'm afraid of the uh

response. Is this going to fail? Is it

going to fizzle? Is it going to crash

and burn? So, I don't want to ship it

out right now. I had a friend, I tell

this story, who had uh written this in

deeply personal novel

about uh salvaging a ship. He had been

in the merchant marine and you know, I

mean, what a great metaphor that was.

And I read it. It was in its its mailing

box back in the days when you typed it

out on a typewriter ready to go and to

his agent and he couldn't make himself

send it off, you know. And the the the

sad part of the story is my friend died

and there so that was

I don't know whether that was

perfectionism or just fear of of um

being judged in the in the real world

but so it's a real vice perfectionism

and uh to be guarded against at all

costs I think. But when a thing is ready

to go let it go.

>> I'd like to talk about death. Uhhuh.

>> Um, you know, I've

>> Me too.

>> I've great u I've

>> listened to and read uh Steve Jobs's

biography.

>> Um I think it's spectacular. Um I had a

particular interest in it because

>> what's the title? Cuz I've never read

it.

>> I think it's Steve Jobs by Walter

Isacson. It's a phenomenal

>> Steve Jobs.

>> No, it's not an autobiography although

there was communication with him in the

process of writing the book. I think

that's the that one of the kind of

agreements for Isacson is you have to be

willing to talk to him and he can talk

to people in one's life and it's

spectacular and and one of the reasons I

was so interested in it is that you know

the personal computer came out during my

you know childhood. Um

>> Steve lived in our area. We'd see him

around downtown Palo Alto. He'd come

into the sport shop where I worked to

get rollerblade wheels and um

>> I was a skateboarder, but we had to

assemble rollerblades. It was just part

of the job and wagons and things. In any

case, um he from a very early point

apparently understood his own mortality.

And apparently that was a strong driver

for his intense uh drive to create

things, to envision things. um in some

sense people say it's part of the reason

why he didn't pay much attention to uh

kind of typical conventions and he was

able to evolve the world and create

these incredible products

>> um

>> devices I mean portals they're really

portals of of communication and

creativity and um

having a strong sense of one's mortality

seems very useful in that respect

>> the other end of the spectrum I have a

theory which is that all forms of

addiction

are basically an attempt to try and

avoid the reality that we're going to

die to just forget that for moments,

>> shorter or longer moments.

>> And in some sense, the pursuit of flow

states and creative works are an attempt

to kind of either forget about that or

to some people want to immortalize

themselves. But I think knowing that one

is going to die is an incredible driver.

Um, I have always had a lot of energy,

but it was only recently on kind of on

the threshold of my 50th birthday coming

up that I realized like, oh, I'm

probably at about the halfway mark. You

know, realistically, I'm a biologist. I

mean, I think, uh, genetic potential on

human longevity is probably about 120.

And with certain practices, maybe you

can get out past your, you know, where

one is faded to die by maybe five, maybe

10, maybe 20 years. And maybe new

technologies will come along that will,

um, expand that number. But I figure I'm

probably about the halfway mark. So it's

kind of nice to have a like an oh [ __ ]

moment because you stop wasting time.

>> Uhhuh.

>> Like anyone else have wasted time. So

how present is

your sense of death eventually coming

hopefully a long time from now. Again

you're in spectacularly good health and

um so that's important. But how present

is the reaper

in your process?

>> And do you think having a a real sense

that the reaper's coming is useful?

>> Yeah, definitely. Um,

I was uh having breakfast in New York a

couple of years ago with a friend of

mine who's exactly my age, you know, and

I asked him, I said, "Nick, how often do

you think about your own mortality?" and

he said every [ __ ] minute of every

[ __ ] day, you know,

>> and maybe that's a little bit excessive

because it could become paralyzing, too.

>> Yeah.

>> Right.

>> So, uh I I don't know if I I go that

far, but I'm definitely aware of it, you

know, like Robert Redford died two days

ago, right, in his sleep, you know, to

me was like an immortal guy that was

going to live forever. Um, on the other

hand, I have another friend who actually

died a couple years ago, was at my one

of my bosses in advertising named Phil

Slott, great smart guy, and he said one

time to me that people tell you that

life is short, but really life is long

and like thinking about you, Andrew,

that you're 50 years old, you've got

another 50 years ahead of you, you know.

So that one has to think,

>> you know, it's it can be also a form of

resistance. Like for me at my age, you

think, well, I'm only going to be around

a few more years. I might as well [ __ ]

off or, you know, I don't have to work

that hard, you know? But no, cuz I'm I

might be around for another 20 years or

more. That's a career. I should I could

write 15 books. I could make them. Who

knows what. Um certainly I have to which

is part of why I go to the gym you know

to think of uh I don't want to start

thinking that I'm on the way down or I

haven't got you know life is life is

long it's longer than we think and and

we have in the sense of uh it's

opportunity to do stuff but it's also an

obligation to to do stuff to keep

evolving so on and so forth. Um,

on another on another sort of side of I

don't know if this was I'll this will be

confessional for me. I know when when I

was a kid,

um, our family was sort of like the

black sheep of our bigger family. Like

everybody, all the my uncles and stuff

were all really successful and my dad

was kind of struggling, you know, and so

it became

a thing in my mind where I said, and

it's just looking ahead for how long

you're going to live. I said, 'I'm going

to show these [ __ ] that our

family is not what they think they are,

you know? And so I um that's been a real

driver for me, more so than any idea of

mortality, even over those long years

where I was getting nowhere that uh um

to sort of honor my dad and um that I

was going to, you know, hang in there

and do something.

>> Yeah. I I think that's a great

opportunity for us to talk about um

another kind of resistance which is

actually very adaptive and can propel us

forward which is um having some friction

with someone or something. I know this

is a little politically incorrect but in

one's mind to be able to drive yourself

harder and I think this can take on

toxic forms but I think it can also be

very beneficial. There's this great

moment in one of those Dark Knight

movies where the Joker has the

opportunity to kill Batman

>> and he says something like just kill me

and the Joker says kill you. He's I

don't want to kill you. You complete me.

You know it's this moment where the

Joker doesn't exist without Batman and

vice versa, right? that having somebody

or something that you're challenging

yourself to to uh that you're trying to

prove yourself to sometimes to yourself

um can be very beneficial. And at

different times in my career, certainly

not now um and I kind of miss it a

little bit to be honest, but at various

times in in my uh different careers of

of pursuits, I should say um being in

competition can be an incredible driver.

>> I could go into a whole story here, but

it doesn't matter. I think that it's

kind of evident what what we're talking

about that having someone that you

you're not going to let get the best of

you, that you know you can do better, um

can be very useful. It can also be toxic

as we pointed out because it's

>> I feel having experienced that

>> and having won by the way. No, just not

kidding.

But that the the energy that it pulls on

here, I'm going to put my physiologist

uh neuroscience hat on is, you know,

it's more of an adrenal adrenaline type

drive

>> than kind of orienting towards your love

of craft. I mean, it's meshed with that,

>> right? Hopefully, it's within a craft

you love, but to just be in sheer

competition all the time can be

depleting. And one has to be really

careful with this stuff. So, um,

obviously that got you propelled

forward. You're going to prove that your

family

>> in an unconscious way. It certainly was

not, you know, I'm only becoming aware

of it now.

>> Oh, I see. So, at the time you weren't

aware of it.

>> I wasn't even aware of it.

>> Okay. Okay. I was very aware of this

friction cuz the guy and I had like an

outright rivalry. Um, and it was a lot

of fun, too. Actually, years later, we

uh shared a coffee and reflected on how

much great work we each got done.

>> Yeah.

>> In this I mean, if you think about Larry

Bird and Magic Johnson, you know, how

they kind of made each other, you know,

pum and now they're the best of friends,

you know, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

early on.

>> Yeah. Was that true? I didn't

>> Oh, yeah. There was a big competition,

especially in the Bay Area where you had

a was it was and still remains kind of

the seat of of of tech and and computer

science. It was like, is it going to be

Windows or is it going to be the the the

the Mac operating system? And then they

when they join forces later, that would

have been like the Yankees and the Red

Sox merging. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

>> It's like it was a mind bend. You're

like, "This can't be happening." And all

the all the nerds and the bear are like,

"Oh, yeah. This happened." You know,

next thing you know, everybody's moved

on. Um,

>> so I think having resistance with

with a desire to prove to pro to prove

oneself, I think, can be helpful, right?

>> Yeah, I think so, too.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, you know, my trainer at the gym, TR

Goodman, he's trained a lot of

professional athletes, particularly

hockey players. Um, and a lot of them,

he says, because he got to know him very

well,

really had a chip on their shoulder

about something or other, like my dad,

I'm going to show my [ __ ] dad that I

can do this thing, you know, and and it

would drive them, but like you say, it

becomes kind of toxic at some point. You

do have to sort of have that come to

Jesus moment when you say wait a minute

you know let me get a let me get a

handle on this and maybe a little

forgiveness here or a little bit of

empathy a little of you know putting

myself in the position of this person

that I'm trying to show um Greg Norman's

dad you know the golfer you know that

and so many there's so many thing people

like that that uh it does become toxic

but it like you say it can produce great

success because it drives people

>> yeah Michael Jordan was famously

competitive about everything.

>> Yeah.

>> Everything.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I feel very fortunate that

these days I do things and I create out

of just a love for what I do. There's

none of that. I never think about

another podcast or

>> what other people I I think about

>> none of that truly. I would admit if I

did for you,

>> but in the past that wasn't the case.

>> It wasn't the case. And and I think that

um and at times it brought out my best

and at times it brought out my best but

it made the process much more painful. I

I think doing something for love of

craft is really important.

>> Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

>> But as you've pointed out that process

can be painful

>> even though you love the craft. It's a

weird thing. This is a bizarre dark and

light

>> braided together.

>> This creativity thing.

What about feedback from the outside

after the thing is done? Uh, reviews.

Um, let's talk about King Kong.

>> I mean, you you've written about the

fact that you made this movie and it

wasn't received with uh with broad

accolades.

>> It was quite embarrassing. Yeah.

>> But was the movie that bad?

>> Oh, it was terrible. Yeah, it was really

terrible. Yeah.

>> Did you know it was terrible when you

released it?

>> No, that was even worse.

So, you thought it was awesome?

>> It was King Kong Lives, one of the worst

movies ever. And I remember that uh I I

I wrote this with a partner, Ron Shuset,

who was one of the guys who originally

did the first alien, the thing where the

guy burst the alien bursts out of that

his the guy's chest. That was his along

with the whole face hugger thing. That

was his too. So, he was like a a really

legendary guy, particularly in science

fiction. and I was kind of his his

junior partner. And um when we we did

this movie for Dino Dler on a contract

and when and when we were done we

thought this is great. It's how crazy we

were. And we invited, you know, all of

our friends, you know, to the screening

or something. And and when it was over,

it was like death, deathly silence, you

know. And I was telling you before we

did this thing today, the review and

Daily Variety said Ronald said, and

Steven Presfield, we hope these are not

their real names for their parents'

sake. So that was that was definitely an

uh a bad moment. But from my point of

view, it was the first time I got a

movie made

>> Mhm.

>> that I was involved with at all. So I

had to say and a friend of mine, my

friend Tony Keelman took me aside and

said, you know, you're in the arena,

man. You're taking the blows, but you're

out there doing it. And he was

absolutely right. So I, you know, I

turned out to be very grateful to that.

And I still am grateful to it, but it

was a but it certainly was a terrible

review and uh kept you kept you humble.

Did you go back and analyze what was

wrong with the movie and what could have

made it great?

>> No, it was like too painful to even

think about. Yeah.

>> When was the last time you watched it?

>> Oh, not since when it came out, which

was like 1980 something or other. Yeah.

>> What was the budget for the movie?

>> A lot of it was a big budget.

>> Yeah.

>> Um I don't I don't know what it was

then, but it was it was a big budget.

Yeah.

>> In the millions.

>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of special

effects. I mean, you know, a King Kong

movie had to Yeah.

>> Wild.

>> Yeah. So, that was terrible. But uh I'm

definitely a believer that the ideal is

to not listen to anything that anybody

says about what you did and to judge it

only yourself. You know, and if you can,

I think it's good to get a sort of an

objective cross-section. You know, some

things go out there and they sink

without a trace. Some things people

really love. Um, but the bottom line is

like Paul Rink said to me, start the

next one today. You know, soon as you

because it's a lifelong, like we were

saying, it's for the love of the game.

It's a lifelong practice. And you know,

uh, a professional does not take success

or failure personally, but keeps on

going and does the next one and the next

one and the next one. with creative

works or anything that our name is

closely attached to it uh it's a

challenge right I mean a book with the

author's name there a movie with the you

know producers and the directors there

and the actors a podcast I mean almost

every major podcast is named after the

podcaster it's kind of funny and in

science the lab is named after you know

Huberman lab or whatever lab I always

thought the lab should be named after a

particular scientific quest. That's how

they do it in other countries. I think

that's a lot more elegant and it also

>> teaches a lesson to the students and

postocs that you're after discovery.

It's not just about your career.

>> Um, unfortunately in the United States,

we promote this notion of the

independent investigator. It's all about

the individual or maybe small group of

two or three of them cracking some

really difficult Watson and Crick. And

it's always been this way. It's it's

terrible. It's a feature that if I had a

magic wand and I don't, I would abolish.

But when our name is closely attached to

something,

feedback that's great feels pretty good.

And if you're a self-critical, hard

driving person, feedback that's negative

can hurt. I will say my experience is

that the larger volume of negative

feedback that you get day in and day

out, the less of an impact it has. You

know, initially like the podcast will

come out, you get a bunch of great

comments and you get some some nasty

ones and then you're like, "Oh, that

really hurts." You know, you you podcast

every week,

>> two episodes a week or an episode every

week and pretty soon that just stuff

just flies right by the the signal, the

noise, it just goes way way down.

>> So, I offer that to people because it

the the more you put out there, the more

feedback you get

>> and the less of an impact the feedback

has. But the positive feedback also it

it's just it becomes just noisier in

general. So now when you sit down to

write a book

>> you must see some level of feedback. You

want to know is it selling? Is it doing

well? Is it not doing well

>> and but it sounds like you don't analyze

why it might have done well or not well.

You just assume you know that's where

you were at in that point in time and

that's where they're at.

>> Yeah. I I don't analyze it because I

don't know if you can ever even figure

it out. And also so much of it has to do

with in any thing that you put out with

timing. Are people you know is this uh

you know ready the moment you know how

much does it get did it get promoted?

Did it get you know did people even know

it existed? Um there's so many factors

that are above and beyond whether it was

actually good

>> and I think you can only you can only

ask your you know did you do your best

>> you know um did you leave it all on the

floor and if you did

>> then that's all you can ask um but again

it's for me it's a lifelong practice

>> and I'm going to do this till they take

me out you know and whatever the next

one is I'll do that. It's clear you're

not going to pull the pin.

>> No, I'm not going to pull the pin.

>> Good. Dopamine dynamics in the brain

would tell us that if you have a big

success, say a book or a movie or an

album, what have you, that the next

thing, no matter how well it goes, is

not going to feel that great unless it

exceeds the previous thing. This is just

the laws of dopamine circuitry that

exist in all of us.

>> I didn't write the script.

It's hardwired.

>> Of all your books, which one got the

most public acceptance and praise?

>> It's either The War of Art or Gates of

Fire?

>> Okay. What book came after that?

>> But on uh let me say on both of them,

>> it took years,

>> years for that to for either of them to

uh to reach any kind of level. Neither

of them were overnight successes. There

wasn't any, you know,

any of that fanfare, nothing really.

>> Finally, like maybe eight or 10 years

later, you know, you realize, oh, you

know, this thing is percolating along

pretty good, you know, so that's a whole

different sort of there wasn't that much

dopamine coming in to me on on that.

>> That's probably a good thing.

>> Yeah, I think so.

>> Yeah. I mean, you know, the whole notion

of one hit wonders like, you know, bands

that get, you know, there's a great

movie with Tom Hanks about that. I

forget what the title is.

>> That thing you do.

>> That thing you do. It's a perfect

example of that. And um you know there

these one hit wonders are kids that you

know they they blow up. They get one

song they gone.

>> There's actually an incredible movie

that if you don't mind I'll just mention

to people that I wish everyone would

see. Um it's a documentary that I saw at

the Tribeca Film Festival years ago

called My Big Break. And it's a it's a

true story of four guys living in an

apartment in Los Angeles who all want to

become actors.

And I won't give any more information

about it, but let's just say one of them

becomes immensely successful. I won't

talk about what happens to the other

three, but the takeaway from the movie,

and I'm not, this is not a spoiler, is

that everybody gets their big break at

some point.

>> Most people blow it. Ah,

>> and they don't blow it because they

can't do the thing. They blow it because

they can't handle that it's happening

>> and they it gets in the way of their

creative process or their essence. It's

an awesome documentary.

>> Oh, really? My big break, huh?

>> Yeah. Fantastic. And I think anyone that

wants to get good at anything

>> should see it. Uh I certainly learned a

lot from it.

>> Okay. So, you're not paying attention to

the criticism is uh

>> I'm trying not to. I'm human and you

know but definitely the ideal

>> is to really move beyond that.

>> I went to college with Jack Johnson you

know guitar player. He's a very

successful musician and uh years ago we

connected and um

>> he was telling me about his life cuz I

knew his now wife. She was went to

college with us and he was telling me

about his kids and um and it was so

clear from everything he was telling me

that he had created methods to not

really come in contact with just how big

he had gotten

>> like to really like humble himself

>> good for him

>> on a daily basis doing house chores

>> great cleaning the toilet whatever it is

you know especially the days after big

>> big festivals where you just you know

had immense crowds and you know

>> uh that he had built these sort of um

self-regulatory process. It sounds like

>> like a very zen sort of story. Pastor

would say sweep the corner. You know

then

>> we grew up in Hawaii so he's he's got

that he always had this mellow. It was

amazing from be day one of college. He

was way cooler than everybody

>> and super nice. So he didn't act cool.

He was just cool cuz he was just Jack.

Great surfer, great guy. His wife's

awesome. Turn picked up a guitar. He was

in a college band uh that was um okay it

was like a backup but he wasn't even the

main guy.

>> Ah

>> and then I was in graduate school one

day and I I think I got iTunes and I

looked and I was like Jack Johnson. I

called a friend. I was like Jack

Johnson's on iTunes. They're like you

haven't noticed. I was like no I've been

nosed down in the lab like he's a really

big deal and he's I mean he's been a

really big deal for a very long time.

Incredibly humble, incredibly kind

>> and self-regulates,

>> you know. Um

>> good for him. Yeah, external validation

sounds like it's an enemy for you as

much as criticism is an enemy.

>> Yeah, I mean I certainly don't believe

in it at all. I think it's a seductive

thing that's only going to pull you in

the wrong direction, you know. Yeah.

Third party validation as my uh my

partner Shawn Coin, my business partner

Sean Coin, which I have to give him

credit before we forget. The title, the

War of Art, was not my title. It was

Shawn Coin's title.

>> He handed that to you. He gave me that

title. Yeah, we published we published

the book together. His little company

published it. But um that was his title.

So God bless him.

>> Yeah. God bless him. Titles matter.

>> Yeah, they do.

>> Titles matter.

>> Eat, pray, love.

>> How does that It doesn't get better than

that. Yeah.

>> The body keeps the score.

>> Ah yeah. No other book in the field of

kind of um psychology, biology, wellness

has like resonated in people's minds as

much and as long as the body keeps the

score because it's just an awesome

title.

>> Yeah, it is. It's a great one.

>> Yeah. How much or how often do you think

about book titles? Is it at the end

during? at the end, but I find that

they're really hard, you know, and a lot

of times other people have titled stuff

for me or I've, you know, it's really

hard

>> to come up with a great one. Yeah, I

don't know what the secret is at all. If

it sometimes it pops out along the way.

Um, yeah, I don't know.

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to get early access to Function. Do you

think that personal sacrifice at the

level of relationships

is necessary to be a successful artist

of any kind?

>> Certainly in my experience, yes.

And um

I was talking to uh a friend of mine

who's a

um a bodybuilder and he was talking he

was just saying to me the other day he

said, "I don't believe in balance. you

know, the work life balance, you know,

um, and I'm kind of that way, too. You

know that uh

if you want, I mean, I I take my hat off

tremendously to Kobe Bryant for being

such a family man. Obviously loved his

kids, loved his wife,

>> but yet was obsessed with basketball,

you know, to the nth degree. Somehow he

did it

>> and and able even to go beyond that, you

know, and be helpful to people and so

forth. But I do think that uh at some

point, you know, if you're going to

pursue your calling, whatever it is, you

got to pursue it with both feet. And,

you know, so

that might lead to an unbalanced,

you know, life.

>> So that means telling people you're

going to bed early. You go to bed very

early. I go to bed early, but that

that's just my own quirkyness, you know.

But um but there are a lot of things

that I've missed in life, including

having kids. And um but I don't I don't

regret it, you know. That's the nature

of the game, I think.

>> Well, you have a rich and full life.

>> I mean, I have an unbalanced life, but

to me, it's what I what I I've chosen.

You know, this is uh like that great

speech in The Godfather Part Two where

uh is it Lee Stberg who played um uh

the equivalent not Myer Lansky the real

whatever I forget his name was but he

said he was talking about when

>> Hyman Roth

>> Heyman Roth Heyman Roth and he said uh

he had his this scene with Michael

Corleone where he says he talked about

Mo Green his protege that they grew up

somebody put a bullet in his eye. And I

never asked who did it because I said to

myself, "This is the life we've chosen."

And that's that's how I look at it. It's

interesting. It

>> was a great scene, too.

>> It is a great scene. Um

>> God, those movies are so good. Yeah.

>> Um the first two anyway.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Talk about a flop on the third.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

Um,

in the United States we celebrate high

achievers and people that really break

off from the pack. It's it's really the

essence of the United States in terms of

how it was

>> Yeah.

>> You know, u

>> more the pity.

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> Now we're paying the price. Yeah. But

you know, Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe

Bryant, I mean, these people had, as you

pointed out, very um well, maybe Kobe

was a bit more balanced, but immense

number of hours devoted to craft, but I

feel like if you grow up in the United

States, at some point you get the

message that that could be you.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. That's that's different than uh

and I know because my dad's from South

America and I have family from Europe

and uh I've been exposed to the fact

that not every kid around the world

grows up getting the message in their

ear all the time like hey that could be

you.

>> You just have to find your thing and

devote yourself. Then now there seems to

be a bit of a pivot where

people focus on, you know, the flaws

those high achievers had and that they

weren't perfect. And I think what we're

saying here is that or what I'm hearing

is that it's by definition that if

you're going to go for a high peak that

your your life is not going to be

balanced. Sort of like

>> um you know Edund Hillary first to climb

Everest, he was gone for a long time.

They didn't have cell phones. I imagine

if he had a family, they didn't even

know if he was going to come back.

That's not balance.

>> That's not balance at all. They weren't

handing out checks at the top of

Everest.

>> So, this idea that, you know, pursuing

one's craft at the expense of something

else,

>> is that something that uh you carefully

analyzed along the way or do you feel

you've been driven by some force inside

you to just keep leaning into creative

uh works and if things have to gently or

not so gently fall off the side? Um, so

be it.

>> I have tried in my life various

um other endeavors including love,

marriage,

a straight career, you know, a

bluecollar career, always trying to find

something that at the end of the day I

could lay my head on the pillow and have

peace of mind. And

nothing worked until I found, you know,

pursuing my craft that worked for me.

You know, I could I could

at the end of the day I felt okay, I've

earned my place on the planet doing

this, whereas other things I would at

the end of the day I would just be

crazy, you know. So I was sort of led to

that. It was like, thank God I found

something, you know, that I can uh, you

know, hang my hat on. And over that was

a long time ago and over the course of

those years I sort of from time to time

I asked myself is this still working for

you or is this are you did you you know

should you be evolving into something

beyond this but it it is still working

for me and it and there is I don't

really have a bucket list of stuff you

know somebody gave me a billion dollars

I just give it away you know um so yeah

uh it just was for me and again it's not

even like about peak success because I

haven't had peak success at all. You

know, I've had enough success to pay the

rent, which is good enough for me. You

know, I'm doing what I want to do and I

don't have to do something else. Um, so

it is for me it's really a sort of

pursuit of of of what I feel like I was

put on the planet to do. And it's always

been a surprise, too. Book to book to

book. I'd never each one is a surprise.

Um, which is another sort of weird

counterintuitive thing. It isn't like,

oh, could you do a five-year planning?

Oh, I'm going to do this and this. No,

you know, something comes, it presents

itself, it comes in from the goddess

>> and there it is, you know, and then you

do it.

>> So, it's clear it's in your nature to

create things and to discover what it is

you need to create. I

so can't help but feel that like we're

all here to do something particular

to us.

>> Yeah, I think so.

>> Yeah. And I think a lot of times if

people don't have a balanced life,

people assume, oh, well, that's trauma.

And sometimes it is. And uh or that's

this or that's that. I mean, nowadays I

have more

>> uh you know, quote unquote famous

friends and and a lot of them have

trauma. A lot of them don't.

>> Mhm. Some of them are like really happy

and a lot of them have

>> kind of disappointing.

>> Yeah. And and a lot of them have what I

call it kind of more of a bento box life

like but where their career is, you

know, the the main entree and then

there's some other little

>> things and they have relationship and um

of different kinds animals or people and

um and some people the relationship bin

is bigger

>> and their career is less of a less of a

focus and they seem very happy. Um so

this notion of balance is a is a

peculiar one that people whatever uh

bento box people seem to exist in they

they sort of like to project onto

others.

>> Uh how much time do you spend on social

media?

>> Maybe an hour a day. you know, I sort of

uh it's a vice which I've got to

definitely stop doing. But I will go

like through Instagram and do that, you

know, just kind of as far as like com

communicating with people, very little,

you know, like

>> my email I'm get I'm done with my email

in like two minutes in the morning, you

know.

>> But I do think it's great that it's you

on social media, you know, that it's

your voice for your content. I think um

I think that's great because I think

that there's a real thing to that people

now can get in near direct contact with

the creators that they're

>> inspiring with other people that are

doing whatever they're doing. Yeah.

>> One thing that I really appreciate about

all your work is that

>> um there doesn't seem to be a consistent

theme. Some of them overlap,

>> right? Um but

>> there are a lot of different themes in

there. Before we move to some of the

themes that perhaps people are not

expecting that I'd like to parse with

you. Um talk about turning pro and the

concept of being a professional.

Um

if we accept the idea of resistance with

a capital R that's our own internal

tendency to sabotage ourselves when we

try to uh set out to write our book or

do our movie or follow our calling

whatever it is. Then the question

becomes well how do you overcome this

thing? And uh what worked for me was the

idea of turning pro. For years when I

was struggling and could never get it

together, I realized that at one point

that I was just thinking like an amateur

and that if I could flip a switch in my

mind and think like a professional that

I I could overcome some of the things

like um um when I think of uh a great

pro, I think of Kobe Bryant or Michael

Jordan or Tom Brady or somebody like

that. And um so like a professional some

of the characteristics of a professional

as opposed to an amateur.

>> Mhm.

>> A professional shows up every day.

>> Mhm.

>> A professional stays on the job all day

or the equivalent of of all day. I mean

a lot of us who have jobs are

professionals in our jobs but when we

come home at night and we try to you

know start our band or you know our

fiddle band we flame out on that sort of

because we can't sort of carry over that

professional attitude. A prof a

professional as I said this before does

not take success or failure personally.

An amateur will right? An amateur gets a

bad review bad response of this and they

just crap out. I don't want to do this

anymore. Right? uh professional plays

hurt like if uh Kobe Bryant, Michael

Jordan, you know, if they've tweaked the

hamstring, they're out there, you know,

they'll die before they'll get be taken

off the court, you know. Uh whereas an

amateur when he or she confronts

adversity will fold.

>> Oh, it's too cold out, you know. I've

got a I got a you know, I've got the

flu. That kind of thing. Um, another

thing, uh, an amateur worries about how

they feel, like, "Oh, I don't feel like

getting out of bed this morning. I don't

feel like really doing my work today." A

professional doesn't care how they feel.

They they they do it, right? Um, so an

amateur has amateur habits and a

professional has professional habits.

And my book, Turning Pro, is about that,

flipping that switch in your head that

costs no money. You don't have to take a

course. You don't have to get certified.

All you have to do is sort of say to

yourself, if you can do it, and it ain't

easy. Okay, I'm going to attack this

thing, whatever it is now, as if I were

Kobe Bryant, you know, would he quit,

you know, when he didn't feel like doing

it? Absolutely not. So, and and um oh,

here's another aspect of turning pro

that worked for me. Uh, I had like about

a 10-year career as a screenwriter, as

we talked about with King Kong Lives.

And um

one of the things you learn is that

screenwriters a lot of times will have

their one-man corporations and they will

not sign a contract as themselves. You

know, it won't be Andrew Huberman is on

the contract. It'll be your corporation,

Huberman Lab, FSO, for services of

Andrew Huberman. And I really love that

idea of thinking of yourself as a

twopart thing. This you're the CEO of

this thing and then you're the also the

guy that does the work.

>> And I would find that

if I was just thinking of myself as the

guy that's doing the work,

I have a hard time pitching my ideas.

I'm sort of too shy. But if I'm the CEO

of my company, of my corporation, I'm a

pro. I can go in there and pimp the hell

out of it, you know?

So that idea of being a of of looking at

yourself as a professional kind of takes

all judgment out of any failures that

we've had. We don't blame ourselves

anymore for procrastinating or being

perfectionists or giving into fear or

self-doubt or anything. We just say,

"Well, okay, I did that when I was

thinking like an amateur, but now I'm

going to think like a pro." And a pro

just doesn't doesn't yield to that

stuff. So, it's a that that's a a mind

shift, a mindset shift that really

helped me a lot.

>> I love that. I mean, so much of that

feels is nested in taking oneself

seriously.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, I think when people hear the

words taking oneself seriously, they

think, "Oh, well, someone's going to be

heavy. They're never going to joke. No

sense of humor." But that's not what I'm

referring to.

>> I wish people would take themselves more

seriously, including their creative

sparks inside of them. Um, you said

there's no cost to turning pro. I agree

there's no u monetary cost. You can

decide to flip that switch. Uh, I would

argue and I'm not arguing against

because I don't think that uh

>> No, I know what you're going to say. I

agree with you. I think there's a huge

cost and the the huge cost I'm referring

to is the one of how people around you

react when you start taking yourself

seriously. I mean, I don't need to go

into the story. I've done it elsewhere,

but I was a an unimpressive high school

student. Thank God for my high school

girlfriend going off to college and

discovering that. And then thank God for

the biology teacher that turned me on to

biology. Thank God for Harry Carl. But

>> I had the drive, but certainly it wasn't

organized in the right ways. But when I

switched from being a fun guy to be

around in a lot of context to the guy

that is absolutely going to ace the exam

no matter how much work I have to put

into it that's absolutely going to be in

the gym three days a week that's

absolutely going to get my sleep and you

know you get a lot of flack especially

in your early 20 late teens early 20s

now I did go out and party then I was I

didn't never drank a lot but I I went to

parties and but across the years I did

fewer and fewer social things. Even as a

as a graduate student, postoc and a

junior professor, you know, at meetings,

everyone would go to happy hour. I would

go work out if I hadn't done it that

morning. And I would go to sleep at

night instead of staying up late talking

in the bar because great interactions

would happen in those bars, scientific

discussions and so forth. But the next

morning, I wanted to be on point during

the seminar and be able to learn and be

able to contribute. And so the big cost

is not everybody likes that because they

feel it as pressure. It's sort of like

if you're eating well, you're eating

healthy. People pay more attention to

the ways they are not eating healthy and

they will do everything they can to try

and make you feel bad about that.

>> Yeah,

>> we see this in mass. We see this in

culture. You know it, you know, even

there are extremes of, you know, body

dysmorphia and people taking fitness to

extremes that aren't healthy or anything

to extremes. But we see people being bas

basically not shamed but uh ridiculed

for being serious about their health.

It's nuts. But it's all about them. It's

very clear. It's all about their own

unwillingness to give up the second

chocolate croissant.

>> Yeah. you know, or to feel like maybe

they're not as fit as the people around

them. I mean, when standards around you

are at risk of rising,

that can be really scary to people.

>> Yeah, we were talking about that

earlier, Andrew, when I was saying that

like um it becomes when you start eating

healthy and sleeping and getting up

early and stuff, it becomes a reproach

to your friends who know that they're

not doing that, know they should be

doing that, and they say, "Who is this

guy to do that?" you know, and then they

will try to sabotage you and undermine

you and ridicule you. And so, you're

right, turning pro does have a cost. A

lot of times, you know, if you take that

course, you have to leave people behind.

You know, people who were your friends,

you can't be friends with them anymore,

you know, because a lot of times groups

of friends will have an unspoken kind of

compact among them that we're all going

to stay mediocre.

That's the deal, right? And in fact, um,

Goodwill Hunting, that was what that

movie was about, right? That, uh, the,

um,

um, Matt Damon character was this

mathematical genius, right? And, uh, his

buddies, all of his, you know, fist

fighting Boston Souy guys were had this

compact. They were all going to stay,

you know, kind of bluecollar guys and

we're all going to be buddies and we're

going to have a wonderful time, you And

then there's that great scene at the end

of the movie where um Ben Affleck, his

best friend, says to him, you know, if I

come back 20 years from now and you're

still here, I'm going to kill you cuz

you won the lottery. You got this thing

and you this gift and you got got to use

it. So there are those kind of packs

that people make. We're all going to

stay mediocre right here where we are.

And if you Andrew try to rise above you

be the tall poppy, somebody's going to,

you know, cut you off. So sometimes we

do have to leave people behind you know.

>> Well the good news is and I can say this

from experience that there are people

waiting for you who have high standards

that are

>> make excellent friends and many of the

people that at one point we feel we've

left behind

>> later come back and ask for ways to

better themselves physically creative

creatively etc. Um yeah, I think um the

notion of dominant culture is one that

um my dad internalized in me really

early on. One of the things I love about

being a professor at Stanford is you

look to your right or you look to your

left and people are awesome. People are

going it's it has if anything I mean you

know it's the issue that you go well how

much pressure is this? And um you know I

would say actually very little from the

outside. Everyone who's a faculty member

at Stanford is putting so much pressure

on themselves to live out their vision

of what they're trying to create. I

mean, it's spectacular. I've got

colleagues that I could tell you about

multiple domains of life where they're

just

>> 11 out of 10, right? And some it's only

one and in some they have more

challenged personal lives like anything

else. And in some they seem to just do

it all. But the uh I think the notion a

former guest on this podcast who's a a

tier former tier one operator um DJ

Shipley uh said you never want to be the

big fish in the small pond. That's the

worst place to be. It's the most

uncomfortable, sad, low place to be. You

want to be surrounded by people who are

really striving but really pushing

themselves. your standards go up and you

get better and you realize all sorts of

wonderful things about who you can

become. I think that's one good feature

of social media now, which is that

people can find mentors. They can find

people who are um are not giving the

illusion of being perfect. You know, we

used to think that famous people were

perfect.

>> Nowadays, the more famous you are, the

harder it is to control your reputation.

>> And I think that's in some ways a good

thing. has its darker side but the the

idea that nobody's perfect. It's just

that people are emphasizing or

deemphasizing certain aspects of life.

>> So, but yeah, I think uh turning oneself

pro, which is as you pointed out,

something that people can just do for

themselves, is really about taking

yourself seriously and taking life

seriously.

>> And that brings me to a bigger question,

which is

>> so much of what you talk about, this is

why I love it so much, is about the

practical. We started off talking about

like what you do and when and how and

how you close out a session and how you

reopen a session,

>> but it seems like you're also very

connected to the spiritual aspects of

the creative process that you really

bookend these for lack of a better

phrase that you really bookend the two

aspects of the creative process because

for many people they hear about

creativity and it can seem kind of

mystical

>> and it almost like trying to grab fog

and many times it the process is like

trying to grab fog. So, you've given a

lot of extremely practical advice, but

when it comes to the kind of spiritual

um higher order stuff, if you will, the

muse um

how large a role does that play in your

reflections about where you're going? Uh

because sounds like you believe that a

lot of this stuff is not us, it's coming

through us.

>> I I absolutely believe that. And I, you

know, you're right, Andrew, and it's a

the creative life, I think, is a

twosided thing. You know, the one side

is kind of the the bluecollar practical

aspect of being a professional that you

know, you can sit down, you can do your

work, you discipline yourself, you know

what you're going to do, but the other

side is that where do ideas come from?

They don't come from us, you know, they

come from someplace else. And um so I'm

I'm definitely a believer that we live

on the material plane here, but there's

a plane above us and we're trying to

communicate to that plane and that plane

is trying to communicate to us. And our

job as artists um like if we were in a

in a monastery or something, the the

move from here to here would be called

prayer. But if we're artist, the move

from here to here is like the invocation

of the muse. It's kind of saying, "Give

me an idea. help me, you know, and and

and one we on the material plane put

ourselves at the service of this higher

plane of our illumined self or whatever

you want to call it, the yungian self,

whatever we want to call it, and um try

to channel it as best we can. And our

job here to be is to be a in terms of

being a pro is to sort of be ready to

take that voltage as it comes in. And

like Beethoven could play on the piano

what he was hearing in his in his head,

right? So that's our job. We we have to

be able to to know how to produce that

in material form, whatever that is, but

it's coming from another place. So I'm

I'm absolutely a believer that uh you

know there are higher dimensions and

there's probably a lot of higher

dimensions. Um,

and I think the Greeks were really kind

of on to something in the ancient Greeks

in their concept of uh the muses and the

various gods and goddesses that are uh,

you know, interacting with this material

plane that we're on. I, you know, that's

a way of anthropomorphizing it. I'm sure

you could, we could come up with some

way in the quantum field or something.

If you're a scientist, you probably know

how to that it has to do with something.

I don't know what, but there is

something coming from somewhere and it

ain't us.

>> Well, I have my ideas about that. Very

few of them are grounded in um neurons

and and cells, but they interact with

neurons and cells. It's an evolving

area. You know, we had um a guest on the

podcast uh uh David Denno, who's a um

professor at Northeastern University

talk about the relationship between

science and religion and how acts of

faith, not just saying one believes in

God. um not just saying one believes in

a higher order consciousness but acts of

faith,

>> prayer for you, maybe it's through

writing or other expressions that

involve action that those absolutely

have positive health benefits. We now

know that um but that it's really about

the acts of faith

>> that

>> I love that phrase. That's a great one

and it is true.

>> Yeah. He it it struck a chord with me

too because in biology you learn that

you need to understand the names of

things. Mitochondria, Golgi apparat you

need to know that but those are just

names. But the real magic in

understanding biology and being able to

internalize it is understanding things

in their verb states, right?

Understanding how neurons work, not just

as a description, but being able to

think about that and visualize it. I

think it's the same with ourselves. This

is why like you know clinical labels can

be useful but understanding when one is

in a uh sort of a place verb actions of

gratitude as opposed to just a reciting

some gratitude thing that there's it's

subtle but it's meaningful. Anyway, I

don't quite know how to articulate it,

but Denno

described this and and the data from his

laboratory um are showing that when

people start to think in terms of

faith-based actions

for many people through, you know,

religious, you know, scripture, reading

scripture or whatever it is. But there

are many ways to to access this that um

all sorts of interesting things start to

happen at the level of morality at the

level of their own consciousness at

their level of feelings of connectedness

that go beyond any kind of simple 2 plus

2 equals 4 outcome. So I totally agree

with you. There's something else

>> definitely something else going on.

>> It's exciting. I think that you know

>> I know you're not a big drinker. Neither

am I. Maybe that's why you um you look

so young for your age and so robust.

Although I think uh if I were to wager,

I'd say it's also because you're

pursuing what you love. You're you're

answering your calling. Certainly,

that's the neverending source of

dopamine.

>> Ah, is it?

>> Absolutely. Because it's it's it's

self-replenishing.

>> Ah, I mean that's a great word,

self-relening.

>> Yeah. It's a you know that's the clearly

the thing. clearly the thing. Uh

>> so

>> you don't drink much but nowadays

there's a lot of discussion and perhaps

there always was about taking things to

be able to at to bridge this plane

between the self and the this higher

order uh these messages that that we can

receive and can come through us. Um I

know a lot of writers drink a lot a

there have been a lot of alcohol

alcoholic writers um

>> there you hear that anyway not that I

know anybody.

>> Yeah I I think historically that was

true. I think a lot of writers have

relied on amphetamines and alcohol to

get their work done

>> and nicotine.

>> Nicotine's kind of making a comeback in

non-smoke form. So, let's set that

aside.

>> Um,

>> you do this through sheer good old

marine style grit, it sounds like.

>> Yeah. or or kind of surrendering to it,

you know, like I'm not a meditator, but

from what I gather, that's sort of what

meditation is about, you know? So, yeah,

just sort of that's how I that's how I

do it. I'm not even sure how I do it. I

just put myself at the service of what

I'm trying to do and and try to get out

of the way as much as I can.

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Throughout today's discussion, you've

mentioned various physical labor jobs. I

have a very practical question. How

comfortable is the chair you sit in when

you write? Uh, not very comfortable, but

I'm only sitting there for a couple

hours, so it's okay. Yeah.

>> How much do you care that it's unc not

that comfortable?

>> It probably should not be comfortable,

you know.

>> But, uh, hopefully you're in your head

and you're not really noticing that sort

of thing. Why do you ask that question,

Andrew?

>> Because years ago, I I went online and I

was like looking at some stuff about

writers and there's a very famous

writer. I won't mention his name. And he

said, you know, it's very important that

you have a super comfortable chair

because otherwise you're going to be and

I and you know what my first thought

was, even though I he's far more

successful at writing than I am. Um I

thought that's terrible advice because

if someone were going to ask me, you

know, how to do, I don't know, like a a

really clean uh protein labeling

experiment in the lab, you know,

imunohistochemistry or something like

that. I would make sure that they had

everything. I would make sure that the

antibodies were fresh out of the but

then

>> I would not want them to even know that

there are now you know like

>> kits that can make certain aspects of

the process much easier because the

moment you experience that creature

comfort the the more painful the good

old classic way of doing it is. Now,

that's not to say I wouldn't embrace new

technologies, but this notion of

optimization, which sometimes gets

thrown at me, is a terrible one with

respect to the creative process because

I believe that if you're thinking about,

oh, like, am I comfortable or not? Am I

in an optimal place to to create it? We

started this podcast in a closet,

>> a small closet with me, Rob, and the

bulldog. Yeah.

>> And we were not thinking about

optimizing anything except getting the

audio and the visuals just right enough

that we could get it out there.

>> So I love love love and I'm not

surprised that you have a slightly

uncomfortable chair and then you don't

really care so much.

>> Yeah.

>> You know,

>> yeah, I agree completely that you know

that advice was really bad. I would go

to the absolute opposite. You know, get

the most uncomfortable chair you

possibly can have.

Do you think those years of physical

labor, marine training, and your morning

ritual of going to the gym uh have

allowed your mind to be more durable by

virtue of the fact that you can toler I

think you can tolerate a fair amount of

physical discomfort that you probably

don't even realize because you have no

comparison that most people would um

>> probably buckle under or at least be

kind of like like you that

>> I don't know.

>> I feel like you are the opposite of like

crotchety, you know? Yeah. Terrible word

to describe. You know,

>> you don't see me at home, Andrew.

>> Okay. Yeah. Are you you're not a Are you

a complainer?

>> No, I'm I've really tried. I never

complain at all. I think it's a real

vice. It's another form of resistance.

>> Interesting. Well, Stephen Presfield,

this has been awesome. Before we

conclude, I do want to ask you, what's

your most recent book and what's it

about? And

if you're willing, maybe give us a

little peak behind the veil of of what

might be coming next.

>> I have a book coming next June.

>> Uh

we were talking about this before. I I

had a book uh a few years ago called A

Man at Arms, which was about it's about

a recurring character that I have who I

call the oneman killing machine of the

ancient world. Kind of the Clint

Eastwood of the ancient world, Telmon of

Arcadia. And that book took place around

the time of the crucifixion

um fiction. Um the new book is one of

the aspects of Telmont is he keeps

living life after life after life. And

he is he's doomed because of crimes he

committed in the past to live life after

life as a soldier. Always as a soldier,

always fighting, always killing, always

being killed, so on and so forth. So,

this new book that's coming out, it's

called The Arcadian, is about his final

life.

And uh I won't say any more than that

except that it takes place in the past

and that um it's it's it's pretty

interesting and that uh how this all

sort of plays out. It really kind of

goes what we were talking about before

about are there different levels of

reality? And in this case, um there

definitely are different levels of

reality. and this character has to deal

with them um on the field of justice and

payback.

>> Fantastic. Next June.

>> Next June. Yeah. Okay. The Arcadian.

>> The Arcadian. We'll keep our eyes and

ears out for that. Meanwhile, uh you

know, I don't know which book to

recommend most, but you know, I love War

of Art. Um I love Do the Work. There's

so many. Um you know, so I won't ask you

to to add uh just one other Gates of

Fire. They're all awesome. They're

awesome listens and they're awesome

reads. Uh people should definitely check

these out. It's uh clear you've had an

enormous impact on people's creative

process. And these books are also very

>> entertaining to listen to. It's not not

a bunch of lists. Yeah, they they really

are. And um and I'm actually very

grateful I should say that you didn't

have a ton of like immediate and big

success with your movie with the King

Kong movie or and that War of Art took

some time because I do think everything

we know about dopamine dynamics tells us

that who knows maybe you would have not

written the subsequent books and I I I

look at your work as a as a body of work

and as a scientist that's something that

I can really appreciate. body of work is

really what makes for an awesome

>> and what you just said about dopamine. I

never had thought about that about it

that way. That's true. Sort of a slow

release dopamine for me, you know, over

many years

>> and well and it compounds the way that

you've experienced uh your wins. I mean,

oh, I've got stories and go on for days

about people I knew that had big papers

published in Science or Nature that then

disappeared

completely. They're just gone. They're

just completely gone because they

couldn't take that the next thing didn't

match up to the first thing. Um, you

know, th this stuff is real. The one hit

wonder thing happens in every field.

And, uh, that movie, My Big Break, like

really captures it in the in the realm

of uh acting.

>> Um,

>> you know, a lot of things we're talking

about here today, Andrew, they don't

teach you in school. You know, nobody

teaches you about what if you are have a

one hit, how do you handle, nobody even

that's the topic doesn't come up at all

or how to how to handle negative

criticism, how to handle positive stuff

like that. What's the idea of turning

pro? Nobody, you never learn this, you

know, and they're all absolutely vital

life skills that you hope you encounter

mentors along the way that teach you

because it's not taught in school.

>> Well, God bless you for stepping up and

being that mentor to so many people,

including to me. You're on that list. I

I swear you're on that list, and it's

not a long list. Embarrassed. No. Well,

for the right reasons, I should say.

>> And thank you for coming here today. And

>> thank you for having me.

>> Yeah, this has been a real pleasure.

>> We've been talking about this for years.

>> It was great when we discovered we were

neighbors.

>> Yeah.

>> I hope we haven't squeezed all the fruit

out of the orange here. We can do this

again sometime.

>> Oh, absolutely. And I'll see you in the

gym. I'll try and get up a little

earlier. That's actually starting after

my

>> a little later.

>> Starting after my 50th birthday, I'm I'm

going to be a 5:00 a.m. riser. ah

>> no matter what time I went to sleep that

was something I resolved a few days ago

with um after a different discussion on

here but um I feel a strong

anti-depressant effect of waking up and

you just get so much more done

>> you know but that getting out of bed

>> when you haven't slept

>> quite as much as you would like is

brutal

>> and as I said to you before 50 is

nothing at all you're just a kid you

know you got another 50 plus years ahead

of yourself so I know when you turn 50,

you turn 40, you turn 30, oh my god, my

life is over, you know, not so, you

know, take it from me. I' I'd give my

left arm to be 50 again. You got it

made. Awesome. Well, that perhaps is the

best birthday gift I could have

received. Feels good. Thank you. Please

come back again. Thanks for doing

everything you're doing. I know I do not

need to tell you this, but please just

keep going. We're We're all

>> I will if you will.

>> Deal.

>> All right.

>> Thank you for joining me for today's

discussion with Steven Presfield. To

learn more about his work and to find

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