When we turn pro, the energy that once went into the Shadow Novel goes into the real novel. What we once thought was real—"the world"—turns out to be only a shadow. And what had seemed to be only a dream becomes, now, the reality of our lives.

The hero must possess the passion and the will to push the story to the limits of human experience in order to achieve their goal.

Addictions are not "bad." They are simply the shadow forms of a more noble and exalted calling. Our addictions are our callings themselves, only encrypted and incognito. The are a metaphor for our best selves, the coded version of our higher aspirations.

All addictions share, among others, two primary qualities: 1. They embody repetition without progress. 2. They produce incapacity as a payoff.

"We'll figure it out. It's our job." stevenpressfield.com/2025/02/with-t…

There's a difference between failing (which is a natural and normal part of life) and being addicted to failure. When we're addicted to failure, we enjoy it. Each time we fail, we are secretly relieved.

There's a glamour to failure that has been mined for centuries by starving poets, romantic suicides, and other self-defined doomed souls. This glamour inverts failure and turns it into "success".

Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. Why? Because when we work with focus and we work deep, we succeed.

Resistance wants to keep us shallow and unfocused. So it makes the superficial and the vain intoxicating. Speaking of, have you checked your email in the last half hour?

What you and I are really seeking is our own voice, our own truth, our own authenticity.