Put Your Ass

Steven Pressfield

• When you move your material ass to the geographic site of your dream, your peers and potential mentors think at once, This person is serious. She has committed. She has burned the boats. She is one of us.

• They’ve moved to these places because they’re serious. Because they’re committed.

• Yes, technically, you can audition via Zoom or send in your demo from fifteen hundred miles away, but you and your submission will not be considered as serious. You will be perceived as half-in/half-out, as a part-timer and a dilettante.

• Ernie cited three reasons: “One, working means you’re getting paid. Every buck means you’re a working pro. You’re toiling in your chosen field. “Two, when you work, you learn. Everybody has something to teach you. A grip will show you something about lighting, an editor will drop some pearl about what to keep and what to cut. Even actors know something. “Three, you’re making friends. Some kid who’s schlepping coffee today may be a producer tomorrow. An actress you do some free work for today may get you hired for a rewrite six months from now.”

• Level Two, however, is about the Inner Body, the metaphorical self. It means “move to the Paris/London/New York in your mind.”

• When we say, “Put your ass where your heart wants to be” in this sense, we mean, “Commit emotionally, psychologically, spiritually to your dream.”

• There’s a term in mountaineering called “exposure.” To be “exposed” means to be in a position where we can fall, possibly a long way, possibly to our death.

• Commitment = exposure. That’s why people don’t commit. They’re not stupid. They don’t want to risk falling off the mountain.

• When we say, “Put your ass where your heart wants to be,” we’re proposing a mindset that is designed to outfox Fear of the Unknown. It says: Don’t try to overcome your fear. Fear cannot be overcome. Instead simply move your body into the physical space you fear ... and see what happens.

• the universe responds to the hero or heroine who takes action and commits. It responds positively.

• You can be a full-time writer, one hour a day.

• In that hour and a half of intense concentration on every part of your body, the music, the coordinating with the other dancers, you really couldn’t think about your troubles and it was great escaping them.

• Every project doesn’t have to be Citizen Kane. It’s okay to work on “B” movies and “C” pictures or to write trade ads for Preparation H. As long as we do our absolute best and keep our eyes on the prize of producing, maybe five or ten years from now, our own best material, as truly as we can to our own lights.

• This is the job. There is no other job. This is the job.

• Barring

• THE OFFICE IS CLOSED When I finish the day’s work, I turn my mind off. The office is closed. The work has been handed off to the Unconscious, to the Muse. I respect her. I give her her time. If I see family or friends, I never talk about what I’m working on. I politely deflect any queries. But beyond not talking with others, I refuse to talk to myself. I don’t obsess. I don’t worry. I don’t second-guess. I let it rest. The office is closed.

• For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.

• smattering

• All that mattered to Watashi was that you do your job—on time and to the best of your ability—whether you “felt” like it or not.

• Watashi don’t give a shit how you “feel.” Did the Marine Corps issue you “feelings”? Then you ain’t got none. Shut up and get to work! That’s self-reinforcement.

• It’s not just put your ass. It’s put your whole ass. And put it across the full spectrum.

• Steel yourself and put that sucker out of its misery. Ship it. Kill kill = good good.

• The ego is that part of ourselves that we call “I.” The ego is the part that has a driver’s license, that pays taxes, that worries about its kids’ futures. The ego is rational. The ego thinks. The ego makes plans. The ego worries. The ego fears. The ego perceives reality through the prism of its own “I”-ness. When we try to sing or write or dance from the ego, we fall on our face. It is impossible to sing or write or dance from the ego.

• Dreams come from the Self. Intuition comes from the Self. Ideas come from the Self. Inspiration comes from the Self.

• convulsion

• Those who had admired us, or supported our ambitions in the past, may now turn against us. The violence of their hostility may surprise or even overwhelm us. The people closest to us, our own parents or children, may become estranged from us, or us from them.