Order of Man - STEVEN PRESSFIELD

00:00:00.000 Gents, today I'm joined by my friend and repeat guest, Mr. Steven Pressfield.

00:00:03.980 We talk about his new novel, A Man at Arms, but we also get into so much more,

00:00:08.320 including overcoming imposter syndrome, getting past your fears, dealing with procrastination,

00:00:14.020 handling disappointment effectively, you know, all the things that we deal with as men,

00:00:18.180 and also why it's important to make your concerns real and tangible. My first podcast with Steven

00:00:24.560 was so popular that I knew we needed to have him back on, and this one certainly did not disappoint.

00:00:30.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:34.940 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not

00:00:40.820 easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:00:48.000 This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:52.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler,

00:00:57.400 and I am the host and the founder of the Older Man podcast and movement. Welcome here and welcome

00:01:02.260 back. As you can tell, the men that have joined us over the past several weeks has been absolutely

00:01:08.440 phenomenal. We've had Steve Rinella. We've had Evan Hafer and Tim Kennedy. Of course,

00:01:14.000 we've got Steve Pressfield on today, and I've got some new and exciting guests coming on in the very

00:01:19.140 near future, some of which we've recorded and some of us, which we have committed to coming on the

00:01:25.780 podcast. And so I need you to subscribe. I'm just telling you right now, you don't want to miss

00:01:30.380 these conversations that are coming up. So make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts,

00:01:34.480 leave a rating review that goes a long way in promoting the visibility and get on the path

00:01:39.520 because this is going to be a great year. It's already shaping up to be a great year. And I really

00:01:43.560 appreciate your support. Before I get into the podcast today, I want to mention something that I'm

00:01:47.720 very excited about. Last year, I started working closely with Origin to formulate a product that I

00:01:54.540 personally use every single day. It's beard oil. We traveled to Philadelphia, Brian Littlefield and

00:02:00.600 myself to meet with American made manufacturing facility. And we went with and through so many

00:02:07.060 iterations of blends and ingredients to bring you something that is truly unique and ultimately

00:02:13.200 effective. And I'm proud to say that last week we finally launched our beard oil. And right now

00:02:18.420 we're looking to blow this thing up. So if you purchase a bottle of Origin beard oil on Amazon

00:02:23.780 and email us your review of the product, Origin is going to send you a bottle for free. Now I've

00:02:31.520 always wanted to work with Origin since I met these guys three or four years ago now in a greater capacity

00:02:37.500 than simply being our show sponsors. And I wanted to support the over 100 people that Origin employs

00:02:45.200 here in our town in Maine. And I could not think of a better way than developing a better American

00:02:50.180 made product that so many of you are already using. So if you're interested, head to Amazon,

00:02:55.500 type in origin beard oil. You're going to be able to pick up one of our first three cents.

00:02:59.740 And then I need you to email promotions at origin MFG promotions at origin MFG. Send them a screenshot

00:03:08.140 of your review and you're going to get a free bottle of Origin beard oil. These guys have been big

00:03:14.260 sponsors over the past several years and made this podcast a reality and helped to grow this thing.

00:03:20.000 So this is a great way for you to get something that you're already using and also support what

00:03:24.760 we're doing here again, origin beard oil on Amazon, and then email a screenshot of your review

00:03:30.880 to promotions at origin MFG.com. All right, guys, with that said, let me introduce you to a man that I

00:03:39.340 know has impacted your lives probably as much as he's impacted mine. He is the one and only Steven

00:03:44.960 Pressfield. He was on several months ago. And since I enjoyed the conversation so much with him

00:03:51.540 and we receive so much positive feedback from you guys, especially when it comes to the war of art,

00:03:58.560 his book, the war of art. I knew that we needed to have him back on to talk about his latest released,

00:04:03.180 a man at arms. A lot of you guys have read, uh, gates of fire, which he also wrote, but this one

00:04:08.840 is just as good, if not better. And, uh, the value and challenges and rewards of putting in work,

00:04:17.660 whatever doubt it is out into the world. That's something that we definitely talk about today.

00:04:21.920 Uh, he's a New York times bestselling author and has been extremely, extremely influential in the work

00:04:29.260 that we're doing here with order of men. And I could not be more grateful to him and proud to give

00:04:34.220 you round two of our discussion. Steve, thanks for joining me back on the podcast again. I, you know,

00:04:40.800 it's funny. Um, when I read, uh, the war of art and, uh, some of your other books, I never thought

00:04:50.380 that I'd be able to have one conversation with you, let alone a couple of now. So I'm glad that you're

00:04:55.720 joining us again. Hey, it's great. It's a real pleasure to do it, right? I mean, we, we, we did

00:05:00.200 one before and, uh, I hope we can do more in the future. Oh, I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will.

00:05:05.240 As I said in the previous podcast, your work, um, particularly your, your nonfiction work has

00:05:12.600 been instrumental in me starting my financial planning practice. Uh, and then also, you know,

00:05:18.960 now that we've, we've been running order of man for six years now, it's, it's, it's such a simple

00:05:24.980 concept, the idea of resistance and getting your work done, but it was instrumental in helping me

00:05:31.780 grow this to where it is. So I, again, I just want to say, cause it's, you know, when I wrote the war

00:05:36.560 of art, I thought it was for writers only. Yeah. You know, it never even occurred to me that it would

00:05:42.220 be for like, uh, other creative people like actors or filmmakers or something, but how does it, how did

00:05:48.440 it affect you or what, what hit you with the financial planning thing? Was it about cold calling

00:05:54.380 and stuff like that? Or what was it? Not so much that here's, here's the best analogy I can give you

00:06:00.540 is I spent some time in the military and, and, uh, I spent a lot of time when I was younger playing

00:06:05.920 sports. And I've always used this analogy that you would never go into a football game

00:06:11.100 or you would never go into a little battle battle without knowing something about your enemy.

00:06:17.680 And, and if you do remain ignorant, you expose yourself to all sorts of potential threats that

00:06:24.720 could potentially derail you, or in the case of battle, quite literally get you killed.

00:06:31.060 So when you, when I read, uh, the war of art, it was, it was good for me to finally put

00:06:40.100 a face and a name with what I was experiencing. And as I put a face to it, it became more tangible

00:06:49.740 so that I could more easily deal with the resistance, the pain and the,

00:06:54.540 what exactly were you feeling? What exactly was, how, what form did resistance take for you?

00:07:00.360 Um, for me, it was a lot of frustration. And also I tended to look at what other people were doing

00:07:09.040 and I always thought, well, if they're doing it, I should be doing it. And I couldn't quite figure out

00:07:14.760 why that was the case. And so there was a lot of frustration and contention and even animosity

00:07:20.960 towards other high producers because I wasn't producing it for myself. And, and so the resistance

00:07:26.960 for me was the comparison of falling into other people, what other people were doing and not using

00:07:34.660 it as a tool for motivation, but using it as a tool for, well, this doesn't work or I'm not good

00:07:40.640 at this. And then really beating yourself up against me. Yes, exactly.

00:07:45.020 Okay. That's very interesting. Yeah. But then, you know, I realized through reading that book and

00:07:50.420 through doing this work that it, it didn't really have anything to do with me as a human being,

00:07:56.080 as much as it had to do with my actions. And so it's, it's very objective at this point. Hey,

00:08:02.380 if you want the results that Steve, you have, or I have, or anybody else has, it's not personal

00:08:08.240 resistance doesn't care, right? It doesn't, it's not after you personally.

00:08:13.560 Right. It seems like it, but it's not. Yeah.

00:08:15.800 Right. And then I realized, oh, it's not a referendum on me. It's a referendum on my actions

00:08:21.540 or in this case, lack thereof. So I'm just going to do different things and then I'll produce a

00:08:26.540 different result. And over the course of six years in my financial planning practice and

00:08:30.720 six years now doing this podcast, that's what I've realized. It's not personal. It's just the way it is.

00:08:37.800 So deal with it and make better choices, do better actions, and you'll produce a different result.

00:08:42.340 Very interesting. Yeah. What, uh, do you notice some common themes when you talk with other

00:08:48.720 individuals about this, uh, artists or creatives of, of sorts that, um, they, are there, are there

00:08:56.220 commonalities or common threads you see in the way resistance manifests itself?

00:09:00.460 You know, what's interesting is that, um, across the board, it seems to be the, the voice that we

00:09:08.260 hear in our head, the voice of resistance seems to be very similar. And it's a lot of times it's just

00:09:13.120 beating yourself up. It's, it's, uh, uh, it's a voice of fear and a voice of undermining your self-belief.

00:09:22.300 For instance, you know, um, who do you think you are to take on this new project? Whatever it is,

00:09:30.060 you, you know, you're too old, you're too young, you're too fat, you're too skinny, you're the wrong

00:09:35.660 race, you're the wrong sex, you're the wrong color, whatever it is. Um, and further to that, uh, uh,

00:09:42.380 your ideas are really old hat. It's been done a thousand times before, much better than you could

00:09:47.600 ever do it. What do you think you bring to the table? It hasn't been done before that kind of

00:09:51.640 thing, the sort of beating up of, of oneself, uh, to stop you from even beginning, whatever this

00:09:58.680 project is. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept and idea of the imposter syndrome. That's

00:10:04.420 what it actually sounds like. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is just another

00:10:08.040 form of resistance. You know, in fact, that's sort of, I guess, basically what I was just

00:10:12.620 articulating, you know, who do you think you are? You're not the real thing, you know? Yeah.

00:10:17.220 Um, you know, what was interesting is how much people deflect into vices and into negative stuff,

00:10:26.260 drinking, drugs, um, abuse of others, abuse of themselves, um, distractions, uh, you know,

00:10:36.120 Facebook, all of the, all of that kind of stuff, you know? Why do you think people do that?

00:10:42.040 Um, because they're there, it's, it's a fear to face whatever it is that you want to do. Like

00:10:50.780 for instance, uh, you know, here I am, I'm in front of this keyboard, right? So if I, if I want to,

00:10:57.540 if I have a new look in mind that I want to do, I'm going to feel tremendous resistance radiating off

00:11:02.760 that keyboard, right? Don't do this for all the reasons we talked about, right? You're afraid to do,

00:11:07.600 you're afraid of failure, you're afraid of success, et cetera, et cetera. So where does that energy go?

00:11:12.620 Where does it go? It goes into some distraction. You know, it's like, instead of sitting down here

00:11:17.720 doing my work today, maybe I'll, uh, you know, just head over to the beach or I'll go skiing or I'll,

00:11:24.980 you know, waste my time in some other way. I'll get on, on Facebook or something like that and just

00:11:29.720 waste my time. It's, you know, just, um, I know there's a word in psychology, displacement activities.

00:11:36.400 Hmm. You know, it's, it's funny is, uh, as, as you talk about that, I think about the concept of

00:11:43.640 procrastination and our wonderful ability to fool ourselves into believing that we're actually being

00:11:50.580 productive. You know, for example, let's take social media. A lot of my world, especially when

00:11:56.720 it comes to my career revolves around me putting myself out there in public on Facebook, on Insta,

00:12:03.160 on all these other platforms. And I, and I can very easily and, and quite honestly justify

00:12:09.720 being on social media. But if my intent is to build a business, great. More often than not,

00:12:16.700 my intent is to keep me from sending the email, making the phone call, doing the work that I know

00:12:23.740 I ought to be doing. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about resistance is that it's so diabolical

00:12:29.300 that it, in, in even these nuanced ways, it can tell you like, well, gee, Ryan, you know,

00:12:34.620 your business is social media. Let's say you should be on it. You should be out there exploring

00:12:38.520 this thing. And here's something interesting. You know, here's Rich Roll's podcast. You know,

00:12:42.900 he's interviewed Light Watkins today. That's really going to help you. You should watch

00:12:46.040 that thing. And, and partly you should, you know, you, cause you, it is good for you,

00:12:50.440 but you know, while you're, while you're spending that hour, you know, you're not doing whatever else

00:12:55.180 you're going to be doing. Right. I've found that for writers, you know, absolutely. Yeah. I think

00:13:02.820 we're all in the same boat. What here's the funny thing though. I, I believe, and you can tell me if

00:13:09.600 I'm wrong here, but I believe that there is an overwhelming percentage of the population who

00:13:16.200 believes that if they're walking the right path, then everything will be easy. You'll, you'll feel good

00:13:24.320 all the time. You'll only be doing the things that you enjoy, that everything will be blissful.

00:13:30.980 And I personally have not found that to be true. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I don't know.

00:13:36.680 No, I, I think you hit really something really on the head there, Ryan, because I mean, I certainly

00:13:41.200 believe that for years and that really is, I think it comes from, maybe it comes from advertising.

00:13:47.040 Maybe it comes from just the stuff that we're fed from birth. You know, that if we, uh, if we take

00:13:52.500 the right product or take a certain, you know, eat the right brand of raisin brand, everything is going

00:13:57.420 to be great. Or, you know, or, or even in something like psychology, if we, if we go to therapy and we

00:14:03.280 only change this and this and this about ourselves, everything is going to be great. But in fact,

00:14:08.620 it's absolutely not true. And, and this life is hard and it is about adversity. And that force that I

00:14:16.180 call resistance with a capital R is there every second of the day as a negative force working

00:14:22.660 against us. You know, I always say that the playing field is not level at all. It is, it is slanted

00:14:29.140 against you. And, uh, that's why, um, anything that we can, that we can do in our minds to embrace the,

00:14:38.340 the hard life or the adversity filled life and, and, and grasp that that's reality. That's not like a

00:14:45.520 hard thing or hard times that are coming. That's reality. I mean, if we were the caveman, right?

00:14:51.340 We wake up in the morning, there's no supermarket. There's no nothing. We got to go out and track down

00:14:56.400 a mastodon with our buddies, you know, and drive them over a cliff, right? And do whatever it takes.

00:15:01.880 And maybe it's 10 below zero out there, whatever. The kids are screaming, they're hungry. You know,

00:15:06.680 we get, you know, that that's life the way it is on a planet, you know, for all of us. I think we

00:15:13.280 get it. It's easy today because we live in this, in a world where there are supermarkets and we can

00:15:18.560 go down and get, you know, hamburger and it's all packed in a little, you know, plastic box for us,

00:15:24.220 you know, and we have air conditioning, we have heat, we have, you know, all of these distractions.

00:15:28.520 We're not going to die right tomorrow, but that's really an artificial reality and our internal

00:15:34.580 workings. I mean, you know this, Ryan, this is what your whole order of man is about, you know,

00:15:39.120 is our internal software comes from the caveman days. It comes from those millennia when life was

00:15:49.420 really hard and we are happier, I think, when we embrace that. And we, of course, we have to sort

00:15:56.600 of artificially create that today too, you know, you know, a thing like training, like going to the

00:16:03.520 gym or something like that, or running races or something like that. It's totally artificial,

00:16:07.940 but it recreates that world of adversity that is our natural being. I mean, we were made human

00:16:16.540 beings for an adverse life, right? That's why, you know, we didn't have claws, we don't have fangs,

00:16:23.820 we don't have, we can't run fast, we can't see, we can't smell. So we've had to, you know, live this

00:16:29.360 life of adversity and that's what we were made for. You know, it's funny as I moved here to Maine,

00:16:34.980 I found out after being here for about three or four months, I went to the local convenience store

00:16:41.440 just down the road and we got to be friends with one of the ladies who works there. And she informed

00:16:47.660 me that my wife and I had been dubbed in the neighborhood, the weird workout people.

00:16:51.900 And I was like, well, you know, what do you mean? And, and she would drive by and she would see us,

00:16:57.920 you know, carrying these big Atlas stones and flipping tires and working out and running around

00:17:04.260 the property. And, and I just found it fascinating. And I thought to myself, well, why is that the case?

00:17:09.280 And I, and I, and I came to the conclusion that Mainers, they don't need to fabricate working out.

00:17:16.880 They're working in the fields. They're working in the factories. They're doing hard work. They're

00:17:20.900 prepared. There's a phrase here in Maine that you're either preparing for winter or you're dealing with

00:17:26.440 Oh, I never heard of it. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. So the concept of working out is foreign. It's

00:17:34.340 like, isn't that work? Aren't you chopping wood? You know, I'd, I'd sledge, I'd, I'd hit the, uh,

00:17:39.420 the tire with my sledgehammer. And I'm sure people were thinking, why is that guy doing that right

00:17:43.980 now? Why isn't he chopping wood as he's preparing for winter? You know, so you're right. We have to

00:17:48.860 fabricate a lot of this stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, the other thing is, um,

00:17:54.960 dealing with resistance as, as the reality is making sure that we are preparing ourselves for

00:18:02.680 the inevitable hardships that we'll face. We've created this life of relative ease and comfort.

00:18:08.380 Uh, and I've seen so many men just through the work I've done here over the past six years,

00:18:12.280 get completely derailed by things that frankly shouldn't be derailing them, but they have no

00:18:19.080 perspective on what's hard and what isn't. Ah, yeah. Well, that's, that is true. That is the way

00:18:24.720 life is these days. It's just, uh, it's just too easy, you know, and we grow up and we think that

00:18:30.060 it's supposed to be easy and, and it's, and it's not, and it's the, and it isn't even just

00:18:35.620 the, the nature of like earning a living or the fact that there's a winter or something like that.

00:18:40.620 It's this thing in our heads, you know, it's just, it's this negative force in our heads

00:18:45.080 that is constantly trying to sabotage us. Hmm. Do you feel like you at this point with the work

00:18:52.420 that you've done, both from a nonfiction and a fiction perspective have, I don't want to say

00:18:58.860 conquered resistance, but are you so aware of it at this point that it is less of an issue for you,

00:19:05.320 or is it something that you still deal with immensely? No, it never goes away and it never

00:19:10.000 gets any easier. And in fact, it gets, it gets even more subtle and more diabolical, you know,

00:19:16.540 and I'm, I'm, and I'm, I'm dealing it right with it right now on a bunch of different levels,

00:19:22.620 you know, um, there's a new book that I'm, that I'm trying to start and I've got that voice in my

00:19:27.920 head, you know, nobody's going to care about this book. Why are you even thinking of it? You know,

00:19:32.680 whatever reputation you've established, you're going to put in the toilet when people see this book,

00:19:37.160 it's such a dumb, such a dumb idea. And then, um, also I'm, uh, you know, I'm, I'm promoting a new

00:19:44.280 book or I'm trying to promote a new book that we'll talk about a little bit here. And so I've

00:19:48.420 sort of dedicated myself to working on promotion on this thing for now, you know, and that becomes

00:19:56.080 resistance. That becomes a form of resistance because I'm not doing my actual writing work,

00:20:01.300 but yet I have to do it. So kind of like what you were talking about, about social media,

00:20:04.700 you know, I've got to do it. I've got to support, you know, my work and stuff like that,

00:20:09.900 but it is a form. And then I'm having resistance even doing that, you know, you know, because,

00:20:16.380 because it is good that it is positive that I'm trying to slough off and not do that. So

00:20:21.580 I've got resistance on top of resistance. It never goes away, at least in my experience.

00:20:27.140 Yeah. I, well, look, you've got more experience with it than I do. And I'm very much in the same boat,

00:20:33.340 you know, whether I have to, with all due respect, jump on a podcast that I'm excited about. I'm,

00:20:38.080 I'm excited about this conversation and still I'm like, Oh, what are we going to talk about?

00:20:44.280 I go well, are people going to appreciate the conversation? And so something I'm immensely

00:20:49.440 excited about, there's still resistance about it. I just don't understand it.

00:20:54.540 I, well, I have a question for you, Ryan, since we're talking about podcasts here,

00:20:57.540 like when you're going into this one, do you, how do you prepare for it? Do you have

00:21:03.400 questions that you want to ask? Do you have an intention? What do you, what's your,

00:21:08.140 what's your mindset when you go into this?

00:21:10.260 So the way that I, yeah, the way that I used to do podcasts is I would quite literally have 10 to 15

00:21:15.820 questions written out. These are the questions that I wanted to get to and wanted to ask. And

00:21:20.340 I realized fairly quickly into the podcasting world that the conclusion I came to anyways is

00:21:26.460 that when I was asking those questions, I was doing my guest, you a disservice. And I was also

00:21:32.720 doing my audience, those men who are listening a disservice, because what I would do is I would ask

00:21:38.180 you, for example, a question that I had listed out and you would give me a very insightful and

00:21:42.280 thoughtful response. And rather than exploring that response, I'd be like, okay, great. And I would

00:21:47.640 just check it off the list and I would move to the next question. So I wouldn't allow for an

00:21:52.240 organic conversation the way that we would over dinner or, you know, a gathering or something

00:21:57.900 like that. So what I do now is I know my guests, I've, I've followed you. We've been connected for

00:22:05.360 probably a year or so at this point, you know, I, I read your books, I read your works. And so I might

00:22:11.500 make a few little bullet points. In fact, I've, you know, I've got them right here of, of topics of

00:22:17.160 veins that I want to discuss, but I, I have no expectations for this discussion other than maybe

00:22:23.600 a few things I want to address. And I really try to let the conversation go organically. And I've

00:22:28.660 noticed that the men who listen really resonate with two gentlemen sitting down and having a

00:22:35.420 conversation about things that maybe were anticipated and things that, you know, frankly,

00:22:40.460 weren't anticipated. And the guys really resonate with that.

00:22:43.360 Ah, so let me ask you another question. I'm going to be, wind up interviewing you here,

00:22:47.860 Ryan.

00:22:48.380 I like it. Let's do it.

00:22:49.800 When we, I mean, I'm sure that you are very much aware of who your audience is and what a typical,

00:22:56.700 you know, listener to the order of man is and what, what issues are important to them.

00:23:02.240 I mean, I could sort of guess at it, but I don't, obviously don't know it like you do.

00:23:06.820 Um, when you're, when you're preparing for an interview, are you consciously trying to

00:23:14.260 serve the audience to try and to, to, to give them the kind of meat and potatoes that they're,

00:23:21.300 that they're, you know, tuning in for?

00:23:23.880 Yeah, definitely. I, what I try to do, Steve, is I try to think about what are the problems

00:23:29.060 that the men who, not them, I shouldn't say it that way. What are the problems that a man who's

00:23:35.200 listening to this is dealing with? And I say a man versus the men, because I want one, here's how

00:23:41.460 I know when I'm on the right track, when somebody reaches out to me and says, Ryan, I'm really grateful

00:23:47.380 for that podcast or for that article or for that post, because it felt like you were speaking

00:23:53.840 exactly to me. Are you in my thoughts? Are you in my head? Are you in my dreams? That to me,

00:23:59.580 lets me know that I'm on the right track. And it's, it's, it's fairly easy for me because we hear this

00:24:06.100 concept of avatar, like who's your avatar. I'm sure you think of the same thing when you're writing books

00:24:11.960 and doing what you do. I'm my own avatar. Like, honestly, I feel like I'm the biggest recipient

00:24:17.920 of having these discussions just as much as anybody else. You know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm 38

00:24:23.800 years old. I've got a young family. I'm starting a business. I'm kind of feeling where, you know,

00:24:28.740 my role in life is and trying to excel, but trying to balance it with whether my duties and

00:24:33.160 responsibilities, it's the same problems, all the men who listen are dealing with. So I've got a little

00:24:38.620 bit of a cheat in that way in that I am my own avatar. Ah, well, that's, that's the way it should

00:24:44.280 be. I think, I mean, certainly I feel like when I'm writing books, I'm my own avatar too. I feel

00:24:49.400 like I'm writing for, for myself as much as anything else I'm writing because certain issues are eating

00:24:55.560 at me or are fascinating me or whatever. And I figure if I don't even really know who, who a typical

00:25:02.500 reader of mine is, I just sort of ask myself, what is it that I'm driven by? And then I'm,

00:25:08.700 you know, that I need to deal with and let me put that out as honestly as I can. And that's when,

00:25:14.380 just like what you said, that's when you get the feedback where somebody writes in and says,

00:25:18.420 wow, I felt that it was just, you know, you're speaking directly to me. You're inside my head.

00:25:22.920 When I try to second guess it, I sometimes are almost always go wrong.

00:25:29.500 Yeah. I think there's a tendency to try to game things, right? I'm going to try to manipulate

00:25:33.780 this or massage or over, you know, do it just to fit this mold. And it comes across as very

00:25:40.440 disingenuous, but that leads me to a point that I did want to ask you about. How do you know if

00:25:45.800 you're going to write a fictional work or a nonfiction work? It seems like many of the authors out there

00:25:51.960 are either fictional writers in this specific genre or they're self-help authors in this specific

00:26:01.300 vein, like, but you're all over the place. Yeah. In a good way. In a good way.

00:26:09.480 It's a great question. I mean, I'm, I'm definitely a believer. I know, I think I've said this before,

00:26:14.340 I'm a believer in the muse. You know, I believe in the goddess. I believe that, that writers are being

00:26:20.960 kind of led, just like if you looked at, say, all of Bruce Springsteen's albums all in a row,

00:26:27.240 you know, you could kind of see how one sort of led to another, you know, and that one might be

00:26:33.340 different from another, but there's kind of a theme there. And he's sort of exploring this side and

00:26:39.280 that side. He's kind of being led. And I sort of feel that way too. Like I, I will write three or

00:26:44.820 four fiction pieces in a row. And then somehow the voice in my head or the goddess or whoever

00:26:51.840 is inspiring me will say, you know, now it's time for you to do something different. And, and

00:26:57.400 sometimes I'm not really, I'm kind of an editor's nightmare because I'm not in one lane, you know,

00:27:06.440 where you can say, you know, it's like a box of Cheerios. Every time you go to the store,

00:27:10.960 you get the same thing. Whereas with me, you know, I I'll sometimes I'll have people will

00:27:16.580 respond to what I'm doing and then, and they'll say, well, I want more. And then I'm doing something

00:27:21.320 over here and they go, you know, I can't bring them with me. So it is, it is kind of an issue,

00:27:27.500 but sometimes, I don't know, I'm blathering on here. I have it. Sometimes when I'm, when I'm writing

00:27:33.700 fiction, it's about something, you know, if it's about this ancient Spartans or it's about Alexander the

00:27:39.760 Great or wherever it is, it's about certain themes of, of masculinity or a challenge or

00:27:44.980 whatever. And, but you can never say it overtly in a piece of fiction, right? It always has to

00:27:51.120 come out through the story. And sometimes I get, I say, you know what, I want to just say this

00:27:55.420 straight out. You know, I want to say, here's, here's an issue. Here's what we're dealing with.

00:27:59.620 Here's how it, you know, the best way to handle it, in my opinion. And so then I'll write a book

00:28:04.320 like The War of Art or some of its follow-ups. Yeah. I imagine so many different questions I

00:28:11.660 have here, but I imagine when you talk about an editor or a publisher's nightmare, you know,

00:28:15.900 it seems to me that a lot of these houses, businesses, organizations would really just

00:28:21.580 like you to plug into the formula that works. Definitely. I mean, why, why not? You know,

00:28:27.000 why reinvent it? You know, a Ford F-150 and it sells, let's build another one, you know?

00:28:32.000 Exactly. But, but if you're at all creative, or if you have an entrepreneurial point of view,

00:28:37.360 or if you're an artist, you just can't live like that, you know, because you're being led to other

00:28:41.960 stuff. You know, your, your, your soul, your muse, your whatever it's calling, you're evolving,

00:28:48.560 you're growing, right? And once you've done, like an actor, you know, if Tom Hanks has played this

00:28:53.800 certain role, he doesn't want to play it again. You know, he's already done it, you know? He's looking

00:28:58.020 for the next thing. And, and I think anybody, if you're writing songs, if you're doing video games,

00:29:03.480 if you've already done something, you don't want to do it again, even though your editor,

00:29:07.660 your publisher, your music, whatever, they may want you to do that, which is sort of a classic

00:29:12.620 thing, right? With bands, with rock bands or anything, right? They, you know, the, the record

00:29:17.820 company wants them to give, give, give the audience the same thing they just got, but just a

00:29:22.480 little bit different. And, you know, the band, they want to try something new. You would think

00:29:28.320 that an artist would want to, my wife and I, this leads me to a conversation or a debate that her

00:29:33.380 and I always have, which is, you know, we look at actors or actresses and, and she'll say, well,

00:29:37.480 this person's a great actor. I'm like that Harrison Ford is an example. She's like, Harrison

00:29:42.200 Ford's a great actor. I'm like, Harrison Ford is Han Solo in every movie, every single movie.

00:29:47.220 He's just, he just has a different name, but he's the same character. Does that make him a great

00:29:51.600 actor? Or do you take somebody like Tom Hanks, for example, who can play Forrest Gump and,

00:29:57.800 and the guy from Castaway and play these, these myriad of roles and he can explore all of these

00:30:03.660 things and do well with some and not so great with others. That to me is the mark of a, an artist who

00:30:09.540 wants to go out there and push himself into new positions and a new and uncomfortable situations

00:30:14.700 who really defines himself by his art of creativity. Yeah. And yet, you know,

00:30:20.960 the weird thing is you don't want Bruce Springsteen to be too far out of who Bruce

00:30:27.320 Springsteen is, you know? True. Yeah. Or, you know, like I remember there was a,

00:30:32.160 Cary Grant used to play a certain kind of role, right? And every now and then he would do a whole,

00:30:38.060 or pick any, any actor you want to think of. Sure. Harrison Ford's a great example.

00:30:42.240 You know, it's like, we sort of go to the movie because we want to see Harrison Ford,

00:30:47.960 Han Solo. We want to see that guy. And if he's something too different,

00:30:50.860 like six days and seven nights, did you ever see that movie where it's a play?

00:30:55.260 If I have, it's been a very long time. It's a, you know, it's sort of out of the mold and it

00:31:00.680 didn't work, you know? I mean, I'm sure it worked a little bit, but it was like, if you're watching,

00:31:04.860 you said, get back to the guy that we, we, we came to see, you know? Yeah.

00:31:09.500 So, but within that, you can be creative. Yeah. That's a good point. Cause even, you know,

00:31:14.440 I look, you know, I, I know I'm knocking on Harrison Ford right here for sure. But you know,

00:31:18.320 you look at movies like the fugitive, uh, which were absolutely phenomenal. And then you look at

00:31:23.360 a different role where he plays a bad guy, you know, in, uh, I think the movie's called what lies

00:31:27.680 beneath and you're like, okay, it's still Harrison Ford, but he played a different role in his own way.

00:31:34.280 And it was still a pretty dang good movie, even though it was different, but like you said,

00:31:38.980 it was still, it was still Harrison Ford and what you expected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like

00:31:44.360 you have to give yourself permission in a way? I don't know if that's the right term to be able

00:31:48.960 to explore these fringes or these new ideas or things that maybe are outside of your immediate

00:31:53.840 comfort zone. Um, not really. I'm sort of drawn to them, you know? I mean, the only way I have to

00:32:01.480 give myself permission is sometimes I'll do a book or something. And I said, I can say to myself

00:32:06.220 at the start, this is not going to sell. You know, I can just tell it, the people that like my stuff

00:32:13.020 are not going to like this. I'm taking them into a place where they're not going to follow me at all,

00:32:17.680 but I don't care usually. I, cause I want to go there, you know, and I've sort of, you know,

00:32:24.320 I took me so long to find any success and I worked for so many years with, you know, on,

00:32:31.540 you know, just supporting myself other ways that I kind of realized that what makes me happy is to

00:32:37.260 do what I want to do. I'm really not a writer for hire. I'm not somebody that, you know, is going to

00:32:43.420 do what somebody wants me to do. I'm going to do what I want to do. And, and part of the price of that

00:32:49.440 is sometimes the things you want to do, nobody cares about, you know, and that's just part of

00:32:54.500 the, part of the journey, I guess, you know, but I, I never regret those books. You know,

00:32:59.300 I'm glad I did them even if nobody read them. Do you feel like if you let's, let's just rewind

00:33:06.340 20 or 30 years. If you could go back and tell your younger version of yourself, what you just said,

00:33:12.280 that I'm going to explore what I want to explore. Do you feel like you would have done that? Or do you

00:33:18.480 feel like at this point you've earned the right to do that at this stage in the game?

00:33:23.540 Ah, it's a great question. Um, you know, it's funny. I never even really, until like you're

00:33:29.160 right. What you said, 30 years is about right. Around 1995 was about the time that I actually

00:33:36.300 started writing books that were my own, you know, before that I worked as a screenwriter and I did

00:33:41.560 other stuff like that. And in that earlier period, it never even occurred to me. Well, it did occur to

00:33:47.200 me to do what I wanted to do, but I could never sell it, you know? And right. But so a lot of times

00:33:52.280 it was just whatever job I can get, anybody that'll pay me, I'll do it, you know? But once I sort of

00:33:58.460 started actually writing my own books, somehow just a year, something changed in my head, you know?

00:34:04.160 And I just said, I'm just going to do, you know, what I want to do. But part of it also, Ryan, is that

00:34:11.320 a book or a movie takes like two years or three years. So as you're sitting at the threshold of

00:34:20.040 that, you're about to start, you got to ask yourself, do I love this enough that I can put

00:34:25.180 to it with, particularly with the possibility that at the end of that, you won't make any money at all.

00:34:29.500 And it'll be a complete waste of your time in terms of money.

00:34:33.160 Not only a possibility, but a strong likelihood that you won't make any money.

00:34:36.600 Yeah. So then you got to say to yourself, how much do I love this? Do I really, am I really

00:34:41.560 willing to do it? And, you know, there's really no alternative. If you don't love it, you're not

00:34:46.780 going to be able to do it. I mean, some people write on contracts, you know, where they give,

00:34:51.420 they get a contract, they get an advance, they get money, but I don't, you know? And most fiction

00:34:56.060 writers are like that. You have to write the whole book and then you have to sell it, you know?

00:35:00.000 Then you promote it. Sure.

00:35:00.860 So, you know, it does come down to what do you love and what are you willing to spend a couple

00:35:07.160 of years on? Man, let me hit the pause button on the conversation very quickly. Then we'll get right

00:35:12.740 back to it. Inside the iron council for the month of February, we're talking about how to craft your

00:35:17.300 day. But for the month of March, we're going to be covering the art of impossible. This is based on

00:35:22.100 my podcast with Steven Kotler, and we're going to uncover how you can turn your dreams and ideas and

00:35:27.500 ambitions into reality. We're going to be discussing and challenge each other with how to learn more

00:35:33.820 effectively, how to enter your best work in a flow state and how to harness creativity for maximum

00:35:39.600 results. So if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, and also that you want the

00:35:43.960 powerful accountability that comes from banding with other men, then join us inside the iron council

00:35:49.320 at order of man.com slash iron council. Again, the art of impossible for the month of March.

00:35:55.100 And we're finishing up crafting your perfect day for the month of month of February. So again,

00:36:00.060 if you join us and have a desire to do so, you can do that at order of man.com slash iron council

00:36:05.400 order of man.com slash iron council. You can do that after the show for now. We'll get back to it

00:36:09.760 with Steve. Ryan holiday, who I know you're familiar with told me something very interesting. He said,

00:36:16.000 you know, making money, isn't a great reason to write a book. You have to actually believe that

00:36:20.240 there's something of value that you have to share in spite of anybody else potentially believing that

00:36:27.220 it's valuable because they might not believe it's valuable. And still you have to be willing to put

00:36:33.000 that work out there. I agree with him completely. And, but I'll go even more than that. Cause a lot

00:36:38.660 of Ryan's stuff is, is nonfiction stuff. You know, he's writing about the lives of the Stoics and

00:36:43.680 what Stoicism is, or some of his earlier books has a great book. Trust me, I'm lying. It's first book.

00:36:50.960 Whereas if you're writing a fictional, if you're writing a story, you're writing fiction,

00:36:55.100 a lot of times, you know, Ryan can ask himself or a nonfiction writer can ask himself,

00:37:00.440 is this topic of interest to, to, to people that, that read my stuff? You know,

00:37:06.180 if you were going to write a book about financial planning, you could say to yourself,

00:37:10.020 I know there are people out there that want this. This is good information. I'm going to put it out.

00:37:15.520 That's a reason for me to do it. Or if you're writing about order of man or, you know, a definition

00:37:19.300 of masculinity, whatever it is, you know, that there are people that are looking for that.

00:37:23.380 But when you're writing a story, you're sort of in the hands of the gods, you know, because you don't,

00:37:29.680 a lot of times you don't even know what the story is really about. You know, what, you know,

00:37:33.980 the theme, the deep themes of it, you're just sort of seized by some thing. Oh, I want to write a

00:37:39.200 Western. I want to write whatever this is. So you can only ask yourself in that case, do I love it?

00:37:46.160 Do I love it? Am I seized by this? Do I sort of have a feeling that there's something in here,

00:37:52.260 even like I might not be able to put my hand, my fingers on, you know? And so it's really a leap

00:37:58.300 in the dark, at least for me, a lot of the time. And you just have to go on love and just jump off

00:38:03.900 the cliff. What do you, I'm just going to pull up a, if you're listening to this on YouTube or

00:38:09.420 watching on YouTube, you can see it. But what is it that you love about this new book, A Man at Arms?

00:38:14.440 What is it, what is it for you that you thought, okay, I have to write this book?

00:38:19.600 It's a great question. And I'm not even sure I know the answer, but the character,

00:38:24.240 A Man at Arms is about a kind of a, it's set in the first century AD around the time of Christ

00:38:30.320 in Jerusalem and in the Sinai desert. That's kind of the setting. And the lead character is a guy who's

00:38:38.180 sort of like the Clint Eastwood man with no name, you know, a kind of a one man killing machine of

00:38:44.300 the ancient world, you know, a former Roman legionnaire. And this character, Telamon of Arcadia

00:38:51.700 is his name, is the only recurring character in any of my books. He's been in three other books

00:38:57.700 as a minor character, but a really interesting character for me anyway. I mean, he's, he's one

00:39:04.080 of these weird characters, you know, as a writer, a lot of times you plan characters, you go, oh,

00:39:09.620 my hero is going to be Harrison Ford. He's going to do this, this, this. Sure. This character of

00:39:14.200 Telamon just sort of appeared on the page in these earlier books, kind of fully formed for me.

00:39:19.700 Yeah. And he's been, and I've always wanted to do a book only about him. I've wanted to sort of

00:39:25.480 follow his, his, his journey because he's sort of, speaking of masculinity, he's kind of the,

00:39:33.820 what I would call the warrior archetype par excellence, like a samurai, like a Clint Eastwood

00:39:40.160 gunslinger, that kind of guy. But he's a dark character who's frustrated in that role and is looking

00:39:47.500 to move on to whatever the next thing is. And so I, that's why I wanted to write this book. I wanted

00:39:53.440 to kind of find out where does he go? What, what's the next stage for him? And what's, what is, because

00:40:00.440 he, he, this particular character came into my head having his own philosophy and, and he would

00:40:09.420 articulate it for him. And I was really fascinated by this philosophy because he would just show

00:40:13.960 a little the tip of the iceberg of it. And I kind of wanted to go, what, what's deeper? What is,

00:40:19.740 what's this philosophy all about? So anyway, that's why I just wanted to explore it and see who he was

00:40:24.260 and find out where he was going.

00:40:25.760 How much of your characters are representative of you in some form, whether that's something that

00:40:35.300 you're actually, you know, showing to the world or something that's just been locked away in your

00:40:39.360 brain, or maybe even some sort of aspirational goal that you have to show up like this particular

00:40:45.640 character.

00:40:46.280 I think that's exactly right, Ryan. Hit the nail on the head. I mean, all the, all the characters,

00:40:50.740 including the women, including little girls, they're all, they're all part of me, but I don't

00:40:57.440 know it until I put it on the page. You know, if you think about, think about Charles Dickens and all

00:41:03.140 the characters that he had, you know, Pip and Oliver Twist and David Copperfield and, you know, all of

00:41:09.980 this, you know, Mr. Pickwick or whoever, all these guys, it's like an entire universe of characters

00:41:17.880 characters that are all really him in one way or another. And I, I do feel that, that some of them

00:41:23.820 are aspirational with me. Exactly right. I feel like they're sort of who I wish I was or who I wish

00:41:29.800 I could become or, um, and this character, Telamon in A Man at Arms, he's one of those. It's like I sort

00:41:37.020 of aspire to be him in a certain way, but at the same time, his issues are my issues. He may be dealing

00:41:44.300 with them in a form of physical violence, whereas I'm dealing with them in something inside my head.

00:41:50.820 But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in many ways, writing is like dreaming. When you put stuff down

00:41:58.320 on, on a page, you know, the concept of automatic writing, or you just kind of sit down and stream of

00:42:04.440 consciousness. Sure. Yeah. Way. It's a way of accessing your unconscious, which is helping you

00:42:11.620 evolve right now. So as you're, when you write a book, particularly a story, and then you look at

00:42:17.740 it afterwards, you say to yourself, holy shit, this is really about exactly what I'm dealing with now.

00:42:23.700 And I just never realized it in this form. So the characters are very definitely are almost like

00:42:30.720 characters in a dream. You know, you might have a dream and in a dream you, you confront a samurai or

00:42:37.220 something like that, or a little girl or whatever. And when you analyze that dream, you get to the

00:42:43.680 point, you say, that's me. I mean, that character is me. That character is dealing with something I'm

00:42:48.020 dealing with. So I know I'm getting a little deep here, but you, you, any creative thing is a

00:42:55.900 mysterious process. Songwriting, video game writing, even starting a new business. It's,

00:43:02.580 it's something that isn't yet born in you that wants to be born. And you don't even know why

00:43:09.560 you're sort of pulled, you're compelled to bring it forth into, into reality. I'm sure that was with

00:43:15.760 you for this podcast, not knowing you. I don't, it's not like we know each other real well, but I

00:43:20.820 guarantee you that order of man and the whole concept was something in your guts. And you felt like

00:43:27.020 I've got to somehow get this out there into the material world. And a podcast is a great way to

00:43:33.160 do it. Am I right? Or. To a degree. I remember talking with a friend of mine, we got into the

00:43:41.080 financial planning practice and business about the same time. And I remember for years and years

00:43:46.640 telling him, Greg, I just, I know I'm meant for something more than this. I know I'm meant for

00:43:52.780 something more. And he would ask me, he'd say, what? I'm like, I have no idea. And so when I

00:43:58.000 started order of man, it wasn't really, it wasn't really with the goal of putting myself at the head

00:44:04.740 of the pack or positioning myself as better or more knowledgeable or more manly than anybody else. It

00:44:10.240 was, I want to figure some of this stuff out and I want to be the ideal version of myself. It was

00:44:16.080 aspirational like you're talking about. And it's pretty interesting. Again, I said it earlier in our

00:44:21.220 conversation. I feel like I'm the biggest recipient of what we're doing here because over the course of

00:44:26.000 six years, sure. We've helped thousands and thousands of men and their families and everything

00:44:30.240 else, but I feel selfish at times because I have helped myself. I have become who I wanted to be

00:44:37.800 and I can realize how much further I need to go. So it was very, yeah, very aspirational for me and

00:44:44.000 in this journey. Definitely. Yeah. I think that really, you know, the journey I'm talking about for

00:44:49.020 myself and you're talking about for yourself are basically the same thing. You know, we're,

00:44:54.300 we're like you say, you had a sense that you were meant for something more, you know, something,

00:45:00.460 you know, that was more you, right? Not like it was better or anything like that, but that it was

00:45:05.540 more coming from the center of your being. Right. And that's kind of the same thing. I think for,

00:45:10.880 for me as a writer, each time I write a book, I try to get more to the center of what it is that I am,

00:45:18.180 even though I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is until it appears,

00:45:22.080 you know, until I write it. Interesting. So I've, I've spent a lot of time thinking about,

00:45:28.400 you know, what makes us human, what makes us men. And, and I've come to the conclusion that one of,

00:45:34.500 one of the answers, I'm not sure this is the only answer, but one of the answers is this idea of

00:45:39.080 consciousness where we can project ourselves out into a future date and time, or even project

00:45:45.200 ourselves into a character, for example, do you feel like it's easier to work through some of your

00:45:52.560 own issues and thought processes through a character rather than looking at it through the lens of

00:45:58.100 Steven Pressfield? Yes. And in fact, but again, I'd say Ryan, that it's not like for me, at least I know

00:46:07.220 the answer at the start. I don't. It's the process of, of writing something. And almost, it's almost

00:46:14.760 like you're filming a character that the character is doing his thing and you're just filming it, you

00:46:19.480 know, and, and, or you're recording it. And you don't really know until, until it's, till it's done.

00:46:27.860 And then I don't think it's a direct scenario. You know, it's not like you can look at a character

00:46:33.640 and say, Oh, I see that this character did this. Therefore I have to do something in my life. I

00:46:38.100 think in some crazy way, you know, it's like the Walt Whitman thing of we contain multitudes,

00:46:44.520 you know, that I consider this physical body of me and me as Steven Pressfield that goes to the

00:46:52.160 grocery store or writes a check or whatever. I consider that to be like the least of who I am.

00:46:57.900 You know, in fact, I almost dismissed that completely. And, and whatever the, whatever

00:47:05.080 makes me up is like, if to use an analogy, go back to say Bruce Springsteen, it's music. It's this

00:47:14.320 thing that's, that's out there in the, in the air. And somehow I think, you know, I mean, it's maybe

00:47:20.140 going a little too far, but I think that when we die, this may go away, but that stuff doesn't go

00:47:26.440 away. Not because people are reading your books or listening to your music, but somehow it's out

00:47:31.760 there in the universe. You know, it's somehow it continues to exist in some vibrational form.

00:47:39.160 I think, you know, are you talking about your children? You know, I'm sorry. No, no. And I

00:47:46.260 interrupted you. So are you talking about your legacy or talking about your own existence?

00:47:54.200 I think it's my own existence, not my legacy. I don't think it has any, anything to do with

00:47:59.360 anybody else actually accessing it. I just think that it's, and actually I'm thinking this right

00:48:05.940 now, right, just as we're talking about, I've never thought about this before, but I do think

00:48:10.160 that, that we exist on so many different levels to go back to Dickson, Dickens for a second.

00:48:17.100 And those, you know, hundreds of characters that he, that he created, or that I should

00:48:23.460 say came out of him somehow, you know, through another, through a higher level, higher dimension

00:48:29.420 or whatever. They were part of him. They, they were, you can't really separate him from

00:48:36.040 them, you know, from Oliver Twist, from David Copperfield, from Piff, from Magwitch, whatever.

00:48:40.800 In fact, the least interesting character in the whole aspect there is Dickens himself,

00:48:47.040 if you ask me, you know? So he really is sort of, was sort of a, a medium by which these,

00:48:54.280 these other entities entered the world, but they were him and he can't separate the two.

00:49:01.700 That's an interesting thought. I actually feel a little bit like that when it comes to

00:49:05.840 what we're doing here with Order of Man, because I think people listen to this podcast or might see

00:49:11.120 a post that I make on social media and paint me in some light that if they met me in person,

00:49:17.440 I fear that maybe they would be sadly disappointed because I'm not all that exciting. I'm not all that

00:49:26.600 unique or special. I suspect that even Harrison Ford feels that way, you know? Maybe. I certainly feel

00:49:33.400 that way. I think we, we paint and observe things the way that they, that we need them to in the

00:49:41.860 moment, whether that's because we need an excuse for mediocrity or whether we need some, some sort

00:49:49.400 of motivation to become more of who we are. So I, I think we have a tendency of looking at people

00:49:55.980 through a lens that we need them to be in the moment for either the right or frankly, wrong reasons.

00:50:01.400 Yeah. Yeah. But of course, when we project something like that onto another person,

00:50:07.000 someone who might be a hero of ours that we finally meet and we go, oh, I'm really disappointed.

00:50:11.900 He's just a regular person, just like me, you know, that's really on us. We shouldn't have that

00:50:18.040 expectation of them, you know? I mean, it's really, the real question is who are we, you know? And are we

00:50:25.860 evolving to our thing? But I think going back to what I was saying before, even having a family,

00:50:30.080 having children in a way is sort of like Dickens and his characters, right? When you have kids and

00:50:37.380 they start to reveal who they are, right? And they already are somebody, right? They came in and they

00:50:43.400 already were somebody. Sure. It's, it's, it is, I mean, you're part of them, they're part of you.

00:50:49.680 It's a whole constellation that you can't really pull out a single individual and say, oh, that's it,

00:50:57.460 you know? Right. And going back to your father, your mom and dad, you know, people before you.

00:51:03.280 I've got somebody in my very close circle who, you know, will occasionally complain about their

00:51:08.500 children being, you know, wild and crazy and rambunctious. And, and they, and they say to me

00:51:13.880 occasionally, I just don't understand why they're like this. And I'm like, really? Like, do you not,

00:51:21.480 you really don't understand why they're behaving the exact same way that you're behaving right now?

00:51:27.580 But we have a tendency of, I do it too, but we have a tendency of doing that. It's very interesting

00:51:31.820 that we would do that. Yeah.

00:51:33.120 When it comes to fictional work, I will be very frank with you. Over the past couple of years

00:51:40.880 is really about the only time in my life where I've actually read fictional work. I think prior

00:51:46.620 to that, the only book that I had read was, you know, maybe old man in the sea when I was in high

00:51:51.280 school. Cause that was a requirement, but I used to think that it was purely for entertainment, that

00:51:57.780 it was just supposed to be some sort of vanity or entertainment. There wasn't really anything to be

00:52:01.840 drawn from it. Cause I'm a very pragmatic person. Um, but I've actually come to the conclusion over

00:52:06.660 the past couple of years through reading your works and a mutual friend of ours, Jack Carr that

00:52:11.500 yeah, sure. There's value in entertainment. There's nothing wrong with that, but then there's also so

00:52:16.500 many lessons, life lessons that are applicable to your individual circumstance that you can apply

00:52:23.400 and gain a perspective that maybe you wouldn't gain just by reading a do X, Y, and Z and your life

00:52:29.940 will be better kind of book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think fiction is tremendously underrated these

00:52:36.540 days, you know, just like, like you're saying, Ryan, a lot of us think, well, I mean, even in

00:52:42.140 school now, when they're, when they're establishing a curriculum that's sort of like, well, what is it

00:52:47.540 that we can put that people are going to be able to use, you know, like how to manage your finances

00:52:51.940 or how to fix your Chevy or whatever it is. And we're not going to study Thucydides or Herodotus

00:52:58.140 or Lao Tzu or anything like that, or Hemingway or something like that. And I think it's a terrible

00:53:03.260 mistake because I think in many ways, fiction, let me say that novel is, and movies, I'll put movies

00:53:11.960 up there in the same place. Sure. Is the highest form of communication because it can take you

00:53:19.280 into another person, into another person's consciousness. You read a book about a crippled

00:53:25.680 girl in the slums of Sao Paulo, right? And her life. And you would say to yourself, well, why would

00:53:32.540 I want to read that? I mean, is that going to help me in my life, you know, but, or a movie about that,

00:53:37.660 let's say. And, but when you, the, the, the act of empathy of identifying with somebody else,

00:53:44.660 of, of, of, of leaving your own consciousness and entering the consciousness of somebody else.

00:53:50.480 I mean, that's an incredible liberating thing. And there's really no, no other medium other than

00:53:55.720 say movies and fiction that can do that. And, but I'm, I'm like you, I resisted too. And I think

00:54:03.020 it's a form of resistance with an R, capital R, because in some sense, I think we, we know it's

00:54:09.480 going to change us. We know it's going to challenge us. I'm talking about good stuff, not bad stuff.

00:54:14.660 Um, and we, and we resisted. Like, I know people have told me, now I'm going to switch back to my

00:54:20.140 book, The War of Art. People have told me that I've had this book on my nightstand for 18 months

00:54:28.700 and I never, and I finally opened it, you know, last night. And it's like, somehow they knew

00:54:35.720 that when they opened that book, it was going to challenge them. You know, it was going to make

00:54:40.360 them see something they didn't want to see. And then, you know, they write me and they say,

00:54:44.060 well, thank God I finally opened it. It really was great, you know, but, and, but I think the

00:54:48.520 same thing is true of fiction and I'm guilty of it too. I have a book sitting on my night table

00:54:53.560 that I know are going to blow my mind if, you know, and I just, I kind of want to stay in my

00:54:59.300 comfort zone, you know, and watch Game of Thrones and not worry about, you know, what that new book

00:55:04.560 is going to be. You said something interesting. You said, I'm talking about the good stuff,

00:55:09.020 not the bad stuff. Can you explain what you mean by that?

00:55:12.360 I mean, there are bad books, you know, there are good books, you know.

00:55:15.720 What makes a bad book?

00:55:18.340 I think it's, it's, I would say it's the depth

00:55:23.180 of, of what it gets into. You know, if you read, I'm just thinking of another Hemingway book,

00:55:32.300 The Sun Also Arises, which I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's a, it's a, just a great,

00:55:40.220 great book. And what makes it great is, is it's the depth that it gets into in terms of

00:55:47.060 human nature and what life is all about, but also the talent of the writer, you know, that

00:55:54.140 he, he would, you know, he won the Nobel prize, people knock Hemingway, but he was a master,

00:55:59.200 you know, he invented a whole way of writing. A lot of other people are masters too, you know,

00:56:03.700 but it's just was, it's like, what's the difference between Michael Jordan

00:56:07.400 and somebody, you know, that might be a good basketball player

00:56:11.040 in college or something. There's a difference, you know, and, and when we watch Michael Jordan,

00:56:16.860 we, we, we experience a kind of aesthetic joy, you know, just to watch him, you know,

00:56:24.200 shoot a foul shot, you know. So that, that's the difference between good and bad.

00:56:29.040 Certain writers last and certain writers come and go.

00:56:33.440 And sometimes it's hard, you know, you talk about Jordan, for example, sometimes it's hard

00:56:37.080 to articulate what the greatness is, which I think is actually what makes them great. Because if you

00:56:41.520 knew, then you would just be able to formulate that. But it's, it's the, it's the little bit of,

00:56:47.240 of mystery and the quote unquote X factor that actually makes it enticing and makes that individual

00:56:53.760 truly unique and gifted.

00:56:55.700 Yeah. And it is an X factor that you can't put your finger on. I mean, there are a lot of guys

00:56:59.380 who can shoot the shots that he shot or Kobe shot or some of the guys that are incredible out there,

00:57:04.420 you know, but somehow it's an X factor that you just can't put your finger on. Did you watch that

00:57:09.520 series about the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan? I'm blanking on.

00:57:13.900 I, I never, I never, I know what you're talking about. I can't, I don't know what it's called

00:57:17.840 either. Cause I never did. Everybody's probably the last. Yes. Thank you. Yes. And it was,

00:57:23.380 it was so good. I mean, I watched it like 10 times and it's 10 episodes, but the one of the

00:57:28.760 things that was really interesting to me is they would interview Michael Jordan and he would be

00:57:33.180 talking about another player that got the MVP that year, call him alone or somebody like that.

00:57:40.060 And they would be like, great, great hall of fame, great players. So Michael Jordan would say

00:57:45.260 something to the effect of, you know, when they compared this guy to me, I was really pissed off,

00:57:51.240 you know, like you, you know, because he knew what is the X factor was that he had, you know?

00:57:58.540 Yeah. And in his mind, this other player that was a great player was just not in his league,

00:58:05.000 you know, and he knew what that was. I mean, I wish that he could sort of articulate it, but when

00:58:10.800 you watch that show, the last dance, it comes out in every frame, you know, what, what made him so

00:58:16.340 great. You know, it's interesting. I've had the opportunity now, and it has been an amazing

00:58:20.660 opportunity to interview something like 330 successful, highly, highly successful men. And one

00:58:27.120 of the, the, the threads or the themes that I see amongst a lot of these men is that it seems to me,

00:58:33.760 they have some sort of chip on their shoulder. Like, I don't know what it is. That's really

00:58:39.100 interesting. Prove or, yeah, it's not arrogance. I wouldn't say it's arrogance. It's just some sort

00:58:45.620 of like edge, you know, that they have that other individuals don't have. Do you, do you recognize

00:58:52.540 that? Absolutely. And I think you think a little, well, Michael Jordan is a classic example. Tom Brady's

00:58:58.280 another guy. It's like they picked Tom Brady, whatever he was drafted 289th or something,

00:59:03.320 and that has fueled him, you know, for his whole career. And you're right. I can think of a bunch

00:59:09.900 of other people that are exactly that same way. I think it's that on some level,

00:59:16.180 these people know how good they are, or how good they can be. And,

00:59:22.080 and it just really pisses them off when other people don't see it. And what's also interesting

00:59:31.340 is that you can see that the people really close to them, like their mom and dad, or the people in

00:59:36.440 their posse that they grew up with, they know how good these guys are too. Like LeBron James, you know,

00:59:42.240 they, his buddies, they knew how good he was when he was 14 years old, you know, and they too would get

00:59:48.440 pissed off if other people didn't see that, you know? Yeah. So interesting. But I think we all have a sort

00:59:54.940 of a germ of that gift. And if we can only follow it, then, then we're on the right track.

01:00:02.820 I like that you call it a gift. I feel the same way. And I don't hear people talk about it like that.

01:00:07.860 You know, we, I think in popular culture, we've been led to believe that if you exhibit any sort of

01:00:13.320 pride in who you are or how you show up or the performance that you give, that you're arrogant

01:00:18.900 and you're egotistical and you're selfish and self-centered and all of these descriptives we use

01:00:26.020 to push people down. And I, I believe the opposite. I, I think you should be proud of the work you do.

01:00:33.680 I think you should be excited about what you bring to the world. I think you should want to compete and

01:00:39.560 want to win and want to do your best. It's just not taught in popular culture.

01:00:45.300 Yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting. I think it's part of being in a democracy,

01:00:49.160 you know, where we're kind of told, well, we're all equal, right? We're equal before the law,

01:00:55.640 right? That doesn't mean we're equal, equal, equal, but at the same time, as we're, we're told that.

01:01:00.580 So it's like in school, if you try to stand out, you get hammered down, right? You know,

01:01:06.720 they always say the thing about the, the Daisy that rises the highest gets snipped off, you know?

01:01:10.920 Yes. So we're taught that, but at the same time, we're given the opposite message, which is like

01:01:15.860 a Michael Jordan message of like, you can be great. You can be anything. You can be present. You can

01:01:20.580 be, and I think we're sort of torn in that, you know, it was a big issue for me. I kind of,

01:01:27.640 I'm a child of the sixties and I kind of came up in that era where it was like to be ambitious was

01:01:33.100 really bad, you know, cause it meant you were going to exceed other people or push other people

01:01:39.760 aside or whatever it is. But, and it was very liberating for me at some point where I just said

01:01:44.920 to myself, you know what? I am ambitious. I do have aspirations. And sort of the bottom line for me

01:01:50.680 is like, you've got bookshelves behind you there, Ryan. Sure. There's room for everybody's book in the

01:01:56.080 world on that bookshelf. You know, the bookshelf is infinite. Yeah. And we can all, you know,

01:02:01.100 find whatever it is that is our thing and do it. And it doesn't necessarily put anybody else down.

01:02:07.300 It's our gift to the world. And there's a, the bookshelf is infinite.

01:02:11.380 You know, and that goes back to something you said earlier about that imposter syndrome where

01:02:15.340 people think, well, it's already been written about or discussed or talked about, or,

01:02:18.900 you know, there's plenty of books where I've, you know, I've picked up a book and I've gone through

01:02:22.960 the first chapter and I'm like, I don't, I don't like this book. I can't read it or it doesn't

01:02:28.560 resonate with me or it's awkward or it's written in a way that doesn't jive with me. And so I used

01:02:33.580 to think that I had to read it. If I crack a book, I have to read it. I have to finish it.

01:02:37.100 And now I'm like, no, that doesn't resonate with me. But there's quite literally 10 million other

01:02:42.220 books that I can choose from that actually would resonate with me. That will serve me. That will help

01:02:47.100 me. We can find that in there's space for everybody. Yes. And but thinking of it from the point

01:02:54.520 of view of you're the one that's writing the book, giving yourself mission to write that book,

01:02:59.820 to write the book that is your life. It's not necessarily a book. In fact, it's probably not

01:03:04.820 a book. It's probably something completely different, but, but you, but if we just see

01:03:10.520 the bookshelf as a metaphor of there's a place for all of us, for everybody, for everybody's unique

01:03:16.240 talent, I think. Well, and I've thought about it in my own life when I'm faced with difficult

01:03:21.140 choices or even temptations of things that I know I shouldn't be doing or excuses, maybe not to do

01:03:27.440 the things that I should. I have used the exercise of saying, what would the ideal version,

01:03:35.500 which is just synonymous with character, right? What would this particular character that I've

01:03:41.500 made up in my mind, what would that person do? And, and using that practice has allowed me to make

01:03:49.100 better decisions that I don't think I would have made in any other context.

01:03:53.220 Do you mean that person, that version of you? Is that what you mean?

01:03:56.100 Correct. It's just a character of myself, right? Who, what would, what would the guy who was,

01:04:01.220 you know, operating at the pinnacle of his achievement or in 20 years, what would the 20,

01:04:06.120 what would the 50 year old Ryan do? Who's mature and has experience and is wealthy and ambitious and

01:04:12.460 serving other people. What would that guy do? And it allows me to make different decisions that I

01:04:18.440 wouldn't make it 30. Oh, that's great. That's great. I never thought about that before. It's a good

01:04:22.740 one. So I want to go back to something you talked about with, with, with fictional work and good books

01:04:30.560 and bad books. This might be an interesting question, but I've always wondered, is there a way,

01:04:35.680 cause I have little systems and tools that I use, especially when it comes to nonfiction, you know,

01:04:40.780 I might highlight and then tab and then make a note in the, in the margin and then go back and review.

01:04:45.740 I have systems for that. Are there systems or ways to read a fictional book? Like some people say,

01:04:54.880 just read it and just enjoy it. I'm like, well, maybe there's a better way to read a fictional

01:04:58.200 book. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that. Uh, that's, it's a great question. I mean,

01:05:03.220 I think sometimes when it's your job, like it's my job and I've sort of learned, you know, what a story

01:05:10.440 is, what act one, what act two, act three, and there's certain points that sometimes you can learn,

01:05:15.520 you can know too much and it kind of spoils that. I would say that the way to read a book is to just

01:05:21.100 immerse yourself in it and surrender to it, you know, and let the, let the artists take you on a

01:05:27.100 journey, like an e-ticket ride. And, and if you read, I'm also a big believer in reading things

01:05:33.100 multiple times. Um, this is another Ryan Holiday thing that he says too. And, and I think you can

01:05:40.820 read it the second time and try to analyze it a little and look for those tabs and those things.

01:05:45.420 But I think the first time just, I would just read, I read just for the emotion of it, you know,

01:05:51.020 and try to get swept up in the story. And then later go back and say, what the hell was this about?

01:05:56.900 Why did this grab me so much? Why did I love that scene? What did the writer do that made that

01:06:02.720 work so well? That's a good point. Cause I even think about that with, with movies that I,

01:06:08.260 that I watch, you know, I talk about Braveheart quite a bit actually. And I, and I think about,

01:06:13.040 you know, the first time I, I watched that movie, it really resonated with me deeply.

01:06:16.940 It resonated with me. And then you go back and you watch it for the second time in the,

01:06:21.360 in the 10th time and the hundredth time, and you start picking out new things that you didn't

01:06:26.820 experience before. And you're able to quantify maybe 10, 20 years down the road,

01:06:31.580 why it resonated with, with you so deeply. The first time you ever saw the movie or read the

01:06:36.340 book.

01:06:37.000 Yeah. And maybe it resonated with you for different reasons than it would resonate for me.

01:06:41.560 You know, that's a, that's a whole other thing.

01:06:44.680 And by the way, even 20 years later, it's something different. It resonates with you in

01:06:48.960 a different way than it did 20 years earlier.

01:06:51.240 By the way, I happen to be friends with Randy Wallace who wrote Braveheart. And I don't know

01:06:56.960 if you know the story about how he wrote it, but he was like at his wits end. He has, his whole

01:07:05.200 career, everything had sort of crashed. And he was like literally on his knees praying to God,

01:07:11.260 you know, what do I do? What do I do? And somehow out of that came the idea to do Braveheart,

01:07:16.900 which at the time he thought was a crazy idea. Who's going to want to read about this Scottish

01:07:21.960 guy that nobody's ever heard of. And, but he, again, he, he loved it. He was seized by it. He

01:07:28.480 believed in it. He put his soul into it. And I think he was like born to write that and it worked.

01:07:35.620 So, but it came out of a very, very dark moment for him. He didn't know what to do.

01:07:40.640 Yeah. You know, it's funny. Him and I have actually been texting back and forth because I'd like him to

01:07:45.980 come on the, on the podcast. So we've been playing a little bit of phone tag, but he's great. He'll

01:07:50.060 be great on this. I would just love to have a conversation about that story that you're

01:07:54.520 sharing and how this came to be and how he feels about impacting the same way you impacting quite

01:07:59.540 literally millions and millions of people across the planet for the better. It's phenomenal. It's,

01:08:06.460 it's amazing to me. You know, you talk about storytelling being the oldest form of communication.

01:08:12.840 And it is amazing to me in the midst of social media and podcasts and Facebook and Instagram

01:08:19.900 and all of these meet texting emails, these mediums of communication, that storytelling continues to be

01:08:27.300 the most important form of communication for people.

01:08:31.920 It's true. It's, it's almost, you think, well, why, what are the stories just are fun? You know,

01:08:36.880 what's so great about it, but we're, we're, we need them, you know, we need them to kind of guide us.

01:08:42.320 And if you think about now that TV and particularly cable TV and all of these streaming services have

01:08:47.920 come online, I mean, there are stories of the yin gang out there. I mean, it used to be like

01:08:52.640 one or two movies a week and that would be it. A couple of dumb TV shows now. And not only are

01:08:57.640 there so many of them, but they're so good. They are. So yeah. And we need them. We can't get enough

01:09:03.100 of them. I get disappointed if I don't pull up Netflix or Amazon and see a new series on there

01:09:08.040 every couple of days. I'm like, well, what the heck, what's going on slowly or something, you know?

01:09:14.140 Oh, well, Steve, I really appreciate you. And I appreciate you coming on this podcast and what

01:09:20.660 you've done and how you've impacted my life and other people that have, have, uh, that have been

01:09:26.580 impacted by the work you do. I'd like you to share just a little bit, maybe briefly about your book,

01:09:30.680 a man at arms. And then also you sent me this, which I'm really appreciative of because

01:09:34.920 just to show this off a little bit, I've got my signed copy here. Um, but also you sent me another

01:09:41.200 gift, which I know is actually right behind you. And I want you to show that gift off that you,

01:09:45.600 uh, had gifted me as well. Well, this is, uh, actually, um, when a man at arms comes out that

01:09:51.800 book in another month, this is going to be, this is a mug that's made by a wonderful young potter named

01:09:58.500 Joel Cherico is a real artist. And it's a replica. If you can see, this is a Spartan shield with the

01:10:04.140 Lambda on the front of it. And it's a replica of this, a famous mug from antiquity, the Spartan

01:10:11.740 Cothon, which the Spartan army used to carry on campaign when they went to war. And the reason

01:10:17.240 they, when they have to drink out of streams and rivers, and what made this thing interesting was it

01:10:21.580 had a dark interior. So if you were drinking mud, it wouldn't show up too bad. And also it had a concave

01:10:27.700 lip and nobody, uh, has seen one of these in 2000 years. And Joel Cherico kind of, he and I kind of

01:10:36.120 talked about this and he, he invented this. He made his shot at doing this. So when a man at arms comes

01:10:42.660 out in a month, we're going to have a contest. Here's the book. And, uh, we're going to be giving

01:10:48.040 away a bunch of these along with some other things. And, uh, but if you're interested in them now,

01:10:53.200 this actually retails for 145 bucks and, uh, it's Joel Cherico, C-H-E-R-R-I-C-O, Cherico

01:11:01.760 pottery. And that'll, this will be a gift or a contest prize when a man at arms comes out in a

01:11:08.140 month. Excellent. Well, uh, we'll make sure everybody knows. Cause I use mine just about

01:11:12.740 every day and yeah, your work is, is phenomenal. Okay. I'm going to go back to something you said

01:11:17.500 earlier. You said there's this book that you might be working on and you're like wrestling with it and

01:11:22.580 wondering if people are going to like it or you can put it out there. Can you share any of that

01:11:26.620 information about anything that's upcoming down the road? Uh, well, there's a couple of things

01:11:31.760 coming. There's one, this book, actually we talked about Ryan holiday. He gave me the idea for this

01:11:36.620 book. You know, Ryan holiday has a book called the daily stoic. Have you seen that? It's like a calendar

01:11:41.900 book and each day there's a kind of a short thing about stoicism, whatever, whatever. And it's

01:11:47.440 very, it's inspirational each morning you read it. And so he said to me, you know, you should do one

01:11:52.420 of these, Steve, you know, based on your stuff of the war of art and the various novels that you've

01:11:57.180 written. So I did. And I actually, Ryan gave me the title, which is the daily press field. So

01:12:02.960 I'm working on that now. It's a little egomaniacal, but it's, you know, a short thing each day.

01:12:08.160 And, uh, hopefully it's inspirational and, uh, hopefully it has some, you know, something that we can hang

01:12:14.280 on to. Yeah. I'm sure it will. That's a thing that's coming up very soon. Excellent. Maybe

01:12:19.700 Christmas seeing that and getting involved with that. Well, Steve, how do we connect with you?

01:12:23.780 Learn more about your work? Of course, pick up a copy of the book and enter the contest you just

01:12:27.620 talked about. How do we do that? Um, just, uh, the book is called a man at arms. And if you just go

01:12:34.080 to www, a man at arms.com, that'll, that'll tell you all the sort of stuff right there. And, um,

01:12:41.160 also I have a website that's just my name, stephenpressfield.com or the book is available

01:12:46.080 at any bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, whatever. Perfect. We'll sync it all up. Thanks

01:12:52.340 again for joining us. I appreciate our conversations and our friendship, and I'm looking forward to seeing

01:12:56.580 what else you have on the, on the horizon. This is great, Ryan. I'm sure we could do many,

01:13:00.320 many more of these and I'm game for it. If you are, we definitely will. We definitely will.

01:13:04.940 And I'll talk to Randy Wallace and give him a little nudge to be on the podcast.

01:13:08.280 Please do. Yeah. Give him the nudge. So we don't, so we stop playing phone tag and make this thing

01:13:11.900 happen. I know I would be excited about that. I know the guys listening would as well.

01:13:15.940 All right. I will talk to him because he would be great and it would be great for everybody

01:13:19.060 listening too. He's a wonderful guy. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. All right. See you, Ryan.

01:13:25.020 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Mr. Steven Pressfield. I hope that you

01:13:29.360 enjoyed that one as much as I do. I say that every week because I'm just having a great time.

01:13:33.900 Honestly, I mean, that's, that's what it comes down to. I'm just having a really good time

01:13:37.460 interviewing these incredible men. And I got to thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that,

01:13:43.460 for banding with us, for promoting the work that we're doing here, taking your screenshots,

01:13:47.660 sharing them on the socials, buying our products and our merchandise, leaving ratings and reviews,

01:13:53.080 joining the iron council, all the things that you guys are doing to support us allows this to happen.

01:13:58.420 It could, it could not happen if you weren't doing these things. So guys, thank you. First and

01:14:02.560 foremost, if you want to connect with me or Steven about this podcast and his book, a man at arms or

01:14:08.100 any of his works, please do so on Instagram. Both him and I are very active on Instagram

01:14:13.300 and let both of us know, shoot us a message and let us know what you thought about the show.

01:14:17.900 Take a screenshot that you're listening tag, Steven Pressfield tag myself. I'll share it on my end.

01:14:23.180 I'm sure he'll share it on his end, or at least take a look and hopefully get back with you on that as

01:14:27.240 well, but he's very, he's very interactive that way. So guys, thank you again for being on this

01:14:34.180 path and this journey with me. Take a look at the iron council, order a man.com slash iron council.

01:14:38.540 Again, we're talking about the art of impossible for the month of March and finishing up crafting

01:14:43.960 the perfect day for the month of February. And then also look at origin beard oil, which is my

01:14:48.700 new project with them. If you head to Amazon type in origin beard oil, you'll find it. And then

01:14:55.720 if you end up picking anything up, leave a review, take a screenshot of your review

01:14:59.360 and email that to promotions at origin MFG.com origin and excuse me, promotions at origin MFG.com.

01:15:09.160 All right, guys, make sure you subscribe. We've got some good ones coming up as we always do,

01:15:12.480 but until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.

01:15:16.980 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:15:21.540 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 09, 2021

STEVEN PRESSFIELD ｜ A Man at Arms

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript