Order of Man - STEVEN PRESSFIELD ｜ Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be

00:00:00.000 All of us have dreams and ambitions, but too few of us are willing to act towards those desires.

00:00:04.500 And even if we are, it's easy to get derailed, distracted, and sidetracked. My guest today is

00:00:09.760 one of my favorite authors on the planet. His name is Steven Pressfield. He's the author of

00:00:14.600 The War of Art, Gates of Fire, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and his newest book, a memoir

00:00:19.380 about his life filled with ups and downs called Government Cheese. Today, we talk about infusing

00:00:24.820 soul into our work, including a rebuke of the new AI technology, ChatGPT, the drive to

00:00:31.200 quote unquote, make the kill, good shame versus bad shame, noble obstacles, why being stuck

00:00:37.780 is often a good sign, and ultimately putting your ass where your heart wants to be. 0.66

00:00:42.760 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:47.660 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You

00:00:53.160 are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This

00:00:59.360 is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said

00:01:04.340 and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:07.320 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder

00:01:11.240 of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here. Welcome back. Got a really special

00:01:16.500 one for you lined up today with Steven Pressfield. He's been on the show before, and we've had

00:01:20.860 conversations, and I'm telling you, this guy is special, and you're going to hear that

00:01:25.360 in the podcast today. We have some great discussions about one of my favorite books, which is The

00:01:30.500 War of Art. Gates of Fire, we talk a little bit about. We talk about his newest books, Put

00:01:36.380 Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be, and also his memoir, Government Cheese. So we'll get

00:01:40.500 to that in just a minute. Before we do, just want to mention that we've got a really big sale

00:01:43.980 going on for the month of February, 50% off in the entire store, 50% off in the entire

00:01:50.720 store. So if you've ever wanted to order a man, hats, shirts, beanies, decals, battle

00:01:55.780 planners, wallets, et cetera, et cetera, this month is the time to do it. We're just trying

00:02:00.120 to clear out space and give you, give you a discount on the merch so you can look good

00:02:05.240 and represent what we're doing here, which is to reclaim and restore masculinity. That's

00:02:10.420 what we're doing here in the podcast is giving you the tools and the information that you

00:02:14.600 need to become a better man in the walls of your home, in your business, and in your community.

00:02:19.200 So let's get to my guest today. Again, his name is Steven Pressfield. He likely needs no

00:02:25.200 introduction, but I'll give you a brief one anyways. As I said earlier, he's one of my favorite

00:02:29.160 authors and his books are frequent on my list of books every man needs to read. Not only does

00:02:37.160 he do a tremendous job in the self-development genre, including one of my all-time favorite

00:02:42.120 books, again, the war of art, but his historical fiction is phenomenal, including gates of fire

00:02:46.960 and a man at arms is another great book in his newest book, government cheese. He shares

00:02:51.680 his incredible decades long journey of not knowing a thing about writing to becoming one

00:02:56.740 of the most recognized authors in the world in multiple genres. So I hope you enjoy this

00:03:03.940 one, guys. Steven, how are you doing? So great to see you today.

00:03:08.560 Yeah. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Great to see you.

00:03:11.120 Yeah. It's been, I don't, I should have looked, I don't know how long it's been since we did

00:03:14.220 the last podcast, but I always enjoy our conversations.

00:03:17.160 Yeah. A couple of years, three years, something like that.

00:03:19.600 Yeah. It's, it's amazing how fast time goes. You know, I, I have to apologize ahead of time.

00:03:24.580 I reached out to you what, three weeks or so ago. I said, Hey, let's have you on the

00:03:28.540 podcast to talk about your latest book, which I, at the time I thought was put your ass where 0.74

00:03:35.760 your heart wants to be. And then in the mail, you sent me this one. And I was like, wait,

00:03:44.540 wait a second. I didn't know that you had come out with this book. And this, this is even,

00:03:49.780 I won't say better, but this is just as good. It's like completely different than something

00:03:54.440 obviously that you've written in the past. So, uh, I was pleasantly surprised and have been

00:03:59.040 really enjoying the book. Oh, great. Great. Great. Thanks for, thanks for diving into it.

00:04:04.200 Yeah. What made you want to write more about your own personal journey as opposed to

00:04:10.320 fictional work and more of what I would call, you know, that, that self-help space.

00:04:15.660 Um, it's really my, um, my better half, Diana, who sort of urged me to try this, you know, like,

00:04:24.080 uh, she's heard all my stories, you know? So she said, well, you should, you should tell some of

00:04:29.260 these things because they would help people, you know, cause people are sort of, you know,

00:04:32.480 they, they've heard little bits about your passage in life, you know, but they don't know how one

00:04:37.540 thing connects to the other. And I, I resisted the hell out of it. Of course I said, you know,

00:04:42.160 everybody's got a million stories. Why is anybody won't care about mine, you know? But, you know,

00:04:47.560 finally she talked me into it. And, uh, it's something that I've really wanted to do for a

00:04:51.860 while because I'd never have done it before. You know, I've sort of alluded to various events in

00:04:57.140 my life, but I've never actually spelled it out. So anyway, I finally got into it and it turned out

00:05:02.680 to be a lot of fun. Do you, uh, so your reservation was that people wouldn't be interested. It wouldn't be

00:05:09.440 worthwhile for people to read. Have you found that to be the case? Everybody's got a million

00:05:14.040 stories in their own life, you know, most are boring as hell, but I finally thought that,

00:05:19.620 you know, the book is really about my, my passage as a writer, you know, from first quitting a job

00:05:25.760 to try to write and utterly failing. And then like, it took me like 27 years before I finally got a book

00:05:32.300 published. And so I just thought that a report of that passage might be encouraging to people,

00:05:40.320 you know, who think that they've been trying for two or three years and thinking that's a long period

00:05:45.500 of time. Maybe it might, you know, buck them up to think that maybe it's going to take 30 years.

00:05:51.500 Hopefully it doesn't discourage them. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it would be helpful to people.

00:05:56.780 So we'll see. No, I'm sure it will. I, I've written two books now, nowhere to the near to

00:06:04.320 the success that you've had with what you've written. And maybe I need to put my 27 years in,

00:06:09.040 but it always, I do share a lot of my own personal journey. You actually alluded to that

00:06:14.200 before we even hit record here. And for me, it always feels a little presumptuous for me to put,

00:06:21.920 I am trying to help with my stories, but sometimes I feel strange as in like, who cares about what I'm

00:06:29.300 going through? But I found that so many people resonate with our real lives and it does help to

00:06:34.600 improve theirs. Yeah. It's, I know what you mean. It's, it's, it's a risk because it sort of borders

00:06:40.520 on ego mania, you know, it's like, you know, who are you? Who do we, why do we care? But at the same

00:06:46.960 time, I know when I hear people's personal stories, it helps me, you know, when somebody says they had

00:06:53.980 a health issue or they had, you know, you know, a personal crisis that they had or whatever, you

00:07:00.300 know, I, I, I'm encouraged by that. And a lot of times the, the sort of techniques that they used

00:07:08.400 or the mindset that they use to overcome it is helpful to me. I'll just, I'll use them as mentors

00:07:13.740 and I'll take it in. So that was what, you know, I'm sure you hope that when you write

00:07:18.260 about your stuff, Ryan, and I do too, I just hope it's helpful.

00:07:22.380 Yeah. Now, is that the infamous typewriter there over your, I think that's your left shoulder?

00:07:27.640 This is not, that one's in storage, but this is kind of a similar, you know, baby brother.

00:07:33.140 Okay. Yeah. What an interesting thing it must be to see how far writing has come with obviously,

00:07:40.380 you know, computer technology and word processors and, and to see that transition over the span

00:07:46.840 of your career has probably been pretty interesting.

00:07:49.420 Yeah. It's like, I was, you know, I started talking in the book, you know, about typewriters

00:07:53.360 and I realized that people don't know what a typewriter is these days. You know, in fact,

00:07:59.540 I saw a thing, it was a, I forgot the name of the show, but it was a thing where they had

00:08:04.140 like eight or nine kids, like six year old, 70 year old kids. And they showed them a typewriter

00:08:09.680 and asked them, what is this? And they just didn't have a clue. They were trying to feed

00:08:15.480 paper in, you know, through the front of the thing. And so, uh, yeah, things have certainly

00:08:20.700 changed, you know, and to, even to mention something like carbon paper, I mean, you know

00:08:25.680 what carbon paper is, right? Or don't you?

00:08:29.000 Maybe I, maybe I don't, maybe you can explain it for me. Explain it.

00:08:33.280 Like when you're writing on a typewriter, if you wanted to have a copy of something, not just

00:08:38.560 one page, you would put in one page, then you put a piece of carbon paper and then a

00:08:43.580 second page. And as the key struck the first page, the carbon paper would transfer it to

00:08:50.100 the second page as well. So you have to do a carbon paper was like inked paper, really

00:08:55.300 thin filament type paper. And no, I just, to me, that's just a given, but I realized people

00:09:02.220 today don't know what that is. So anyway, it was it, you're right. It's interesting how

00:09:05.820 things have changed. So I didn't know that I was actually going to ask because when

00:09:12.160 you're typing something that, I mean, a mistake, maybe you could have whited it out or crossed

00:09:16.520 it out, but then you'd need to write the new word. I was like, okay, how do you get multiple

00:09:20.440 copies of this? But now that you say that I had a really interesting experience. I must

00:09:24.240 have been in, I want to say I was maybe in seventh grade and I got my report card in the

00:09:29.780 mail and I can't remember what class it was. It's probably English or history. And I got

00:09:34.800 a D on my report card and I got it before my mom got home. And I either, there was a

00:09:42.020 piece of carbon paper with the report card, or I had some, and I actually changed the D

00:09:48.440 to a B. I don't even know if my mom knows to this day, but I changed the D to a B using

00:09:54.500 that same concept. So I am familiar with it now that you share it.

00:09:58.240 Oh, great. Great. That's a great memory to bring back.

00:10:00.920 I'm going to have to see if she knows that I did that. I don't know if she knows to this

00:10:04.720 day. Uh, speaking of technology though, are you familiar with, uh, AI programs like

00:10:11.820 chat GPT? Is this something you've heard of?

00:10:14.520 I've been reading about it in the paper, but I've never actually seen it work or done

00:10:18.920 anything with it.

00:10:20.140 Yeah. I I'm interested because I, so I typed in a question the other day and I said, uh,

00:10:27.660 write me a 1000 word article on the best fitness tips for men. And within 30 seconds,

00:10:34.780 it had cranked out seven or eight tips that were all legitimate. It sounded professionally

00:10:41.480 written. I didn't see any weird computer lingo. It all looked like somebody, it was very generic,

00:10:46.920 but it was pretty good. And I was curious about your thought with some of this AI technology

00:10:54.020 with when it comes to journalism or even just authoring a novel. If you look at that as a

00:11:00.060 threat, if you look at that as advancement and what your perspective on something like

00:11:04.200 that would be.

00:11:04.740 I think it's the work of the devil. It's the spawn of the devil.

00:11:09.660 What makes you say that?

00:11:11.180 And, and like you say, it is so generic that, uh, thank goodness. I don't feel threatened by it at

00:11:18.720 all, because I think, uh, the definition of that is that there's no element of soul in anything,

00:11:25.080 you know, that it's just sort of culled from other stuff. And, uh, I even a friend of mine,

00:11:31.320 like, um, sent me just for fun. He, he, he said, give me a review of my last two books of my books,

00:11:40.040 right. Including the one you have government cheese. And the first one, I think it was of

00:11:45.960 gates of fire or something like that. And the, the AI review was pretty realistic, you know,

00:11:51.460 but because they had somehow culled it from various reviews or whatever, but the new one,

00:11:57.440 since it was brand new was completely wrong and out to lunch. Then they were just, I don't even know

00:12:03.860 the AI was just sort of making it up or whatever, but it was totally wrong. So that really encouraged

00:12:08.860 me that they ain't that smart yet. Yeah. And I heard it is scary. It's scary. And, you know,

00:12:16.920 I heard something interesting today with these things is we call it AI artificial intelligence,

00:12:21.800 but it's, it's really not completely artificial or intelligent. Uh, there's parameters, right?

00:12:28.800 There's somebody is dangling the strings and saying, okay, well, you know, we don't want to talk about

00:12:34.340 transgenderism, for example, or we don't want to talk about, I don't know. There's parameters that

00:12:38.820 people are entering. Yeah. You're right. They're touting it as, as completely objective

00:12:45.020 when it comes to the, the returns or the results that you're going to get back.

00:12:51.420 Yeah. Which it's not, like you say, because somebody has to establish guidelines and

00:12:55.740 guardrails and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's okay if you have, uh, obviously if

00:13:03.460 there's, there's people who disagree with you or see it differently, but I just want to know that

00:13:07.100 you're biased towards your perspective. Don't tout it as something that is unbiased when clearly

00:13:11.580 it's not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It has, it has to be biased. Some, it's like the editors at a newspaper

00:13:17.940 are going to skew the newspaper one, one way or another. What is truth, right? What is objective truth?

00:13:24.860 Yeah. How have you found to get to the root of that, including some of your, your past works where

00:13:30.520 it's, you know, gates of fire, where it might be some historical fiction. How have you found in

00:13:36.800 your research to get to the truth of the matter when you're, when you are writing a book like,

00:13:40.980 like that? That's a great question. I think that, uh, you, you have to have a point of view

00:13:48.140 in everything, right? Um, like one book of mine is, uh, the lion's gate, which was about

00:13:55.440 the 1967 Arab Israeli war, the six day war. Okay. As I was putting that together, you know,

00:14:02.440 I did a bunch of interviews in Israel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just, I, I had to

00:14:08.300 write in the, in the introduction that this book is not objective, that I'm taking it from the Israeli

00:14:14.720 side. I'm not trying to give a balanced perspective. And, you know, as you read it,

00:14:20.900 dear reader, just be aware of that. This is not a tent. This is not an even handed account. This is

00:14:26.840 seen through one particular lens. And I think, you know, you just, you have to do that in anything,

00:14:33.220 any, any work that you're doing, you have to have a point of view. And that like a newspaper,

00:14:38.280 like the New York times has a slant one way and Fox news has a slant another way. And they just,

00:14:44.280 they have to, otherwise it wouldn't be what they are. Just like you and I have a slant, right?

00:14:47.620 Yeah. I think that goes back to your comment about soul. If you don't have a point of view,

00:14:53.560 you don't have an assertion or a perspective. Does it really, it lacks, well, it lacks courage,

00:15:00.640 I think to not take a side, to not stand for something. And it lacks something to contend

00:15:07.780 with something to debate about. And I think it does lack a lot of soul if it's so generic that

00:15:12.940 it's trying to appease everybody. Yeah. I think that's, that's a, that's a great way of putting it.

00:15:17.620 There's nothing to contend with, you know, like your stuff definitely has such a point of view

00:15:22.940 that somebody could react against it and say, ah, this is a bunch of bullshit. He's really pushing

00:15:27.680 some kind of agenda that I don't think is possible or that kind of thing. Or they could say, wow,

00:15:32.500 this is exactly right. This guy's talent. Like it is, this is exactly what we all need to hear.

00:15:38.560 And you have to have that. Otherwise you got nothing. Otherwise you have that AI. That's what AI is

00:15:45.300 without that. Although I'm sure they're working on it. I'm sure. It is funny when people say you're

00:15:50.920 pushing an agenda. Yes. Correct. And I'm very clear about the agenda that I'm trying to push.

00:15:56.260 Like I'm not hiding the ball on that one. Yeah. So over time then, you know, throughout your career,

00:16:02.640 uh, what, what are the things that have, you also talked about hope a lot in this book. What,

00:16:08.060 what are the things that have given you hope when it feels like you have this,

00:16:14.140 this dream and this desire to do something and you're met with just constant setback or,

00:16:22.020 or resistance as, as you would call it. Uh, what is it that gives you hope in the face of that?

00:16:28.680 Yeah. I've thought about that a lot actually. And it's almost like there's no alternative to hope.

00:16:34.820 It's, it's sort of like swimming in the ocean. It's like, what's the alternative? If you stop

00:16:41.880 swimming, you gotta be in the bottom of the ocean, you know? So I think you just, the, the alternative

00:16:49.060 is death. You know, you just got to keep going forward one way or another. Um, yeah, it, it seems

00:16:57.460 as simple as that. I agree with that answer. I, I don't know how many people are, are content with

00:17:03.020 that answer. It doesn't make it any less true or relevant. I just, I I'm hearing people in the back

00:17:07.280 of my mind that, that still struggle with, you know, throwing in the towel or, or, and I guess

00:17:15.240 that's one option, right? Is to say, Hey, maybe this isn't for me. Or one thing I hear a lot is people

00:17:19.720 will say, uh, you know, if, if it's God's will, or if it's meant to be, and that a lot of the time

00:17:27.700 seems like an excuse not to continue doing the work that they have a desire to do or a

00:17:32.660 dream, a dream that they want to pursue. Yeah. I I'm, I'm not sure what kept me going

00:17:40.020 all the time. I felt like really like I sort of started like at the bottom of the pit, my

00:17:45.800 odyssey started, you know, uh, an utter failure of my first shot at writing and my life kind

00:17:52.920 of falling apart, marriage exploding, et cetera, et cetera, falling out of, uh, any kind of work,

00:17:59.100 you know, no money. So I sort of, the challenge was to survive that. It was like, how was I going

00:18:05.700 to get out of that, that, uh, tunnel? And I, for some reason, I felt like the only way I can get out

00:18:13.600 of this is to write my way out of it. I just, I've got to, you know, succeed at that one way or

00:18:20.620 another. And, uh, I don't know where that idea came from, but that was, that sort of was unshakable

00:18:28.940 for me. Um, what, so with writing, so I told you I've authored two books now and, uh, you know,

00:18:37.340 I'm, I'm happy with it. I, I, I'm proud of the work that I put out. I try to put a lot of effort

00:18:41.720 into it, but it isn't something that I particularly enjoy. I really don't like when this last one in

00:18:48.260 particular, I really had to grind through it. And I don't mean grind like, oh, it's challenging,

00:18:53.900 but I really want to do this. It was like, I don't want to do this, but I know it's going to

00:18:57.340 do good for people. What does writing do for you? Is it therapeutic? Is it, does it help you work

00:19:05.800 through ideas? Like what has got exactly does writing do for you that you find so much joy in it?

00:19:10.800 Well, it's, it's really, it's my calling, you know, like some people are born to be dancers or

00:19:15.500 some people are born to be musicians, right. Or performers of some kind, right. They just have

00:19:20.460 to get up on the stage or some people are born to be comedians or moms or whatever, but that's, 0.81

00:19:26.660 it's just my, it's my calling. You know, uh, I, I even think of it, uh, more as a storyteller than a,

00:19:33.680 than a writer, you know, it's what gives me, um, you know, they say is a, is an activity

00:19:40.240 battery charging or battery depleting for you. Right. And for me, it's a battery charging thing.

00:19:46.300 When I'm done with a day, I feel like I've paid my dues to the planet for that day. I've done what

00:19:54.540 I'm supposed to do. And, uh, and if I don't do it, then I really feel depleted. I feel like I've let

00:20:00.760 myself down. And, you know, so it's just, people have callings. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born to be

00:20:06.660 a bodybuilder and a, an actor or whatever he, you know, governor or whatever. Um, and, uh, for me,

00:20:13.460 writing is that doesn't sound like you're a pure writer, Ryan, like you may use writing in, in as

00:20:20.520 part of, uh, one tool in your kit, but, uh, it doesn't seem like it brings you, you know, the joy

00:20:27.400 and satisfaction, not to say for me that it isn't hard. It is hard. Sure. You know, it's a killer,

00:20:32.980 but at the end of the day, you know, I feel like, uh, I paid my dues and I've earned my place on the

00:20:39.320 planet. I feel that way about podcasting. I feel that way about having these conversations. It's,

00:20:46.080 uh, it energizes me. I learned new perspectives. I do like to speak, but that's different than,

00:20:52.260 so I love communicating. I just don't want to do it in that medium. I found another medium that I feel

00:20:56.820 is my call. I'll give you a pass. You don't have to do it only when you want to. Well, that's good.

00:21:01.700 That's good to know actually too, because I think there are a lot of people who see your success or

00:21:06.200 they might look at my success or anybody they're inspired by and think, well, in order to be

00:21:10.060 successful, I have to do it just like Steven did. Yeah. Well, of course that's not true of anything,

00:21:15.740 right? We all carve our own path, whatever it is. And mine's completely different from yours or from

00:21:21.140 anybody else's. Yeah. Can you, uh, can you explain a little bit when you say you've said, you said it a

00:21:27.320 couple of times, uh, paid my dues to the planet or paid my dues to be here on this planet? Can you

00:21:32.540 expand on that a little bit by what you mean that you have some debt that you owe to the planet or,

00:21:39.300 or for being alive? Can you explain that? I think, you know, it's weird. I'd never thought about this

00:21:44.300 as a kid, but as an adult, it's sort of, it, it really, uh, somehow insinuated itself into my

00:21:51.400 consciousness. And I completely believe it that just like if we're, uh, a hawk or an eagle,

00:21:59.400 we wake up in the morning, we know we got to get up there and hunt, right? We got to get up there.

00:22:04.800 We got to don't cruise around. And, and at the end of the day, if we don't do that, first of all,

00:22:09.220 we're starving and our little birds, our little baby hawks are starving, but also, I mean, a hawk must

00:22:15.820 feel pretty bad if he doesn't do that. And I'm the same way. I think you, and I'm, and I'm sure you

00:22:20.620 are too, Ryan, we got to make a kill during the day, you know, or one or two or three kills.

00:22:26.500 That's just part of it. And so I found when I'd done other things, like when I've worked straight

00:22:33.180 jobs that I, at the end of the day, I feel guilty. I feel, um, I haven't paid my dues. I

00:22:41.920 haven't earned my place on the planet, but even if I'm just sitting home alone, which I did for years

00:22:47.460 and I've been writing that day, even if nobody sees it, it's no good. It's never going to go

00:22:53.420 anywhere. At the end of the day, I feel like I paid my dues and I've earned my right. And I feel

00:22:59.180 peace of mind. I can go to sleep. That actually leads into something I wanted to ask you about.

00:23:04.300 You know, when I look at people who have been in, in anything, uh, and have displayed some level of

00:23:10.840 mastery towards that thing, in your case, writing, I often wonder if it's that they're goal oriented

00:23:17.460 or strictly process oriented, and they find joy in the process and the outcome really isn't all

00:23:26.220 that important relative to them feeling the win is in the process. I mean, I'm definitely from the

00:23:32.760 process school. You know, um, I think of, of, of my own journey as a writer, as a practice,

00:23:41.960 you know, like if you have a yoga practice or a meditation practice, it's, uh, something that you

00:23:48.300 do every day. It's ritualistic. It's a dedicated thing. It's, it exists for its own sake and not for

00:23:57.280 any kind of finish line. No, when you go in to meditate, it's not like you're saying, well, I,

00:24:01.940 I got to come out of this with $500 in my pocket, right? You're just doing it for the activity alone.

00:24:07.480 Right. And there's a certain sacred quality to it. You know, you're, if you have a martial arts

00:24:14.080 practice and you go to the dojo, you know, you enter the dojo and you, you take your shoes off

00:24:20.600 and you bow to the sensei, you know, and, and it's a, it's a sacred space, right? You don't curse in

00:24:25.980 there. You don't act in a certain way. You always act respectful. And, and, uh, those are

00:24:31.920 kind of the qualities of a practice in anything. So I think, you know, that when I sit down in front

00:24:37.480 of this thing, it's a practice for me. And, uh, not that that's an easy attitude to maintain

00:24:45.480 because I have an ego like everybody else. And I hope when I write a book that people are going to

00:24:50.100 buy it. Of course, if they don't, that's okay. I'm, you know, I'm moving on to the next one and

00:24:56.680 the next one after that. So I'm definitely from the process school.

00:25:01.560 You're, uh, you're alluding to a level of, uh, you use the term respect and, and I've,

00:25:06.860 I've looked at it as a level of reverence towards an activity as well. I remember when I was young,

00:25:11.520 I must've been maybe in sixth grade or so I got into a fight and got a bloody nose and my mom

00:25:18.900 freaked out and decided that she was going to get me into karate lessons, which I think was an

00:25:24.620 inappropriate response. You know, she didn't get mad. She's like, Hey, if you're going to fight,

00:25:27.380 you got to learn to defend yourself. So props to my mom on that one. So I went to class,

00:25:32.420 it was a Kempo karate class. And I went to class and I had the, the gi that I was supposed to wear.

00:25:37.840 And I had my pants on and I had a, like a, some sort of t-shirt and I was holding my gi in my hand

00:25:42.960 and I came in and I put it on. And I remember, I'll never forget the instructor pulled me aside.

00:25:46.900 He said, Hey, now Ryan, with, I just, I want to talk you through something. When you come in here,

00:25:51.760 it needs a level of respect and you don't walk in here without your gi top on tied up and ready to

00:25:57.820 go so that when you come in, you're a hundred percent ready. And even at, well, I must've been

00:26:03.160 11, 12 years old. Even then I recognized, Oh God, this is a person who takes this very seriously.

00:26:10.580 And I appreciate it even at that age. Yeah, that's great. I love that story. Yeah. That's so true.

00:26:15.980 What does your, what does your level of respect and reverence towards the writing process look

00:26:21.440 like? Is, is there a room dedicated? Are you in it now? Is there a certain time of day that you

00:26:27.020 write? What does that look like? Yeah. I always write at about, at the same time,

00:26:31.780 about the same time. Of course it depends on like right now I would normally be writing and not doing

00:26:36.960 this podcast. Okay. So I, but so I can adjust. So I'll go, I'll move down the clock a little bit

00:26:43.800 farther, but this is, this is my room and I, my, and it's a sacred space to me too. I say my prayer

00:26:50.760 to the muse when I come in here and, uh, I turn everything off. There's no distractions. And, um,

00:26:59.200 I'm, I'm trying to do the absolute best that I can, you know, I'm trying to work as hard as I possibly

00:27:06.100 can without working so hard that I drive myself insane, you know? And, um, and, uh, when, when the

00:27:15.220 day's over, you know, which may be two hours or three hours, um, if I've done that, I'll sort of

00:27:21.740 judge myself on that. And if I've done it to my own, to my own satisfaction, if I've tried it hard

00:27:27.940 enough, then I don't judge the work at all. You know, that, that time will come maybe a month from

00:27:34.980 now, two months from now, six months from now when I'm revising something or whatever. But I just, uh,

00:27:41.020 I just try to like, like entering the dojo. I want to have my gi on when I enter and be respectful of

00:27:48.160 the sensei and do the absolute best I can all, all the way through there. And it's energizing,

00:27:54.160 you know, it's energizing. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. When, and when you pay it that level of

00:27:59.700 respect, you treat it differently, which means you enjoy it more. And then the outcome is usually

00:28:05.740 more favorable that way too. Yes. And to go beyond that a little bit, to get into slightly deeper

00:28:12.660 waters, I'm definitely a believer that this as a writer or any creative person, that the stuff that

00:28:20.860 comes out on the page is coming from some place other than your conscious mind. You know, you are

00:28:29.000 not, when all is said and done, you can't stand up and say, I did this, you know, I, I helped do it,

00:28:36.840 but it's coming from some other, some other place. And that, and that the skill of the artist really is

00:28:44.480 the skill of opening the pipeline to that place, you know, and making oneself an instrument that can

00:28:53.560 handle it, you know, that can handle a voltage and that can do it, do it right and do it as a

00:28:59.380 professional, you know? So there's an element of respect that way too. That there's, there's,

00:29:08.200 there are other forces in play that we can't define and that we have to respect that, that are

00:29:15.420 really providing all the meat and potatoes to the, to the activity. Is, is that what you referenced

00:29:22.000 earlier when you said the muse, you said you pray to the muse? Exactly. Yeah. Is the muse, is that

00:29:27.680 different than God? Because the way you're explaining it, I would say God personally. In fact, I made a

00:29:31.960 post on Twitter the other day and I said, why do people, and I was being genuine about it. I think

00:29:36.100 people may, may have thought I was saying it controversial, controversial, but I wasn't.

00:29:41.700 And I was asking, why do people say the universe? And then the way they describe it is the same way

00:29:49.080 I would say God. It's just, it was just, it's just kind of an interesting perspective. So I'm really

00:29:54.160 curious about your relationship with the muse versus God. Is that, is that different? Do you see it as

00:29:58.820 being the same and you're calling it something different? I think they're probably different names for

00:30:02.840 the same mysterious force that we can't really say. I mean, like, let me, I'll talk a little bit about

00:30:11.260 the muse here for a second, because I'm sure a lot of people are not familiar with this. But in, in Greek

00:30:16.960 mythology, there were goddesses, nine muses. They were sisters, daughters of Zeus, the king of the gods,

00:30:26.580 and mimosony, which means memory. And the muse's job was to inspire artists. And there was a muse for

00:30:34.960 every form of art. There was a muse of dance and a muse of epic poetry and so on and so forth. And

00:30:41.380 the, the kind of the classic image that we, from, from antiquity that we have would be something like

00:30:48.320 Beethoven sitting at the piano and whispering in his ear would be this kind of goddess, right?

00:30:55.680 And she would be sort of humming the tune that he was then going to play on the piano. And I think

00:31:02.000 that, that there's a lot to be said for that, you know? I mean, the Greeks like to anthropomorphize 0.99

00:31:09.380 something, right? They gave it a human face, their gods and goddesses. Whereas if we say God,

00:31:14.680 you might think of, I don't know what, but, or somebody says the universe, maybe they're thinking of

00:31:20.740 the quantum field or something Einsteinian. I think it's, it's all, it's all a different name

00:31:27.540 for the same thing, that there's a level above us, a level of reality above us that somehow penetrates

00:31:35.160 this reality that we live in, this material reality. And that that's where magic comes from,

00:31:43.120 you know, that's where a great song comes from, or a great architectural building or, or anything,

00:31:48.880 you know, great mother, um, comes from, from that somehow.

00:31:53.760 You don't believe that it's just some culmination of experiences and cultural conditioning and beliefs?

00:32:01.360 No, I don't. I don't. And I'll tell you why, for whatever this is worth. Like, um,

00:32:06.340 my, I have like five books that are set in ancient Greece, like Gates of Fire and,

00:32:11.860 and Tides of War and a couple of others that came out of, it followed up. And when I started to write

00:32:17.280 those, I didn't, I didn't know anything about Greece. I didn't have any interest in it. Well,

00:32:22.660 maybe a little bit of it, but those books came out of nowhere, came out of absolutely nowhere as far as

00:32:28.440 my conscious mind is concerned. And, and they immediately resonated with a whole shitload of

00:32:37.240 people, you know, and so that I could say to myself, something's going on here, you know, and,

00:32:44.380 but, and it was definitely very clear that it wasn't really me. It was coming through me. Now,

00:32:51.060 in, in some way I was, maybe I had a previous lifetime there or something, but in some way it

00:32:58.420 was very congenial to me. When I found myself writing about something 2,500 years ago, I felt

00:33:04.300 like I was really in command of it, that it was easy to imagine what it was like and how people

00:33:09.220 thought. So that really showed me that, uh, uh, it's not just your own personal experiences that

00:33:16.800 you had as a child or whatever. It's, we, we have a depth of, of, of consciousness or, or experience

00:33:25.380 that comes from, I don't know where, but it's, it's not entirely from this lifetime.

00:33:32.020 You, earlier you used the word, I think you used it, or maybe I just thought it in my mind and

00:33:36.420 attributed it to you. You, I think you said instrument, you said to be an instrument.

00:33:39.840 Yeah. And so if that's the case, have you identified what

00:33:45.840 your purposes and what I think, I'm hope I'm saying it the way you would say it, what the muse

00:33:53.420 would use you for as an instrument? Um, well, here, here's what I, here's what I mean by that,

00:34:00.240 Ryan, if I can, it's, you know, they say sometimes people who are serious meditators and I'm, I'm not

00:34:07.080 one, but people say that, uh, that you have to be in, in good physical shape and in good psychic

00:34:16.700 shape because the voltage that's coming into you when you meditate can overwhelm you if you're not

00:34:22.920 ready to handle it, you know? And I, and so I use that sort of as an analogy, like if, like when I,

00:34:30.000 the first book that I tried to write where I completely failed and was just an utter disaster,

00:34:36.360 my instrument, meaning the skills that I brought to the table, the skills as a, as a writer of

00:34:44.860 putting words on, but also the skills like, how do you start something? How do you finish something?

00:34:50.360 What happens when you get in the middle and you're lost? What happens when people are rejecting you?

00:34:55.080 I had none of those, you know, that's, those are, that's what I would define as the instrument that

00:35:00.800 a writer brings to something. Like if you and I are going to play music and we're going to write a song

00:35:07.360 together and we're going to perform, first of all, we have to know how to play our instruments, right?

00:35:12.540 We got to know how to play the guitar or the keyboard or whatever it is. Then we got to know how to perform.

00:35:18.000 We got to know how to take care of our bodies and our, and our brains so that at the end of each day,

00:35:24.120 we don't just go off with whoever's going to invite us off to do whatever terrible things we're going

00:35:28.980 to do. And we also have to know how to, how to continue this over time. That we're not just a

00:35:35.760 one hit wonder and that, and that we have a point of view. We're not just popping out some stupid song

00:35:41.540 and then we don't know what the next one's going to be. Right. So that's sort of, those are the skills

00:35:46.620 that you can work on consciously in the real world. You know, you can increase your physical

00:35:53.320 fitness. You can teach yourself to be more patient. You know, you can learn how to not be

00:35:58.980 afraid to start something and how not to be afraid to finish. You can learn how to, how to deal with

00:36:03.840 rejection. So those are this kind of the skills of the instrument. It's like, if we look at it,

00:36:09.140 if you follow my model of the goddess, the muse looking down at you, right, you're going to write a

00:36:14.260 book and she looks down at you and she asks herself, can this guy handle the workload? You know,

00:36:20.760 is he going to crack under pressure? Does he have the chops? If I give him something really

00:36:26.220 complicated to do, can he pull it off? And what if it takes four years to do it? Is he going to crack

00:36:31.840 in a year or two? And she's sort of, you know, judging us on, on that basis. And I think we need

00:36:39.420 to, to mold ourselves or to train ourselves, to prepare ourselves to be able to do what the

00:36:47.280 assignment is to handle the workload. Hey man, let me step away from this conversation.

00:36:53.000 I know it's riveting. I want to get right back into it. But again, I want to mention that we've

00:36:56.740 got that huge sale in the store going on right now. So if you've ever wanted to pick up some

00:37:02.680 order man merchandise, we're having a 50% blowout sale to clear the shelves and make way for some

00:37:07.960 new products coming very, very soon. All you have to do is head to the store, store.orderman.com,

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00:37:18.880 enter the code five zero five zero. That's 50 at checkout. And you're all set guys. I really

00:37:25.900 appreciate the support over the years. And I'm also glad that we're able to give you a huge discount

00:37:31.280 items that you guys want the most again, head to order a man store, which is at store.orderman.com

00:37:38.000 and get your savings. Do that right after the conversation. Cause you're going to want to hear

00:37:42.660 the end of it and we'll get right back to it with Steven. Yeah. I think you and I are very

00:37:47.580 much in alignment on that, especially that last component. I think that, and I say God,

00:37:53.360 so I think that God is, is looking at us and he's giving us opportunities to test our metal

00:38:00.200 because of what's to come. And I found that if I'm dealing with something particularly challenging

00:38:06.560 in my life, if I can get through this test, like a man would get through it, then that unlocks the 0.81

00:38:13.940 door to something bigger and greater. I, if I'm not being challenged, I don't feel like there's

00:38:21.040 something on the other end of it. And I think God presents opportunities for us to struggle for us

00:38:26.780 to overcome hardship because he's preparing us for what's to come next. I mean, I would definitely

00:38:32.540 agree with that. And certainly it's very, uh, old Testament, you know, it's like the prophets

00:38:37.760 when God would talk to, you know, Jeremiah or something like that, he'd say here, I want you

00:38:42.900 to go preach. And the prophet would always say, not me, not me. Right. Why, why are you putting

00:38:48.380 this load on me, God? I can't handle this stuff, you know? And, and, uh, or like, um, Jesus said to

00:38:55.800 the apostles, right, that they sends you out as, as sheep among wolves, right? And don't be afraid

00:39:01.720 when you don't know what to say, just start to speak and I will provide the words for you,

00:39:08.220 you know, which is really exactly what I'm talking about in terms of a writer or an artist or a

00:39:14.560 musician or a songwriter or something like that, that the muse or some other force will provide the

00:39:21.200 words for you. And it is a test. And, and, uh, if you fail it, you got to go back and try again,

00:39:27.420 right. Until you can get it right. Yeah. But there's no real alternative. You know,

00:39:32.300 the alternative is to quit and to die. I've thought about that when I do something I've

00:39:38.300 done before and it didn't work and I continue to make the same mistake. I'm like, you know,

00:39:42.560 I bet if I learned this lesson and apply it, I won't have to go through this same thing over and

00:39:47.460 over and over again. Yeah. And I can tell you for, in my experience, like what was my real demon at

00:39:56.680 the beginning of this odyssey for me was being able to finish something. I would get right to the

00:40:01.960 end and I would just choke. I would be overcome with panic and I just couldn't finish something.

00:40:07.360 And, you know, as you know, in, in the book, in Government Cheese, I talk about this time when I was,

00:40:13.680 I just rented this little house that was cheap and that I could work for two years, blah, blah,

00:40:19.060 blah. And I was just determined to finish something that I'd never done. And when I did finish,

00:40:26.140 I've never had that trouble again. You know, I've never had a problem finishing anything ever again.

00:40:32.860 So it's, it's just, I'm just sort of repeating what you said, Ryan, that once you sort of learn

00:40:38.040 that skill, whatever it may be, you got it. With finishing, I think that's something that

00:40:44.200 plagues a lot of men, myself included. Um, I've, I, I start so many projects and tasks and I have

00:40:49.440 noble and great intentions of finishing all of them. And, you know, it's easy to say, I just got

00:40:53.340 distracted or, you know, that things came up. Uh, what, what was it for you? Do you know what it was

00:40:59.400 that kept you from finishing these things? And then how did you work through that?

00:41:02.980 Um, I think I was just too young. I had never learned the skill as a, I was naive. Uh, I, I had

00:41:12.200 never really learned the skill growing up. You know, someone might have an athlete on a football team

00:41:18.280 might've really learned that, you know, might've had a coach that said, you know, you got to take

00:41:23.660 it to the end of the game, et cetera, et cetera. I'd never, never learned, had really learned that.

00:41:27.600 So when, so my instrument wasn't ready, I didn't have the skill to finish it. I didn't know how

00:41:34.040 hard it was going to be. I was taken by surprise by it. I wasn't ready for it, but after I'll give

00:41:42.340 you, I'll give you an analogy here. They say in marathons that around the 24 mile mark, you quote

00:41:50.760 unquote, hit the wall. Right. And, and what that is, is muscle glycogen running out, you know,

00:41:59.280 the source of, of energy that you carry in yourself and the body at that point has to switch

00:42:04.500 to generating energy from stored fat. And so the, the transition is hell on a right, on a, on a runner,

00:42:13.220 right? The legs go turn to lead, et cetera. So if you're not aware of that, at the start of a marathon

00:42:21.700 and you're hit by that, you're going to collapse, you're going to crash, right? On the other hand,

00:42:27.840 if you are aware of it, when that moment hits you, you say to yourself, oh, this is the wall.

00:42:34.200 This is my glycogen reserves are gone. But if I can just keep running for another 90 seconds,

00:42:39.780 my fat stores are going to kick in and I'm going to be okay. So I think for me,

00:42:46.420 I spent like two years or something working on this book that never got published, but all I wanted

00:42:52.440 to do was finish it. And I knew from my prior failure, I said, when I get to the end of this

00:42:59.000 thing, it's going to be a motherfucker. You know, my, my demons are going to rise up and be,

00:43:05.200 and so I've just got to gear myself up just like a runner when they hit the wall. And sure enough,

00:43:12.460 that's exactly what happened. And I just said, do or die. I got to finish this. I don't care how

00:43:17.460 bad it is. I got to finish it. And so I was able to just by willpower and also from the shame that I

00:43:25.940 felt from failing the first time and all of the pain that I'd caused other people and myself,

00:43:32.460 I thought shame kind of drove me. I just said each day, you just got to keep going. I don't

00:43:37.880 care how bad it is. Just keep going. And that did work.

00:43:43.020 I think the concept of realistic expectations is powerful. That's what you're talking about.

00:43:47.520 You had, because we have faulty expectations like, Oh, I'm going to write a book. You know,

00:43:51.000 I'll write a thousand words per day. It'll take me 60 to 90 days and everything will be beautiful

00:43:55.120 and it'll be done. And that sounds great. That's not really how it goes.

00:43:58.940 Exactly. You think that's what's going to happen. You're already teeing yourself up for failure

00:44:04.440 instead of a realistic expectation so that you can address it accordingly.

00:44:09.500 Yes. And plan mentally so that when the shit hits the fan, you can just say, okay, I expected this to

00:44:18.060 come. I've got to dig in and weather this storm, you know, which, you know, coaches tell, you know,

00:44:24.960 their teams all the time, right? If they're going up against another team, that's a real fast starter,

00:44:30.260 they'll say, look, we're probably going to be down, but let's say it's basketball.

00:44:33.560 We're probably going to be down by 18 points by the end of the first quarter because these guys

00:44:38.100 are going to come out of the gate. And so just weather that storm, you know, and we'll come back

00:44:43.880 in the second quarter to the third quarter. And it does work to know that, you know?

00:44:49.360 Yeah. I think it keeps you in the game when maybe you would have tapped out long before.

00:44:52.480 Yeah. It's interesting. You're talking about shame. I I've been thinking a lot about this

00:44:57.300 concept lately. These are, these are words and feelings that modern culture says that we should

00:45:03.100 not feel right. Don't, don't be ashamed. Uh, you see this in the body positive movement, you know,

00:45:08.600 some, some man or woman who's severely obese shouldn't be ashamed of that when I think probably

00:45:13.780 a healthy dose of shame would actually be a good thing and hopefully drive them to changing into a more

00:45:18.540 healthy lifestyle. Uh, why do you think shame is so taboo and how have you harnessed shame?

00:45:29.320 Like you were talking about earlier in order to drive you towards results?

00:45:33.440 Uh, I mean, it's a deep subject because I think there's sort of bad shaming, you know,

00:45:40.340 fat shaming people or something like that, or doing it to ourselves. That is just judgmental and just,

00:45:47.380 you know, cuts our, uh, our motivation out from under us, but then there's good shame and good

00:45:53.900 self-shaming. Like if you think about the, the Spartan culture, ancient Sparta was totally shame

00:46:01.620 based in the sense that it was really all about producing warriors who would face the enemy shield

00:46:10.840 shield to shield hand to hand in what must be one of the most scariest possible ways of fighting,

00:46:17.020 you know? And so everything in that culture was about making the individual warrior feel that

00:46:25.260 as bad as death might be, it's better than what we're going to do to you. If you crap out in that

00:46:33.840 moment, really like for one of the things that they used to do, if somebody, uh, if a warrior showed,

00:46:39.800 uh, uh, uh, cowardice in the face of the enemy, when he would come back to Sparta, the young girls

00:46:47.300 would surround him and sing these songs of ridicule, follow him through the streets, singing

00:46:53.660 these songs. And further to that, if a, if a young man was engaged to a woman, to a young girl,

00:47:01.540 and he showed cowardice, the other family would break off the engagement. And in fact, if he,

00:47:07.380 that, if that warrior had sisters and they were engaged to young men, those young men would break

00:47:13.700 off with the sisters. And even there are many, many stories of mothers utterly shaming their sons,

00:47:21.580 you know? Um, I mean, the famous story of the Spartan mother who gives his son his shield for the first

00:47:28.580 time as he goes off to war and says, come back with this or on it. Right. So in that sense,

00:47:36.660 um, it was about overcoming fear, using shame as a weapon to overcome fear or particularly fear of,

00:47:45.580 of death. And, uh, so you can say that, you know, maybe that's cruel, but it certainly works.

00:47:53.100 And I think that, uh, you know, there's a certain way that we can harness it ourselves and just say,

00:48:00.940 I'm not going to fall below this level of aspiration or of expectation myself, no matter what,

00:48:08.100 you know, the shame that I will put on myself in my own head is worse than whatever pain it's going

00:48:15.400 to take. And, uh, you know, I was just watching that Kobe Bryant's muse here. Have you seen that?

00:48:22.520 Uh, no, I haven't. No, I haven't, but I need to watch that.

00:48:26.260 You can imagine, you can imagine what it is. It's great by the way. And, uh, you can,

00:48:31.360 he never uses the word shame, but you can see that he was just driving himself from the time he was,

00:48:38.740 you know, 11 years old, that he was not going to fall below a certain level of aspiration.

00:48:46.100 And that, and, and he even says at the very end of this thing, he said, like to, to fail is like

00:48:51.500 worse than death. And, and, uh, you can tell that he means it and he believes it. And it worked for

00:48:58.660 him, at least on the basketball court. It did. Do you, do you think that we could stand to use a

00:49:04.900 little bit more of that, even public shaming, like you're talking about in Spartan culture than we

00:49:09.900 have today? Do you think that would be a value add to society as a whole?

00:49:13.240 I certainly do. And particularly, I mean, some of the things that politicians are doing and saying

00:49:19.520 these days, where you look at it and you go, have they no shame whatsoever? Can they just stand up

00:49:25.820 and just like this guy, George Santos, the fake congressman, right? That made up his life story.

00:49:32.960 Yes.

00:49:33.160 Where does he get the balls to stand up in front of people and, and, and tell these lies,

00:49:38.940 like his family survived the Holocaust. The guy isn't even Jewish, right? And that he, he went to 0.99

00:49:44.960 whatever, whatever. And we, even when he's caught in these utter lies, he won't back down, right?

00:49:51.600 He won't give up his seat. So we could use a little shaming, but in fact, I think what's going wrong with

00:49:57.020 this country lately is that people are shameless. That you can't, you, you, you could say to somebody,

00:50:04.120 where do you get the balls to say that? And they just stand there and look you right in the eye

00:50:08.780 and won't back down from some lie they've told or some, you know, you know, abuse they've done of

00:50:15.500 other people. Yeah. We need a lot more of that, but I don't know how you bring it back once it's been

00:50:20.300 lost, you know, and people get away with stuff. I don't know.

00:50:24.800 Well, and then, and part of the problem is, is let's say you call that behavior out and it should

00:50:30.960 be called out by the way, publicly shamed. Then you become the villain because you're now bullying

00:50:36.960 that person who is on this, this hierarchy of victim. Yeah, but you're really not. You're just

00:50:43.060 trying to restore humanity. No, you're not, but that's what's being portrayed though, right?

00:50:46.620 Is that you are the bully. Well, that's another sign of what's crazy in this society that people look

00:50:51.000 at it, that you're bullying somebody when you're really just telling, telling the truth, you know?

00:50:57.020 Yeah. Well, I think there's a lack of sanity. Yeah, I would agree. I think there's a lack of,

00:51:02.660 of consequences for this behavior. So bringing consequences back would be important. And I also

00:51:08.620 think it's very easy to, to hide certain behavior. And I also think we're easily distracted.

00:51:16.500 So if I can just hold out for a little bit, everybody will forget about this.

00:51:21.000 It's true. It's true. It works. And I'll be fine.

00:51:23.380 It's terrible, but it works. We're so easily distracted.

00:51:26.840 Yeah. Yeah. I want to go back to what you were talking earlier about being stuck.

00:51:35.240 Because I've been stuck, you know, I have goals and desires and ambitions and places I want to go

00:51:40.480 and things I want to do. And then I get stuck. It might manifest itself for you as maybe writer's

00:51:45.400 block or something even more than that. How do you overcome feeling stuck in your life? Is that part

00:51:53.880 of the muse's inspiration that you're receiving? Or is that, hey, I'm just going to plow through this

00:51:59.080 and get through the other side? What do you do when you're feeling that way?

00:52:02.520 I'm definitely a believer in plowing through, you know. I just think that sometimes when we're on a

00:52:14.100 path, we'll come up against a wall of some kind. And almost always, in my experience, it's when we're

00:52:23.520 just about to break through to a higher level. You know, we've reached a point where we're just about

00:52:29.460 to go to the next level. And then resistance, capital R resistance, doesn't want us to break 0.83

00:52:35.840 through to that level. So it'll kind of really hit us hard, hard, hard, you know, give us all kinds

00:52:41.880 of excuses why we should stop, try to distract us, come up with all kinds of rational reasons why we

00:52:48.900 shouldn't go forward. And I've just found that if you, if I, let me just say myself, if I can just

00:52:55.380 rally and just keep put my head down and just keep ramming it into that brick wall, that leap will

00:53:04.860 happen. You know, you know, it may take a week, it may take two weeks, it may take a month. But

00:53:10.740 suddenly I'll wake up one morning, I'll say, you know what, I'm actually better than I was. And then

00:53:15.760 I'll sort of reassess and go, what did I, what did I learn there? And I'll almost always, I'll find

00:53:21.160 something. Ah, I learned whatever it is. So I think when, when we're stuck, I think, Ryan, it's a good

00:53:27.640 sign. It shows that we're on the brink of a breakthrough. And it's just resistance amping up

00:53:37.880 its force against us to stop us from breaking through to that next level. And I think there's

00:53:43.140 no answer other than just pure willpower and stubbornness and mulishness of just keep going

00:53:49.620 forward. I don't know that we talked about this when we addressed your book, The War of

00:53:54.940 Art, but obviously we're, we're tiptoeing in that territory now with, with this concept of

00:53:58.940 resistance. Since we were talking about the spiritual component, the muse as being a sentient

00:54:04.400 force or being working towards your development and good, is the resistance then something that's

00:54:11.340 aware and sentient that's actively trying to derail you and sabotage you?

00:54:16.380 Absolutely. In my opinion, absolutely. And I think the two of them are equal and opposite. It's like

00:54:21.760 Newton's law, you know, an equal and opposite reaction that as, as, as powerful a positive force

00:54:28.820 as the muse is, as whatever dream, whatever aspiration we have, the, that's equally powerful

00:54:35.580 is, is, is the resistance against it. And it is, in my opinion, in my experience, an active,

00:54:42.860 intelligent, diabolically intelligent, nuanced living thing that will adjust to your weaknesses

00:54:52.740 and knows your absolute weaknesses better than you do. And we'll go right after them every time.

00:54:59.960 I actually like that framing better than believing it's some, you know, arbitrary, just random bit

00:55:08.140 of happenstance, because I think it makes you more assertive in the way that you deal with it.

00:55:13.200 Yes. You, I mean, you have to be, and the best thing that you can have, again, we're talking about

00:55:18.840 sort of like the wall as a, in marathon running, that if you can be aware that this force is there

00:55:26.500 and that it's going to hit you at predictable points in whatever project you're doing or whatever

00:55:33.240 aspiration you have, then you can at least call it out. And you can say to yourself, ah, this is

00:55:40.160 resistance. This is not any real reason. It's not that I really do need to reassess my financial

00:55:47.720 situation before I, I take this leap in my career. It's just the voice of my own self-sacrifice,

00:55:56.500 sabotage, trying to stop me from, from going forward. And then you can dismiss it and say,

00:56:00.960 ah, it's bullshit. And I'm just going to go forward.

00:56:04.000 But how, how do you know, because, so let's take your example. The fact that you need to make sure

00:56:09.900 your finances are in order are certainly a consideration of taking a leap into a business

00:56:14.940 venture, for example, and quitting your job. So how do you know it's resistance, which is actively

00:56:21.140 working against you, if I'm understanding you correctly, and just prudent calculation to make

00:56:26.880 sure you're addressing things that need to be addressed?

00:56:28.420 Like I said, it's really is tough to know because resistance is so diabolical that it will latch on

00:56:35.600 to legitimate aspects of your life, right?

00:56:39.020 It has to, otherwise you'd identify it.

00:56:40.720 Bank account, you don't have enough money to go and do another business. But in the real world,

00:56:46.980 how many stories are there of people that made the leap, you know, against all odds and it,

00:56:53.620 and it worked for them. So, I mean, in, in, you know, I, not that I want to advise everybody to

00:57:00.100 quit their job and do whatever they're doing, but you do, we do have to be aware that resistance

00:57:07.060 will use that against us. Absolutely. And, and although it may be objectively true that we have

00:57:16.300 to, you know, spend more time with our family or, but worry about our financial things or so on and

00:57:21.320 so forth, it's also objectively true that if we have some kind of calling or some kind of dream that

00:57:28.720 we got to do and we don't do it, we're letting ourselves in for even worse trouble, you know,

00:57:34.300 on the soul level, as it goes down the pike. I, it, I also have a little rule that I tell you to

00:57:41.480 myself, Ryan, it's like, when in doubt, it's resistance. So that's your default answer is that

00:57:48.700 it's resistance working against you. And almost always it's true for me. Yeah. Yeah. I like that

00:57:55.460 you're talking about it latching onto something that has an element of truth. It's very easy.

00:58:00.080 It's, it's, it has to disguise itself and cloak itself with some truth. Otherwise you'd recognize

00:58:05.840 it easily and would be able to deal with it effectively. Exactly. Cloak is a great word.

00:58:11.900 Yeah. It disguises, it cloaks itself. I think for example, somebody might say, well, you know, I, I,

00:58:18.820 I want to stay here and be present for my family. And if it wasn't able to cloak itself, it might say,

00:58:26.080 yeah, but you should go out and get, you know, drunk and, and belligerent and go, you know,

00:58:30.980 cheat on your wife. And we would all say, okay, well, yeah, I'm not doing that. That's what you'd

00:58:36.720 say. Yeah. But instead it, it, it will, it will cloak itself and say, well, you know, yes, your

00:58:43.080 family's important, but you need to, uh, you need to go ahead and go work out because you're planning

00:58:48.020 for this thing and you need to put way more hours than necessary at the gym, which is true. You should

00:58:52.720 take care of yourself, but that might, they're called, I heard somebody call them, uh, noble

00:58:57.700 obstacles. They're, they're obstacles that keep you from doing what is good and right and what you

00:59:04.220 should be doing, but noble in that there is some truth to what it's being tied to. Yeah. Yeah. That's a

00:59:10.760 good one. Noble obstacles. When you talked about, uh, banging through it, plowing through the

00:59:18.820 resistance and coming, coming through that as hard as you can, have there been times where

00:59:23.320 banging your head against the wall or into the resistance that it hasn't served you and that

00:59:29.000 pulling back and regrouping has okay. Explain that. No. Um, I have found that anytime I complete

00:59:37.800 something, you know, even if, and most of the time, let's say a project, it might be a screenplay,

00:59:43.700 it might be a book or something like that. Most of the times they don't sell or they don't succeed,

00:59:49.560 but just the fact of finishing them really goes into your psychic bank account. You know, it,

00:59:59.800 you get stronger from that. Um, so, uh, no, I don't think anytime that I plowed through something,

01:00:08.200 it's always been good, even if nothing, you know, I didn't make any money, but in, in other terms,

01:00:15.500 in psychic terms, it's always been a plus. And I feel like I'm getting stronger and I'm, I'm building,

01:00:22.320 um, I'm building my instrument, you know, a little bit better. Yeah. I, I can't remember if it's a

01:00:27.980 story in the Bible. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, or if I just, I heard a, an anecdote where,

01:00:32.720 uh, there was either a stone, a man was supposed to roll up a hill or a stone in front of a cave.

01:00:37.940 And he was to open the cave and move the stone. And so every day he went and he pushed and pushed

01:00:43.420 and pushed and pushed for hours and hours, pushed every single day and never moved the stone. And

01:00:48.160 then eventually he got frustrated with it because the stone wasn't moving. And he, you know, cried

01:00:54.140 out to God and said, Hey, you commanded me to move this stone and it's not going anywhere. And God said,

01:01:00.280 I didn't tell you to move this stone. I said, you, I said to push on the stone.

01:01:05.460 Oh, I never heard that. That's great. And so he pushed on the stone, but then he was

01:01:10.360 shown that through that effort, he saw his physique and he saw his mental fortitude and

01:01:16.300 his discipline to do this thing had all been developed by, um, a misunderstanding of what

01:01:22.220 the task or the goal was. Yeah. I mean, in a way that's like what we were talking about earlier

01:01:27.960 about a practice, right. Where it's not a goal moving this, you know, if the stone doesn't move,

01:01:34.860 it doesn't mean you failed, right? You've succeeded by showing up every day

01:01:40.140 and putting your shoulder against that stone and trying as hard as you can.

01:01:45.340 Yeah. Yeah.

01:01:46.180 Can you give me the story meant, but that's what I know that's, that's exactly right. Now

01:01:51.100 I'm going to have to find out again. I don't, I don't, I don't think that's in the Bible,

01:01:54.060 but, but I heard that story. It was very, it was very interesting. Uh, can you give me

01:01:58.140 a synopsis too on not, not government cheese? Uh, we're going to make sure everybody knows

01:02:02.840 that and knows where to get it, but also your, your book before that, which is put your ass 0.97

01:02:08.160 where your heart wants to be very intrigued by that concept as well.

01:02:11.980 Um, that's a book that's, uh, you know, government cheese is like a full blown big

01:02:17.460 book, you know, a memoir, but put your ass where your heart wants to be is sort of like 0.70

01:02:21.440 the war of art. It's kind of a short, um, book, um, in, in the vein of, um, uh, being

01:02:29.360 about the creative process. And the, the, the simple version of put your ass where your 0.70

01:02:34.280 heart wants to be is if you can, like people will say, I want to be a writer. I want to be

01:02:40.920 a dancer. I want to be a musician, but I just don't know where to start. How do I

01:02:44.360 get going? So the answer to that in my, in this book is take your physical body, put

01:02:51.260 your ass, you know, if you want to be a writer, put your ass in front of one of these 0.96

01:02:57.120 things and stay there for four hours a day. If you want to be a dancer, get into the

01:03:03.180 studio, right? If you want to be a bodybuilder, put your body in the gym. You know, if you

01:03:07.900 want to run, get your body out on the trail. And then the book really goes on to what

01:03:14.560 happens kind of emotionally. And also what I was talking on the level of the gods, when

01:03:20.520 you do that, when you really commit and you put so that when I say put your ass 0.96

01:03:26.740 there, it's really about the idea of commitment that you're, you know, you're

01:03:31.320 not dabbling, you're not fucking around, you're, you're really committed. And when 0.53

01:03:36.600 that happens, this is kind of the short version of the whole book. Not only do

01:03:42.920 good things start to happen on the material plane in the sense that mentors may

01:03:49.520 appear in your life or a good, good breaks may come your way out of, out of

01:03:54.960 nowhere, but also on, on the higher plane, I believe that whether we call it God or

01:04:01.340 the universe or whatever you want to call it, it will start to intervene too, and

01:04:05.980 good things will happen. I really believe that, that when we commit to something on

01:04:12.740 some energetic level out there in the universe, you know, in a mysterious world

01:04:17.940 that we can't explain, forces that we can't name come to our aid, you know, and if

01:04:25.100 we sit down and start to write a novel, let's say, ideas will start to come to us,

01:04:31.880 you know, day eight, a new character will appear on the page that we had never even

01:04:37.720 thought of and we'll go, oh, holy shit, this is really good, you know, and then, and

01:04:42.040 so what is that except something out there in the universe coming to our aid? So the

01:04:49.240 bottom line, when all is said and done, I think, is, oh, excuse me, put your ass on 0.65

01:04:56.460 the line, simple as that, commit and do the motherfucking thing and, and good things 0.61

01:05:03.040 will happen, and conversely, talking about it and thinking about it and planning it and

01:05:09.140 rehearsing it and researching it is bullshit, you know, start and do it, put your ass where 0.93

01:05:16.500 you're, and when I say where your heart wants to be, I mean, what, where your dream is, you

01:05:21.140 know, that vision of yourself that you would put as the highest version of yourself, where

01:05:27.760 you say, oh, if I could be that, if I could do that, I'd be really proud of myself. That's,

01:05:33.140 you know, kind of where, where your heart wants to be.

01:05:36.200 I get this question. I'm sure you get it way more frequently than I do, where people will

01:05:40.400 say, hey, Ryan, you know, I'm thinking about writing a book, like, but I don't know how,

01:05:44.660 how, how would you suggest? I'm like, well, I don't, I don't understand the question. Like

01:05:49.900 you, you write like that. How do you write a book? You, the answer is the question you

01:05:57.260 write a book. And I think what they're doing is they're looking for some magical formula

01:06:04.220 or maybe even an excuse not to do it in some instances. And like, how do I publish it on

01:06:09.860 Amazon and get a publisher? And I'm like, bro, you haven't even written the book yet. You

01:06:13.840 haven't even written the synopsis of what the book is going to be like. Don't even worry about

01:06:18.240 that. Just start writing and then we'll get to that stuff. Yeah, I would agree completely. It's

01:06:23.640 sort of the answer to me is always action. Now, of course, once you, I can understand somebody

01:06:30.740 saying, how do you write a book? Cause you got to know something, you know, it's like, how do I

01:06:34.740 compete for Mr. Universe? You know, you have to know something about, you know, going to the gym and

01:06:40.640 how you train and that sort of stuff, but that will come to you, you know, as you, once you're

01:06:46.600 in the gym, you'll meet people, you'll get a trainer, you'll learn, you'll watch, you know, and, and

01:06:52.560 your own body will sort of teach you, but you'll, the, the, the technical stuff will come, but it's

01:06:58.920 the action from the start that makes that happen. Right. Yeah. I've thought about that with the gym

01:07:04.580 or jujitsu is a question I get a lot is like, Hey, do you have any advice? I'm going to jujitsu

01:07:08.880 tonight for the first time. Do you have any advice? I'm like, no, no advice. Like you're,

01:07:13.220 you're taking the right steps now go and then go tomorrow and the next day and the next day,

01:07:18.360 and then you'll get better and you'll learn something and then you'll fail and you'll get

01:07:21.720 better. Like, it's just a very simple formula. At least God bless that person for going that night.

01:07:27.660 You know, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, Steven, I really appreciate our talks

01:07:33.060 and our conversations are always interesting and we take a lot of different veins and avenues and I,

01:07:37.200 I enjoy, enjoy that. Um, tell people where to pick up a copy of government cheese and also put

01:07:43.120 your ass where your heart wants to be. Um, they're both on Amazon or any of the online bookstores.

01:07:48.380 They're probably not in stores. You would have to order them. That's just kind of the way it

01:07:52.860 works. Um, and also on my website, which is just my name, stephenpressfield.com. You can order

01:08:00.980 from me a signed copy and, and we'll, we'll send it to you. Uh, that's what you want. You guys want

01:08:08.080 a signed copy. So do it that way. In a way, this is a book because it's so personal for me that I do

01:08:15.900 think a signed copy is important, you know, cause it's my sort of my story. So it's a cool thing to

01:08:20.860 have it, you know, signed, but that's, so that's, uh, that's one place they can get it on my website

01:08:27.400 at Amazon or any of those things, or follow me on Instagram. And I'm always talking about that

01:08:32.560 and other stuff. Perfect. We'll sync it all up. You've got that Spartan mug behind you. I actually

01:08:37.900 use mine. You gifted me one and I actually have that Spartan mug and I use it every single night.

01:08:43.460 I have some, uh, sleep time tea every single night. And that mug right there, that this,

01:08:49.040 the story, just to tell you the story on this, this comes from a, a master potter named Joel

01:08:53.360 Cherico. And, uh, that there's a passage in Plutarch from the ancient world where he says that

01:09:02.940 the Spartans had the, the ancient Spartans had a famous mug that was that they always would take

01:09:09.180 with them on campaign when they would have to drink out of streams and rivers. And this mug was

01:09:14.500 shaped in such a way that the, the mud would settle to the bottom and it had a lip on it.

01:09:19.720 So you wouldn't be, so in other words, you could drink crappy water and you wouldn't know it,

01:09:23.540 but nobody knew what the mug looked like. You know, they're, they're gone. Right. So Joel

01:09:29.800 Cherico, who does not, he said, uh, let me take a crack at this thing and I'll see if I can,

01:09:34.560 if I can recreate something. So, um, that's the story behind that mug. It's a, it's a Spartan

01:09:41.120 Cothon, K O T H O N. 1.00

01:09:44.380 Write that down. I'm going to look into that. Awesome. Well, Steven, thank you. I really

01:09:49.140 appreciate our talks, our conversations, uh, the books and the information you share. It's

01:09:53.620 been impactful in my life and I really, really appreciate your work.

01:09:56.600 Yeah. Thanks Ryan. It's great talking to you. You always have great questions and we have a

01:09:59.640 conversation, which is great, you know? Yes.

01:10:01.820 So my best to you on all fronts. Thanks for having me on the podcast and, uh, until next time

01:10:08.100 we'll do it again. Thanks my friend. All right. All right, you guys, there you go. My conversation

01:10:14.300 with the one and only Steven Pressfield. I hope that you enjoyed that one. Uh, we had an interesting

01:10:19.420 discussion about a lot of different things. I really didn't know that it would go in some of

01:10:24.100 the directions and veins that it did, but I'm glad that it did. Uh, and that's, that's what we're

01:10:27.940 trying to do here is just have conversations. And sometimes conversations have an overarching

01:10:32.680 theme that threads it all together. And other times it's chaotic and sporadic and all over

01:10:39.000 the place. And I feel like, uh, we hit a little bit of both of that. So regardless, I hope it

01:10:44.440 served you. If it did take a screenshot right now, share it on the socials, Instagram, Twitter,

01:10:49.660 Facebook, uh, tag Steven Pressfield and let him know, send him a message. Let him know that

01:10:54.440 you heard him here on the order of men podcast. Uh, that goes a long way and letting them know

01:10:58.820 that it was worth their time and valuable to them to be on this show. And, uh, a great way to say

01:11:03.320 thank you to our guests. And also thank you to me. Uh, also if you would last thing, 50% off huge

01:11:09.720 sale at the store. So store.orderofman.com, you can get hats, shirts, decals, planners, everything

01:11:16.080 that we've got over there. Uh, and we're just clearing out the shelves. So if you head to

01:11:22.300 store.orderofman.com and use the code five, zero at checkout, you'll get that 50% off discount

01:11:27.740 and we'll get your merchandise to you as quickly as we can. All right, guys, that's all I've got

01:11:32.360 for today. We'll be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go out there, take action,

01:11:37.620 become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

01:11:42.480 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:11:46.100 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

01:11:52.300 Thank you.

Order of Man - February 14, 2023

STEVEN PRESSFIELD ｜ Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be

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