Turning pro
As I sit here writing for The Compendium I wonder what to write about. I wonder how this first entry will be read. But that isn’t the real start to this story. The true beginning was a few weeks ago, from the point of writing this, when I was planning and strategizing how I was going to approach this article. What I had noticed was that I was pontificating on the finer details so much so that I was missing the most crucial, simple, and overlooked part of this process, the actual writing.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, was quoted by saying “if you give me 6 hours to cut down a tree, I’ll use 4 to simply sharpen the axe, and the other 2 to actually cut the tree”. Now im paraphrasing this quote a bit but the conceptual contents are still intact. I personally am a person who, if given 6 hours to cut a tree, I’ll spend 16 sharpening my axe and will more than likely not even get to cutting it down. It’s an approach that has proven very effective in learning but incredibly ineffective in implementation. So going back to two weeks ago when I caught myself doing this thing that I so often and innately do, I was reminded of a concept of “Turning Pro”. An idea that was coined and written about by Steven Pressfield and that was brought to my attention by my brother, and as I sat there staring my seeming inability to actually write in the eyes, I realized that I myself had not “Turned Pro” and thus this article was born.
The concept of turning pro is the idea of going from an “Amateur” who goes against their calling to a “Professional” who rejects their “Shadow Career” to follow their true calling. The particular usage of the term “Amateur”, or “Professional” and “Shadow Career” are terms Pressfield uses within the greater context of his concept of “Turning Pro”.
The amateur is essentially the average Joe. A person who has things they feel passionate about and love deeply though, no matter how much they think they want it they just can’t seem to muster up the courage to go all in on on it. They build all these walls and traps for themselves to not chase their passion and to not “Turn Pro”. It may be that they think that the people within their circle of influence may think it’s stupid or a waste of time. It could be that they think the passion to be rather bereft of bearing fruit for them to live off of. Or it could just even be that they feel their own inner insecurity towards their passion or calling, and thus they simply choose to follow what the rest of the world tells them is what they should do to feel “accepted” or like they are “one of the tribe” so to speak. The amateur is one that will maybe, at the most, work on their passion for just weekends and they mainly do it for accolades or affirmation. The amateur has qualities that are of narcissistic origin, and that seek the instant pleasures that may come from setting a bar so low. I have been guilty of living my life as an artist in this way for too long and I’ve known about these over arching concepts that Steven Pressfield presents for quite some time. Though I still find myself living as an “Amateur”, unable to actually do the work. I sharpen my axe more than many would care to yet I still have nothing to show for it and so, in this case, no one really cares how much I know because no one really knows how much I care. So then my ambitions and passions get left on the table for another day and while my knowledge of a particular subject may be vast, I stand with nothing to show for it. Then I revert back to “what the tribe says” I struggle to focus on consistent effort rather than intense effort and in order assuage that pain I find myself seeking whatever low hanging fruit I can. Now this may not be exactly what I was doing leading into writing this that you read. But I most definitely have done this a ton in my past with recording my music, editing my photos, and of course with writing my stories. In the past I would struggle greatly to find balance between following my passions and true callings, and running from them and seeking a “Shadow Career” to feel productive or to avoid the risk involved with following my passions.
A Shadow Career as coined by Pressfield, and paraphrased by me, is a job or career that takes you further away from your true calling and the risk that comes with it all in the name of fear. I find Steven’s own shadow career somewhat poetic in its nature when seeing it within the context of this idea. Steven Pressfield was a truck driver for a number of years and his true calling was to become a writer. He was quite literally “driving” away from his passion and he even wanted to make a full career out of trucking, though deep within himself he knew that it was writing that was truly calling him. He wrote for 27 years before he got his first novel published and was the ripe age of 52 when the novel “The Legends of Bagger Vance” released. Though I think his truck driving is a good illustration of this concept of “Shadow Careers” it isn’t all he did before getting his novel published. He was also a teacher, an oil rigger, a screenwriter in Hollywood, and he worked in advertisement. Just goes to show how “Shadow Careers” can manifest in many ways throughout a very long period of time. Now Steven isn’t proposing you throw out all other work in lieu of chasing a passion but he is pointing at an issue of priorities. One must put an incredible importance on the true calling and do what must be done to nurture the skills involved as well as keep yourself afloat. With that I’ll give you the two mantras Steven has for young writers, though I also believe these are applicable in a litany of different cases.
As from his fictional 96 year old literary agent Marty Fabrikant, as quoted in The Knowledge. And as ripped straight from Steven Pressfields own website by me.
1. Talent is Bullshit
"I’ve seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It's work, you gotta work, do the freakin' work. That's why you're gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you."
2. The work is everything
"And I'll tell you something else. Appreciate these days. These days when you're broke and struggling, they're the best days of your life. You're gonna break through, my boy, and when you do, you'll look back on this time and think this is when I was really an artist, when everything was pure and I had nothing but the dream and the work. Enjoy it now. Pay attention. These are the good days. Be grateful for them."
After years of being an amateur with loads of ideas and passions, as most all amateurs have, I had spent a lot of my life chasing Shadow Careers and running from my demons and my true calling. I decided to “Turn Pro” alongside my brother a few years back and have worked on a bunch of things that I’m sure we’ll reference in the coming entries into this Compendium. Though I have been slowly exercising my “Professional” muscle all this time I didn’t truly feel like I had turned pro, within the context that Pressfield explains, until writing for the compendium and for myself. But that’s too vague, I mean, what is a professional anyway?
A professional does what he speaks, an amateur speaks but doesn’t do. A pro has high standards and reaches them no matter the cost, then the pro will set his bar even higher moving forward. A pro murders the amateur sitting within only to make way for the birth of the pro. A pro decides to turn pro and never forgets the contract he made with himself and does whatever to maintain loyalty to that contract. Within that “inner contract” are two stipulations (1) - Never run from your ambition. (2)- Do the work. It’s really that simple, or rather; simple to learn, hard to master. A pro has four main things in his mindset. Firstly he shows up every day as a non negotiable. Secondly he works all day. Third he is committed to longevity and not immediate gratification. Finally, A professional has high standards and high stakes, and to the pro they are more real than anything. This may seem daunting to many though it’s all real and true, and another true factor to understand is that no one is born a pro. Everyone is born an amateur and only through intense rigor, failure, and learning from that failure can the pro be born.
So I leave you with this, are you an amateur? Are you running from your true calling, or callings, hiding behind these Shadow Careers? Are you seeking instant gratification rather than something truly sustainable and powerful?
Have you Turned Pro?