Turning Pro
There is a reason that every writer, producer, blogger, and designer I know has a copy of his book in their studio (besides me putting it there). It worked for them too. He taught them how to fight the resistance, how to believe in themselves, find their muse, and dedicate themselves to their craft. He sold them on the dream of turning pro.
Turning Pro
And now Pressfield is back to pick up where he left of with Turning Pro. The first words grabbing you by the collar and pulling you down the path: "I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better."
Marie Forleo:I absolutely love it. So I built up this book, which again, no hype, everyone on the planet should read this. Let's talk about what Turning Pro really means. What does turning pro mean to you?
Marie Forleo:I love this idea, and I have to tell you. I'm a huge fan of The War of Art. I'm a huge fan of Do the Work as well. And we've done interviews in the past, which we'll put links below for all of you guys if this is your first time hearing Steven and I talk together. And I remember being struck in The War of Art by the idea of turning pro. And actually, I have talked and talked about it, always crediting you of course and pimping out your book right and left, because the singular concept of turning pro it's magical. It really is magical and it informs everything that you do. One of the ways-
Steven Pressfield:Well, there's a story, we were talking about this earlier in Turning Pro that I stole from Rosanne Cash's wonderful memoir called Composed. And it's her moment of turning pro. And it takes a few minutes to tell the story, but I'm going to tell it. It was a dream that she had. And at this time, I think it was the late eighties and she already was a success. In fact, she had an album out called King's Record Shop that had four number one songs off it. But something didn't feel right to her in her life, and one night she had a dream. And in the dream she was sitting, she was at a party and she was sitting on a couch next to Linda Ronstadt who had always been kind of an idol of hers, and she had always admired Heart Like a Wheel and some of the great records that Linda Ronstadt did back in the '70s.
Steven Pressfield:She got a singing teacher that she had never... real technique teachers that she had never done before. She said she started training like an athlete. She began reading a much broader scope of all different kinds of art. She began studying painting so she could see what a nonverbal, non-musical medium was, and even her marriage had been broke up over this kind of thing, or at least eventually. But she just decided I've been an amateur. I may have had success, but it doesn't feel good to me. So she's totally committed to songwriting and to learning. And she felt, she said, like she went back to being very young, like a beginner. And that was where she wanted to be. And I forgot what the last line of the thing was. Something like, "I traded the morphine sleep of success for the live wire world of the artist." And so that to me is a great turning pro moment in a dream. And it didn't even have to be like waking up drunk in a gutter somewhere or something. It was just a dream.
Marie Forleo:That was really cool. And then you wrote about, in another section of the book, about your year of turning pro. What I loved about that, and I'd love to chat about that for a moment is this idea of turning pro, it's a decision that we make in a moment yet it's a decision that we have to recommit to each and every day and develop that habit. So how was that year for you?
Scott joined the UAA in 2010, returning to the campus where he earned a journalism degree. Prior to that, he spent the majority of his newspaper career at The Tampa Tribune, where he covered the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida State, USF and horse racing over that span. 041b061a72