On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon.   You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.

Our Enemies The following is a list of the forces arrayed against us as artists and entrepreneurs: Resistance (i.e., fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing, perfectionism, etc.) Rational thought Friends and family

Resistance’s Greatest Hits The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance: The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional. The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise. Any diet or health regimen. Any program of spiritual advancement. Any activity whose aim is the acquisition of chiseled abdominals. Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction. Education of every kind. Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves. The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others. Any act that entails commitment of the heart—the decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship. The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity. In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance.

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. Resistance will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

When an artist says “Trust the soup,” she means let go of the need to control (which we can’t do anyway) and put your faith instead in the Source, the Mystery, the Quantum Soup. The deeper the source we work from, the better our stuff will be—and the more transformative it will be for us and for those we share it with.

The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are. If you’re reading this book, it’s because you sense inside you a second self, an unlived you. With some exceptions (God bless them), friends and family are the enemy of this unmanifested you, this unborn self, this future being. Prepare yourself to make new friends. They will appear, trust me.

Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.

When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery. We’re in till the finish. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go, no matter how hard he kicks.

Fear saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.

Start Before You’re Ready Don’t prepare. Begin. Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is Resistance.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Begin it now.

You’re allowed to read three books on your subject. No more. No underlining, no highlighting, no thinking or talking about the documents later. Let the ideas percolate. Let the unconscious do its work. Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. A home-run swing that results in a strikeout is better than a successful bunt or even a line-drive single.

Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page.

Resistance is an active, intelligent, protean, malign force—tireless, relentless, and inextinguishable—whose sole object is to stop us from becoming our best selves and from achieving our higher goals. The universe is not indifferent. It is actively hostile.

Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time.

One rule for first full working drafts: get them done ASAP. Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. Get to THE END as if the devil himself were breathing down your neck and poking you in the butt with his pitchfork. Believe me, he is.

Don’t stop. Don’t look down. Don’t think.

Suspending self-judgment doesn’t just mean blowing off the “You suck” voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work “ought” to be or “should” look like. Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart.

Act, reflect. Act, reflect. NEVER act and reflect at the same time.

When we say “Stay Stupid,” we mean don’t self-censor, don’t indulge in self-doubt, don’t permit self-judgment. Forget rational thought. Play. Play like a child.

Our job is not to control our idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)—and then bring it into being.

momentum is everything. Keep it going.

Sometimes on Wednesday I’ll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I’ll think, “This is crap. I hate it and I hate myself.” Then I’ll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance.

You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. There is no way to be nice to the dragon, or to reason with it or negotiate with it or beam a white light around it and make it your friend. The dragon belches fire and lives only to block you from reaching the gold of wisdom and freedom, which it has been charged to guard to its final breath. The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.

From the day I finally finished something, I’ve never had trouble finishing anything again.

‍