How I came across this book: This Article
Review : With around 100 pages, this is a quick and easy read for a lazy Sunday arvo. It coaches you through a project from conception to product through the lens of resistance.
Highlights
Three forces array against us as artists and entrepreneurs
• Resistance
• Rational Thought
• Friends & Family
Resistance could be fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing, perfectionism etc
On the other hand, we have six allies
• Stupidity
• Stubbornness
• Blind Faith
• Passion
• Assistance
• Friends & Family
Three-act Structure
• Beginning
• Middle
• End
Any project or enterprise can be broken down into beginning, middle and end. Fill in the gaps; then fill in the gaps between the gaps.
Rational thought would tempt us to do our work in that order (Beginning → Middle → End). However, ideas do not come linearly.
Idea generation progresses in two stages
• Action – putting words on paper
• Reflection – evaluating what we have on paper
Act, reflect, act, reflect. Never act and reflect at the same time.
Three mantras
• Stay primitive
• Trust the soup
• Swing for the seats
Seven Principles of Resistance
• Recognise there is an enemy
• This enemy is implacable
• This enemy is inside you
• The enemy is inside your, but it’s not you
• The “Real You” (knight) must duel the “Resistance You” (dragon)
• Resistance arises second
• The opposite of resistance is assistance
Resistance’s Two Tests
• How bad do you want it?
• Why do you want it?
Rule of thumb : The more important a call or action is our our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, this is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.
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 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.
Don’t think. ACT. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.
Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness.
You may think that you’ve lost your passion, or that you can’t identify it, or that you have so much of it, it threatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true. Fear saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
The creative act is primitive. Conception occurs at the primal level. It’s better to be primitive than to be sophisticated, and better to be stupid than to be smart.
The hospital room may be spotless and sterile. but birth itself will always take place amid chaos, pain and blood. Stay Primitive
To do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. Start playing from the power. We can always dial it back later. If we don’t swing for the seats from the start, we’ll never be able to drive a fastball into the upper deck.
Start at the End. Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there. To know where you want to go, answer the question “What is this about?”
Ideas come according to their own logic, That logic is not rational. It’s not linear. We may get to the middle before we get to the end. We may get the end before we get the beginning. Be ready for this. Don’t resist it.
Momentum is everything. Keep it going. Keep working.
At least twice a week, I pause in the rush of work and have a meeting with myself. I ask myself, again, of the project: “What is this damn thing about?” “What is its theme?” “Is every element serving that theme?”
Act & Reflect. Keep refining your understanding of the theme, keep narrowing it down.
Our greatest fear is fear of success. Fear of success is the essence of resistance
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