Turning Pro

I think almost everyone who works in a creative industry, who has struggled with addiction or making any kind of major transformation, has read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Certainly anyone who knows me has read it, or at least heard about it, because I love it that much and am always recommending it.  It is quite simply the best book I know for battling that tricky inner sabotage that keeps us from achieving our dreams.

Pressfield has now released a sequel of sorts called Turning Pro. This book addresses the turning point where we move from amateur status to professional - not just in creative work, but in any endeavor in which we can't quite move out of a time-wasting, self-doubting mindset. He talks about "displacement activities" (draining our energies on peripheral fluff) and "shadow careers" (such as teaching writing instead of actually writing.) Which are real and valid dynamics, and the world is indeed full of people who are going to write a book one day or form a band, but right now are just too busy with other things.

In that sense, Turning Pro is not just for artists, any more than The War of Art was. Addicts, dilettantes and toxic dreamers - anyone who anesthetizes their days with a steady diet of physical or digital narcotics - are experts at postponing their real lives. Turning Pro swings right at that delay with encouragement to live in the present and pursue a scarier but ultimately more gratifying dream. Going pro in this book is ultimately not about achieving an empirical benchmark of success, but committing to purpose.

But the roadmap there is not provided. This book is about spurring an inner catalyst, not practical guidance. It skirts, as these books tend to do, the reality of people who did turn pro and failed to find happiness or security despite making all the right moves. Which is fine, as this kind of book is about inspiration - but anyone hoping for the kind of inner toolbox they found in The War of Art may be disappointed.

Still, Pressfield has some great insights. “The amateur is an egotist. He takes the material of his personal pain and uses it to draw attention to himself. He creates a "life," a "character," a "personality.”  Anyone who works in marketing, advertising or any creative industry knows that ego is the enemy of successful work, blotting out an effective message in favor of self-exaltation.  Turning Pro nails the vital element of humility that perhaps is the foundation of all mature work.