How To Turn Pro - Steven Pressfield - #220

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello, humans in Podcast Land. Welcome back. My guest today is Steven Pressfield. I read The War of Art, one of Steven's best-selling non-fiction works at the beginning of this year, and it had a really profound impact on me. Then I followed it up with Turning Pro, which did exactly the same and just totally blew my world apart, two books in a row. I just needed to get him on, had to have a discussion with him. I absolutely adore the concept of Turning Pro. And today, within the space of an hour, I think you get a pretty strong overview of exactly why you need to leave the amateur life behind. Steven's such a great guy. He's just filled with cool stories and really interesting off the wall examples of how Turning Pro has really changed people's lives. I hope that it has as strong of an impact on you as it did on me. And if you fancy checking out either of his books, they've got like thousands of reviews on Amazon and you can get through both of them in probably two hours. If you read a normal speed, they're not very long. They're only a hundred pages, a couple of hundred pages. So yeah, if you end up Turning Pro by the end of this episode, then let us know. We'd love to find out if you resonate with any of the lines and the stories that Steven brings out today because I know that I certainly did. In other news, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Tailored Athlete. If you are a guy who goes to the gym, you know that it is terrible when you start to go shopping. You've put a little bit of size on, all of your shirts don't fit anymore, you've got to go into work or you've got a meeting and your jeans or your chinos are too tight across your quads or they're too big around the waist. The answer is Tailored Athlete. They have managed to put stretch fabrics into everything that they make, which means that basically all of your clothes kind of feel a bit like wearing pajamas, but no one on the outside world knows that you're wearing pajamas, but on the inside, that's what it feels like. It's literally the best of both worlds. They have shorts, t-shirts, polo tops, jumpers, hoodies, jeans, chinos, literally everything has stretch in and it is fitted to an athletic physique. So for the first time ever, you can wear clothes that look as good as your physique does underneath. Simply head to link.tailoredathlete.co.uk/modernwisdom or there is a link in the show notes below that you can click if you don't want to try and remember that and you will get free shipping automatically applied at checkout. That is a deal that is available nowhere else. You can get this in the US. You can also get this in the UK. link.tailoredathlete.co.uk/modernwisdom. You will get free shipping no matter your order size. If you need an update on your wardrobe, I implore you go and check their kit out. It will save your life, especially if you are a real human who has a proper job and isn't just a podcaster and has to wear shirts to work. It's just torture wearing a badly fitted shirt. So go and fix it. Get your new shirt wardrobe sorted. link.tailoredathlete.co.uk/modernwisdom. But for now, it's time to learn how to turn pro with Steven Pressfield.
So we'll have some people listening whose lives could be changed forever by Turning Pro. Can we make that happen within the next hour, do you think?

**Steven Pressfield** (3:37)
We'll give it our best shot here.

**Chris Williamson** (3:41)
That would be a pleasure. So as a tiny bit of background, I read both The War of Art and Turning Pro this year, and they had a very profound impact on how I view the things that I do in my life. And I wanted to kind of gift the audience, hopefully with the same insights that your book gave me. So first off, why did you write Turning Pro?

**Steven Pressfield** (4:01)
You know, it was just a follow-up to The War of Art, because in The War of Art, there is a section, as you know, called Turning Pro. It's the middle section. But I felt like I hadn't really said everything that I wanted to say and that it needed a little amplification.
So I just kind of amplified it a little bit. But let me ask you something before we even start. How does the concept of resistance in The War of Art, how does that affect what you do? Where did it impact your life?