Latest / The Karen Kenney Show / STEVEN PRESSFIELD: ON RESISTANCE, SELF-DISCIPLINE, AND SELF-REINFORCEMENT

Transcript

STEVEN PRESSFIELD: ON RESISTANCE, SELF-DISCIPLINE, AND SELF-REINFORCEMENT · The Karen Kenney Show

• 0:00
  Karen Kenney: It's the Karen Kenney show. Oh my God, you
• 0:04
  guys. Okay, so I'm still coming down from the high. I just got
• 0:10
  to be honest with you. I just had a conversation with somebody
• 0:15
  I have been dying to share with you guys for so long, and he's
• 0:21
  one of my literary heroes. He's he's a writer who I I just
• 0:25
  admire and respect and love. And I was lucky enough to have a
• 0:30
  private conversation with him last year. But I've been wanting
• 0:34
  to talk to him and have him on the podcast, and I was just so
• 0:37
  grateful that he said yes so that I could share him with all
• 0:41
  of you. Now, some of you probably know who Stephen
• 0:44
  Pressfield already is, but in case you don't, I think one of
• 0:48
  the ways that a lot of people know who he is is from this book
• 0:52
  here, The War of Art. Right, but he's written 25 books. You guys,
• 0:58
  he had his first success not until he was like 52, and he
• 1:03
  wrote this book, which many of you may know as a movie, called
• 1:07
  The Legend of Bagavants. So I'm holding up the book right now,
• 1:10
  The Legend of Bagavants, and it had Matt Damon in it. Shout out
• 1:14
  to the Boston Boys. Had Matt Damon in it and Will Smith, and
• 1:18
  it's a powerful allegory. It's an incredible story. So this was
• 1:22
  his first novel that he got published. Not until he was like
• 1:25
  52. He's had a 50-year writing career, and he has written 25
• 1:30
  books, 12 novels, eight books on what I would call creative
• 1:35
  resilience, creative discipline writing, and also a memoir, and
• 1:40
  then three nonfiction books. I have them all here. Like I said,
• 1:43
  I'm sure you've seen or heard of many of them. The War of Art,
• 1:49
  right? The Artist's Journey, Put Your Ass where Your Heart Wants
• 1:53
  to Be, The Authentic Swing, Turning Pro, Do the Work, right?
• 2:01
  Nobody wants to read your shit, which totally makes me laugh
• 2:04
  every time I see it. And the Daily Press field. Okay, but his
• 2:10
  work is inspired, like other incredible artists and writers,
• 2:14
  like Ryan Holiday and Rich Roll. If you've heard of the Rich Roll
• 2:18
  podcast, Stephen has been instrumental in helping so many
• 2:21
  creatives, so many artists, so many entrepreneurs to like
• 2:26
  buckle down and do the work and push back against what he calls
• 2:31
  capital I resistance. So in our conversation today, we talk
• 2:37
  about his new book, The Arcadian. I'm going to hold that
• 2:41
  sucker up too. We talk about his new book, The Arcadian. We talk
• 2:45
  all about resistance. We talk about resiliency. We talk about
• 2:48
  ritual. We talk about so many things that I think everybody,
• 2:52
  everybody, whether you're a writer or a creative or not, is
• 2:55
  going to find helpful, and that you're going to be able to apply
• 2:59
  to your own life. He is such a fantastic person. He's wise.
• 3:05
  He's entertaining. He's lovely, and I think you're going to walk
• 3:08
  away from this. You know, loving him is-I don't know if maybe as
• 3:12
  much as I do, but you're certainly going to get curious
• 3:15
  about him. I don't know how you couldn't. And one part of the
• 3:18
  conversation that like really stands out is we talk about this
• 3:22
  concept that he says where resistance will kill you,
• 3:27
  resistance will kill you, and I hope just that line alone makes
• 3:31
  you curious enough to tune in to find out more about what he has
• 3:34
  to say about that because every single one of us has bumped up
• 3:39
  against resistance somewhere in our life, whether it's resisting
• 3:42
  having the difficult conversation, resisting having
• 3:47
  to speak your truth or use your voice, resisting sitting your
• 3:51
  ass in the chair to write that book, resisting leaving the job
• 3:54
  and really starting the business that you want to do, resisting
• 3:58
  your calling, and if we don't resist our calling. There, if we
• 4:01
  do resist our calling, I should say there are consequences. This
• 4:06
  is an amazing conversation, like 60 minutes. It's jam packed,
• 4:09
  full of so much goodness, and I hope, like from my heart, from
• 4:13
  my heart to your heart, I hope you enjoy this conversation as
• 4:17
  much as I had having it. Let me know what you think. Please
• 4:22
  share this with people as well. I think it's a conversation that
• 4:26
  is going to be helpful.
• 4:27
  Like I said, to a lot of people, and just thank you so much for
• 4:31
  being here and thank you for tuning in. Hey, you guys!
• 4:35
  Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I am out of my mind wicked
• 4:39
  excited to be bringing this very special guest, I was already
• 4:43
  telling Stephen before we started recording what a treat
• 4:48
  this is for me, and you guys know I love you out there at
• 4:51
  home too. But this sucker is also for me in my hat because
• 4:55
  I've been wanting to talk to him for a really long time. So
• 4:58
  Stephen Pressfield, welcome. To the Karen Kenney show.
• 5:01
  Unknown: Thanks for having me, Karen. I'm delighted to be here.
• 5:04
  Karen Kenney: I'm so excited to have you, and I could talk. I
• 5:08
  already know. Like we've got about an hour together. I know I
• 5:11
  could talk to you for hours because I have so many things
• 5:14
  that not only do I want to say, but I want to ask you. But first
• 5:17
  and foremost, you have a new book out. We're going to get
• 5:21
  into this sucker, the Arcadian. I'm not going to talk about
• 5:24
  this, but before we dive into that, one of the things I like
• 5:29
  to ask all my guests, especially people who have been around the
• 5:33
  block for a wicked long time, who know their craft, know what
• 5:37
  they're doing really well, and are known for whether whatever
• 5:41
  they're whatever field they're in, one of the things I'm most
• 5:45
  curious about, and obviously use your discretion what you want to
• 5:49
  share, what you don't want to share. But I'm dying to know
• 5:53
  because all of your books, I read your memoir, Government
• 5:56
  Cheese, which I loved, but almost all of your stories, or
• 6:01
  even when you're interviewed, they start talking to you when
• 6:05
  you're like older, like 27. But and I'm curious, like, what were
• 6:09
  you like as a kid, and the way that you were as a kid? Do you
• 6:14
  think it informs the work that you do now?
• 6:17
  Unknown: Oh, that's a great question. I grew up in a town
• 6:21
  that was so vanilla. Its name was Pleasantville.
• 6:25
  Karen Kenney: Oh my!
• 6:26
  Unknown: This is this is a real town in near New York City,
• 6:30
  suburb of New York City, and I grew up as just like a total
• 6:33
  sort of leave it to beaver kind of a kid, you know, sheltered,
• 6:39
  real sheltered, no real experience of the world. You
• 6:42
  know, my parents protected my brother and me from you know bad
• 6:46
  stuff, and yeah, there's really nothing, nothing really out of
• 6:53
  the ordinary as in in growing up, other than the fact that
• 6:58
  when I finally sort of I got married real young, and like
• 7:03
  right out of college.
• 7:04
  Karen Kenney: Yeah,
• 7:05
  Unknown: and then tried to write a book. The first first book I
• 7:09
  tried to write one, and that exploded, imploded, and I sort
• 7:13
  of wound up, as you know from Government Cheese, that memoir,
• 7:17
  kind of on the road and doing a lot of crazy jobs and sort of
• 7:21
  spiraling down the drain
• 7:24
  for
• 7:25
  quite a few years, but it was all I think very positive, and
• 7:28
  it was sort of a reaction to as sheltered as I had been as a as
• 7:32
  a little kid that I just sort of, on some level, though I
• 7:36
  wasn't deliberately trying to do this, I kind of needed to see
• 7:41
  some some of the hard side of the world, and that has informed
• 7:46
  everything writing-wise from then on. But not my childhood,
• 7:51
  really. You know,
• 7:52
  Karen Kenney: yeah, I didn't
• 7:53
  Unknown: grow up in an orphanage. I didn't know it
• 7:54
  wasn't like a Dickensian thing or anything like that. No, not
• 7:58
  at all.
• 7:59
  Karen Kenney: Yeah. Well, I find it fascinating that you were a
• 8:01
  caddy as a child, because as we know, like you you worked really
• 8:06
  hard. I mean, you didn't like correct me if I get any any of
• 8:09
  this wrong. So I've read so much of your stuff, and I hope I keep
• 8:13
  all the facts straight. But you basically didn't get your first
• 8:19
  novel published until you were like 52, right? Is that correct?
• 8:23
  And it was the the legend of Bhagavan's, which I for this is
• 8:28
  so fascinating. So okay, I've been a yoga teacher since like
• 8:31
  1999, so of course I'm familiar with the Bhagavad Gita, right?
• 8:35
  This film comes out, and I see the movie first. Okay, I used to
• 8:41
  also live in L.A. and like, so I went from basically like Boston,
• 8:44
  Mass to L.A. back. Now I'm in New Hampshire, but I remember
• 8:49
  the film. Of course, Matt Damon was in all the things, and Matt
• 8:52
  Damon is one of my favorite guys. And so, but I remember
• 8:55
  watching the movie and being like, "This reminds me of
• 9:00
  Idranist battle when he's resisting his call because I was
• 9:04
  like I knew I had read the Bhagavad Gita and I thought it
• 9:06
  was fascinating and then you know I got the book and stuff
• 9:09
  but I just think it's amazing that you were a caddy as a child
• 9:13
  but then your first big hit had to do with golfing you must have
• 9:17
  drawn from your experiences when you were a kid and what you saw
• 9:21
  in some ways, yes, no,
• 9:23
  Unknown: yeah, definitely. I mean, back in those days, before
• 9:28
  there was such a thing as golf carts,
• 9:30
  Karen Kenney: yeah,
• 9:31
  Unknown: you know, everybody that played golf walked, and
• 9:34
  they had to, you know, somebody carried their bag for them, and
• 9:38
  it was if you were like I started when I was 11,
• 9:42
  Karen Kenney: wow,
• 9:43
  Unknown: and that was and so did everybody else that did this
• 9:46
  back in those days. It was a great way if you were a little
• 9:49
  kid to make money, you know, because you you know you know
• 9:55
  you could just walk on and do it. So yeah, I I kind of fell
• 9:59
  in. With the Bhagavad Gita,
• 10:01
  which
• 10:02
  is the story of the great warrior Arjuna, who receives
• 10:06
  spiritual instruction from his charioteer. So I thought, who's
• 10:11
  who is Krishna? In other words, God in human form, as you know.
• 10:15
  So I thought one day, why not do a story where instead of of a
• 10:20
  troubled warrior, it's a troubled golf champion, and
• 10:23
  instead of his charioteer, it's his caddie. Because I love the
• 10:27
  idea that when God appears in human form on Earth, He doesn't
• 10:32
  appear as a king or a wealth. He appears as a servant.
• 10:36
  Karen Kenney: Yeah,
• 10:37
  Unknown: like Jesus was a man of sorrows, right?
• 10:40
  Karen Kenney: Yes.
• 10:40
  Unknown: So I thought, you know, the charioteer is a servant of
• 10:43
  the warrior. He's, but yet he happens to be God. I like, so I
• 10:47
  love that that idea, and so I just I'm a big believer in
• 10:51
  stealing ideas, as long as you put a little twist on them. So
• 10:56
  that was so. It's great that you got that, Karen, because most
• 10:59
  people didn't. In fact, not one in 100 saw that that bag of ants
• 11:06
  came from the Bhagavad Gita.
• 11:08
  Karen Kenney: Well, I thought it was just brilliant, and when
• 11:10
  you're saying I loved the idea, I was like, I loved it, I loved
• 11:13
  it too, Steve. So I'm so glad that you actually wrote it. It's
• 11:15
  like so fantastic, and you know, it's amazing to me that you've
• 11:20
  had a 50-year writing career, 25 books. That's like so wild, and
• 11:26
  I have it here. Like, so you've written like 12 novels. You're
• 11:30
  known for your like gripping historical military fiction. I
• 11:35
  mean, some of your books are even-I don't know if I want to
• 11:37
  say required reading, but definitely encouraged reading
• 11:41
  for people in the military because weren't you in the
• 11:43
  Marines? You were a Marine, correct?
• 11:45
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:46
  Karen Kenney: And and so you've had 12 novels. You've had eight
• 11:50
  books on what I would say either writing or creative discipline.
• 11:54
  You have your memoir, and then you have three nonfiction books,
• 11:58
  which I also read. Right, the knowledge. I thought this was so
• 12:01
  fantastic. So, but these books about because this is what like
• 12:08
  when you look back here, like all of Ryan Holiday's books back
• 12:11
  there. I got a Rich Rolls book. All your buddies, right? But you
• 12:16
  have influenced so many writers, myself included, so many
• 12:20
  creatives. You really you're well known for talking about
• 12:25
  resistance, but today, and I do I want to totally get into that.
• 12:29
  But the more I've been thinking about you and been thinking
• 12:32
  about your work and just the effect that it's had in my own
• 12:35
  life as a creative and just me as a human, I also think you
• 12:40
  write a lot about, or you embody what I would call resilience and
• 12:45
  ritual. All these A's, right? The three A's: resistance, the
• 12:48
  resilience, and the ritual. But I want to kind of get into the
• 12:53
  resistance, and I'm curious if you said that maybe not
• 12:58
  consciously, but you worked before you started writing, like
• 13:03
  seriously, right? You worked 21 jobs in 11 different states. You
• 13:07
  were like a school teacher. You drove tractor trailers. I come
• 13:11
  from a truck driver. I'm a blue collar kid. I come from a truck
• 13:14
  driver family, right? You worked offshore rigs. You you picked
• 13:18
  fruit with migrant workers or as a migrant worker. You then
• 13:21
  eventually get into copywriting and and all of that stuff. But
• 13:25
  there are times when you've lived in your van. There are
• 13:27
  times when you like lived in this abandoned house in the
• 13:30
  woods, right? Do you think that? Um. Do you think that these
• 13:38
  diversions, these jobs before you were writing. Do you think
• 13:42
  that was resistance and action in your own life?
• 13:46
  Unknown: Yes, in in in it was more than that. I think looking
• 13:50
  back on it, of course, at the time you're so immersed in it,
• 13:53
  you have no idea what you're doing.
• 13:55
  Karen Kenney: Sure,
• 13:55
  Unknown: but I for sure the what preceded that period of my life
• 14:02
  was trying to write a novel and kind of having it crash and
• 14:06
  burn. So I was like running away from the idea of writing. I
• 14:11
  thought this is terrible. It's only going to drive me insane if
• 14:14
  I keep doing this. So you know, I sort of fell out of the bottom
• 14:20
  of the middle class and into the working class, and kind of lived
• 14:25
  there for for quite a while. So it was I was definitely running
• 14:28
  away from writing, and that period ended for me when I
• 14:35
  started writing again. At the same time, I think it was a
• 14:41
  really fertile period for me, as you know, solid gold all the way
• 14:47
  through. Even though I was miserable most of the time, it's
• 14:52
  stuff that you you call on on the soul level every day since
• 14:58
  then. You know. So it's you know I think it's a standard thing. A
• 15:04
  lot of people have this in their lives, you know that kind of a a
• 15:07
  time in the wilderness, so to speak. You know,
• 15:10
  yes,
• 15:11
  and that was it for me.
• 15:13
  Karen Kenney: It is a time in the wilderness. That's like very
• 15:15
  much that hero's journey act, right? When you're lost in the
• 15:19
  world, you're lost in the wilderness, but it seems like
• 15:21
  there's like these two pivotal moments. Like the first one is,
• 15:26
  I think you wrote like a whole book, and then at the very end,
• 15:31
  you like blew it up, and it blew up your marriage, and it blew
• 15:34
  like you just didn't finish it. You wouldn't finish it, and
• 15:36
  there was like that scene when you totally take yourself out at
• 15:39
  the knees, right? Resistance so at work, and then you have the
• 15:43
  other scene when you sit down, you sit your ass down, right,
• 15:47
  and at the typewriter, and you hammer it out. And I love how
• 15:51
  you describe that. You were saying that even the sound that
• 15:54
  a manual typewriter makes is violet, right? Like, and you
• 15:57
  were like hammering it out, and you found yourself. You finally
• 16:01
  finished like writing something, whether it's a page or whatever,
• 16:05
  and you said. Then you get up and you go to do the dishes, and
• 16:08
  as you're washing the dishes, like you felt yourself change,
• 16:12
  like your mood had shifted. You find yourself whistling, and
• 16:15
  it's like so that resistance was like this, like you kind of
• 16:19
  called that series of time, like a blue collar hell that you were
• 16:23
  in, like this, this really intense time, and then there's
• 16:26
  this decision, or whatever whatever went on inside of you.
• 16:31
  We just sat your ass down and did it and typed, and then
• 16:35
  you're changed, like you're resurrected in that moment. Like
• 16:38
  that's a really big thing.
• 16:41
  Unknown: Well, first, Karen, thank you for you are like a
• 16:43
  real. I'm sort of embarrassed because you're such a student of
• 16:46
  all of this stuff and how you remember. You know, it's like
• 16:50
  you know my life better than I do. Oh, come on! But but very
• 16:53
  definitely that moment that's described in the War of Art in
• 16:57
  my book, The War of Art, where I did, you know, finally got the
• 17:01
  typewriter out again after running away from it for about
• 17:04
  seven years, and that was a one of those mysterious moments in
• 17:09
  life, you know, where the goddess kind of smiles on you,
• 17:13
  and you you realize I've I've found something that works.
• 17:18
  Karen Kenney: Hey, okay, so you were saying that that pivotal
• 17:22
  moment when you sat down after like seven years of not writing
• 17:25
  or resisting or whatever that it's that moment when like you
• 17:29
  find something you find that thing that is working for you
• 17:32
  and one of the things that I find so fascinating about this
• 17:36
  and you said several things which I'm going to come back to
• 17:39
  is I want to kind of talk about this whole thing about
• 17:43
  resilience, about resistance, because this is what. So you
• 17:47
  guys, writers at home. Anybody who's a writer, a creative. I'm
• 17:51
  married to a professional musician. That's what he does
• 17:54
  for his gig. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm married to one too. All
• 17:57
  of these books here, all right, are so fantastic. This was the
• 18:02
  one that like like sold over 500,000 copies. The War of Art,
• 18:06
  with my accent, I apologize. That's the War of Art. Break
• 18:12
  through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. But all
• 18:16
  of these books, you guys, and I'll I'll link them all and tell
• 18:19
  you all about them. We're going to talk about maybe a couple of
• 18:21
  them. These books have been so incredibly helpful for so many
• 18:27
  creatives. I hope that I know you're very humble. I've seen
• 18:31
  you teach and speak, and you're a little. I was talking about
• 18:36
  resistance. You're a little resistant sometimes to receiving
• 18:39
  praise and receiving compliments. I just know this
• 18:42
  about you, but you have to know, and I hope you let it in your
• 18:45
  hat on some level. Just how many people, like how many writers
• 18:51
  and creatives and people who are trying to do the damn thing,
• 18:55
  like that you have given them such hope and such inspiration
• 18:59
  and motivation and all this stuff, but in this book, in the
• 19:03
  War of Art, there's this great thing that you say on your
• 19:06
  website, and I just want to share it with people. I'm not
• 19:09
  going to read the whole thing, but you say this: you say if
• 19:11
  you're an aspiring writer or artist, I've got good news and
• 19:15
  bad news. First, the bad news: one, there's an enemy. Oh, I
• 19:23
  never forget the first time I read that. Two, you are the
• 19:26
  enemy. Three, resistance will kill you. So let's start with
• 19:32
  the bad news, Stephen. Let's dive into this whole thing about
• 19:38
  resistance because I know that I have experienced it at such a
• 19:43
  deep level in my life. Picture
• 19:45
  Unknown: power grid is kind of like the Malibu power. Oh, here
• 19:49
  we go. Okay, we're back.
• 19:51
  Karen Kenney: Yeah. So, so I was saying that. Did you hear me
• 19:56
  talking about the bad? You were
• 19:57
  Unknown: saying you are the enemy.
• 20:00
  Karen Kenney: Yeah, yeah, you are the enemy. And then number
• 20:03
  three, and this is a very serious thing to say. You say
• 20:06
  resistance will kill you. So can you talk about? I know what you
• 20:11
  mean by it, but for the listeners, or maybe somebody who
• 20:13
  hasn't come across your work before, tell us a little bit
• 20:16
  about resistance. Tell us about this enemy that lives within us.
• 20:20
  That we are somehow the enemy, and then how this thing will
• 20:24
  kill us if we're not careful.
• 20:27
  Unknown: There definitely is a diabolical negative force in the
• 20:33
  world that nobody tells you about in school. Nobody prepares
• 20:38
  you for this, but when you sit down to the blank page or the
• 20:41
  blank canvas, or when you buy a treadmill and bring it home and
• 20:46
  find you never get on it, there is a negative force. The playing
• 20:51
  field is not level. The blank page is absolutely hostile to
• 20:56
  you. It's not neutral, and this force I call resistance because
• 21:02
  when, for me, when I sit down at the keyboard, it kind of
• 21:05
  radiates off the keyboard. This negative force trying to
• 21:09
  distract us, trying to tell us we're not good enough. That same
• 21:12
  voice is in all of our head, everybody's head. And but the
• 21:17
  crazy part about this is this force of resistance doesn't just
• 21:20
  want to stop you from doing your work. It wants to kill you. It
• 21:25
  wants to, and by that I mean almost. I don't. I don't want to
• 21:30
  overgeneralize, but when you find somebody that is a
• 21:36
  full-blown alcoholic or some kind of a drug abuser or any
• 21:41
  kind of vice, an addiction to drama in your life, or you know,
• 21:46
  abuse of others or yourself. Almost always, in my opinion, it
• 21:51
  comes from not following a creative imperative that's
• 21:57
  inside you, and that's what I mean. Why it'll kill you? It'll
• 22:01
  turn you into a drunk. It'll turn you into a child abuser.
• 22:05
  It'll turn you into somebody that's so depressed or alienated
• 22:09
  or whatever that they can't get out of bed in the morning. It'll
• 22:12
  finish you off. And if we look around at our friends and high
• 22:16
  that we went into went into high school with, you can see that
• 22:20
  there are casualties.
• 22:22
  Karen Kenney: I agree.
• 22:22
  Unknown: You know, along the way, and it's a lot. And I think
• 22:28
  if you if you get into the deep psychological inner stuff, a lot
• 22:35
  of times I think it comes from not following whatever call we
• 22:41
  have within us, a creative call, which doesn't have to be the
• 22:45
  arts. It can be a lot of other things. It can be ways of
• 22:48
  helping other people. It can be being the kind of pillar of a
• 22:51
  family that holds a family together, and you know that kind
• 22:55
  of thing. So anyway, I really do think that this force is not to
• 23:02
  be trifled with, and we have to be aware of it. And most people
• 23:09
  are not. I certainly wasn't for years and years. But once I sort
• 23:13
  of gave a name to it, resistance with a capital R, in my own
• 23:17
  mind, and recognized that there was an enemy that I had to fight
• 23:21
  every single day. Sort of, you have to slay the dragon every
• 23:25
  morning anew every morning. That that helped turn a corner for me
• 23:32
  and and kind of got me on a path of discipline and and of hard
• 23:36
  work that has saved me.
• 23:40
  Karen Kenney: I double a men hands. I always say I could not
• 23:43
  love this enough, and I 100% agree. And it is something that
• 23:49
  that word kill is a very strong word, right? But it does. What
• 23:52
  not only does it slowly? I think death by 1000 paper cuts, right?
• 23:57
  Yeah. Not only does it kill us, it like it. What it does is it
• 24:01
  robs you. It robs you of peace. It robs you of your ability to
• 24:07
  take yourself seriously. It robs you of your self integrity. It
• 24:10
  robs you of so many things, and that that is no joke when you
• 24:15
  say every single day, you know. And part of the work that I do
• 24:19
  is as a spiritual mentor, and one of the things I talk to
• 24:24
  people, I talk about the five Ds of a DSP of a daily spiritual
• 24:27
  practice, and I say you need dedication, determination,
• 24:31
  discipline, and devotion. Daily is the first one, though, right?
• 24:36
  Daily dedication, determination, discipline, and devotion, and I
• 24:39
  think a lot of people give the word discipline like they think
• 24:44
  discipline is like a dirty word. They don't like that word, and
• 24:47
  we're not talking about discipline that is inflicted on
• 24:50
  us from outside us, from somebody else, like a drill
• 24:53
  sergeant or whoever. Self discipline is different, and
• 24:57
  that to me is one of the most powerful. Tools that we have.
• 25:01
  Can you talk about that a little bit?
• 25:03
  Unknown: Well, you really hit the nail on the head, Karen. I
• 25:05
  mean, here's the thing that in school they should teach you
• 25:08
  that number one before they teach you how to spell or you
• 25:13
  know go to the bathroom, and nobody teach nobody teaches you
• 25:18
  that. You're lucky if you have a mentor or someone that can can
• 25:22
  kind of guide you, but like you say, there is discipline that is
• 25:26
  imposed upon us from without by a drill sergeant or coach or
• 25:31
  teacher or mentor or parents, right? But then when we're on
• 25:34
  our own, which we do become on our own the minute we become an
• 25:38
  artist or a writer or whatever, right? We quit a job, like you
• 25:41
  know, your husband is a musician, right? So all of a
• 25:45
  sudden, the question arises: What time do you get up in the
• 25:49
  morning? What is your mindset when you get up in the morning?
• 25:52
  What is your day like? Who do you spend your day with? What do
• 25:56
  you do during the during the working hours of the day, and so
• 26:00
  on and so forth. And then when it gets into deeper questions of
• 26:03
  like, what do you do when something you've been working on
• 26:06
  for two years crashes and burns? What do you do when your
• 26:12
  artistic calling is in conflict with the family, with your
• 26:17
  daughter that wants you to attend the soccer games, or
• 26:20
  somebody in the family that's sick, you have an aging parent
• 26:22
  or whatever. Like that, all those questions are
• 26:25
  self-discipline questions, and it's it's a it's a skill that we
• 26:31
  all need to learn before we even think about learning to be a
• 26:36
  dancer or a comedian or a all that stuff. It's great. the the
• 26:40
  writing part the artic artistic part is the easy part the hard
• 26:44
  part is the self discipline part
• 26:48
  Karen Kenney: getting your great
• 26:49
  Unknown: answer to this is once you've kind of got it there's
• 26:53
  nothing that can stop you
• 26:56
  Karen Kenney: okay this is so important because what we're
• 26:59
  talking about these these things are very linked, right?
• 27:01
  Resistance and resilience. But before we get into this pot,
• 27:05
  which is like what I would call, like from your book that I love,
• 27:10
  put your ass where your hat wants to be, right? This is kind
• 27:13
  of the solution to the resistance in a way, right?
• 27:17
  Unknown: Yeah.
• 27:18
  Karen Kenney: But so it's like you're talking about How, first
• 27:25
  of all, to all the listeners out there, if you listen to what
• 27:28
  Stephen's saying, he's like, "You're not alone in this. Like,
• 27:30
  we are all bumping up against this. Whether you're an
• 27:32
  entrepreneur, whether you're a writer, whether you're a mom,
• 27:34
  whether whatever the thing is, we bump up against, and it is.
• 27:39
  It's like a force field, isn't it? Doesn't it feel like it's
• 27:41
  like you said? It like radiates off the keyboard or radiates off
• 27:45
  the screen, but whatever it is, whether it's like you said you
• 27:48
  were going to go to the gym, but then you don't. What the thing
• 27:51
  that you're resisting that you know that on the other side of
• 27:55
  it is like the real you, right? It's like the you that can like
• 27:58
  like go after the dream, and you talk about how you and I had
• 28:03
  this conversation. This is like twofold, and you said it to me,
• 28:07
  but you've said it to 1000s and 1000s of other people. Is that
• 28:11
  when the resistance is really big? In some ways, this is good
• 28:16
  news because it's like the shadow on a tree, right? The
• 28:20
  bigger the tree, the bigger the shadow this thing is going to
• 28:23
  make. So the bigger the resistance, it's usually because
• 28:27
  the dream or the book or the writing or the goal or whatever
• 28:31
  it is is wicked important to you. Is that right?
• 28:35
  Unknown: That's exactly right. I mean, the bigger, the bigger,
• 28:40
  like like you say, Karen, when we feel tremendous resistance to
• 28:44
  something, it's a good sign because it shows us resistance
• 28:49
  is kind of this. It's a it's an intelligent force, and it
• 28:53
  absolutely looks into us and can see like if if we're Herman
• 28:58
  Melville and we have the idea to write a book called Moby Dick.
• 29:01
  Karen Kenney: Yes,
• 29:02
  Unknown: Resistance knows. Wow, that's a big one. You know, if
• 29:06
  this guy gets this done, boy, that's going to be great,
• 29:09
  fantastic for him. So I'm going to stop him. Resistance gears up
• 29:14
  to throw the massive wave of resistance at Herman Melville
• 29:18
  because he has this giant project. Right. Same thing with
• 29:21
  us. If if we have some little idea, a project we want, there's
• 29:26
  going to be a very little resistance. If we have a big
• 29:29
  idea, there's going to be big resistance. And resistance takes
• 29:33
  so many forms. I don't want to kind of digress too much, but
• 29:35
  no,
• 29:35
  Karen Kenney: please do.
• 29:37
  Unknown: It it can be as simple as depression, we might find
• 29:42
  ourselves just getting down on ourselves, you know. And this
• 29:46
  has happened to me many times where I'll be struggling with
• 29:48
  something for weeks, just a bad feeling. I can't get it
• 29:53
  together, and I'll say to myself, "Wait a minute! Wait a
• 29:55
  minute! This is resistance. This is because I'm not working on
• 29:59
  that new thing." And the minute I start, it clears up. Another
• 30:03
  thing is that I think we'll get into we'll get sick. Resistance
• 30:06
  will take the form of making us sick. Another thing, it will get
• 30:10
  it in a car accident. We'll hurt ourselves. We'll hurt ourselves
• 30:14
  at the gym. All kinds of things that you would never think have
• 30:18
  any relation to some book or a dream that you have, but they
• 30:23
  absolutely do. This diabolical force knows how to stop us. And
• 30:28
  what's what's even more insidious is resistance will
• 30:31
  sometimes piggyback on legitimate things, like let's
• 30:36
  say we have an older parent that that needs our help. Resistance
• 30:42
  will grab grab onto that, and when we when we're trying to
• 30:47
  think, well, should I sit down at the piano and work on my new
• 30:50
  concerto, or should I go see mom, which is a perfectly
• 30:54
  legitimate thing, right? Mom is suffering. That's resistance. So
• 31:01
  the answer in a case like that is we have to compartmentalize.
• 31:04
  We have to learn. Okay, I can go see mom and I can work on the
• 31:07
  concerto, but I can't let going to see mom stop me from doing my
• 31:12
  real work because that'll kill me.
• 31:16
  Karen Kenney: What I mean, I just want to. I just want
• 31:19
  everybody to take in for a moment what you just said,
• 31:22
  because if I don't do this calling, if I don't do this
• 31:26
  thing, if I don't try to put energy, time, love, effort, you
• 31:31
  know, into this dream, it will kill me. And I'm getting
• 31:35
  emotional again because I because the last time I talked
• 31:39
  to you, we we we had a call last year. We talked for like a half
• 31:43
  hour, and I was telling you how I bump up against resistance.
• 31:47
  How like in every other area of my life, I get shit done. It's
• 31:51
  like I say I'm going to do it, I do it, and I've been writing
• 31:53
  this memoir for like forever. I'm finally at the end stage of
• 31:56
  the first draft, you know. And I'm good for you, kid. Thank
• 31:59
  you. I've been I've been busting my ass right, but I have never
• 32:03
  experienced so much resistance in my life, and I remember
• 32:07
  telling you this when we were talking, and I was saying about
• 32:10
  the DSP and my daily spiritual practice, and you said to me,
• 32:14
  "It sounds to me like you want this, meaning the writing, you
• 32:19
  want this to be your daily spiritual practice, and I just
• 32:24
  burst into tears
• 32:26
  Unknown: immediately.
• 32:27
  Karen Kenney: I burst into tears, and you said to me, "I
• 32:30
  love that you're having this reaction because what it's
• 32:33
  telling me is like how much it really means to you. And can you
• 32:38
  say a little bit more about this because I think what one of the
• 32:42
  things you talk about is this ritual of writing, right? And
• 32:48
  you talk about the muse, and you talk about writing as a
• 32:51
  spiritual practice, and you, and it's not just ritual. So there's
• 32:55
  like kind of the spiritual element for me, but then there's
• 32:58
  also the ritual of like how you put on your work boots, your
• 33:02
  Timberlands, and your lucky laces, and like you're going to
• 33:05
  work, like you take it seriously. It's like you're
• 33:07
  letting the muse know I'm serious or something, but I
• 33:09
  don't want to put words in your mouth. But can you talk about
• 33:12
  how writing maybe a spiritual practice or the ritual, and what
• 33:17
  you mean for the listeners? I know what you mean, but what you
• 33:19
  mean by the muse and and why you need to put your ass in the
• 33:22
  chair with your work boots on. Why you do that invocation of
• 33:26
  the poem that you recite before you write? Can you talk about
• 33:29
  that process?
• 33:31
  Unknown: Let me talk about something else and then we'll
• 33:34
  get to that. Yeah,
• 33:34
  Karen Kenney: perfect.
• 33:35
  Unknown: And forgive me if I might have we might have talked
• 33:38
  about this before, but I'll tell you a little story.
• 33:42
  Karen Kenney: I love stories.
• 33:42
  Unknown: I I had a neighbor a few years ago named Tom
• 33:48
  Laughlin, who was the actor and director of a couple of movies
• 33:51
  of the Billy Jack movies, which nobody has heard of now. But
• 33:55
  anyway, in his other life, he was a kind of a maverick Jungian
• 34:00
  therapist, and people would come to him with cancer life thing,
• 34:05
  and they would come to him at the last gasp after they've
• 34:09
  tried everything else, every kind of mainstream medicine
• 34:12
  thing, and what he would do is he would ask a lady. Let's say a
• 34:17
  lady came to him in the fourth stage terminal cancer. He would
• 34:21
  say to her, "Was there ever a dream that you had when you were
• 34:26
  a young girl that you didn't do? And let's say the lady would say
• 34:32
  something like, "You know, I loved. I wanted to be a concert
• 34:35
  pianist. I played for till I was 20 years old. Then I got
• 34:39
  married. I had kids, and I kind of set it aside. So he would
• 34:43
  immediately say to her, "Start playing the piano again,
• 34:49
  completely serious. Get the best piano. If you have to rent a
• 34:53
  Steinway for $1,000 a month, get it. Get the best teacher you can
• 34:58
  possibly. In other words, return." To that dream, and
• 35:01
  start to act out on it, and cancers would go into remission
• 35:07
  because those because that creative impulse, what I like to
• 35:12
  think of as an underground river that's flowing inside us, we
• 35:17
  when we don't let that river flow, it flows into malignant
• 35:21
  channels, you know. That's why I say resistance will kill you.
• 35:24
  Karen Kenney: I believe
• 35:25
  Unknown: it. So, in other words, that's sort of. I'm not sure why
• 35:29
  I got off on that, but I I think it's really important of how how
• 35:35
  powerful this negative force is, and how we say is writing a
• 35:38
  spiritual practice or art a spiritual practice, absolutely,
• 35:42
  100% the same as meditation, beyond meditation. If you ask
• 35:48
  me, in fact, I would say I'm a big believer that we're
• 35:53
  spiritual beings having a material existence, right? And
• 35:57
  we got dropped onto this planet, into this material flesh,
• 36:01
  Karen Kenney: yes,
• 36:01
  Unknown: and in this world that may be beautiful, but is also
• 36:05
  hell, and and and we. What is the answer to that? In my
• 36:11
  opinion, the answer is to make art.
• 36:15
  Karen Kenney: I agree. Art
• 36:16
  Unknown: is our answer, whatever form that takes. It doesn't have
• 36:20
  to be Picasso painting a painting, it can be, you know,
• 36:23
  guys, blue collar guys doing custom motorcycles in their
• 36:26
  garage on the weekend, or it can be any other kind of thing.
• 36:30
  Starting an organization that helps abandoned children,
• 36:33
  whatever, whatever it is, art is our answer to that. And if you
• 36:38
  believe in God, which I do. That's what he or she is looking
• 36:43
  for, and so the sitting down each day and or going to the
• 36:49
  studio to do your dance or working on whatever it is, is
• 36:54
  our answer to heaven, to God. You know, our way of overcoming
• 36:58
  whatever this dark force is. It's our response to this dark
• 37:02
  force. Why you know the Almighty put this into the world? I don't
• 37:08
  know, but it's there.
• 37:12
  Karen Kenney: I I'm I'm rarely speechless, Stephen. Ask anybody
• 37:16
  who knows me, but that is so beautiful, so powerful, and I
• 37:22
  think so true. I have seen, even in myself, that if I'm not
• 37:28
  making time to write my anxiety, I'll get a little more anxious.
• 37:33
  I get a little more squirrely up in the head, you know. Get a
• 37:36
  little more jumpy. You get a little more irritable, and it's
• 37:38
  like there's this life force. There is this creative force
• 37:42
  that is trying to flow through you, and it's like if you're not
• 37:47
  if you're not doing what you're meant to do, it is like this
• 37:50
  pressure that like builds up inside of you. And like you
• 37:53
  said, I mean that this is where we get auto autoimmune disease.
• 37:56
  I'm not saying the only way, but I do think it's one of the ways
• 38:01
  that we slowly drive ourselves mad. Do you know what I mean?
• 38:04
  And I think I think it's so important. And part of this,
• 38:07
  though, if we can loop back to like the self discipline part,
• 38:11
  and I might have these things wrong. So feel again, feel free
• 38:14
  to correct me. But you're a person who really believes in
• 38:18
  hard work. Like you had said several times, like some some
• 38:23
  version of talent is bullshit. But the one thing I know how to
• 38:26
  do is I know how to work. I can grind, and so. But you get up
• 38:31
  like wicked early in the morning. You're at the gym at
• 38:33
  like 445 or something. You work out, I think, like five days a
• 38:38
  week, and then you write every day for a couple of hours. So
• 38:40
  can you talk a little bit about why that, what, how that kind of
• 38:44
  helps you push back against resistance as well? That
• 38:47
  discipline,
• 38:48
  Unknown: at least for me, that seems like the the only way to
• 38:51
  do it, Karen. Like I, I'm not a believer that you can kind of
• 38:57
  half-ass your way out of this thing and do, oh, you know, I'll
• 39:01
  do it when I feel like it. I'll do two or three. You know, for
• 39:03
  me, it's like an everyday thing. You know, and if I miss a day,
• 39:07
  okay, I gotta. I'll make up for it. You know, I mean, I'm not,
• 39:10
  you know, a machine. But to do it every day is a very important
• 39:14
  thing, and to do it as hard as you can, to do to leave it all
• 39:19
  on the on the table, you know, or on the basketball court,
• 39:21
  whatever. However you look at it, so I I do, you know. During
• 39:27
  my younger years, each day was a new adventure, one craziness
• 39:32
  after another. Now that when I became a writer, went from my
• 39:36
  hero's journey to my artist journey, which I know you know
• 39:39
  what I'm talking about.
• 39:40
  Karen Kenney: Yeah. So when you when you turn pro, you mean when
• 39:43
  you were turning pro?
• 39:44
  Unknown: Well, do you have a book, The Artist's Journey, by
• 39:47
  any chance?
• 39:47
  Karen Kenney: Of course, I do. Ah,
• 39:50
  Unknown: there we go. So what I kind of said then was that I'll
• 39:55
  give you the real short version here for our listeners. I think
• 39:59
  the hero's journey. In our life that we all have, or have many
• 40:02
  of them, is when we're searching for our calling, and we bounce
• 40:06
  around, and we're we get divorced, and we get drunk, and
• 40:09
  we do all these kind of things, and we're we're lost, and we're
• 40:12
  and it's very exciting. It's a real adventure, you know. It's
• 40:15
  the Odyssey, it's Matt Damon, you know, going across, and then
• 40:19
  we come home to Ithaca, you know, and we kind of find our
• 40:23
  calling. We have that moment, like I had with the typewriter,
• 40:25
  where I said, "Okay, I'm a writer, right? And after then,
• 40:28
  you start to ask yourself, "Well, if I'm a writer, what am
• 40:30
  I? What am I going to write? What's what is my what's what's
• 40:34
  my genre? You know that kind of. But once we then we go on what I
• 40:39
  call the artist journey, and from the outside everything
• 40:42
  looks extremely boring. Our life becomes very very simple because
• 40:47
  we are dedicated, like I'm sure you were with your are with your
• 40:50
  memoir, to just doing this one thing, right? And I used to say,
• 40:55
  or I have said, that on my hero's journey I put 390,000
• 41:00
  miles on my old Chevy van. Now that I'm on my artist journey, I
• 41:04
  barely drive to the grocery store because I'm working. I
• 41:09
  haven't got time for that bullshit, you know. So that's I
• 41:13
  forgot exactly how we got on this subject, but the the ritual
• 41:18
  of a daily thing
• 41:19
  Karen Kenney: is
• 41:21
  Unknown: once you become a musician, you know you're in the
• 41:25
  studio. You know you're doing something every day. You know,
• 41:30
  so and it's the same with any other form of art or any other
• 41:34
  thing that's like that entrepreneurial. You know, if
• 41:37
  it's a business, it's it's an everyday thing.
• 41:41
  Karen Kenney: Well, you know, one of the things that you just
• 41:44
  said, which I want to jump off of, is to now coming to this
• 41:48
  piece of the resilience. Now I know that you and your sweetie
• 41:51
  Diana sadly lost your home that you had lived in for a wicked
• 41:56
  long time to the fires in L.A. and I don't. I still think
• 42:00
  you're not back there yet, but you said, but you said something
• 42:04
  that struck me because I watch like your Instagrams, your
• 42:07
  videos and stuff that you make, and on one of them you said, you
• 42:11
  know, we're still not over there, we're still not back
• 42:14
  there yet, but you said the work saved me, the work saved me, and
• 42:18
  can you can you just speak to that a little bit? This
• 42:20
  resiliency, because I think of resiliency with you as not
• 42:23
  pulling the pin,
• 42:26
  Unknown: but yeah, the work you know this house that we're in
• 42:30
  right here is a rented house.
• 42:31
  Karen Kenney: Yes,
• 42:32
  Unknown: but and the main thing I was asking, and I know Diana
• 42:36
  was too, when we moved in, is can we work here? Is it you know
• 42:41
  like your office behind you looks to me like a great place
• 42:44
  to work you know it's kind of homey and funky and it's got all
• 42:46
  your your little chachkis and everything, so I can work here
• 42:51
  in this house and so that has saved me you know that's like a
• 42:55
  grounding thing for me
• 42:57
  Karen Kenney: yes
• 42:57
  Unknown: like you know I know we've heard stories of like
• 43:01
  athletes that their father died or something, and but they found
• 43:06
  that when they got on the football field or they got on
• 43:08
  the basketball court, that was like a refuge for them. Yes, you
• 43:11
  know, and that's what you know writing is for me. So as long as
• 43:16
  I can keep doing it, everything else will find will sort itself
• 43:20
  out.
• 43:21
  Karen Kenney: Yeah, I love that, and I also I want to say
• 43:23
  congratulations because I know that I think if I recall when
• 43:27
  when the fire happened, you guys lost a lot of your stock, a lot
• 43:30
  of your books because you also have your own media company,
• 43:33
  Sasperilla Media, and your your dad used to say to you when you
• 43:37
  were kids about do you want to have a like a glass of sass or
• 43:41
  something like that. So you named it. You know more
• 43:44
  Unknown: about me than I do, Karen.
• 43:46
  Karen Kenney: Well, no, I mean, I really, I, I, I'm, I'm very
• 43:50
  curious about the people who have helped me in some way,
• 43:55
  right? Like so, and when I show up, like I'm serious about this.
• 43:58
  I take this seriously. I take your time seriously, and and I'm
• 44:02
  really curious about what makes you tick and what inspires you
• 44:04
  as well. But so I know now that people can get signed copies of
• 44:10
  Government Cheese: The Memoir through through Sarsaparilla.
• 44:14
  They can get signed copies of Put Your Ass Where Your Hat
• 44:17
  Wants to Be, and then this daily tomb. Speaking of daily rituals,
• 44:21
  you guys, this book, the Daily Press Field, is so fantastic.
• 44:26
  It's like 365 days of little-I would call them like-call them
• 44:32
  little meditations, little lessons, little snippets of
• 44:35
  wisdom, but to help you start a project and get all the way
• 44:38
  through a project. And I know Ryan Holiday had like little
• 44:41
  inspiration for this as well, but this was this is so
• 44:44
  fantastic as well, and I could keep talking to you about all of
• 44:49
  this, but I would be remiss if we don't talk about this, the
• 44:52
  Arcadian, your new book. Now, something you said in an
• 44:56
  interview or on Instagram really struck me. You said this book
• 45:01
  was like 40 years in the making, and that you had to like wait
• 45:06
  like that inspiration from the quote. So, and I don't want to
• 45:10
  speak for you, but do you want to talk about this book because
• 45:14
  there's somebody who you're a friend with, a younger kid. He
• 45:17
  might be the guy who's been helping you make videos and
• 45:19
  promote and stuff, and he left a beautiful and brilliant review
• 45:26
  on Amazon about this book, and it was something about like how
• 45:31
  you're well known for writing about the warrior ethos and like
• 45:34
  being a warrior and what what it is, but this book and these
• 45:39
  characters, right? And I'll let you tell talk about them.
• 45:43
  There's something about like the cost of doing all that warrior
• 45:48
  stuff, the the soul level cost, and like, can you regain
• 45:51
  yourself? But I don't want to put. So tell me about this book.
• 45:55
  Tell me about the 40 years, and like the heartbeat of this
• 45:58
  thing.
• 46:00
  Unknown: I found a quote about 40 years ago.
• 46:04
  Karen Kenney: Yeah,
• 46:04
  Unknown: from the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles, and at
• 46:09
  the time I I said I got to save this because I know there's a
• 46:12
  book in here somewhere, and I carried it with me for like 40
• 46:16
  years and never could figure out how what what the book was, and
• 46:20
  the gist of the quote was, anyone who takes another
• 46:25
  person's life three is I'll try and quote it now three times
• 46:31
  10,000 years that soul shall wander, an outcast from
• 46:35
  felicity, etc. etc. In other words, you're doomed if you for
• 46:41
  this particular crime, so I just thought, oh, there's a book in
• 46:44
  there. It's got to be a hero there. That's gonna and and
• 46:47
  finally I connected it with a recurring character of mine who
• 46:51
  is the Arcadian, an ancient warrior, and this was the story
• 46:57
  and is the story of like his last lifetime, where he finally
• 47:02
  gets off the-he's been doomed karmic
• 47:04
  Karen Kenney: wheel. He gets off the karmic wheel, the wheel
• 47:06
  Unknown: of karma. Yeah, for crimes he committed in a deep
• 47:09
  many lifetimes in the past. Wow, he is doomed to be reborn,
• 47:14
  always as a warrior, always to kill and be killed. And so this
• 47:19
  story is like his last lifetime, where he finally gets off that
• 47:23
  that wheel of karma, and which, as you were talking about the
• 47:30
  the idea of of kind of the warrior virtues and that sort of
• 47:33
  stuff, I think really applies to an artist. But if you're an
• 47:36
  actual warrior that's actually killing people and doing that
• 47:40
  sort of stuff, you're rolling up some bad, bad karma for
• 47:43
  yourself, you know. So one has to move out of that archetype
• 47:49
  eventually, out of the warrior archetype into a higher
• 47:52
  archetype to be saved. So that's what this story is about.
• 47:56
  Karen Kenney: This is so thanks
• 47:57
  Unknown: for thanks for highlighting it a little bit
• 48:00
  here. Oh my
• 48:00
  Karen Kenney: God, for sure. I mean, and you know, also Gates
• 48:03
  of Fire and the Warrior Ethos. You guys, he write like I said.
• 48:07
  You've written novels. You've written three nonfiction, a
• 48:11
  memoir, whatever. And what we're just the the Arcadian. I to be
• 48:15
  honest, I haven't read it yet, but I cannot wait. I've been
• 48:18
  like sitting on it. It's in my it's in my pile, and part of it
• 48:22
  is because, and I might have mentioned this when we talked
• 48:25
  last time. I don't know if I did or didn't, but my mother was
• 48:29
  murdered when I was 12 years old.
• 48:31
  Unknown: Oh no, you didn't tell me that. Yeah,
• 48:33
  Karen Kenney: so that this concept, this idea that anybody
• 48:36
  who takes the life of another person is like on this karmic
• 48:39
  wheel, and I think it's so fascinating. I think one of the
• 48:43
  one of the most maybe the word is transformative things that we
• 48:50
  can do is to take our traumas and our tragedies and turn them
• 48:54
  into art. I think it's one of the most incredible ways that we
• 48:57
  can kind of as maybe not the one I can't speak for my mother's
• 49:01
  murderer. I mean, I can I can tell you that whole story
• 49:03
  another time. But but I think about him and I think about that
• 49:08
  the cost of of that that act. And I know for me, like the the
• 49:14
  ripple effect or the echo of violence and what it was like in
• 49:18
  my life. This is what my memoir is about. But being able to like
• 49:21
  kind of take that thing and make something beautiful or helpful
• 49:26
  or important or I don't know whatever the readers are going
• 49:28
  to receive that book from me has been a healing has been a
• 49:31
  healing process it's been an incredible journey you know
• 49:36
  Unknown: I think that's you know absolutely right on Karen and
• 49:40
  and like I was saying before, our answer, our as mortal human
• 49:44
  beings, to the the difficulties and the tragedies of this life,
• 49:49
  is to create art in one form or another. One thing I would say
• 49:52
  to anybody that's listening and thinking about that for
• 49:55
  themselves: the work that you produce doesn't have. Be
• 50:00
  directly out of whatever the trauma was.
• 50:03
  Karen Kenney: That's right.
• 50:03
  Unknown: You know, I think like a lot of guys in in the armed
• 50:09
  forces come back from Iraq or Afghanistan or any of those
• 50:12
  things, and bearing various trauma or things like that, and
• 50:16
  want to write it. What you write doesn't have to be your war
• 50:20
  story. It can be something completely different. Think
• 50:23
  about Tolkien, and that came out of the trenches in World War One
• 50:30
  and wound up writing, you know, I'm blanking on the Hobbit, the
• 50:34
  Hobbits,
• 50:35
  Karen Kenney: yeah,
• 50:35
  Unknown: all that sort of stuff created this kind of magical
• 50:38
  fantasy world, you know, rather than telling the story of trench
• 50:42
  warfare, but absolutely that came out of that experience, you
• 50:46
  know. So it's our humans answer art, you know, to the to the
• 50:52
  horrors that we face sometimes in in life.
• 50:55
  Karen Kenney: Okay, I have a final. I want to let you go, but
• 50:57
  I have a final thing I want to share, and then ask you a final
• 51:00
  question, if that's okay. So we talk. We're talking about the
• 51:04
  work and the work that you do, and we're talking about art. And
• 51:07
  you say this: you say the war of art is not about genius; it's
• 51:12
  about work. And you say we can't control the level of talent
• 51:16
  we've been given. We have no control over the nature of our
• 51:19
  gift. What we can control is our self motivation, our self
• 51:24
  discipline, our self validation, and our self reinforcement. You
• 51:29
  said we can control how hard and how smart we work, and you have
• 51:34
  this wonderful weekly newsletter that I'm a happy recipient of on
• 51:38
  Wednesdays, Writing Wednesdays, and your last couple of emails
• 51:43
  were actually about this, about self reinforcement, how we can
• 51:46
  reinforce the self. Do you remember what you wrote in
• 51:49
  those?
• 51:50
  Unknown: Yeah. All
• 51:51
  Karen Kenney: right. Do you want to? Can you just like leave our
• 51:53
  listeners? Because I know somebody out there is listening,
• 51:56
  and they're like, "Oh my God! But Steve, you don't understand
• 51:59
  how hard it is, and I don't know how to grind, and I don't know
• 52:03
  how to work, and like, how do I self reinforce? And you're
• 52:07
  saying, hey, we can control how hard we work and how smart we
• 52:10
  work. So, can you leave our listeners with maybe a little,
• 52:14
  little kick in the ass, a little love, a little loving but firm,
• 52:17
  you know, inspiration?
• 52:20
  Unknown: You know, we were talking before, Karen, you and
• 52:22
  I, about the difference between externally imposed discipline
• 52:27
  and self-discipline.
• 52:28
  Yes. So, if
• 52:30
  we had, if let's say we're writers, we're dancers, we're
• 52:34
  whatever it is, if we had a coach or a mentor or a spouse or
• 52:39
  somebody that was our, you know, our champion. At the end of the
• 52:43
  day, they'd say to us, "Wow, Karen, great work! You sat down.
• 52:47
  You know, I know you were distracted today. I know you had
• 52:48
  a lot of shit on your mind, but you sat down. You did was a bad
• 52:52
  day. You weren't feeling right. You really didn't do very good
• 52:54
  work today. But goddamn it, you sat down and you did it. God
• 52:58
  bless you. You know, and here's an ice cream cone and a slice of
• 53:01
  pizza, you know. So that's what would happen if we had that
• 53:06
  person that was going to look after us, but we don't. So we
• 53:10
  have to do that to ourselves. Crazy as it sounds, we have to
• 53:15
  talk to ourselves, and at the end of the day, we have to say,
• 53:19
  you know, goddamn it! You know, you sat down, you did your work.
• 53:23
  Maybe you didn't work as long as you wish. Maybe you didn't do as
• 53:25
  well, but you kept grinding. You kept you were rolling the pee
• 53:30
  for another day. You know, and God bless you, and some sort of
• 53:33
  a you know reward or whatever. So that's another skill they
• 53:39
  never teach you. It seems silly when you actually do it, but
• 53:44
  nobody else is going to do that for us, you know, because nobody
• 53:47
  knows. That's the other thing. I'll say one last thing, Karen.
• 53:50
  It's like no,
• 53:50
  Karen Kenney: we you can do as much as you want.
• 53:53
  Unknown: You know this just like I do. When you're an artist,
• 53:57
  what of whatever form it is, and you achieve some kind of. You
• 54:02
  may have a great day working at the keyboard. You did something
• 54:05
  really wonderful. Nobody knows. There's no way you can share it
• 54:10
  with anybody. There's nobody cheering. Nobody throws confetti
• 54:14
  at you. You're all alone with this thing, and the voice of
• 54:18
  resistance is immediately going to come to your head saying,
• 54:21
  "Well, it wasn't that good, you know what you did today. It's
• 54:24
  really kind of a piece of shit when you look at it. You know,
• 54:26
  if we compare it to tolls, that kind of stuff. So we need in
• 54:32
  those moments to be able to reinforce ourselves. We have to
• 54:36
  be our own coach, our own mentor, and and it's it seems
• 54:41
  silly, but it's the difference. It's like the difference between
• 54:44
  a professional and an amateur, and the difference between being
• 54:48
  able to make it and falling by the wayside. And I'm guarantee
• 54:53
  you that anybody you admire in the creative arts, they do this.
• 54:58
  Stephen King does it. You know, everybody, everybody that knows
• 55:02
  how to Ryan Holiday does it. He is a master of this kind of
• 55:05
  thing.
• 55:05
  Karen Kenney: Yes.
• 55:06
  Unknown: So anyway, that's we could talk forever. I gotta go.
• 55:10
  Karen Kenney: I appreciate you and your time and your wisdom,
• 55:14
  your presence so much. Thank you for being here with me and all
• 55:16
  of my listeners. It has been an absolute delight, and I hope one
• 55:21
  of my goals is to get out to California. I would love to meet
• 55:24
  you in person sometime. You're so fantastic, and I'm so
• 55:28
  grateful for you. And I hope you really let that land. I hope you
• 55:31
  let that land. Yeah, I
• 55:32
  Unknown: let it land.
• 55:33
  Karen Kenney: Okay. Thank
• 55:34
  Unknown: you, Karen, for for the massive preparation you've done
• 55:38
  the last time and this time. And I hope we do get together and
• 55:40
  meet sometime in person. I'm sure we will. All
• 55:43
  Karen Kenney: right. Give my best to Diana. Take care. All
• 55:44
  right. Take
• 55:45
  Unknown: care of yourself and good luck on the memoir. Keep
• 55:47
  plugging.
• 55:48
  Karen Kenney: I will. Thank you, sweetheart. Bye bye.
• 55:50
  Unknown: Okay. Bye.
• 55:52
  Karen Kenney: Hey. Thanks so much for listening to the show.
• 55:54
  I really love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the
• 55:58
  show or know someone that could benefit from this episode,
• 56:01
  please share it with them and help me to spread the good word
• 56:05
  and the love. And if you want to be in the know about all of my
• 56:08
  upcoming shenanigans, head on over to karenkenney.com/signup
• 56:14
  and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch.
• 56:19
  Bye.