Hacker News Books

+1 for Steven Pressfield.

I read Turning Pro first after this excerpt on 99u and loved it; The War of Art was cool too but kind of cringey & self-helpy in places.

http://99u.com/articles/7192/Are-You-Trapped-in-a-Shadow-Car...

If you liked that, check out his follow up - Turning Pro. I read the second book first & loved it; thought The War of Art was a liiiittle bit self-helpy.

What I took away from those two books were that the /only thing/ that will help you is sitting your ass in the chair and doing the fucking work.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. This is the book I've recommended more than any other, and have been thanked by people I've recommended it to disproportionately. He's got a few other books--Do The Work, Turning Pro--that cover similar ground, but The War of Art is the best of them by far.

> Are optimists more likely to come up with specific explanations for things in their life? Or more likely to come up with general explanations?

It seems to me that is just correlation and not causation. It seems that the cause is the time we spend in action, not thinking about us. When we act, we are more likely to succeed. When we think about ourselves, we are more likely to be depressed.

In my experience, the root of these two things is too much thinking about ourselves.

Quote: Don't think about what is a good man, be a good man.
It's alright to think about that but it doesn't seems to be a good idea. Taking periods twice every week seems to be a good idea[1].

[1] Turning Pro (https://sivers.org/book/TurningPro)

To anyone that read this and identified strongly: I highly recommend you pick up 'The War of Art' and 'Turning Pro' by Steven Pressfield.

Essentially,accordingly to Pressfield, those writers who identify strongly with problems the writer has in the article would do well to adopt a "hard hat" mentality of doing creative work; grab your lunch pale, sit in front of the computer and suffer, and don't worry about whether what you write is good or not-just do the damn work. 'Pretend' that you only write for money (you don't, but money is nice).

The problem for me and I think for the writer is identifying one's ego and with one's work. You start to worry you're not cut out, good enough, etc. But when you start thinking of creative endeavors like grabbing your lunch pail and heading off to the construction cite to put in a hard day's work, everything changes. It's kinda zen like in that way. Success or failure-the construction worker doesn't take it personally-he still has a beer at the end of the day and laughs with his family.

That's the way I see it anyway.

You sound a lot like me. I have had tons of trouble making myself work, even on my passion projects that I have invested significant amounts of my own money in. I would recommend that you read Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. He was a chronic procrastinator who turned things around. I would combine this with renting a desk at a coworking space and keeping regular work hours, though they might only be four or six hours per day (8 is too much if you are actually working).

Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield's "Turning Pro" got me out of a rut. I usually don't go for this type of book, but it is more or less a couple of hour read and it helped me establish a better mindset that I've been able to build upon.

It really reminded me of the Admiral McRaven speech about making your bed, which is occasionally quoted here:

> “If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another,” he said.

Thanks for that. Could you help me with something? I'm reading the foreword of that book right now from Amazon's preview, and it says that it's the 1st of a set of 3 books. I found the 2nd, "Turning Pro", on Amazon, but I can't find the 3rd, "The Higher Realm". Was that book renamed to something else after the foreword was written, or has it still not been published, or what could have happened to it? Do you know anything about that?

EDIT: Hmmm... On checking the foreword again, I see it says that book one is actually "Defining the Enemy". I'm starting to think that these 3 "books" are actually sections of the physical book. I guess the physical book "Turning Pro" of the same author might be completely unrelated to the equally named book two the foreword mentions. That's pretty confusing if true.