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Steven Pressfield

Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work Paperback – May 31, 2012

by Steven Pressfield (Author), Shawn Coyne (Introduction)

2,178 ratings

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The follow-up to his bestseller The War of Art, Turning Pro navigates the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice. "You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind." --Steven Pressfield TURNING PRO IS FREE, BUT IT'S NOT EASY. When we turn pro, we give up a life that we may have become extremely comfortable with. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own. TURNING PRO IS FREE, BUT IT DEMANDS SACRIFICE. The passage from amateur to professional is often achieved via an interior odyssey whose trials are survived only at great cost, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. We pass through a membrane when we turn pro. It's messy and it's scary. We tread in blood when we turn pro. WHAT WE GET WHEN WE TURN PRO. What we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out.

Print length

146 pages
Language

English
Publication date

May 31, 2012
Dimensions

5 x 0.37 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1936891034
ISBN-13

978-1936891030
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About the Author

Steven Pressfield is the author of Gates of Fire, Tides of War, The Afghan Campaign, The Profession, The Warrior Ethos, Do the Work, and The War of Art among others. He lives in Los Angeles. In 2008, he was made an honorary citizen by the city of Sparta in Greece.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Irish Entertainment LLC; unknown edition (May 31, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 146 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1936891034
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1936891030
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.37 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #14,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #45 in Popular Psychology Creativity & Genius
- #97 in Physics (Books)
- #106 in Creativity (Books)

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2,178 ratings

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Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield is the author of The War of Art which has sold over a millions copies globally and been translated into multiple languages. He is a master of historical fiction with Gates of Fire being on the required reading list at West Point and the the recommended reading list of the Joint Chiefs. His other books include A Man at Arms, Turning Pro, Do the Work, The Artist's Journey, Tides of War, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Last of the Amazons, Virtues of War, The Afghan Campaign, Killing Rommel, The Profession, The Lion's Gate, The Warrior Ethos, The Authentic Swing, An American Jew, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t, and The Knowledge.

His debut novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance was over 30 years in the making. He hasn't stopped writing since.

Steve lives and writes in California. You can following him on IG @steven_pressfield. Sign up for his weekly writing newsletter at stevenpressfield.com

"It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior's life."

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A symphony for the creative soul - must read

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2017

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Turning Pro: The symphony that creative soul is hungry for. So, so good!

By creative, we don't mean just the arts. By creative, we mean anyone who sets out to create a life outside of the normal path, without a map or guidebook. Turning Pro is about taking the amateur self, looking it in the eye, and deciding that enough is enough. We are now doing this and we're doing it damn well too. We are reaching the upper realms not through addiction or avoidance or distractions, but through Labor and Love.

I re-read Do The Work before reading Turning Pro to experience the combined effect. Do The Work speaks at length to the internal enemy, the Resistance. Turning Pro is focused more on the artist vs. the addict, the pro vs. the amateur, and how the answer to all our internal suffering and struggles in that path is to turn pro. Pressfield's own life story fills a few of his short two-page chapters, revealing that he has lived everything he preaches in this book.

One concept that will stick with me, I imagine, is that of "the shadow career", or even, "the shadow life". It's not our real career, our real work, our real life, the one we were truly meant to live. It is close to it but we're fooling ourselves, and fear and resistance help us keep up with the fooling. Say you do admin work for a startup company instead of starting your own, you are the assistant to the singer instead of taking your voice lessons, you are the editor for some publishing house instead of responding to your own calling to write. And these are just the obvious shadow careers. There are many more subtle ones that would take a harder look to identify. How do you KNOW you are living a shadow career or a shadow life? You just know. You know by how you feel at the end of the day or night. You know by how satisfied or empty you feel at the end of a work project. You just know, even if you refuse to admit it, deep down, you just know.

It is one of the best short reads on the human condition, the internal conflict and suffering, and the art of liberation through the act of turning pro. It reads like a symphony; Pressfield's writing is poetic, punchy, and powerful. What I'm beyond impressed with is the succinctness of this book and its immeasurable power. I can see how the author must have wanted to pull his hair out to get the book down to this size, and yet, it is complete. It is no less and no more than what it needs to be to say exactly what it wants to say.

Some of my favorite parts, in quotes:

(This sentence made me cry, not sure why) => What we get when we turn pro is, we find our power.

Turning pro is free, but it's not without cost. When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own. Turning pro is free but it's not easy. You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. The professional has professional habits.

When we turn pro, we stop running from our fears. We turn around and we face them.

Next up: War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Stay tuned for the review.

87 people found this helpful

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J.R.

A shadow of the classic, “The War of Art”

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2017

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Stephen Pressfield returns to the theme he developed in the classic “The War of Art” of professionalism versus amateurism. At the most basic level, he wants to encourage aspiring artists to give up the life of the dilettante who dabbles in multiple artistic projects but always succumbs to “Resistance”, and to embrace the life of daily combat against all of the forces of resistance. The book largely consists of Pressfield’s contrast of these two themes.

His vision of amateurism is better defined. The amateur is the one who always succumbs to Resistance, even builds a life and career around Resistance. One common manifestation of this is the self-sabotage of addiction or compulsion; another is the building of a “shadow career” in which the trappings of success hide the secret truth - known only to the would-be artist - that the artistic impulse has been denied or betrayed.

Pressfield says surprisingly little about professionalism. There is almost nothing about the habits of successful writers and artists, except that one must show up every day and fight the forces of Resistance with the courage of a warrior. Perhaps this is enough, or perhaps this is all that can be communicated.

Either way, the larger point is that Pressfield is advocating a kind of Gnostic conversion. He references Gnosticism and the mystical ways of thinking in neo-Platonism, Kabbalah, and Eastern religion throughout. We live in the corrupt material sphere, and Resistance is the malign force that keeps us from ascending into a higher plane of existence where creation can occur. Resistance pressures us to conform ourselves to the material world, and to deny our own authenticity. Only the daily struggle against Resistance, carried out through courageous and habitual confrontations, can secure us our authenticity.

The Gnostic turn is strange, but central. He starts from the theme that we are all exiles. Traditional religious faiths teach that we are alienated from God; modern psychology uses the model of disease and therapy. Pressfield offers a third way of approaching this fundamental human experience of homelessness, and seems to encourage the creation of a community of self-aware artists.

56 people found this helpful

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Thinking in Text

Very Disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2020

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This book arrived this morning. It was recommended by Joanna Penn. I made a cup of tea, and sat down excited to engage.

I only made it to page 21, then put the book in the dumpster.

First, let me tell you why I read.

I read to escape, to learn something I don't know, to gain a new perspective, AND to escape the world.

"We can even be addicted to ourselves (see Charlie Sheen, Donald Trump)," Pressfield writes on page 21.

How sad I thought, as I stared at the passage. There were so many others he could have exampled, but to bring politics into this book, this lightening rod of a person made me sad. Why did anyone have to be named? To have said only, "We can even be addicted to ourselves" would have been enough without putting faces on the sentence.

Now this book sits in the dumpster. Maybe a homeless person will find in and have an epiphany. I didn't.

23 people found this helpful

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Leonidas Kossis

Inspiring, but not new

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2018

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If I hadn't read previous books by the same author I may have given it a four star rating. But, despite being enthusiastic and inspiring in typical Pressfield manner, I believe that this book is simply another take on the same material contained in previous, more substantial books by Mr. Pressfield. If we were friends, I would kindly suggest he may have exhausted this theme. If it is your first book by the time his author, it is probably worth it. Personally, I found myself skimming it for new information. The authority, energy and inspiration are there, but I found myself wanting for that little bit of something new.

39 people found this helpful

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JR_Devon

A load of narcissistic clap trap

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2020

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This book is short (in hindsight that's a good thing). It has so many great reviews but I really don't understand why. The takeaway from it is basically show up, do the graft and act like whatever it is that you want to do (writing, art, acting etc) is your profession even if you are still doing a different job. Even if you "fail" ie don't get published, don't get cast etc....keep going.
There, I just saved you £5.

20 people found this helpful

Sacha Black

Writer rocket fuel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2017

Verified Purchase

I swear Steven pressfield is Socrates incarnate. There is something about the way he shapes sentences on the page that attacks the mushy, dark and confused parts of my mind and realigns them. His books are always a spark, a flame and fuel to my motivation. Not because he's soft and lovingly caresses the artist ego into working again. But because he punches you in the tit and tells you to get on with it. One of my favourite parts is when he says he praises us for hitting rock bottom... because at rock bottom there is only ourselves and he's right!

27 people found this helpful

Helena Holrick

get your creative mojo back with this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2020

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I am a fan of Stephen's books. This one goes to the heart of resistance, and sort of manages to bypass any excuses you may have put in place for not taking your 'art' seriously (when I say this, I mean any endeavour you are pursuing). This book is about attitude, about shifting into a different perspective and committing. For those who are reticent about really digging in and getting their story or product out in the world... for the procrastinators, the hesitators and the non-completers, this will help to 'gear up'.

There's a poetry to this book. And an emphatic call that is actually compelling. It will help contextualise the excuses, will let you see how you've been talking yourself out of doing what you long to do. So if you're frustrated by your own inactivity or the nagging call of creative energy that you just don't act on, get this. It should do the trick of inspiring you to just crack on with it. And if it doesn't, then maybe you are still content to just 'dabble'.

Enjoy.

5 people found this helpful

Mrs Steph Caswell

An Inspiring Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2018

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For all those who know they have a true calling, be it writing, painting, parenthood or other, this book will change your mindset from that of the amateur to that of the pro. I'm a huge fan of The War of Art and read it once a year to remind myself of its principles. Now I can add this to my annual reads, to remind myself of what I can become if I turn up and do the work, if I turn pro. A great read-grab your copy without hesitation.

6 people found this helpful

Beth Duffus

I quite liked it but felt Pressfield didn't really nail the nature ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book was exactly what I needed, as I had tumbled into a self-pitying, creative slump. It was precisely the wake-up call I needed, and it has had an immediate impact on my creative energy. I read The War on Art a few years ago. I quite liked it but felt Pressfield didn't really nail the nature of resistance; he just seemed to be saying that you should grit your teeth and get on with it. Turning Pro is more nuanced, in spite of its crisp, short sections. Like a lot of books such as this, the impact will depend on the receptivity of the reader. I had been searching for something to help shake me out of the doldrums for quite some time. This book certainly hit that mark for me.

13 people found this helpful

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