Paul Pedrazzi

Reads: Do The Work

ONE LINE REVIEW:

“If you need a kick in the butt to start your project, this is a good read, but The War of Art is better.”

HIGHLIGHTS

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance.

 Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

Resistance Is Infallible Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or purpose that we must follow before all others.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are. If you’re reading this book, it’s because you sense inside you a second self, an unlived you.

Prepare yourself to make new friends. They will appear, trust me.

Let’s consider the champions on our side: Stupidity Stubbornness Blind faith Passion Assistance (the opposite of Resistance) Friends and family

Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.

There’s an exercise that Patricia Ryan Madson describes in her wonderful book, Improv Wisdom. (Ms. Madson taught improvisational theater at Stanford to standing-room only classes for twenty years.) Here’s the exercise:

Fear saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.

Start Before You’re Ready

Don’t prepare. Begin.

Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Begin it now.

If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. A home-run swing that results in a strikeout is better than a successful

He meant don’t overthink. Don’t overprepare. Don’t let research become Resistance.

Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page.

Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?

Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.

Answer the Question “What Is This About?” Start with the theme. What is this project about?

End first, then beginning and middle. That’s your startup, that’s your plan for competing in a triathlon, that’s your ballet.

our three mantras: Stay primitive. Trust the soup. Swing for the seats. And our final-final precept: 4. Be ready for Resistance.

We can never eliminate Resistance. It will never go away. But we can outsmart it, and we can enlist allies that are as powerful as it is.

On our single sheet of foolscap we’ve got the Big Beats. Now what? Fill in the gaps. David Lean famously declared that a feature film should have seven or eight major sequences. That’s a pretty good guideline for our play, our album, our State of the Union address.

Now you can do your research. But stay on your diet. Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time.

One rule for first full working drafts: get them done ASAP.

Momentum is everything.

The inner critic? His ass is not permitted in the building. Set forth without fear and without self-censorship. When you hear that voice in your head, blow it off.

Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect. You are not allowed to judge yourself.

The Answer Is Always Yes When an idea pops into our head and we think, “No, this is too crazy,” … that’s the idea we want.

Have that meeting twice a week. Pause and reflect. “What is this project about?” “What is its theme?” “Is every element serving that theme?”

What saw Lindy through? It can only have been the dream. Love of the idea.

Test Number One “How bad do you want it?”

Dabbling • Interested • Intrigued but Uncertain • Passionate • Totally Committed

Test Number Two “Why do you want it?” For the babes (or the dudes) The money For fame Because I deserve it For power To prove my old man (or ex-spouse, mother, teacher, coach) wrong To serve my vision of how life/mankind ought to be For fun or beauty Because I have no choice

A crash means we’re at the threshold of learning something, which means we’re getting better, we’re acquiring the wisdom of our craft. A crash compels us to figure out what works and what doesn’t work—and to understand the difference.

The good news is it’s just a problem.

Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

When we ship, we’re exposed. That’s why we’re so afraid of it. When we ship, we’ll be judged. The real world will pronounce upon our work and upon us. When we ship, we can fail. When we ship, we can be humiliated.

Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again.