BiggerPockets Podcast 461: Defeating the “Enemy of Success” with Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)

It’s daunting to wake up every day and try your best at whatever it is that you do. Maybe it’s your job, maybe it’s real estate, maybe it’s writing a book. When you sit down at your desk, there’s that little voice that says “get another cup of coffee” or “just take a little email break before you start” or “you’re not going to get anything done, who are you kidding?”

This is the voice of resistance, and to author Steven Pressfield, it’s a voice that needs to be silenced and controlled at all costs. Steven should know, he wrote the book on fighting resistance, The War of Art, where he talks about how to keep up inspiration, even when there isn’t any to be found. As Steven puts it “an amateur does things when they feel like it, a professional doesn’t care how they feel, they just do it.”

This is something many real estate investors struggle with. We want to buy another property, but we get stuck in analysis paralysis, or scared off by some new type of financing, or don’t want to take on another rehab. Professionals don’t let their environment (or their own mind) tell them what they should and shouldn’t do. Professionals do what has to be done.

We also talk with Steven about his latest book A Man At Arms and why the ancient world of nobility and strength intrigued him so much. If you’ve seen any of Steven’s films, read any of Steven’s books, or just want to push through to success, you’ll love his take on writing, success, and failure.