The Resistance. He Eats your Dreams.

Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. – Steven Pressfield

I look forward to my gym time each Monday morning. I’ve downloaded Mitch Joel’s podcast the night before and and while I’m sweating it out on the elliptical, I’m  fuelling up with social media nuggets.

Which brings me to “the Resistance” and Mitch’s show #251 – Do the Work*with Steven Pressfield.

I’m currently reading the book and although it’s very short, (a manifesto, as Mitch describes it) I’m taking my time with it because while reading, it hits so many emotional buttons that my heart races and my brain feels like one of the static electricity globes you find in a science center.

The Resistance!

I first came across the word (in this context) while reading Seth Godin’s blog post: Quieting the Lizard Brain and later and in more detail in his book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?*

Seth describes it as…

…the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise.

I lived with that voice all my life and only now, having lived in the “who do you think you are?” town for too long, do I feel that I can stare down this ominous shadow and push through the self doubt.

I recently had a conversation with a close actor/writer friend of mine. We were discussing the challenges of sitting down to write everyday. Having both worked in theatre, we came up with the same solution – the show must go on!

We wouldn’t dream of not showing up for a show because we didn’t feel creative that day, or we had a bit of a cough. We both had memories of dragging our sick butts to the stage and performing on adrenalin. We did because we had to.

While I sit here in my cliché basement office with an audience of only Ruby and Polly , I know that whether I type one word or one thousand,  each letter is a plank on the bridge that carries me to who I want to be.

What are your scary stories about the resistance?

*(Amazon affiliate disclosure)

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About Ray Hiltz

Ray Hiltz is a Social Media Strategist with management roots in restaurant, hotel and performing arts. A strong proponent for the power of collaborative communication and "humanized" digital networking, Ray writes about social media, social business and Google Plus. His clients include hotels, restaurants, consulting firms, entrepreneurs, writers and individuals just trying to make sense of "social". Ray is a popular speaker on Social Media, Social Business and Google+.