Do the Work

this later. Suffice it to say for now that as Resistance is the shadow, its opposite—Assistance—is the sun.
     
    Friends and Family
     
    When art and inspiration and success and fame and money have come and gone, who still loves us—and whom do we love?
     
    Only two things will remain with us across the river: our inhering genius and the hearts we love.
     
    In other words, what we do and whom we do it for.
     
    But enough theory. In the next chapter we’ll start our novel, kick off our new business, launch our philanthropic enterprise.
     
    First question: When is the best time to start?
     



 
    Start Before You’re Ready
     
    Don’t prepare. Begin.
     
    Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account.
     
    The enemy is Resistance.
     
    The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.
     
    Start before you’re ready.
     
    Good things happen when we start before we’re ready. For one thing, we show huevos . Our blood heats up. Courage begets more courage. The gods, witnessing our boldness, look on in approval. W. H. Murray said:
     
    Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Begin it now.
     
     
    A Research Diet
     
    Before we begin, you wanna do research? Uh-unh. I’m putting you on a diet.
     
    You’re allowed to read three books on your subject. No more.
     
    No underlining, no highlighting, no thinking or talking about the documents later. Let the ideas percolate.
     
    Let the unconscious do its work.
     
    Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
     
    (Later we’ll come back and do serious, heavy-duty research. Later. Not now.)
     
    Two quick thoughts as we begin:
     
    1. Stay Primitive
     
    The creative act is primitive. Its principles are of birth and genesis.
     
    Babies are born in blood and chaos; stars and galaxies come into being amid the release of massive primordial cataclysms.
     
    Conception occurs at the primal level. I’m not being facetious when I stress, throughout this book, that it is better to be primitive than to be sophisticated, and better to be stupid than to be smart.
     
    The most highly cultured mother gives birth sweating and dislocated and cursing like a sailor.
     
    That’s the place we inhabit as artists and innovators. It’s the place we must become comfortable with.
     
    The hospital room may be spotless and sterile, but birth itself will always take place amid chaos, pain, and blood.
     
    2. Swing for the Seats
     
    My first job was in advertising in New York. I used to bring ideas to my boss that were so tiny, they made him apoplectic.
     
    “This idea is the size of a postage stamp! If it were any more miniscule, I’d need an electron microscope just to see it! Go back to your cubicle and bring me something BIG!”
     
    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 bunt or even a line-drive single.
     
    Start playing from power. We can always dial it back later. If we don’t swing for the seats from the start, we’ll never be able to drive a fastball into the upper deck.
     
    Lunch with My Mentor
     
    Some years ago I had lunch at Joe Allen’s in Manhattan with my mentor (though he would cringe at that word), the writer and documentary maker Norm Stahl. He was making some notes on a pad of yellow, legal-size foolscap paper. He told me something that has saved my bacon more times than I can count:
     
    Steve, God made a single sheet of yellow foolscap exactly the right length to hold the outline of an entire