You're listening to the Hard Man Podcast, reclaiming biblical masculinity in a world of softness. Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book.

It uses his own enthusiasm against him.

Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.

It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity.

We will hit the wall.

We will crash.

The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification.

He is the ant, not the grasshopper.

The tortoise, not the hare.

Have you heard the legend of Sylvester Stallone

staying up three nights straight to churn out the screenplay for Rocky?

I don't know, it may even be true.

But it's the most pernicious species of myth to be set before the awakening writer,

because it seduces him into believing he can pull off the big score without pain and without persistence.

The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the Stars time to align in his

career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work.

He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or a kitchen remodel,

takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. The professional steals himself at the start of a project

reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the 60-yard dash. He conserves his energy,

he prepares his mind for the long haul. He sustains himself with the knowledge

that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull in to gnome.

This is an excerpt from Stephen Pressfield's book The War of Mark. Well, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Hardman Podcast. I of course am your

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