(The Highlight Reel is a blog series where I share passages that I’ve highlighted on my Kindle during my commute to and from work each day. The selections are mostly from self-help and work/marketing-related books. I’m sharing them because it seems like we don’t get enough positive, proactive advice on a daily basis.)
Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work
by Steven Pressfield
“Turning pro is not for everyone. We have to be a little crazy to do it, or even to want to. In many ways the passage chooses us; we don’t choose it. We simply have no alternative. What we get when we turn pro is, we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self respect. We become who we always were, but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and to live out.”
“The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habits. The human being is a creature of habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones. We can trade in the habits of the amateur and the addict for the practice of the professional and the committed artist or entrepreneur.”
“The life we call ‘normal’ isn’t normal at all. A spouse and kids, a mortgage, a 9-to-5 job…who said that was life? What’s so great about working in a factory or cubicle?”
“The payoff of living in the past or the future is you never have to do your work in the present.”
“Our role [as professionals] on tough-nut days is to maintain our composure and keep chipping away. We’re pros. We’re not amateurs. We have patience. We can handle adversity.”
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