Review: The War of Art

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a 4-start book until near the end, when Pressfield sets up what I consider a false opposition between creating for an audience and being true to yourself. We don't consider J.S. Bach a lesser artist for having produced his works for patrons, do we?

The War of Art was published before the idea of "1000 true fans" gained currency - a group of people who are, in effect, your patrons, who you create your material for and who, in turn, will buy pretty much anything from you. I wonder if Pressfield would still make such a strong dichotomy and cling so hard to the Romantic myth of the loner artist who produces brilliant work that often isn't appreciated by the masses. The modern reality (which the publishing industry needs to embrace, or it's doomed), is that there's no future in making things at random and firing them out at an uncomprehended public in the hope that they'll like one for some inscrutable reason, and buy enough copies to compensate for all the failures. Being in touch with your audience is just as important as being in touch with yourself, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

The earlier part of the book, though, on overcoming resistance, is excellent and worthwhile, and I do recommend it.

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Preorders for Changing Health Behaviours

(Crossposted from my hypnotherapy blog)



I'm very happy to announce that my book and CD Changing Health Behaviours (formerly entitled Life Leverage) is now available for preorder from the Hypno NZ shop at the special preorder price of $17.50 (NZD) plus postage and packing.

(As at when I'm posting this, that's about $9.50 USD, 7.5 Euro or 6.3 pounds, but currency conversions can change quickly.)

The files go out today for printing (of the book) and duplication (of the CD). The preorder period lasts until 31 December 2008, after which I will begin shipping, and the price will rise to $25.00 NZD plus P&P.

Preorder books will also be personally signed by me - please provide a note with your PayPal order if you want me to write anything in particular in them.

Changing Health Behaviours is based on several sources of material. One is this very blog, Living Skillfully, and you can check out a sample of what will be in the book by reading my series on Health Behaviours and Change Techniques. Naturally, I've reworked the material, expanded it, and incorporated more from the courses I run, Befriend Your Stress and Change Your Mind, but reading the blog will give you an idea of the topics I cover, what kind of things I say about them and the quality of my writing.

The book gives sound basic advice on what a healthy lifestyle consists of and, more importantly, personal change techniques that actually work to enable you to adopt a more healthy lifestyle. It includes a simple but practical introduction to using self-hypnosis and material on habit change, emotional management and change planning and execution.

The other main source is my hypnotherapy recordings. Again, you can listen to free samples of these in my podcast.

The CD which accompanies the book holds 20 MP3 tracks, all of my Healthy Lifestyle and Transformation Skills recordings, plus several extras. The total comes to over three hours. These are tracks that I give as bonuses to my clients, and the feedback I've had has been excellent.

At the end of each chapter of the book, I indicate which tracks to listen to in order to help you make the shifts of thinking, feeling and behaviour that I've been discussing in that chapter.

I normally sell these recordings on three audio CDs (Transformation Skills is a double CD set) for a total of $25, so $25 for all them (and a few extras) plus the book is a great deal, and $17.50, the preorder price, is an excellent deal.

So order now, and I'll ship you a personally signed book and CD to help you actually carry out those New Year's resolutions this time.

Typealyzer

Apparently I'm a different person on my different blogs.

From fellow hypnotherapist Adrian Tannock I found out about Typealyzer, which analyzes a blog and gives you a Myers-Briggs type for the author.

Like Adrian, I'm an INTJ on the Myers-Briggs, at least I was last time I was tested, and this is indeed the result I get for Living Skillfully. Genderanalyzer says, 69% chance I'm male, as well.

But here at The Innocent Man, I'm apparently an ESTP (81% chance I'm male):

ESTP - The Doers

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.








When I'm writing Gu - which I've just finished doing, by the way - I'm an INTP (59% male, but "quite gender-neutral", which is encouraging because at least half the dialogue and most of the viewpoint is from female characters):

INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.





City of Masks, by contrast, is ISTP (and 75% male):

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

So... which is the true Mike?

Perhaps we all are.

Occasional update

Hello, Faithful Readers. (By switching my RSS feed to Feedburner I've managed to discover how many of you there are, and it's more than I thought. Though still not many. No, I'm not telling you.)

As you may well have realized, the reason I've not been blogging much over here is largely because I've been blogging a lot over at Living Skillfully and podcasting at City of Masks. The latter will be coming to an end in the next couple of months, all going well, and I'll be moving on to a new fiction project. If you want to be involved in the next-project-deciding process, hop over to City of Masks and leave a comment.

It's interesting how writing contributes to personal shifts. In the course of blogging about various topics and finding which ones attract me, I've discovered that what really interests me in hypnotherapy is actually the stuff that I thought I would find boring, bread-and-butter: smoking cessation and weight loss (or rather, positive eating, which isn't by any means just about weight loss). In fact, health promotion and helping people to engage in healthy behaviours has become quite fascinating.

There's a discipline of psychology called Health Psychology which deals with this, and there are several courses on it at Massey at masters' level, so providing my interest endures (always a question with me), a health psychologist is what I'm aiming to become. I've been thinking for a while that "hypnotherapy" is not an ideal label from a marketing perspective - not only because of the perception issues it has, but also because it is marketing a feature - hypnosis - rather than a benefit - such as getting healthier or gaining confidence.

So until I can legitimately call myself a health psychologist, I'm contemplating using the term "health coach" - also still mentioning that I do hypnotherapy, but emphasizing what I use it for.

In other news, thanks to Andrew and the new Monastics group (the Desert Mothers), I've had a small breakthrough in my understanding of the "spirituality of everyday life" thing. There's no magic to it. There's no technique. You just have to do it - be aware of what you're doing, be present, pay attention.

It's simple and hard.

Soon, I hope to post more garden photos, since it's a year since my big planting and everything is growing well. Until then, keep paying attention in everyday life.

My milestones - let me show you them

This seems to be a time of significant events for me.

Two weeks ago I gave my first paid-for professional hypnotherapy session.

Last week I gave my "Change Your Mind" seminar for the first time. It went really well. It helped, of course, that I knew most of the people who came, but I felt (and apparently appeared) confident, I got great feedback, and even though I'd advertised it as a free course (because it was kind of a trial run), people gave me completely unsolicited money. Almost $175 of unsolicited money, in fact. At the end. Which is a pretty good indicator of perceived value.

Yesterday was the company I work for's last day in the offices that have been my workplace for over 10 years, since I first went there in September 1996 for a two-month contract (and never, up until now, left). We start at brand-new offices, specially fitted out for us, on Monday.

I have spent more than a quarter of my life so far working in that building. It's a crappy building and I don't adore my job (though I don't despise it), but that's still significant.

And that's the other thing: a quarter of my life. I turn 40 in less than two weeks. I'm now older than my mother was when I was born; I've had half my average life expectancy and a third of the currently conceivable maximum. I'm choosing to see this as a start rather than an ending: I am starting on the most productive, most satisfactory decades of my life (though the 30s were pretty good, especially since I got married at 32).

So in closing, I would just like to say:

BRING. IT. ON.

Grounded and centred

Just a quick observation about how I feel the day after giving a hypnotherapy session, even one that didn't necessarily go brilliantly in terms of the client walking away radiantly changed, or in terms of me feeling like I did the greatest job in the world.

I feel grounded, centred and at peace.

I think that's a good indication that I've finally got the whole career-choice thing right, after years of drifting into the next thing that came along.

Now to make it an actual career.

Portraying myself

First, another quote from City of Masks (Tamas's sermon, given while, ironically, disguised as someone else):

...A mask is made, not only by the craftsman whose hands have formed its physical being – as parents form our bodies – but by the wearer and by those the wearer encounters – as we, and those we befriend and oppose and learn from, form ourselves as human beings, form our souls.

The soul is a flame, we are taught, like and yet unlike to this flame which burns beside me; it is a flame which feels, reasons, speaks, forms relationships of love – and also of hatred. And like this flame beside me, it can be seen, and when we make it manifest, we call this a mask. For the mask which hides is not the true mask, it is not the light but the darkness; it is the mask which reveals that is the true mask. This is why, when we honour some man or woman by naming him or her a Character, the mask that is given to him or her is the mask of his or her own face. We are saying: This man has portrayed himself, this woman has portrayed herself. Only his face, or her face, can represent who and what this person is, for he or she has been himself or herself.

And so I say to you, brothers and sisters, children of the Lord Sun, put on the Sunmask each day in your lives. Take upon yourself the light, not as something merely external to yourself, but as something that rises up from within you, that is the truth of who you are. Each day arise, each year renew yourselves, in the struggle against evil, in the struggle against ignorance, in the struggle to bring truth out where it may be seen. Wear the true mask. Do not have one appearance in your words and another in your actions; be whole. Do not wear the mask of darkness; wear the mask of light. Wear the mask of your own face and let that be the face of the Lord Sun. And if you do so, you too, in your daily lives, in your daily business, in your daily rising and your daily shining, in small ways and in large ways, you will be heroes of the Sun.

Now, personal context.

I realized during Centering Prayer on Easter Sunday that the next thing I need to work on in myself is the way I was "devoiced" by my family - which includes the critical voices they implanted so I keep second-guessing and editing myself. I read a chapter in Psycho-Cybernetics on exactly that on Monday night, "as it happens". Part of what Maxwell Maltz recommends there is to just talk, without constant vigilance and self-censorship and self-criticism. He answers the inevitable "But it's important to think about what you say!" with: Yes, but not for people who already do it too much. Body temperature is important; if you don't have it, you're dead. But if you have too much of it, despite the fact that it's important to have some, a doctor will try to reduce it. Same principle.

I was talking about this with Andrew at spiritual direction last week (hence the realization on Sunday), and also last night, and we were looking at strategies I could use. One I came up with was to start another blog, a pseudonymous one, one that didn't have my real name and my photo and links to my professional website, where I could behave badly - cuss people out, be sarcastic, rant, vent - without feeling the need to self-censor.

I thought about it on the way home and thought, "No. There's already too much of that on the Internet. That's like deliberately dissociating that part of myself and saying it isn't me. It's putting on a false mask."

So here's what I'm going to do instead.

When I'm blogging away and I think of something sarcastic, negative or critical to say, I'm going to say it. I'm not going to censor it out so that I can look like a nice guy. BUT, I will go back before I post and put an advisory at the start of the entry. Something like:

Advisory: Sarcastic and critical comments about a named group (theological liberals).

That way, I can be more spontaneous, but at the same time I can demonstrate that I'm aware of the fact that I'm acting badly.

I don't know whether that's a good solution or not. The more I look at it the more stupid it sounds. I'm going to assume that's my critical voice, and post it anyway.