Steven Pressfield Online

The Free-Agent Mindset

By Steven Pressfield
Published: May 15, 2013

What is the Macro Change that’s going on in the world today? As fish never realize they’re swimming in water, is there something happening all around us that’s so apparent that we can’t see it?

Shaq of Orlando, L.A., Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, Boston. We're all free agents now.

I think there is, and here’s how I’d define it:

We—meaning anybody now living in the globalized/digital/satellite-linked/worldwide-web world—are faced with the challenge and obligation to make a primal shift in consciousness. This shift is as cosmic, I believe, as the transition from illiteracy to literacy in the Gutenberg era, from farm to factory in the days of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and all the post-Industrial Age changeovers since.

I’m not talking about external changes. Those are obvious. What’s perilous and critical and what we all need to become conscious of is the stuff inside. How have we had to change our minds and our ways of thinking about the world and about ourselves?

Shawn has a concept he calls 3PV. Third Party Validation. What he means is the mind-set in which one’s sense of emotional security and self-worth is dependent upon the opinions of others. In other words, we don’t go forward with any action unless we think other people will approve.

Seth Godin talks about this a lot too. Seth decries the internal paralysis that stops people from acting until they have been “picked,” i.e. taken note of by Higher Authority and given permission to go forward.

“Pick” yourself, Seth urges. Give yourself permission to act. Don’t wait for some Third Party to tell you it’s okay or to provide a structure of incentive, punishment, and reward.

There’s a key insight here into the Macro Change we’re all going through.

We’re all having to adopt the Free-Agent mentality.
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What It Takes

The Courage to do Nothing

By Shawn Coyne | Published: May 17, 2013

If you‘re like me, you want to clear your desk every night before you head home. You want to make sure that anything that might impair you that evening at home is off the to-do list and out of your mind. Then you’ll be able to relax without having unresolved work issues hanging over your head.

Always Refreshing!

Now this is a very good strategy to rid you of repetitive paperwork/accounting/office management. But it can be the death knell for creative work. Forcing yourself into making a decision about a particular project just to get it off your desk will bite you in the ass later on. I can’t tell you how often I’m haunted by the consequences of my hurry up and move on decisions. If you see me walking down the street cringing, you’ll know I just remembered one.

And don’t forget business decisions are creative work too.

Whether or not you should make that call and press for better terms with that vendor may seem like a run of the mill decision, but it’s not. You need to creatively think about what it is that decision will do for you. You may win a marginal short term victory, but your vendor may hate you for being such a penny pincher that she does the least amount possible to keep you happy. Your inventory is mishandled so your customers return more goods and are dissatisfied etc.

Making the call and pressing for a reduced fee may be the right choice. But until you sit with the problem for a little while and map out the pros and cons of a decision, you’re running on “first draft-itis.” And no one should see your first draft of anything.

Why do we do this?

We do it to avoid confrontation. It deflates our anxiety, gives us “thank God I got that over with” relief.

It’s important to remember though that life is conflict. It just is. These are why stories, things built on the bedrock of conflict, are so important to us.

That doesn’t mean that it is all about screaming or passive aggressively getting your way. It means that in any human interaction, there is a clash of one kind or another. We communicate in order to figure out where we differ (where should we go to eat?) and then we confront the controversy and make it go away (how about a Mexican restaurant?). If you both love Mexican food, problem solved. If one of you wants Sushi, then there’s stress.

The courage to do nothing is all about remembering that you don’t know everything. You are capable of changing your ideas about things. You can hold two opposing thoughts in your head without jumping off a cliff. Really you can. You can hate taxes and also believe that the government should raise them to help people incapable of taking care of themselves.
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What It Takes

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose and Sometimes it Rains

By Callie Oettinger | Published: May 10, 2013

The story of David and Goliath is one of history’s greatest reruns—played out on repeat in books and boardrooms and battlefields.

Big Guy goes after Little Guy.

Little Guy finds inner strength.

Little Guy taps into inner strength.

Little Guy fights Big Guy.

Big Guy falters.

Little Guy knocks Big Guy’s lights out.

The David and Goliath story is the story of the “win.” Think Luke against Darth Vader, Daniel Larusso against the entire Cobra Kai dojo, and pretty much any Disney classic (insert any princess or talking animal against any evil witch or demented talking animal here.).

The opposite—the story of the lose—plays out in two forms: Little Guy goes after Big Guy and is squashed by Big Guy (think of all the companies Gordon Gekko crushed before being sent to jail) and Little Guy hides from Big Guy, only delaying Big Guy’s deathblow (think George McFly and Biff Tannen before Marty went back to the future).

Then there’s a third option—when David ignores Goliath and Goliath moves on. And it comes with the realization that David and Goliath don’t always have to face off in order for someone to “win”—and that the definitions of “win” and “lose” aren’t so clear cut.

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