“Nick, you should write an inner game textbook!” are words I’ve heard many a daygame savant speak to me. Now, I dare say I’ve been tempted. Tony Robbins proved a long time ago that “mindset” books are a license to print money. It’s simple, really. Just tell everyone what they want to hear, and wrap it up in language that seems to elevate the reader. They’ll sit on their fat ass, lap it up, and then recommend it to all their friends.

Mark Manson recently proved this with his execrable The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F**K. His singular contribution to the advancement of mindset literature was to uses asterisks [1] in the place of swear words on the front cover, thus guaranteeing every mid-wit passing through the airport bookstore would pick up a copy. Smart move, Mark. That he’s a snake-oil seller with nothing to say doesn’t matter. It didn’t for Tony Robbins.

Something I realised years ago is you can either be good, or you can be successful. You can’t be both. To hit mainstream acceptance, you must be shit. The lowest common denominator in our retard culture demands it. There are very, very rare cases – The Godfather, Dark Souls – where an authentic vision can achieve financial success but even then they are drowned out by the likes of Avatar and Fortnite. Within the Game world, the key point is this: does your book make people feel guilty for not approaching? If it does, you’ve just limited yourself to a tiny audience. You should’ve gone the Models route, of bromides and platitudes that never require the reader to get off his arse but he still feels like his Game has improved.

The reason no-one wants to read books that force you to work hard [2] is that forces the reader to confront Resistance. In daygame we call them Weasels, but in Pressfield’s The War Of Art he calls it Resistance and it’s the foundation of his book. That, dear reader, is my segue into the review.

The War Of Art is an inner game book for creatives which can easily be re-written into a daygame inner game textbook [3]. It concerns three main ideas, each the subject of a separate ‘book’ within the same volume. These are:

1. Resistance
2. Turning Pro
3. Muse

Pressfield’s larger point goes as follows. We are all built for a purpose, for a higher calling that requires we express ourselves creatively, be it writing, painting, businessing, or charitying. It is the pursuit of our purpose that brings us happiness and contentment. The problem is that any time we attempt to rise to the higher plane, Resistance prevents us. It is our death wish, our shadow self, seeking to sabotage our greatness. Pressfield’s solution is to Turn Pro, meaning you approach your calling like a professional approaches his profession and a craftsman approaches his trade. Sit down, focus on technique, and grind it out. That sets up the conditions for the crucial third phase: your Muse arrives and brings with her divine inspiration.

Pressfield sees artists as vessels through which divine inspiration flows. Their works are not from or of the artist, but rather flow through the artist from the eternal to the flesh-and-blood real world. The artist’s job is to knuckle down, get cracking, and prepare themselves to receive the inspiration. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. To give you a flavour of it I shall now quote Pressfield at length, using word substitution to turn it into a daygame inner game screed.

Everything that follows below is from his book, adapted slightly by me, dipping in across many chapters.

I get up, take a shower, have breakfast. I read the paper, brush my teeth. If I have phone calls to make, I make them. I’ve got my coffee now. I put on my lucky work boots and stitch up the lucky laces. It’s about ten-thirty now. I step onto the streets and plunge into my first set. When I start making mistakes, I know I’m getting tired. That’s four hours or so. I’ve hit the point of diminishing returns. I wrap for the day. How many sets did I do? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet [4]. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms out spirit. Every sun casts a shadow, and genius’s shadow is Resistance. I looked everywhere for the enemy and failed to see it right in front of my face. How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumours and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?

Resistance attacks when we take any principled stand in the face of adversity. When we want to chase the woman of our dreams [5]. Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. It’s aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our sets. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit. It cannot be reasoned with. It understands nothing but power. It is an engine of destruction, programmed from the factory with one object only: to prevent us from doing our sets.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance. So if you’re paralysed with fear, it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.

Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalise. We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to talk to girls.” Instead we say, “I am going to talk to girls; I’m just going to start tomorrow.”

Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They’re the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like. Aspiring daygamers defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro.

The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps. The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time. The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a side-line, distinct from his “real” vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That’s what I mean when I say turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro.

Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” That’s a pro. Maugham reckoned another, deeper truth; that by sitting down and starting work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration.

The daygamer must be like a Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. The daygamer committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt and humiliation.

What exactly are the qualities that define us as professionals?

We show up every day. We show up no matter what. We stay on the job all day. We are committed over the long haul. The stakes for us are high and real. We do not over-identify with our daygame. We master the technique of our daygame. We have a sense of humour about our daygame. We receive acceptance or rejection in the real world.

Rejection is the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful. That was when I realised I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.

The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognises the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back [6].

There is no mystery to turning pro. It’s a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.

If you’d like to see this attitude directly translated into daygame in textbook form, I think you’re gonna want Daygame Mastery and Daygame Infinite, available on Amazon. For a closer look at them go to my product explanation page here.

[1] Or whatever the plural of asterisk is.
[2] As opposed to paying lip service to it that the reader nods his head along to.
[3] Should I write one, I expect to reference it liberally.
[4] After Leftism.
[5] Or of the Euro Jaunt.
[6] OO-ER Missus!