Turning Pro

Text in black are quotes; text in green are my notes. I sometimes write in Spanish.

• 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. #

• Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence. #

• Becoming a pro, in the end, is nothing grander than growing up. #

• All addictions share, among others, two primary qualities. 1. They embody repetition without progress. 2. They produce incapacity as a payoff. #

• Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. Why? Because when we work with focus and we work deep, we succeed. #

• What you and I are really seeking is our own voice, our own truth, our own authenticity. #

• What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either. #

• Fear is the primary color of the amateur's interior world. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking foolish, fear of under-achieving and fear of over-achieving, fear of poverty, fear of loneliness, fear of death. #

• The amateur competes with others and believes that he cannot rise unless a competitor falls. #

• Sometimes it's easier to be a professional in a shadow career than it is to turn pro in our real calling. #

• When we turn pro, we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them. #

• Twelve-step programs say "One Day at a Time." The professional says the same thing. #

• Turning pro is like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 or the assassination of President Kennedy. We never forget where we were when it happened. #

• Carl Jung said that a person might have five "big" dreams in her life — dreams that provoke a shift in consciousness — and this was my first. #

• The linebacker and the Army Ranger go into action as part of a team. But the artist and the entrepreneur enter combat alone. I take my hat off to every man or woman who does this. #

• The amateur tweets. The pro works. #

• When we convene day upon day in the same space at the same time, a powerful energy builds up around us. This is the energy of our intention, of our dedication, of our commitment. #