We may bring intention and intensity to our practice (in fact we must), but not ego. Dedication, even ferocity, yes. But never arrogance. The space of the practice is sacred. It belongs to the goddess. We take our shoes off before we enter. We press our palms together and we bow.

Each day, the professional understands, he will wake up facing the same demons, the same Resistance, the same self-sabotage, the same tendencies to shadow activities and amateurism that he has always faced. The difference is that now he will not yield to those temptations. He will have mastered them, and he will continue to master them.

When we were amateurs, our life was about drama, about denial, and about distraction. Our days were simultaneously full to the bursting point and achingly, heartbreakingly empty.

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.

The professional knows when he has fallen short of his own standards. He will murder his darlings without hesitation, if that's what it takes to stay true to the goddess and to his own expectations of excellence.

Habits and Qualities the Professional Possesses and the Amateur Doesn’t:

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

In the hero's journey, the wanderer returns home after years of exile, struggle, and suffering. He brings a gift for the people. That gift arises from what the hero has seen, what he has endured, what he has learned. But the gift is not that raw material alone. It is the ore refined into gold by the hero/wanderer/artist's skilled and loving hands. You are that artist. I will gladly shell out $24.95 or $9.99 or 99 cents on iTunes to read or see of listen to the 24-karat treasure that you have refined from your pain and your vision and your imagination. I need it. We all do. We're struggling here in the trenches. That beauty that wisdom, those thrills and chills, even that mindless escape on a rainy October afternoon—I want it. Put me down for it. The hero wanders. The hero suffers. The hero returns. You are that hero.