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You, Inc.
By Steven Pressfield | 17 Comments | Writing Wednesdays

[This is Post #3 in our new series, “The Professional Mindset.”]

I had a friend named Victoria when I was working

in Hollywood. Victoria was a successful
screenwriter, very much a role model for me. One
day Victoria took me out to lunch and gave me
some insight into how she handled herself as a
professional in “this town.”
Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen in
“Gunga Din.”

Steve, you and I are going up every day

against Twentieth-Century Fox and Warner Bros. and Paramount.
They’re our competition. We’ve got to be just as organized as they are,
just as tough, and just as smart.

Victoria told me how she organized herself mentally to compete in this arena.

Fox has a slate of pictures in development, right? I’ve got one too.
Warners has a five-year plan. I’ve got one too. Everything the studios do,
I do. I’m not just as organized as they are, I’m more organized. And I
can react ten times faster than they can.

I immediately adopted Victoria’s mental model.

Have you ever worked for a corporation? Then you know about Monday morning status
meetings. [See pp. 97-98 in The War of Art.] The group assembles in the conference room
or the boss’s office. Plans are discussed, assignments are given out. The boss’s secretary
types up an Action List and distributes it. Now every team member knows where every
ongoing project stands and what action is required of him or her for the coming week.

I adopted that plan exactly. I still work that way.

Every Monday morning I have a meeting with myself. I go over everything I’ve got to do
in the coming week. I assign myself tasks and set myself goals and deadlines. I type up an
Action List and distribute it to myself. If I succeed through the week, I reward myself. If I
screw up, I kick myself in the ass.

The Professional Mindset begins with a radical reconceptualization of ourselves as artists and
entrepreneurs.

When we adopt the Professional Mindset we stop thinking of ourselves as individuals.

We start thinking of ourselves as enterprises.

After I’d been in Hollywood for a few years, I realized that many screenwriters worked as
one-man corporations. They provided their writing services not as themselves but as
“loan-outs” from their businesses. Their writing contracts were f/s/o—“for services of”—
themselves.

I formed my own corporation the minute I could afford to.

Why did this idea appeal to me? Not just for the tax benefits or the advantages involving
medical insurance.

I loved the metaphor.

I loved the psychology.

If I think of myself as me-the-writer, I’m a fragile, isolated individual. I’m hesitant. I’m
insecure. I’m vulnerable.

But if I reconceive myself as Me, Inc., I’m no longer so alone in the world.

I’m now an entity, like Apple or Fedex or General Dynamics.

I’m an operation.

I’m an enterprise.

As Sgt. Archibald Cutter (Cary Grant) declared to Sgt. ‘Mac’ MacChesney (Victor
McLaglen) in Gunga Din, as he set out to find the Temple of Gold:

You’re not looking at a soldier, MacChesney, you’re looking at an

expedition! Stand aside! Make way for the expedition!

Remember, our enemy as writers is not the marketplace or the competition.

The enemy is Resistance.

The enemy is our own internal self-sabotage.

Thinking of myself as a corporation gave me an invaluable weapon against Resistance.

I could no longer say to myself (or, more accurately, allow my own Resistance to say to
me), “Steve, you’re a loser. That last piece of work was garbage, and you’re gonna follow
it up with more garbage, etc.”

Now I say to myself, “Okay, the team suffered a bit of a setback. Perhaps our instincts
were not as spot-on as we had thought. Let’s schedule a meeting with ourselves to
regroup and decide on next steps.”

I may still be myself-the-writer, but I’m also myself-the-CEO. Under pressure, the writer
may fall prey to self-doubt and impulses of self-destruction. But the CEO maintains his
cool. He’ll send the writer to Palm Springs for a three-day vacation if he thinks that’ll get
him back to his old self. Or he’ll put him up against the wall and read him the Riot Act.

Either way, I/me/my company are operating at the same professional level as the
corporations we are competing against. We are the Google and the Facebook and the
Tesla of our own mind.

Those Fortune 500 corporations are not going to falter and neither are we. We’re as self-
energized as they are, as self-organized, and as self-sustaining. There is nothing they can
do in their sphere that we can’t do in ours.

Stand back, MacChesney! Make way for the expedition!

Posted in Writing Wednesdays

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17 Comments
marcos stefanelli on February 8, 2017 at 6:14 am

my name is marcos and iam brasilian people

iam learning english
ok
Reply

Kevin on February 8, 2017 at 6:28 am

As I was building my first “real” company – we ended up with over 200 employees –
those weekly “commit” meetings were a vital part of our success and keeping us all
on track for fulfilling the vision.

After I sold the company and became a leadership coach, I was back to being a
corporation of one again. Guess what, those weekly “commit” meetings with myself
are even more important now. If I miss one, it’s like that feeling you get when you
don’t brush your teeth for a few days when you’re camping.

Thanks for the reminder.

Reply

Gail on February 8, 2017 at 6:43 am

I don’t know what magic is at work, Mr. Pressfield, but once again you have gifted me
with the exact right message just when I needed it. I love your Monday morning
planning meeting with yourself and promptly adopted it — with one change: Ima do
it on Sunday evening.

Thank you, and thank you, and thank you for this and so much else.
Reply

Stacy on February 8, 2017 at 6:50 am

Funny. I started drawing again after I stopped work on a graphic novel because I was
too intimidated to draw people. Found myself picking up a drafting table, a stool,
and a light. Put ’em in my closet–and when I say that, I mean I set them up in my
closet to work. No excuses, no distractions. It’s an office, as far as I’m concerned. A
tiny office with my butt sticking out of it, but still. An office.

And now this. What a great post. Thanks! What a great way to commit to the work.
Reply

Stacy on February 8, 2017 at 7:12 am

Ugh. Wish there was a way to edit this…

Reply

Mary Doyle on February 8, 2017 at 7:07 am

Thanks for another inspiring post!

Reply

Randy Lyons on February 8, 2017 at 7:37 am

I love the idea of I/me the CEO sending I/myself the writer to Palm Springs for a
vacation “if he thinks that’ll get him back to his old self. Or he’ll put him up against
the wall and read him the Riot Act.”

Thanks for another great example of establishing clarity between I/the artist and
I/the businessman
Reply

Kim Coleman on February 8, 2017 at 8:03 am

This is a great idea, I will start this one immediately, the Monday Morning planning
meeting. Especially the action list and review the previous weeks accomplished
works..
Thanks for the help.
Reply

Joel D Canfield on February 8, 2017 at 8:15 am

I have the glorious and rare gift of a wife who shares these roles with me. Though I’m
CEO of my own writing, she manages the overarching enterprise of which Joel the
Writer is only one part. That means that I have someone who gets me at a
fundamental level who can nod sagely or smile wryly when I say That Stuff I Say.

We follow all the tenets of today’s post, and if I had to go it alone, I’d immediately
codify my own version of these habits so Joel the Biz Guy could keep Joel the Writer
on track.
Reply

Savannah Alalia on February 8, 2017 at 8:26 am

I love the genius and insight of these words. Plus the reminder of how to change
hats/roles in your business and keep moving in a focused way.
Reply

BING on February 8, 2017 at 10:13 am

This post is like food,” breakfast for champions”. I collect this kind of stuff. Here is
another one I love to read. “You are not finished when you re defeated, you are
finished when you quit” – Zig Ziglar . I feel like Jacob wrestling with God, I will not
quit until I receive a blessing. Ephesians 6 Put on the full Armour of God.
Thanks all of you warriors
Reply

Jerry Ellis on February 8, 2017 at 10:50 am

Ah, Mr Steve CEO, you golden-nailed IT yet again! About that “list” you plan and
review to kick your ass or pop the champagne: Got ten minutes on Saturday, March
18th, to further empower your brand? I’m holding my 8th Annual All Day
Writing/Publishing Seminar that day, 10-4 CST, and it’s ALWAYS full, limited to 20
professional or aspiring writers. I did this True Ten Minutes one year with my NY
agent and my wonderful clients were thrilled. We did it by phone, or certainly Skype
could deepen the meaning and purpose of the True Ten Minutes, where clients ask a
few questions. I think you recognize my fiery flag, the man who was first in the
modern world to walk the 900 mile route of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and the ms
sold at auction to Random House, later nominating it for a Pulitzer Prize? Six figure
book deals followed and I was hired to “speak” in private international schools in
Asia (loved Hong Kong), Africa (I dodged the raging rhino by a hair), Europe (I live
in Rome, Italy as well as in Fort Payne, Alabama on Cherokee ancestral land), and
throughout the USA. Feel some Resistance to doing this True Ten Minutes? Why,
then, you know what your answer might kindly be, right? My email:
jerrywalkingthetrail@gmail.com. Thank you.
Reply

Ave on February 8, 2017 at 11:01 am

Again, so timely. Yours is the only list I’m still subscribed to after all these years. The
others have been ditched long ago. I’m always so pleased I never binned you too. I’m
on it. Monday’s meeting already in the planning stages.
Reply

Veleka Gray on February 9, 2017 at 5:08 am

Again, Steve, brilliant because you told me how I can do this, too. Thank you ♥
Reply

Sonja on February 9, 2017 at 10:22 am

I love this expanded version from War of Art—You, Inc.

And that’s just one of the many secrets, isn’t it? This is one more tool to battle
Resistance. In this case, hiring yourself out. Well put.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom to all of us who continue to battle Resistance in
its many sneaky forms.

Loved the podcast ! : )

Reply

Kathy Ostman-Magnusrn on February 15, 2017 at 7:40 am

Wow oh wow is this profound, Thank you for this!

Reply

A contract with Me Inc. #writing | Burning Pine on February 16, 2017 at 9:54 am

[…] The ever-inspirational Steven Pressfield posted the third in his series on the
Professional Mindset: […]
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