Author: Steven Pressfield
Book Link

As someone who reads The War of Art by Pressfield every year, I’ve grown quite attached to his writing.

Turning Pro was another attempt at an evergreen book that calls each of us to our higher selves. It doesn’t take long to read and that is for two reasons:

1. It’s not that long of a book.
2. Once you get started, you don’t want to stop.

Turning Pro is a look at the world between an amateur and a professional. It speaks about how the world looks when we live within our shadow selves and how it looks when we move towards our true calling.

The words amateur and pro are merely his terms for a life before self-revelation and life afterwards.

To be honest, it’s one of the most religious books I’ve read without being a book about religion (although he does speak about religious imagery and dips a bit into the Kabbalah near the end).

I could almost highlight the entire book, but here are a few choice quotes:

“The pain of being human is that we’re all angels imprisoned in vessels of flesh”

“The amateur fears that if he turns pro and lives out his calling, he will have to live up to who he really is and what he is truly capable of.”

“The payoff of living in the past or the future is you never have to do work in the present.”

If you’ve never been introduced to the works of Pressfield, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. At the very least, you’ll see firsthand some beautiful writing that resonates with every human being.