Steven Pressfield

And the shadow is the resistance you're going to feel.

And they're directly proportionate to each other.

The bigger the tree, the bigger the shadow.

So when you feel that shadow...

You feel that massive reason, oh, I want to quit.

I don't want to, I'm not good enough to do this, et cetera, et cetera.

That's a good sign.

And then it says that the tree, your dream, is really big.

And so you got to do it.

That's not the, you don't want to take a little tree.

You want to take the big tree.

Yeah, I was a reservist Marine infantryman.

A tremendous amount.

You know, I think, you know, when I was going through boot camp and, you know, infantry training and stuff like that, I hated it.

And I thought, I just can't wait till I get out of this and just be a regular civilian again.

But as I've grown and lived through the artist's life of, you know, writing, you know, being in a room with your own demons for two or three years at a time, I've learned that kind of the virtues that you learn in the military...

are the same virtues that you have to call upon to live that war of art, the war inside your head.

You know, the virtues of stubbornness, of the willing embracing of adversity, of patience, of selflessness, of courage, because it's about fear.

And so, yeah, it's influenced me tremendously.

And I found sort of to my amazement as I started writing fiction that I was drawn to themes of war.