“What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?”
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic, so beautifully illustrates what she means by this quote.
When failure and success essentially become irrelevant…
To her, it starts and ends with fierce trust.
Fierce trust is when we put our creative work out into the world, not knowing what will come of it. Uncertain of whether our work will be a success or a failure. Because to fierce trust, it’s irrelevant. The outcome doesn’t matter.
What it means to have fierce trust is to love our work solely and simply for itself. To love our work more than we love our ego. To love our work because it’s fun.
Because the outcome doesn’t matter.
Similar to how Steven Pressfield delineates our work as either territorial or hierarchical.
Working hierarchical is when we work for success and all the strings attached to that outcome. When we work for recognition. When we work for acknowledgment. When we work for external validation.
Because hierarchical work strokes our ego. We love our ego more than we love our work.
Working territorial is when we’re on our home turf. It means we work out of pure love. Because we love our work more than we love our ego. What comes next is irrelevant.
Like Kobe on the court.
Like Stevie Wonder on the piano.
Like Arnold in the weight room.
Like Van Gogh with a paintbrush.
Like Elizabeth Gilbert and Steven Pressfield holding pen to paper.
The beauty is in the work. And the outcome doesn’t matter.
“If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?”
This is fierce trust. This is territorial.
s.m.
