The War of Art

Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

This week’s book summary is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Pressfield does a stellar job of defining what “Resistance” is and how it prevents each of us from reaching our full potential. He has written this book in such a simple, yet profound prose, that anyone can read and understand it – and everyone will be motivated by it! Although the book does have a lot of metaphors and analogies that not everyone will agree with, I still think it is one of the most powerfully motivating books I have read!

My takeaway from this book is that each of us has unique gifts for the “sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter further along its path.” As Pressfield says; “Our creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

 

Note that I have previously reviewed the following books in 2018:

What is the Recipe for Powerful and Effective Meetings?

According to a University of North Carolina cross-industry study cited by HBR in their Stop the Meeting Madness article, 71% of senior leaders said that meetings are unproductive and inefficient.

In addition to this, they said that meetings:

  • Keep them from completing their required work (65%)
  • Come at the expense of deep thinking (64%)
  • Miss opportunities to bring the team closer together (62%)

My Poll Results

7 Simple Steps to Restore Function to Dysfunctional Meetings

Everyone is familiar with dysfunctional business meetings! The meetings where the people around the table or on the conference call are partially, if not completely, disengaged. You have people on Facebook, people texting, trading stocks, surfing the web, day dreaming and even taking cell phone calls in subdued voices like the rest of the people there can’t hear or see what is going on!

It is the most bizarre thing but we have all been there! Check out this hilarious video for some great examples.

I remember attending a meeting where one of the participants literally fell asleep with their head back and their mouth wide open! It was the sort of wacky thing that you would only expect to see on an episode of The Office . . . Except it wasn’t on TV it was in my meeting!

I have been in other meetings where the meeting leader was doing their presentation and a participant’s cell phone rang and they answered it at the conference room table like they were the only one there!

Why do these things happen in meetings?