Joe Rogan and Aubrey Marcus speaking with Steven Pressfield about striving for excellence
Joe: I think what you’re saying is also like what Michelangelo said about creating sculpture. Is that he removes, he finds the sculpture in the thing, it’s not like he makes it. He removes all the stuff that’s hiding the sculpture. That’s how he looked at it.
Aubrey: You know, I think that so many people that I get questions from, they don’t know what to do. They’re just trying to figure it out. And I always give them the same advice. I say, you know, practice being excellent at something you love. It could be trivial, it could be darts. I don’t care, whatever it is. Just be excellent at it. Put yourself into it.
Steven: I think you’re right on target Aubrey.
Aubrey: And you’ll discover something about yourself, whatever it is. You know, a lot of people will look to me to see if they can get a job and my question is always the same; what are you excellent at? Cause if they can show me two random things that they are incredible at, that they are excellent at. I know that they've learned to apply their authentic self because you can’t truly be excellent at anything without tapping into that, you know, to that aspect.
Steven: Or even less than that, just what do you love? What makes you happy? What’s fun?
Joe: Yea. Well, that’s the great Miyamoto Musashi quote; “Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things”.
Aubrey: Exactly.
Joe: That idea that there’s something that you tap in to that manifests itself in a number of different ways. In athletics, in artistic, whatever it is. What you’re doing is, you’re tapping into the same thing and that is excellence. You’re tapping into the real thing, the way.
Aubrey: And then when you’re on the path that’s going to give you the fruits of your destiny, so to speak, whatever it is that’s that channel that’s going to bring you to the ultimate higher level. You already have practice being excellent. You know how to do the work. And that’s another key thing that I love about, that you always go back to. You know how to do the work. You know how to take the initial steps. That one foot in front of the other to get there and to see progress and to apply yourself in that way.
Steven: Yea, i’m definitely a believer in just doing the mundane thing, you know? Walk into the room, sit down at the keyboard. Or walk into the dojo, start to do whatever the first thing is.