The Eagles are one of my favorite bands and the documentary History of the Eagles is one of the best musical docs ever made.

They were an uber talented band with two legendary frontmen who were kind of dickheads (RIP Glenn Frey), ushered in the SoCal sound of the 1970’s, and, like Freud, did enough cocaine to kill a small horse.

Not to mention – they wrote some fucking great music.

My favorite part of these docs is always the come-up – how did this person, band, entity become what it would become.

Where’d they come from, how did they come together, and how did they ascend to the top?

And once they reached the top, how did they stay there?

Because as Don Henley laments in the film “Shit don’t float.”

My favorite scene is where Glenn Frey talks about how he learned to write songs from Jackson Browne’s teapot.

He lived above Browne and he would hear the kettle go off at 9am each morning.

And at 9am each morning he would hear Jackson Browne sit down at his piano and play.

Frey says:

“I didn’t really know how to write songs. I knew I wanted to write songs, but I didn’t know exactly, did you just wait around for inspiration, you know, what was the deal? I learned through Jackson’s ceiling and my floor exactly how to write songs, ’cause Jackson would get up, and he’d play the first verse and first course, and he’d play it 20 times, until he had it just the way he wanted it. And then there’d be silence, and then I’d hear the teapot going off again, and it would be quiet for 20 minutes, and then I’d hear him start to play again … and I’m up there going, so that’s how you do it? Elbow grease. Time. Thought. Persistence.”

This quote rings eerily similar to one from W. Somerset Maugham:

 “I write only when inspiration strikes.  Fortunately it strikes every morning at 9 o’clock sharp”

 Steven Pressfield calls this Doing the Work.  Calling on the Muse.

 Inspiration doesn’t precede the work, it’s the other way around.

You need to put yourself in position to be inspired – or motivated.

This could be for some artistic project or a business venture.

Or it could be for you or your client’s fitness goals.

I don’t feel like lifting weights every day – but I show up when the bell rings because once I do that is what motivates me.

Jackson Browne wasn’t motivated to sit down at the piano every day – but that was his work bench.

Motivation will get you in the gym once but not long after that.

Elbow Grease.  Time.  Thought.  Persistence.

That is the secret sauce.  That’s what will keep you in the gym for a lifetime.

But how do you get there?

You must be about the work.  It’s all about the work.

It means not focusing so much on results.  Results will come with the work.

There literally is no way to get the results without it.

The work will make you persevere. 

The best part of doing the work and relying on that for your motivation is that it will lengthen your time horizon.

You will suddenly not be so concerned with this workout or this cycle because you know it’s part of the larger plan.

Because suddenly, in a month’s time, are you going to stop doing the work because you didn’t get the results you wanted?

Fuck no.  You’re here for the long haul.

The work is the plan.