Heroic Interview: Steal Like an Artist with Austin Kleon

You're listening to Steal like an Artist, an Optimal Living interview with Austin Kleon and Brian Johnson.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today, I'm thrilled to be chatting with Austin Kleon, Rhymes with Neon, who wrote two great books, Steal Like An Artist and. And show youw Work. He's written other books as well, but the two that I'm really excited to chat about are Steal Like An Artist, show youw Work. Today we're gonna chat about Steal Like An Artist. Then we're gonna connect again to chat about show youw Work. They're both. I'm holding them right now. Uh, Austin describes himself as a writer who draws. And the books are a really, really cool, compact, beautiful collection of 10 big ideas on how we can optimize each of those aspects of our lives in. And make for great coffee table additions and just inspiring from a creative perspective. Just to hold your books, Austin, in itself is, for me, a super inspiring act of. Okay, this is good. This is the kind of thing that I want to bring to the world. So I'm excited to unpack some of my favorite big ideas. Thanks for taking the time and thanks for doing all you do.

Thanks for having me.

Let's start with Steal Like An Artist. Awesome phrase. I like to start at the top. What does that mean for you? And then we'll go from there.

Well, the idea behind Steal Like An Artist is that a lot of us, when we start out and we're trying to be creative, we equate creativity with complete originality. And so you'll get a lot of people who are starting out and they want to be completely original, and so they don't. Like, you'll get a writer who's like, I don't want to read anything because I want to be my own person. Right. That's the rookie mistake. And what you find when you start studying and, you know, studying the lives of artists is that the way towards originality is not to turn away from influence, but to turn towards it, to grab a bunch of influences and a wide and variety of influences. Kind of a wide range and a wide variety of influences, and then take little bits and pieces and smash them together, Steal little bits and pieces and smash them together and then transform it into your own work. And so the idea behind Steal like an Artist is exactly that, is that we all steal little bits and pieces from the people that have come before us. That all creative work builds on what came before, and that what we create is kind of a mashup of what we let into our life.

Yeah, that's so cool. And you make a distinction between stealing and plagiarizing. Let's just make that bright line right now just so everyone can see.

Yeah. You know, Steel, you know, people ask me about that word a lot. They're like, oh, Austin, like, well, you know, I like your book, but, like, why do you have to use the word steal? And I'm always like, I use steal because I'm not very original. Like, that's just the term that. One of the reasons that Steal Like An Artist exists is because I'm a quote collector, and I love collecting quotes from some of my favorite artists. And they all use that word. They all. All thought about what they're doing in terms of stealing. It starts with, like, T.S. eliot saying, like, immature poets copy, mature poets steal. And then you get, like, all these different people. You get someone like Steve Jobs who says, like, we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas at Apple. And then you get, like. So there's like, just all these, you know, Picasso artist theft. You just get all these big characters who used that word. And so the beginning of Steal like an Artist was actually a blog post that said 25 quotes to help you steal like an artist. And then that post, people sent me, like, 25 more. And then I gave this talk that was called Steal like an Artist, and I turned it into a blog post. And then that went viral, and then that became the book. And so. But the real genesis of Steal like an Artist, that word came out of these quotes. And I think that was the point, is that you don't steal. People hear the steal word and they forget the like an artist part. The like an artist part is that you don't get caught. And that, like, you're a good thief. And what a good thief does. There's actually a chart in the book. Good theft versus bad theft. You know, the good thief only takes little bits and pieces so you don't even notice. And then he welds it into something of his own. It's not really imitation. We hear that a lot. Oh, imitation is flattery. No, imitation is not flattery. It's transformation. That's flattery. It's taking little bits and pieces from people you admire and then weaving them into your work in a way that's seamless and builds something kind of new. And so the difference between plagiarizing and stealing is that plagiarizing is just putting your name on someone else's work, whereas stealing like an Artist Is all about taking people's work and then retooling it, remixing it, and then turning into something of your own.

Yeah, I love it. And your subtitles.

It's almost more like. It's funny. It's actually. It's more like forgery than is plagiarism. Because forgery and plagiarism are interesting. Like, plagiarism is just putting your name on someone else's work, and forgery is the flip side of that. Forgery is creating something that doesn't exist, but putting someone else's name on it. And so I actually think that forgery is almost a better method metaphor, particularly in the classroom, because you can ask students to say, okay, well, take a. Let's say van Gogh didn't kill himself. What would he make next? Say, van Gogh makes it to this year. Do a painting in the style of Van Gogh in this particular year, or something like that. Those are the kind of conceptual exercises that lead to actually new work. So you would say, okay, what if Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix actually recorded that jam session they did together? Like, what does that sound like? So, like, those kind of, like those forgery exercises, some of them, which are in chapter three, which asks you to imagine, like, some of your heroes got together and worked together. Those are the things that really, I think, is much, much kind of more interesting than plagiarism. I think forgery is a more interesting way to think about it.

Yeah, that's awesome. And that leads to one of my favorite ideas. Another word you used is copying. And so, you know, if we were going to go through that Van Gogh exercise, we'd, I think, most prudently approach it by starting to really understand how he did things right. And copying his existing work, which would give us insight into his general style, such that we can, you know, extend that and integrate it in meaningful ways.

Yes. And some of the greats, you know, that was how you learned to paint in the old days. You would copy the masters. You would sit in front of a master painting, and you would try to reproduce it as close as you could. You know, I always tell people the Beatles started out as a cover band. You know, the Beatles start out, and they're doing all these songs they love by Elvis and Motown and all this stuff, and eventually, you know, they kind of come into their own sound. It's the same thing with writers. You know, writers kind of emulate Billy Collins. You know, he likes to say that a poet's voice usually comes about after they've tried to rip off About a half dozen poets, right? And they get some kind of weird mixture. But, like, again, in the classroom, like, I mean, my. My. My English teacher, she would have us copy poems off the board, you know, in longhand. And there was. And I always wondered what that was for. And now I realize it's to get those rhythms, you know, to copy. To actually copy by hand something that someone else has written. It's almost like it's. It's the same thing as sitting in front of a painting and trying to recreate it. You know, you're trying to. You know, you're trying to get that muscle memory of, like, what it feels like to execute this work.

Yeah, I love it. And it's something I reflect on. It's one of the things I do. If I'm just really immersing myself in all these great artists of, well, how do you express your ideas? Let me actually literally type them out physically so I can get a sense of that, then connect them. And there's this process of integration that's occurring under the surface as we go full immersion in this. And I'm reminded, too, I don't know if you shared the story in the book about Hunter S. Thompson, who actually typed out. Did you share that story?

That's not in the book, but that. That is a kind of lore that comes up in interviews. And I forget who brought it up first, but supposedly Hunter S. Thompson used to copy the Great Gatsby. You know, he would get a page from the Great Gatsby and type it out to get a feel for what it's like to put those words down. And, you know, copying is really. Is just a really interesting thing. In my new journal, the Steel, like an artist journal, there's a lot of copying exercises, but there's also. I. Transcribing is really interesting. One guy that's kind of influenced me a lot is a poet named Kenny Goldsmith. And what Kenny does in his classes is he'll have students listen to, like, a radio broadcast and transcribe it. And what's really interesting is how people put their own imprint on even something that's transcribed, because when you're transcribing speech, you have to figure out how to punctuate it, what lines to break into sentences, that kind of thing. It's an interesting exercise. And Kenny actually teaches a course called Uncreative Writing, where kids have to copy and plagiarize and do patchwork, mashup type things. But I had this happen to me recently when I was blogging, because I Found a book that I was reading about Brian Eno, and the author had transcribed a video that was online. And so another person on another website had transcribed the same video. And I started comparing the two. And it was interesting how it was essentially the same material, but it changed some of the meaning of the quote based on where people again, put their line breaks and their punctuation and stuff like that. So copying actually turns out to be an activity that's almost impossible for humans. It's almost as if we always have to kind of screw up our copying in a way that, like, you know, there's an illustration in the book. It says the human hand is incapable of absolutely perfect copy. And that actually turns out to be true is like there's something about us that will always kind of put our own stamp on something, even if it's just like punctuation.

I love that. And I'm looking at that page in the book right now where you had your stars, right? Five rows of five stars across, and not one of them is the same. But in the process of doing that, we're really immersing ourselves in kind of. You mentioned in the book that we aren't born with a voice, right? The voice is kind of discovered and created on the fly. And as part of this copying and everything else we're going to do, you mentioned 10 big ideas or 10 things nobody told you about being creative. I have some of my favorites I want to hear you riff on. But what's your favorite idea out of those 10?

Oh, you know, gosh, there's. Let me think about them. First of all, I have to look at it. I've got a copy. This is a funny thing about authors, is that sometimes when you finish a book, you're kind of done with the material and you have to kind of remind yourself what's in your own books, which always makes people. They roll their eyes. But it's really true. I think the one. The chapter that's really important to me and I think is probably the most important to. The 2 and 3 are really important to me. The 2 is don't wait until you are to. Don't. Don't wait until you know who you are to get started. Because I think a lot of people think that they have to figure themselves out before they do their really creative work. And I actually think it's the opposite. I think that by doing your work, you actually discover who you are. And so you have to. When you're young in particular, you have to start out just making a lot of stuff. And there's actually a great Ira Glass monologue that I actually used for show youw Work. I think he did it after Steal like an Artist. I jumped on it for my second or my follow up to Steal like an Artist, show youw Work. And Ira Glass talks about, you know, when you're starting out, you're brought to your work because you're a fan of that kind of work. So let's say, you know, you start out and you want to be a writer. You know, most people decide to be writers because they love to read and they love to enter that world. You know, they want to enter that world somehow. And so when you start out as a writer, your taste level is super, super high. You know, you've read all kinds of great books that have influenced you, but your skill set is really, really low. And so you have to be comfortable when you're starting out with what Ira Glass calls that gap in between your ability and your taste level. And hopefully, as you keep working, your ability and your taste level, kind of they get closer to each other. But I would actually say that they never quite touch because as you develop as an artist, your taste is always hopefully going to be a little bit better than your actual work. And that's what actually keeps you making work. There's always some sort of unobtainable goal, you know, some carrot dangling in front of you, so to speak. And so I think that's. So I think when you think about a creative life, it's really important to know that. To know that you will actually never get to the place, you'll never really get what's in your head. It will never come out quite the way you think it will would. And that's both frustrating and liberating. If you know that, then you are more. You're freed up to be more experimental and to kind of just go with things. But if you can accept that, it will drive you crazy your whole life because your ability and your taste are. They're just. It'll be just out of reach somehow.

For you, I think, yeah, this is great. And then you. Well, that was number two. So don't wait until you know who you are to get started, just get started and realize there's always going to be that gap. Learn to navigate it with a little more grace and mojo, right, as you develop the skills. But no, it will never go away completely. And that's a good thing. And then the third one was write the book you want to read, which is tied to another one of your Quotes I love. All Advice Is Autobiographical. Talk to us about writing the book you want to read.

Well, so I'll go in the reverse order. The All Advice is autobiographical. I think a lot of times when people give you advice, they're really talking to themselves in the past. And that was kind of where I came from with Steal Like An Artist. Steal Like An Artist was a list of things that I wish I had known when I was first starting out. So it was sort of like a letter to my former self. Now show youw Work was different in that it was autobiographical advice. But I was actually trying to figure out how to go about, like, the things in that book, like how. How do I do my work and share at the same time? Like, that was the big question behind that book. But basically, I think a really. A thing that trips up young writers in particular. There are a lot of teachers who kind of share the cliched advice to write what you know. And I actually think that it's not so much writing what you know, because particularly when you're young, you don't know a lot yet. But the problem is that you really need to write what you like. You need to write the kind of story, the kind of stuff that you really enjoy reading. And that is a very. That's a big step. So I'll give you a very concrete example. When I started out and I was like, in creative writing workshops in college, we were reading like, you know, Raymond Carver, you know, like this really, like, you know, these really short, terse, like, brutal stories of small town life and like alcoholism and, you know, despair and all this stuff. And while Raymond Carver can be very funny in spots, you know, on the whole, I'm not. My outlook is not the same as Raymond Carver. I'm actually more of a comic guy. I actually have, like, kind of a. So I was trying to write all these, like, really serious short stories about the small town I grew up in. And finally I did a kind of goofball story that was about a woman who burnt. She was baking pies for this fair that her church was part of, and she burnt the pies. And it was kind of this madcap, stupid story, but it was funny. And my teacher, you know, I had a really good creative writing professor called Stephen Bower. His name's Stephen Bauer. And he said, this is, you know, you finally figured it out with this story. And I said, well, what? He said, well, you're a. You're a comic writer. Like, not funny, funny ha ha all the time, but like your main way of looking at life is more through a comedic lens. And that was like a big. And then I thought about the things that I really love to read, like Kurt Vonnegut or, you know, you know, some of the comics I was reading. And that made sense. Right. But I was writing what I thought I knew instead of writing what I liked, if that. If that makes sense. And I just think that's a big step for young artists, is to not make what you think you should make or what your teacher wants to read or what you think people want, but to make that thing, to write that book that you want to read, to make that thing that doesn't exist in the world that you think should exist and that you think you can handle, that you think you can do. And that's when you really, like, stumble on your work, is when you see a gap in the universe that you think you can fill with your own efforts.

Yeah, that's fantastic. So to jump to the end of your 10, two of my favorites are Being Boring and Creativity is Subtraction. I love the way you describe that. If you want to be interesting, you need to be boring. Can you talk to us about the importance of that?

Yeah. So that comes from. I read this Flaubert quote years and years ago, and I always kind of mess it up. But he basically says, be regular and orderly in your everyday life so that you can be violent and original in your work. And what Flaubert was talking about is that creative work takes a huge amount of effort, and you don't. And energy, and you don't really have that energy, and you can't put in that effort if you're going around trying to make your life, you know, if you're going around, you know, trying to be this, like, unique, amazing person. So, for example, like, you know, the history of art is littered with all these, like, people who are going around drinking and carousing and doing drugs and, you know, all this kind of mythological bad behavior. And what people see is they see that kind of bad behavior, and they say, oh, well, that led to the art when really a lot of those people weren't working, when they were doing that stuff. Like, you know, Faulkner would write for a month and they go on a bender, and then he would write, you know, get sober and write, you know, so it's kind of. So the point is really to not try to act like an artist as much as. Or what you think an artist should act like as much as do the work that an artist does. And so to conserve your Energy and to be okay with being that kind of boring person and sitting down and doing your work. And one young woman recently came up to me at a reading and had a perfect example. She said, you know, I read your book, and I'm always that person who doesn't. She was English, and she said, I don't go to the pub with my friends. Some nights I stay at home and I write. And you. Your book kind of made me realize that, like, you know, that was okay. And it's true. Like, if you really want to do work, you're going to have to say no to certain things. And that kind of segues into the next chapter, which is creativity subtraction. That a life of creative work is not about, you know, throwing in just, you know, the kitchen sink and all this stuff. That a life of creative work is actually about kind of subtracting from your life, you know, distractions and obligations until you can actually get that work done.

Yeah, I want to talk about both of those a little bit more. First, I want to go back to the way to be boring that you describe is to establish a routine and to keep the routine. And I just love that. And I connected. I talked to Scott Adams, who created Dilbert.

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

He's created like 10,000 comic strips. And in his book, how to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, he says, I can tell you where I'm going to be Saturday at 6, 10 in the morning in 2017. I know exactly what I'm going to be doing. That's how clear he is on his routines and rituals.

Yeah, and that's. And that's why I like Mason Curry's book Daily Ritual so much. What Mason did in that book that I thought was so great is he didn't say, here's the routine you should follow to be creative. What he did is he's like, here are the routines of all these artists. And what you get through the book is not that there's one particular way of working, but that what's important is that you do have a routine and you do have a. Have a ritual. And I think what a routine does is it insulates you from the tiny successes and failures of a creative life. And what that means is that, you know, if you. You might go in one day and write 20 pages of sparkling prose, and you might go in the next day and not get anything done, and neither of them really matter because, you know, like Scott Adams said, what you're going to be doing tomorrow, you're going to sit down and you're, you know, going to do the work. And I see it as I wrote a piece a while back about how people, if they want to know what being an artist is like, they should watch Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray movie, because that's pretty much what, you know, my artist friends and I, who, we've talked a lot about it. That's really what it's like. It's like you wake up every day and there's work to do. You know, you just wake up every day and like you do the same thing over and over. And of course, within the actual day, you know, within the actual, you know, work period. You know, Phil Connors can do anything within that world, but he knows he's going to wake up the next day and have to keep doing, you know, work. He's still going to have to attack the day. And so that's kind of how it is as a creative person in that, you know, you might put out some best selling book, but if you're really good, you'll sit down the next day after the release date and you'll write, you know, and that personally, you know, I'd like to stop at this point and say all this stuff I'm talking about, I'm again, all advice is autobiographical. I'm talking about this because this is what I struggle with the most. I mean, like, I have a rough time keeping to a routine. You know, I just got off a book tour. And that throws your routine into complete chaos because you never wake up in the same place. And you might have a flight early in the morning or you might have a flight in the evening. You just never know what you're going to do any day and throws your routine into chaos. And so I'm talking, and that's a really important point I think to make, is that most of the stuff I talk about, it's not because I have it figured out. It's because this is what's bothering me and this is what I'm trying to work on in my own creative life.

Amen to that. Well, that leads me to the question I wanted to ask too, about your routines. I want to step back for a moment and just highlight the importance of that showing up. It's boring. Groundhog Day style. Dan Coyle, who's all about the myelin in the talent code, and I forget who said it, you might know, but inspiration is for amateurs. Some writers said that just looked at Chuck Close. Chuck Close. Awesome.

The painter.

Inspiration is for amateurs. Just show up, you're a Pro blue collar. Here's your lunch pail. Show up. So I wanted to segue that into when you look at you when you're on, right. And your rituals and at home rather than on the road, what does that look like for you?

When I'm on, basically I get out to this dude. I have not figured out how to balance having young children and working. I'm not disciplined enough to get up really early and what I really should do is get up at like 5 in the morning and write. And then the kids wake up at like 6:30 or 7. That's really what I should do. But what I do now is I get up with the kids and we lounge around and then we, my wife and I go for a big three mile walk every morning. And then we, you know, we talk and we figure out our day and then we come back and shower up and I do some exercises, like physical exercises. And then I shower and then I get out to the studio about 10 o', clock, which is lazy hours. And then I'll probably work until lunch on something really intense, like 90 minutes. Like I'll make a poem or I'll try to write or something like that. Then I'll do lunch with the family and then I'll come back out and then I'll work for the rest of the afternoon. And that might be like more creative work, like actually trying to generate writing. That might be blogging, that might be tweeting, that might be doing what we're doing right now, you know, more admin type work. But that's kind of what my days look like. I try to do all the really important work first thing I really, I heard John Waters a while back, he said, you know, I make stuff up in the morning and I sell it in the afternoon. And I always love that, like make stuff in the morning and then do all your admin work in the afternoon. Because I think the afternoon for me is this kind of mongrel time. Dickens called it mongrel time. And it's also the most brutal time of day if you live in Texas, because that's when super hot and awful. So yeah, and then I quit at 5 and go hang out with the family. So, you know, if you think 10 to 5 and then you take a lunch break in between there. I actually don't really work that many hours. I have really kind of like, I call it lazy banker hours. But what's interesting is that like I do it every day, you know, and you don't really actually need that much time. To work. If you show up every day and you do the stuff, you know.

Yeah.

And you can't work that much. I mean, there's a finite amount of energetic space to actually be in flow and to do good work. But to set up the way you do your 10 to 12 or whatever it is and really put in a solid 90 minutes, that's not easy to do. Right.

You could pretty much do like. And that's what I try to tell people look at me right now and they're like, oh, you're doing what you love, man. You get to work all day on your art. And I'm like, that's kind of true. Like, I do get to do something that's really awesome. But like, just like anybody else is doing work, so much of my day is taken up with stuff I don't want to do, you know, I mean, like, this is a business, you know, I'm running a business here. Like, I don't just make money off making poems, you know what I mean? Like, I make poems by like. I mean, I make money from like getting books done and doing deals and then like, you know, getting speaking gigs. Gigs and promoting products. And like there's. If there's a business to it that people don't see. And so you know that. But I, I will say that, like, I get pretty much the sad thing is, is I get about as much creative work done now as I did when I had a day job.

That was before kids, though.

Before kids, yeah.

You have a day job, it's called kids.

That is the one. I don't know if it's unfortunate, but I've actually never gotten to be writer without children. And I wonder what that would be like. I have a feeling it would probably look like me sitting in a lot of coffee shops staring out the window.

I think there's something focusing. We were talking a little before. You have a three year old and almost one year old. I have a three year old and it's been beautifully focusing, which is tied to the 10th idea of. The constraints are good when you're committed to being a creative human being and a great husband and father. There are only so many hours in the day versus when we're single and quiet, quote, most creative or whatever you want to call it. But I love that because there's just no room for the stuff that doesn't need to get done. Of course there's the business stuff, but there's no more of that stuff over there.

And it focuses you in a way that nothing else Does I read? I've kept a parenting tag on my Tumblr for years and years because I saw it coming down the pipe. I mean, I married a woman that is a natural mother and has always wanted to be a mother. And so I knew fatherhood was in the works for me. And so I spent a little bit of time before I became a father collecting again. I'm a quote collector and a researcher, and I spent time building this file, you know, of people I admired that were also parents. And one of the people, you know, I heard a lot of people basically say, it lights a fire under your butt. You know, but the person that, Chris Ware, the cartoonist, he said it fixed every mental problem I had within an hour, the minute I had a daughter. Because I immediately knew what was important to me. And when I sat at the drawing desk, like, what I needed to get done. And I think what you said beautifully. I think you said beautifully focusing, which I really like that phrase. I mean, like, it's beautifully focusing. It's also terrifying. And there are days, you know, I mean, like parenting. People ask me about parenting, like, I've done it for very long at all. And I tell them, I say, it's simultaneously the best and the worst thing that ever happened to you. And they look at me like, horrified, and I say, look, you know, 49% of the gig is miserable. It's diapers and it's screaming and it's messy and you're under slept. But then 51% is like the best thing ever. It's. And it's the extra 2% of the best thing ever that keeps you going. And sometimes it doesn't shake out that it shakes out that way, I think overall. And I'm actually plagiarizing a. A pie chart that a guy named his. His Twitter handle is coding Horror. Coding Hoarder. Horror, not hoarder. And. And he made that pie chart of 51% versus 49%. But that's certainly how it's been for me. It's not that way for everyone else. Like, it's sunshine and rainbows for some other people. But for my wife and I, I mean, it's like, you know, it's that extra 2% that makes it worth it. But I also think that there's a way to. My kids inspire me in certain ways. You know, if you're tuned in as a creative person, you really can't be not inspired. I mean, everything is fodder. And so when I'm hanging out with my 3 year old, you know, it's just very interesting because they're little scientists and poets and artists. I mean, they're trying to figure out what the world is about. And so they're spitting a lot of stuff back out at you. They're testing all their emotions on you. They're like just their little meaning machines. They're trying to figure it out. And so to watch them kind of investigate their world is very. I find it very inspiring, you know, I mean, you. You know, say you. You showed up tomorrow and you didn't know how any of your equipment worked, and you didn't know names for anything, and everything was new and weird. You know what I mean? I mean, that's so much of the artists. What the artist is trying to do, too, is he's trying to recapture that kind of childlike wonder. He's trying. You know, there's a lot of the artists she's trying to like, you know, trying to look at things like she doesn't know what they are, you know, and so spending a lot of time around kids can be really. It can actually help develop some of those facilities, no question.

And I think it's an interesting parallel, too, of the 49% and 51% that naivete that all art is just sunshine and rainbows. Right. It's not, thankfully, the stress and that 49% of how am I going to make this work? That tug in the gap between our taste and our current abilities isn't fun. It's not pleasant. Yet we show up again and again, and that meaning that's driven by that 51%. Right?

Yeah.

It seems like there are a lot of parallels there.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's. It's the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you have to take it all. It's all one big stew. But it's. It's Groundhog Day. It's Rewatch. Everyone who's listening to this, like, rewatch that movie and think about, you know, you're Phil Connors, and every day you get to choose, you know, what you spend your time on, what you pay attention to, what you think about. And, you know. But you're going to wake up tomorrow and you're going to have to do it all over again.

That's awesome. In the process, you know, you amass a body of work that has meaning and has depth. You do that day by day by day. And the humility and the persistence involved in that. Is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you want to make sure we discuss in this context?

No, but I think what you just said, that day by day thing, that is what being a parent has taught me the most about making work, is that you have to chop it up into daily chunks because that's the only way to swallow your career. If you try to, like, you know, if you try to think about, you know, doing everything all at once, it's completely overwhelming. If you just think about what you can get done today and. And to come up with some sort of daily repeatable process that's really. You need, like a system. You need some sort of daily process that will produce work over time for you. And so if you're a novelist, you write a page every day, and at the end of the year, you've got enough material for a novel. It might not be finished, but it might be enough material. You can start stripping away and then rewriting and that kind of thing. But just that kind of know, Annie Diller, Anne Lamott put out that great book Bird by Bird, you know, and that's what it is. It's day by day, brick by brick, bird by bird. You know, just having that kind of. And why parenting has helped me with that. It's just that you. There's such a routine. If you're a smart parent, you figure out a daily routine and you stick to it. I know a lot of parents are really, you know, some of my friends, they're really, you know, they might have more chaotic work lives or something, but they don't keep their kids on a routine and their lives are chaos. But, you know, kids thrive on structure and routine. So that's really taught me something about myself, is just that, you know, they get up every morning and you have to change their diaper and you have to get them fed. And, you know, and it's just this whole thing. And you know what? The whole time you're doing it, you can't think too far in the future or you'll die. Because if you think I'm going to have to change a million diapers, that's just too much. You know, if you think I will change seven diapers today, you're like, okay. You know, it's. It's. There's a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, they do that one day at a time because it's the only. It's just the only way to get through. And you just can't think too much. You just got to think about the day. Be in the moment. Moment.

I love it. And the connections, again, are just so great. One of the parenting Philosophies we follow a phrase they have is boring sameness, which is basically exactly what you just described. And these kids, I mean, life is interesting to them. You don't need to take them out and expose them to all these different things. Life is unbelievably stimulating and it's Groundhog Day. It's your Flaubert quote. Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. I love that this is what it's about, and I really appreciate how you've articulated it and how you've embodied it with a sense of deep humility and playfulness and passion. Where can people learn more about you?

Best place yeah, the easiest thing to do is just go to Austin like the city Kleon K l e o n.com, austincleon.com and that has my that's the kind of portal and the best way to get to know me is to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Every week I send out a list of 10 things that I think are worth sharing and it's my favorite thing I do. And there's tons of people that follow that now. And that's the best way to get to know me real quick. But just go to austincleon.com and your day will be wasted.

Right on. So Austin like the city K l e o n.com we just talked about Steal like an article so highly recommended if you get it on Amazon. You're also going to want to click the box to get show your work which we're going to talk about next. And I didn't know until today that you also have that journal for Steal like an artist. I can't wait to check that out. And I'm excited to connect and chat about show your work as well.

Great. Look forward to it.

Hi, this is Brian. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube. So I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. 10 bucks a month Join the Optimal Living Membership Program. You get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes on some of the best optimal living books out there. Old school classics, positive psychology, modern stuff, Mindfulness, Peak performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc. And what you may not know is that in addition to the PNTV episode, I create PDFs on all these great books. So six page PDFs let's take a look at one of them. Joseph Campbell, you want to figure out how to live your hero's journey? Well, this is a great place to start. I basically pull out my favorite big ideas, riff on them, connect them to other books and other ideas and help you apply this wisdom to your life today. That's what the PDF looks like again. We have 250 of these on all these different great books. And then I record those PDFs as an MP3 so you can listen to that MP3 while you're on a walk or working out or doing some errands or whatever that is. Philosopher's Notes. A lot going on there. And then in addition to Philosopher's Notes, you get access to optimal living classes. Optimal Living 101 idea here is that all those great teachers come back to the same big ideas again and again and again. Again. I distill those ideas into classes. Super practical, fun, inspiring classes ranging from habits 101, confidence 101, getting stuff done 101, meditation 101, instant access to all those classes. And then Future classes include Relationships 101, Energy 101, Purpose 101, Business Goals, etc. Those are our full length classes. And then I create micro classes. Two to three to five minute little bursts of wisdom on my favorite great ideas from these great books across the domain that you want to optimize in your life. So we have dozens of these so far. I create 50 new micro classes every month and 10 new philosopher's notes every month for 10 bucks a month. So we're blessed to have thousands of members who are are enjoying the program and sharing some incredibly kind words with us. And super simple. $10 a month. Cancel anytime. We'd be honored to be a bigger part of your life and I appreciate your support. And here's to optimizing and actualizing.