Transcript of 690: Austin Kleon - Why Activated Leaders Win, The Analog Desk, Don't Call it Art, Stay Light, Professional Noticers, Lead with Curiosity, and How To Steal Like an Artist

My next book, The Price of Becoming, will be out in a few months, available for preorder right now at learningleader.com. But in the meantime, I've been sending it to authors that I really look up to. A lot of them have been on this podcast. One of them is Daniel Pink, bestselling author of To Sell Is Human, Drive, Win, The Power of Regret, and many others. Just asked him what he thought, asked him if he'd write a blurb, an endorsement for the book, maybe one that I would put on the COVID And this is what he sent back to me. Dan Pink says, 'The Price of Becoming refuses to sell you a shortcut. Instead, Ryan shows how small daily deposits—100 shots, 500 words, a single tough conversation—compound into something that looks like an overnight success to anyone who wasn't paying attention.' This is a clear-eyed, powerful book. I'm super grateful for people like Dan Pink to have read it and shared his thoughts. I would love it if you would go to learningleader.com and pre-order the book right now, or just go straight to Amazon and pre-order The Price of Becoming. Thank you so much. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global.

I am your host Ryan Hawk, thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. I love Austin Kleon, New York Times bestselling author of "Steal Like an Artist," "Show Your Work," and "Keep Going." These are books that have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Austin is a writer who draws, a former librarian, and one of the most original thinkers on creativity working today. His new book is called Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. During our conversation, we discuss why watching someone who is fully activated and loves their work is one of the most contagious and attractive things in the world. Then the analog desk, why you should consider having a separate space with no screens and what it unlocks that digital work cannot. Austin has one of these and we go deep on that. And then he tells a cool story about why he goes out into the world and doesn't look for people who are quote successful. Instead, he looks for people who are having fun and then tries to learn from them.

Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Austin Kleon.

I love the fact that you have a picture of Bill Murray up in your studio as a reminder. Why do you have a picture of Bill Murray up?

Well, you know, Bill Murray, I, it's this really goofy picture I found in the magazine and I think he has like a, he's got his belly exposed and he's like drawing a clown on it. The really important part of the picture is there's this Post-it and it says, stay light. And it was a speech that he gave these ballplayers one time. He said, you know, if you can stay light and loose and relaxed, you can play at the highest level. And he said that was true of like baseball, acting, or whatever. And I just like always really took that to heart because I found it in my own work. If I can stay light and have a sense of, you know, just to keep that sense of lightness, of play, of flow, I do better, you know, keeping that sense of playfulness. And so that's why I keep it up in the studio.

One of the things when I watch your videos, I feel like you just have such a welcoming style. Hey, y'all, you know, like you're inside the studio. It's so— you got all this stuff behind you, right? You've got these things going on and it seems that you embody that spirit well of welcoming people into your creative space. I know you have an analog desk and you have all these separate areas where you can actually make art. I'd love to hear more about your overall philosophy of how you have designed your space to be welcoming, not only for yourself, but for other people as well?

Oh yeah. Well, that's a fun thing. So when I first started out, I didn't have much of a space. I mean, I was making, I think my first book I did in the basement of the law school where I was a web designer and, uh, and riding the bus back home. I mean, that's how a lot of that first poetry book was made. And then, you know, as I kind of like continued on and on. I think I had a nice office in our house when my kids were little, and then we had another kid and I had to move out to the garage. And then I worked in garages for a while. And so this place that we're in right now, I actually built this. This is in my backyard in Austin, Texas. And it's, uh, it's the first space I've ever actually created for myself. There's a funny story about this. When I had this built and it was pristine, it had like, you know, nice new floors and new walls. And it just, it was like, wow, look at this place. Like all this nice natural light. I said to my wife, I said, I will never make anything decent in here.

And I didn't really feel like I deserved the space, you know, it was too nice. And she looked at me and she said, oh, that's okay, you just have to mess it up. And that was really true. It's like, so now what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make like a comfortable environment where I come in here and it's playtime. A lot of my work requires that sense of play we just talked about. It's hard to tell what's work, it's hard to tell what's play. Play is the work in a lot of ways, and it's very easy. You know, you mentioned the analog desk. I have a digital desk, which is what we're sitting at right now. It looks like everybody else's desk, but right over there perpendicular to the desk is the analog desk, and nothing electronic or digital is allowed over there. So it's all like paints and pens and stuff you can get at the art store or the school supply aisle at the H-E-B, you know, grocery, whatever. And the most important part of my work is to make sure that I don't sit at this desk first. Is to go over to that desk first and to have nothing and to see what comes.

I might get something, I might not. Then I can turn to this desk and do something with it, you know? So the desk is kind of my, if you wanted to talk about in corporate terms, that's my R&D time.

I was just gonna say, yeah, how does that work?

Because you're a prolific writer who's sold millions of books, who've helped leaders and people in general from all over the world. Yeah. I think just be more effective at life, be more effective at inspiring people, be more effective at leading people. And I don't know if you view yourself that way, but I view you that way. I study leadership and you're one of my favorite people to read. I read your newsletter every week, read all your books. I love it. And so I'm curious how you think the analog desk helps you help others be better leaders.

Well, the one thing I will say is it's a lot of people. I think a lot of people have great ideas all the time, and I think they have a lot of stuff going through their heads. The one thing they don't give themselves is the time, the space, and materials to sit down and not have any distractions and not have anything on their calendar and don't really even have anything they have to produce. And to sit there with— could be a pen and paper, could be a guitar and a tape recorder— and see what they can make out of that stew that we all have in our head. Because everybody now takes in stuff. We got all this stuff in our brain all the time. Very few of us take the time to sit down and try to make something of it. I think that's what the Analog Desk does. It gives me That's where I go to make something of what's swirling inside me. And then when I leave the analog desk, I got something to show people, you know, then I have something to share. I have something to say, hey, I made this thing.

What do you think? You know, and I think that for the leader, the leader, you know, it's an interesting word, leading, like, because I've never really felt that way. But there's a sense that the leading that happens, I think, in my work is that something's leading me, that I'm on the trail of things. I have a sense for what seems urgent, and I pay really close attention. And then I'm on the trail, and then what I do really well, I think, is I send back dispatches, you know, like Lewis and Clark or something, you know? I send people dispatches of what kind of trail I'm following. That's kind of the leading that happens here, but I think the other thing about, you know, leading people is that people just want to watch someone who's activated. You know, the more I study people, and I study the people who are out there doing really interesting things— there's a band called Sonic Youth, and their bass player's name is Kim Gordon, and she said, you know, people will pay every night to show up and see somebody believe in themselves. And I've always loved that. You know, my friend Hugh MacLeod has a cartoon that says the market for something to believe in is infinite.

You know, the world is full of people that are kind of like, I don't know, they're just kind of like doing their thing. They're going to work, they're raising their kids. It's all good. But people are really hungry to see people who are really on fire for stuff. And I've sort of always had the confidence and the chillness, I guess, I don't know, or the delusion, if you want to say that if I truly let myself be interested in what I was naturally interested in. And then I found a way to share that interest with other people, that there would be people in the world that would connect with it. And that's really the, the very basic, you know, the past 20 years of my career has just been me being interested in things, figuring out what's the best way to share that interest with other people. And then people who are interested in that stuff, they show up.

People want to watch someone who is activated. Yeah. That is so good.

Doesn't matter if it's like a mom who's really into cooking healthy meals for her kids, or if it's like a dude who's like working out, or, you know, or, or it's somebody who's like, let me show you how to fix the GFCI circuit in your bathroom, or, you know, whatever it is, you know, it's like people who are activated, people who are doing things, you know, I think that word activated. I mean, we're a very passive society right now where we take things in, we kind of let things happen. And I think that people, particularly Americans, I think have always been inspired by people who seem to be doing things that seem to be acting and the verbs, you know, they have verbs. Yeah.

And things that they do, you know, you have a beautiful way, man, a beautiful way of taking these messy thoughts that I have in my head and creating the exact. It's like, you know, that's what stand-up comedians do, actually. I know you study them, but you have these weird or messy thoughts, and the reason that we laugh or the reason that we like watching them is because they create your voice, but you couldn't put it together. That's what I feel like you just did the past, I don't know, 2 minutes. That is beautiful. Also, though, on the activation thing and wanting to follow others that I think are maybe obsessed. Two different places I went in person this year. I definitely want to get to Austin to do this with you in the future, but one was Savannah, Georgia with Jesse Cole. And then recently I went to Boulder, Colorado with Jim Collins. And you talk about two people who are obsessed and have a fire in their eyes for the work that they're doing. Different things. Jesse's creating Banana Ball and playing in front of 100,000 people and all this crazy stuff. Jim's writing books and changing lives.

But when they look you in the eye with those, it is like, talk about activation. They are all in on their thing you're doing. And I know I am deeply attracted to that trait in a person.

I think everybody has those people in their lives. And I think what's really interesting about it is that the energy is so infectious. I have a, a hero of mine. Her name's Linda Barry and she's a cartoonist and I met her. I couldn't have been— I wasn't married yet. We were engaged, so I would have been 22, I think. And I met her at a reading, and I got to go to the bar with her because I knew the person who— I knew this guy named Dan Sean, who's a writer in Cleveland, and he had invited her to speak at Oberlin. And I went to hang out with her at a bar with a couple other people and just got to sat there and like kind of be in her aura, or like whatever you want to call it. I mean, I ran at least the first half of my career off of the fumes of that meeting. I mean, it was very much like, this person is activated to the world in the way that I want. I want— I'll have what she's having, you know? It's like the When Harry Met Sally line.

I'll have what she's having, you know? And it's like, I think the older I get, the more I think about the work that I do I think about it as the transmission of energy. That might sound very vague to people, but the way I think of it is you spend all of this energy thinking about these ideas, looking at the world, paying attention, gathering all this stuff up, and you stuff it, you pack it into this book. And this book is just a lump of matter, basically. It's just like a lump of coal or something. It's like compressed and packed down. And then the only way all that energy gets activated again is when the reader opens that book back up. They take their energy and their attention, and it's like a catalyst. It activates all that energy you put into the book again. And your energies either sync up or they don't. You know, you said something that I, when I was younger, I'd have rolled my eyes at, which is, you know, you took all the things that I was thinking, you just put it into words. And I used to go, Oh yeah, you had all these thoughts that I had and like, I put 'em into words.

But now I realize that's the most beautiful compliment a reader can give you. Because now that I'm a little bit more mature, I'm still pretty immature, but now that I've come, I'm like, that is what the writer does. The writer takes what everyone's thinking, or some people are thinking, or not many people are thinking, and puts it into the words. Right? That's what we do. And that's why people have been thinking the same things for thousands of years, but there need to be new ways to say them. And that's what an individual writer does so well. So when you say that to me now, that is the best compliment I could think of. When I was more young and callow, I'd be like, oh, well, I have special thoughts. Now it's like, no, I don't really have that many special thoughts or What I have is I have a way of communicating that connects with people and gives them the words, right? And that's, that's what you do, and that's what a writer does.

People who are world-class at whatever the craft they choose, yeah, they make it look effortless and/or easy. So when I read your books, I think, in your newsletter, I think this is easy. Yeah, this, this is easy. Yeah. That's the thing. Like, that right there is the thing. Because then when you sit down or I sit down or someone sits down to try to do that thing, I go, oh, this is not easy. This is insanely hard.

I think it's part of the hustle too. You know, I have a— I tend to be a person who, because I come from the middle of a cornfield in Ohio, I like to— I'm Midwestern, so I like to downplay work, you know. Aw shucks. Yeah. You know, so that's part of it too. But I know exactly what you mean. And I'm a person who actually devalues what I do a lot in my mind. I have a lot of like self-talk where I'm like, eh, you know, you don't do that much. And then my wife's like, you work all the time. You know, I mean, people see the, it's funny, people see like the Friday newsletter and they're like, oh yeah, list of 10, no problem. And I'm like, yeah, just do it for like 13 years every Friday for 13 years, you know? And then like, call me.

Yeah. Well, that can, and that consistency of I know I have a similar newsletter that putting it together works as a forcing function to always be on the lookout for useful, interesting, entertaining things for yourself and for others. And I would be curious to hear about how that— okay, every Friday I'm sending 10 things. Sometimes they're crazy that I'm like, where, how did you come up?

What is this?

Yeah. And other times it's like super practical and useful. And how does that process work? And how does it work as a forcing function? To you to be observing and to be aware of the world?

This is going to sound kind of like hoity, but I've read a lot of Henry David Thoreau, not Walden, but his journal. I love his journals. And something that happens with Thoreau is that he has notebooks with him and he knows he's going to write later in the day. So he takes his morning walk, he needs stuff to write about, so he's paying like super close attention to the world. And that's where all those really great, you know, he's one of the great chroniclers of the season, for example, the seasons. Um, and he just pays like such close attention to the world. And part of the reason I swear that he's paying such close attention to the world is he knows he needs something to write about later. And, um, I had someone the other day, they said, you know, they read a recent book of mine, they said, you seem like someone who really pays attention to your kids a lot. And I said, well, I love to write. I have a diary. And then I have a notebook and I'd love to draw all the funny stuff they said. The minute I started writing down the funny stuff that my kids said, that I just decided I'm going to start writing down all these funny things, they just kept coming, you know, because I was paying attention.

I was like, oh, I can put that in the book, you know? And so it's like, I always like with people who want to pay more attention to your life, I'm like, well, one thing that you can do is just start like a one line a day journal or something like that. I love those 5-year Yeah, diaries, you know, because the very act of knowing that you're going to have to write in your journal later tonight or tomorrow, it just causes you to pay more attention. Photographers know this. If you carry a camera around all day, well, all of a sudden you start looking for shots, and all of a sudden you start noticing things that you wouldn't notice before. And so it's just really the act of— I think sometimes having a place to put the things that you pay attention to, it makes you pay more attention. And so As you mentioned with the newsletter, it's like, yeah, all week I'm like, that's newsletter worthy. That goes in the note file, you know? Yeah, that's good. The only problem is that you have to make sure that you're living your life and you're not like living for the newsletter.

Yeah. You know, I heard this really sad interview with MrBeast one time. I don't know if people listening know who MrBeast is. I have tweens, so unfortunately I know who MrBeast is, the poor beast. Um, he's like this terrifically famous YouTuber, a young guy. I don't even know how old he is, but I was listening to this interview with him and he is like, yeah, I don't really even know what's real in my life anymore. Like what I do for the YouTube channel. And I was like, this is— this guy, his midlife crisis is gonna be very interesting. Hopefully he makes enough that he can afford the therapy. But you know, it's like there's a tension in life between, you know, living and writing. Yeah. And so you have to kind of be careful that you're, you're living not for the writing. The writing's for the living and not the living's not for the writing, I guess.

Well, I had Nikki Glaser on, you know, the, the great comedian. And, um, we talked a lot about this very thing, being a professional noticer of things. Yeah. Right. And she says that very frequently she'll be out with friends and she'll be like, hang on. And we'll pull out her phone. And will type the note. Yeah. Because she's like, if I don't do this, I'm gonna forget. Yeah. And this could be something. And so it does kind of take over your life to make you good at the craft, in her case of comedy or roasting. And so yes, I think you're right. There probably is that balance of living, but also because I think great leaders are professional noticer of things. They're, they notice people, they notice life, they notice industries, they notice ideas, they notice tactics, tools, strategy. So you gotta have your eyes wide open looking around, but you also want to find that balance of also living the life. I think that's the interesting dynamic here.

Yeah. And when you think about it, like the way the world is structured right now, it's not really like in the interests of corporations and people who want to make money off of you for you to have your own attention. Like they want your attention. I mean, there's all these books, I think it's Tim Wu's books about attention merchants and That kind of stuff. So it's like everyone wants your attention. And so in some ways it's the most valuable thing you have as a human being, and you want to make sure that you're pointing your attention, that you're in control of it, that you're putting it kind of where you want to put it. I think that's the real challenge in modern life is to make sure that you are the one paying the attention. Mm-hmm. You know, and not having your attention taken from you.

Yeah. I found a, an uncommon commonality, Austin, between us. So, We're both from Ohio and we both went to college at the exact same time at the exact same college.

Really? Yes. We both went to Miami.

Yes. Right out of high school. Now, I ended up transferring and finishing at OU because I was playing football. Okay. So, you know, the other quarterback who was there when I was there is Ben Roethlisberger. So that's why it was time for me to go somewhere else. Right. Same position. Anyway, though, that's not the interesting thing. The thing that I thought was— and make sure this is correct because I read it on the internet, might not be true. You actually created your own major and kind of cobbled things together that were English, art, classics, interdisciplinary study. Is this right? Like, what is this?

Yeah, there was a program at Miami that was really wonderful. So if you think about campus, the east side of campus, like way over in the woods, there was this thing called the Western Program. Huh. It was the School for Interdisciplinary Studies, and it was this kind of like really magical place. Just a really nice part of campus, like kind of tucked in the woods, like old stone buildings and stuff. And yeah, you would go there and you just kind of like make up— it was the perfect place for someone like me. And it was one of those things. I don't know how you feel about your education, but the further away I get from my formal education, the more I realize, like, actually a lot of the bricks were kind of laid, like a lot of the foundation was laid there. I was already that kind of person. I was already that kind of person who wanted to be interested in a lot of different things and to kind of synthesize these multiple fields into my own, like, kind of course of study. But I, I had a mom who was a guidance counselor at one time.

She was a principal by the time I went to college, but she kind of knew the lay of the land of the Ohio kind of university landscape. And she's a Bobcat, so I actually wear her Bobcat green apron when I'm doing the dishes. Yeah, that was a really cool program and they housed architecture there. So that's the most important fact in my life because my wife was an architecture student and that's where we met on that Western campus. But that was just like a kind of living learning community. It was like very laid back. It was like, it was a lot of misfit kids, like kids that wouldn't necessarily be like main campus Miami kids. It was just a really special place. And then They shuttered the place not too long after I left. The administration kind of said, this is too expensive or hard for our bottom line. So I think it still exists in some form, but it's not exactly what it was. By the time that my formal education was over, I thought it very paltry, and I didn't think it was that big of a deal. And it's just the more I— further I get away from it, the more I see little seeds that were planted then and how they've, like, bloomed and grown now.

And I think that happens to almost everyone. Whatever feels like a waste at the time, you realize actually that was formative in this one little weird particular way. Now life is only understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.

I enjoyed reading that about you. So I wanna get to your new book, Don't Call It Art. So you write that you were actually schooled by your kids when you, as parents, we think, you know, we're schooling them, we're teaching them, but You expect to be their teacher and yet they're your teacher. Yeah. How did your boys school you?

You know, I kind of went into it like a lot of dads. I was like, oh, well, you know, I'm a bestselling New York Times creativity author. Like I should know how, you know, kids create, how to make a nice environment for kids to create and what they should do with themselves, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And then it was really funny cuz when they got here, they just didn't really seem interested at all in being taught by me. They basically were like, "Over there, Dad, get out of the way." And I learned how to deal with them in this very particular way, which was just that, like, to kind of be there if needed, but otherwise just butt myself out of the situation. So I kind of like found myself in this interesting place where it was like I'd always been the artist in my house and suddenly there were these little like two cavemen Picassos that were running around making all this great stuff. And I was kind of the studio assistant, you know, and I thought, What if I just kind of like lean into this role? What if I'm not actually like a classroom teacher here?

What if I'm more like an assistant or even a librarian? You know, because I used to work in a library. It's like, what if my job is to just give these kids the time, space, and materials and kind of let them rip? And so, yeah, they really taught me kind of more what it was like to be able to access the truly raw kind of creative urge. The title of the book is stolen from something that the artist John Baldessari said, which is, you know, I learned so much from watching a kid draw. Kids don't call it art. They're just doing stuff, you know? And I just thought that was good enough to steal. So, so, but yeah, it was like me stealing from children because there was this weird— and we had this weird thing going on when my kids were like 3, 4, 5, where they would make stuff and I would make stuff. And I remember one day I came out from the studio and Owen looked at me, my oldest, and he said, "What did you make today, Papa?" And then we had this kind of like, you know, it was the first time I'd actually lived with other artists in a sense, 'cause my wife's very creative, but I don't think she necessarily thinks of herself as an artist.

So it was just like a really funny time. I, I had expected to be the teacher and I ended up being the student.

How do you think that experience could be useful for others, especially when they view themselves as the teacher and/or the leader, whether it's their family, it's at work, it's of a team, of you kind of having an open mind and a willingness to become the student, even though that wasn't really the initial idea for you?

Well, I think the best teachers are students. You know, they remain students no matter what they're teaching. And, you know, most of the teachers I've talked to hint that they feel that they learn as much from their students as their students learn from them. I think that's actually one of the great pitches for becoming a teacher, actually, is that it's in the course of trying to teach someone something that you know that you realize what it is that you know and what it is that you don't know. You know, and that was my experience with the kids too, you know, because kids are great because they'll ask you enough questions that suddenly the universe becomes mysterious to you. You know, like you're sitting around having a cup of coffee and the kid comes up and says, "Well, if God created the universe, who created God?" You know, and all of a sudden you're like, "I don't know. Let's ask your mother." That was one of the great things that happened too is my kids kind of taught me that I didn't need to know everything, you know, that it was like not as important to know everything as it is to know how to go about maybe finding out.

And that was one of the things I relied on a lot with them, and I still do, which is, "I don't know the answer to that. How do you think we should figure it out?" You know, and then all of a sudden we go on this journey together of exploring. In the creative person's life, and I think it's probably true of leaders too, there's, there's these modes of knowing and not knowing. You could think about it in terms of like in the social sciences, they call it explore and exploit. You know, when you're young, you're exploring, you're learning, you're figuring things out. Then when you get a job, you're exploiting that knowledge, you know, to make money or do whatever. But I think in order to grow as human beings, we need to kind of toggle back and back and forth between that knowing and not knowing, because the minute you think you know what you're doing is a very dangerous place for anyone who's doing any kind of work, because that's the moment things start getting boring and they start getting stale and you start doing things by routine instead of doing them because of what is needed.

You have to balance that, I think, in your career of that cycle of knowing and not knowing. And the kids just put me in that perpetual not knowing mode that is really rich for creative work because I really think to be a parent is to be a perpetual amateur. And the reason is neither of you have done this before. Neither of you have been in this relationship before, this exact relationship. And even if you've already had a kid before, That doesn't mean that what works with the last kid is going to help with the new kid. And that's true of books and it's true of art. Just because, you know, the last one worked this way doesn't mean that this one's going to work that way. And that works with our corporate projects or whatever else we're working on too. And so to get comfortable being in this amateur, I always like the word amateur because it actually, in the French, it means lover of. And so to be an amateur is to be someone who is mostly in love with the thing that they're doing. They're doing it out of love and not out of material reward.

And certainly in parenting, the only thing you can really do is show up and love the kid. Kids are great because they'll knock you on your ass as far as your pompous sense of certainty about what it is that you do and what you know. And I always think that every great CEO should probably be put in a room with a 4-year-old, you know, because I think that if you match the CEO with a 4-year-old, they both learn something. I'm pretty positive of it.

Well, you talked earlier about— I think we're attracted to people who are activated. I also believe— I'll speak for myself, but I think people in general are as well— we are attracted to people who are very curious about the world, who are very curious about people, and that curiosity, you can lose that over time. And this is something I, as a parent, that I try. So one of the questions I ask walking over the bus stop with my 11-year-old Charlie is, what are some cool questions you asked today? And so if I am regularly asking her questions she's asking, it's letting her know I value asking questions, I value curiosity. And I say that too. I'm like, Charlie, I love how curious you are. Never lose that. In fact, I would love it in parent-teacher conferences when your teacher said, you know, Charlie seems to ask why a lot, or she asks a lot of questions. And to me, that's as good of a compliment because I want that curiosity to stay vibrant. It's attractive. It's, it's inspiring. It makes people want to follow you and you can learn a lot that way too. So I think activation plus curiosity is probably a pretty deadly combo.

Well, and I think that, you know, when we're talking about leadership, You know, I think a lot of people think that the leader is someone who speaks and everyone listens, when in fact the leader listens and the leader asks questions and the leader is curious and wonders how everyone's doing and like, what's happening around here? And so I just think that the cool thing about a 4-year-old is like, they have this kind of activation we're talking about. They are such a learning machine. I mean, they're not a learning machine, they're a learning creature. They are a creature whose whole job is to learn and to be alive to the world in ways that we used to be before we learned the names for everything and we learned supposedly how everything worked. And, oh yeah, that's a tree. Yeah, trees, whatever. You know, when you actually think about a tree and how a tree comes to exist, it's just as mind-blowing as it is to a 4-year-old. So in some ways, you know, one of the things about being around my kids is it's like, how can I kind of make the world as new and magical every day as it is to this little creature who's experiencing it for the first time?

You know, how do you do that? How do you do that? I think for me, it's about, I think, a little bit of magical thinking, actually, you know, because one of the things that 4-year-olds do is everything's alive to them. You know, a house is just as alive to them as a tree. And so One of the things I do is just go around and think, well, what does the universe want to show me today? You know, we talked about paying attention. Well, if you kind of tell yourself, you know, there are useful fictions. So if you say to yourself, what are the messages that the universe is trying to send me today? Then you start seeing all kinds of things. You know, it's also the start of a mental disorder, but also if you go too far, but there is this sense of, it's like, I'm going to be open to what is gonna happen today. And if you go out for a walk or something, it's like you get 100 million messages, you know, just that sense of, you know, the world is alive and it's trying to tell us something. Simply putting yourself in that mindset, I think it's amazing how many good ideas you get and certainly like creative ideas.

One of the things I love that you've written is we're talking about fun now. And you write, when I'm out in the world, I'm not looking for who's successful or doing great work. I'm looking for who seems to be having fun. Talk to me about this idea of like looking out and being inspired or attracted to those who seem to be having fun.

I just think it's like this really underrated thing that fun is not supposed to be a serious thing, that work is supposed to be really hard and life is serious and serious people have a serious time. And I just think it goes back to the Bill Murray thing. It's like if you're doing things with a sense of lightness and you really have a playful spirit about your work, it's pretty fun, you know? And I just think that kids know how to fun. How to know how to fun. I like that. We'll keep that. Kids know how to fun, not to have fun, but to fun. Fun is a verb. Yeah, I like it. I like that. You know, not that it's always fun, but I do think that for me, I, want to know why they seem to be having fun too. Because if you see someone who's having fun, it's like, well, what is it that's— why do they seem that way? You know, it's usually like someone who's totally devoted to their craft and they totally believe in what they do and they would do it even if you paid them a couple bucks, you know, that kind of thing.

So I just think fun is very underrated in this culture. And I think a lot of us don't know how to do it anymore. And so that's why I think it's so powerful. Agree.

I, that as well as like you and your work in general. So this quote, have you heard Lawrence Pearsall Jack's quote? I put it in chapter 6 of one of my books, The Pursuit of Excellence, but it is, quote, a master in the art of living draws no sharp— you know this one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep going. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, no, no. This is one of my favorite quotes of all time and you embody this. The master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

Yeah. It's like one of my favorite quotes ever. And the artists I've studied say that too. It's kind of like, there's a hero of mine, like one of the cartoonists that I really admire, James Kochalka, who said, you know, I don't really see a difference between my work and life. Everything just kind of like flows together. And someone like Andy Warhol was like, you know, I don't worry about whether what I'm making is art. It's like, don't even worry about it. Just get it done and then let someone else call it art if they want to. Yeah. You know, it was just like, just to be doing again, to be activated, to be doing things, to not be worrying You know, another way to put it, I always like to say, like, forget the noun, do the verb. The way I'd put it with writers is that everyone wants to be a writer. I'd love to be a writer, but that writing part, ooh, you know, I don't know about the writing when it should be the opposite way. It's like, well, I love to write. I don't know if I'm a writer or not, but I love to write.

I don't know if I'm an artist or not, but I love to draw. If you can kind of like zoom in on what your verbs are and pay attention to that.

Do you love to write? I've spoken with authors who say, I love to have written.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm one of those.

I think like— Do you love to write or you love to have written?

No, I don't love to write. I would rather do a lot of other things, but I know what writing gives me and I'm addicted to that. I'm addicted to starting with a blank page and then You end up with something. The best days are when you get the blank page in front of you and by the time you're done, you're like, I didn't even know that's what I thought. But that's what I think. You learn in the— so people have this wrong idea about writing and we teach writing terribly in school, which is we have the ideas and you gather up your ideas and then you just have to get them down on paper. When what it really is, is the act of writing, it is the act of thinking. And I think that's why people hate it so much, is that they really, you really, when you're really sitting down and writing, you have to really think about what it is that you're actually trying to say and what it is that you actually really think. And that's the really hard part. So I guess maybe I do like writing. I mean, writing's difficult.

It's not like digging a ditch, although digging a ditch has its you know, manual labor is actually a nice alternative to writing. Like, I always love to like help my wife out in the garden and stuff after a long day of writing because it's like something to do with your hands and yourself. When you work with your brain all day, it's like very difficult to like kind of decouple that at the end or kind of wind down. That's why so many writers are alcoholics. So, uh, you got to find a healthier way to turn your brain off at the end of the day. I'm thinking about that question. Do you like writing? Yeah, I think I do actually. I just like to whine a lot. I'm like other writers, you know, writers love to whine about writing just about as much as they like to write.

I think that actually seems to be the case of all professions. I mean, I know from playing sports, that's all we did was, oh, we gotta go to practice, full pads today. What? It's Tuesday. Oh. Oh, you know, that's all we did. But then when, you know, you got there and you go as hard as you can go and then you, you know, whatever, hang out with your buddies. That's just a thing in the world, right? We all just kind of like to complain about what we do.

People like to complain, you know, it's, it's cathartic in some ways and, and misery loves company. Yeah. Yeah.

The opposite of complaining. One of my favorite pieces of art that you regularly publish are your typewriter interviews. This is an idea that I have idea envy. I was like, I'm just going to steal it and maybe Austin won't know. I'm just going to send you, but Talk to me about the idea that you came up with. I mean, because it's slow, it takes a while. Sometimes people don't send them back, right? Like, I want to hear more about this typewriter interview idea and how you execute on it regularly.

Well, the first thing, and this is going to sound really dumb, you gotta have the typewriter first. Yeah, like, this is something that we don't really think about when we get older, but you gotta have the toy in order to play. You know, all my typewriters are like I found at the thrift store. This is my favorite back here. This is my Smith-Corona. This is just a run-of-the-mill '60s Smith-Corona that I found in a thrift shop or something here in Austin. But I started buying typewriters, so I kind of like had the typewriter, and that's like, well, what do you do with it? Like, a lot of people think, well, you want to think about what you want to do first, and then you get the thing to help you do the thing that you want to do. Whereas what I've learned as an artist is that you kind of have to have the toys first, like, and then you go, what am I going to do with this? You know, I think that way about bicycles. So when people get into bicycles, I love riding my bike. I'm not a cyclist, just like riding my bike, which is a very important distinction for me.

But people think, okay, when I buy a bicycle, I've got to know, okay, well, do you want a gravel bike? Do you want a hybrid bike? Do you want a mountain bike? Do you want these things? You got to figure this out. And I'm like, What you need is a bicycle. It doesn't matter what bike you get, because what happens is you're gonna have the bike, you're gonna ride it, in 6 months you're gonna know what kind of bike you really want. But the most important thing is to have a bicycle. With art, it's kind of like, well, you know, you get this paint and you don't know how it works, and it's like, okay, well, we play with this paint and then we come up with something. So for me, the typewriter, this is a long-winded way of saying, First, there's the typewriter. Well, what the hell do you do with the typewriter nowadays? Okay. And then I have to admit, I love this writer named Joy Williams. She is like kind of off-grid. And there was a site and I forget, I think it's called Lit Hub and a writer in order to interview Joy Williams, the only way they could do that is to send her questions on paper and she wrote back to them.

With her typewriter, and they published the actual thing that she sent back. And you— I can send this to you, like, you'll find it real quick. Just put Joy Williams typewriter interview. And I saw it and I thought, God, this is so fun. And I was like, but they're not gonna, like, make this a series. So I was just like, well, I will. So what happened was I thought, who would be a great person to start? There's another woman that's probably— I don't know if they're in the same age range, but there's this poet that I love named Mary Rufo, and she is the same way. She doesn't like doing this, like, Zoom stuff, but she will do a written typewriter interview. So I found out that she had a book coming out, and what I know about writers is that's when you get them, because they're at the mercy of their publicist. It doesn't matter who it is. So, you know, you reach out to their publicist and say, hey, I got a newsletter with this many people, you know, would Mary like to do an interview? So we started with Mary Rufo, we being me, and it was so much fun.

And it's so fun to send people stuff through the mail. But the one thing I did is I thought about it and I was like, you know, everyone reads stuff on their phones now. So I was like, you gotta make sure the piece of paper will translate well to that screen. And it'd be really cool if the paper was colored, if it was was like yellow or something, so it like popped off the white screen. And so that was like, I was like, okay, cool. Because you don't want to do like a big piece of typing paper and send it to someone and then, and then put that online because you just can't read that. It's too hard. But if you give them like a smaller little piece of paper, you can read that on your phone. Anyway, this is in the weeds, but like, this is the kind of thing is you take someone's idea. This is kind of the steal like an artist thing. It's like you take someone's idea that they really only did once, that they're not gonna do more of it. And you say, "Actually, we could do a whole thing with this." And so after Mary Rufo, I thought, "Well, who would be good after that?" I was like, "Oh, my— this writer I know named Elisa Gabbert, who's a poet who also writes essays that I know loves Mary Rufo.

I can get her to do one because she'll be like, 'Oh, I'm after Mary Rufo.'" So, like, it, like, spiraled from there, and now we've done, like, 20 of them. Which doesn't seem like much, but I only want to publish one like once a month because I think that's like fun. But I literally have like a dozen typewriter interviews in the mail right now and various people.

You get a lot of feedback? I've looked at all of them. I mean, I love them.

Yeah, I don't know that people really— this is the thing, it's like, I don't know how much— I think people like them. Like, everything I hear is positive. Like, I never hear anyone complain about them, but they don't seem to go like viral or anything, you know, which I don't really care about anymore. But like, I think it's so meaningful to me that I really don't even care. Because what happens is when you have a correspondence through the mail, you just kind of like bonded afterwards. I don't know. It's like very strange. But everyone who's done one has said that it's really fun for them because the questions are not— they're like designed to be kind of like not super serious, you know what I mean? Like they're supposed to be fun.

What are some of your favorite questions to put on those cards? So just to describe it, like let's set the stage. So the way I view it online is that there's just a bunch of cards with questions that are obviously typed on a typewriter and some people actually handwrite, some people typewrite their answers back to you and they're all really good writers. It's interesting. There are usually a lot of humor involved, but it's just series of questions on cards that is the opposite of kind of how everything is done now, but it's creative, it's interesting. And yeah, like I said, I, I look forward to when I see a new one and I, I'm looking forward to the ones in the future.

Yeah. So like, basically the idea is whatever people send me back on the cards, like that's what's going up on the site. And like, no one really does that. Like, that's such a weird analog digital hybrid, you know, where it's like, well, we do it through the mail, but then it goes up on the newsletter, which is just on people's phones. But so I'm known as this like analog dude. But it's really the interplay of analog and digital that I find so interesting is like taking analog things and then putting them online where they can be distributed digitally. And so a really concrete example of that is that I make these zines that are these little foldable booklets and they can be printed on single sheets of paper. And so people can download a PDF if they subscribe to my newsletter, they can download a PDF of this. And then there's a video underneath that shows them how to fold it and make it into like an actual booklet that you can read. That's taking— what I'm doing is I'm making something analog, uploading it digitally, and then people make it analog again and they have it in their space.

Yeah. Which is actually what's happening with the books. I'm taking all these notes and all this stuff and like arranging it. You know, we do all the editing and all the designing and stuff, and then it comes out as this analog project. You know, it's a fancy zine is basically how I think about it. But it's that interplay of digital and analog that I think is actually the most interesting. Like, if my life was totally analog, it's like, you know, whatever. But it's like that interplay between digital and analog because everyone's talking about AI right now and stuff. And I was like, You know, 20 years ago, I made the decision that putting the human hand in the work, making it clear that my work is done by a human being, it stood out 20 years ago. It's gonna keep standing out. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Because people want that. They want the imperfection. They want the sense that a human being made stuff. They want this sense of the hand in the stuff. And so, you know, people say, are you really worried about AI? I'm like, well, I'm worried about AI because I grew up in the '90s watching The Terminator and The Matrix and every other Hollywood movie that told us that this is a bad idea.

I'm like, I don't know what the rest of you were doing 30 years ago, but like, you know, I was raised on these movies, you know, so I'm worried about it from a world perspective, but not necessarily for what I do because I already do something that's kind of old-fashioned. Yeah. You know, so I'm not that worried about that.

Yeah. No, I, uh, I'm with you. I think, I think there's maybe even more of a desire for that now more than ever. I've, I've noticed this with, for example, events. I have one coming up next week and once you get there and you see people literally bumping shoulders, oh yeah. I call it like this collision of curious people. You get a sense in the ceiling of people wanting that collision more now than maybe ever in my life.

And it's, it's really cool that when you're there, well, and people our age and you know, anyone who was alive 6 years ago knows what it's like to have that denied to you and what life is like when it's purely digital and you're in your little house and nobody— everyone hated it, right? I mean, some of us liked it, some people liked it, but, you know, like, all of us were— we liked parts of it, but, you know, we, we're human, you know, we're, we're social animals. I mean, the human creature wants to be around other humans. They just do, you know. We like playing together, we like gathering, we like fellowship, and it's always going to be an important thing. And I, again, what we said earlier about— I really feel like when I pick up a book by someone, I want to meet another human being and I want to hear what they think and I want to see the world how they see the world. That's what I want, you know. Yeah, same.

One more question, man. I've been studying how high performers celebrate. I think it's really fascinating.

Okay, so I want to hear this.

Okay, so, well, it's really— you're going to be answering, but I'll pose the question. You may have heard it because I stole this question from my friend Jason Gaynard. Okay, it's called the champagne question. So it's one year from now, you're with your boys, you're with your family, you're with the people that you love, that love you, and you guys are popping bottles and spraying it everywhere. You're celebrating like Crazy. What are you celebrating? It's exactly one year from today.

Oh, I'll tell you what we're celebrating. You know, you know it happened. No, I'm just kidding. I keep one bottle of champagne and I'll tell you who it's waiting on. No, that's a great question. You know, I think like a year from now it would be my youngest getting through middle— his first year of middle school. And these are the real moments of— I mean this sincerely— the older I get, the less the books mean, the less the work means. It's really my family. The only thing I care about is their flourishing and their happiness, really. The books are part of that because it's what keeps food on the table and stuff, but the most important thing to me is the people in my house flourishing. And so if we were going to have a bunch of champagne, I think it'd really just be the end of school, getting through another school year, just because we're headed towards the end of the school year. That's kind dodge of your question, but I think that would be it. But I'm trying to get at your question. I'm not good at celebrating victories because I'm just not.

It feels like by the time the thing happens, I'm already— I want something else, right? And that's that. I don't know if you call it the hedonic treadmill as much as just the treadmill of life. But I will say this morning was the first time I held the new book in my hands. And that is the moment where it's like, like, okay, did we make it work? Did it happen? And I told my wife a month ago, I said, look, I don't really care what happens with this one. I just want to hold this because it's taken so long. It's been so long since I did one of these, and it was such a hard process this time. I said, I just want to hold it and say, yeah, this is what I wanted to do. And then whatever happens, like, I don't care. And that happened this morning. It literally was on my front porch. Like, my editor sent me a copy., and I held it and I said, yeah, pretty good. And that was the champagne moment, you know? But that was kind of like, that's the biggest thing in my life that I've tried to figure out is, and so many people have said this from like, you know, Roxane Gay says this, my friend Ryan Holiday says this, is it's like, there's such a difference between writing and publishing.

You really have to focus on the things that you can control. And when you're a writer, The only thing you can control is what's in between those pages. You know, that cover of that book, what's in the pages. Did you get it down? Did you do a good job? Were you clear? Were you fun? Were you helpful? Were you entertaining? Even that you can't necessarily help. You just have to like do it the best you can. And so for me, it was like, once I hold that book and I'm like, yeah, this is the best I could do right now at this moment in time. That's the victory.

The book's called Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. And I would say, as I told you before we start recording, I think your work is as vital for leaders as anybody's out there because we talk about like, you gotta innovate, you gotta grow, you gotta hit these aggressive goals. If we're a corporate leader or something like that, Austin Kleon's work is like perfect to help you expand your mind, to think a little bit differently, to bring in some art and creativity if you're looking to do something different, something new to make your team better. That's why I love— I read your newsletter every week. It's one of my favorite. I only subscribe to a few. Yours is one of those few that I read the all 10. I'm clicking the links, I'm stealing them and sharing with friends, reading every typewriter interview. So like, I'm a big, big fan of your work. I love that you seem to be fully activated and really, really curious. That's an attractive quality in a person. So I appreciate you, man. And I love to— I'm going to go out to Austin. I'd love to continue our dialog and do this one in person and maybe right there in that studio.

That would be kind of fun to set up some cameras and do it right there.

I always tell people, so I'm a weird guy in that I love when people— I have a sign when you get here, it says walk-ins welcome. I had my friend, you know, I was going to say what you said, like if you want to differentiate yourself in your field, by the way, the easiest thing to do is to read a book outside of it, right? Like that's one of the easiest ways to just You just go a little bit further out than other people are swimming and you find the new water.

I guarantee you will find ideas that will make— they just will. They just make you better. They'll open your mind a little bit and like, oh, I never thought of that connection.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. I was going to say, when you come to the studio, there's a sign that says walk-ins welcome. And it's because every time I go to the barbershop, I see the sign that says walk-ins welcome. I think I'd really like to have that. On my studio, but I could never find the right sign. And then a guy I know, Dean Peterson, who's a film guy, but then he, he lives in LA. He opened this non-alcoholic beer and wine store, and one of the things he did as part of that is he took a sign painting class. He— I don't think he'd ever painted or done art stuff before. They took this sign painting class and started a Instagram account where he learned to paint signs like the old-fashioned way. Like if you saw like an old grocery store where it says like 99 cents, it's in script or whatever. And Dean's not a professional. He only does it for his own shop. But I reached out to Dean. It was so— it's so infectious to watch somebody learn something, to be activated like we've talked about. And I said to Dean, I was like, Dean, can you paint me a walk-ins welcome sign in here?

He's like, yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and he did it. And so every time I look at that sign, you know, these are the things about— we just got done talking about making things and having things in the world. It creates— it's really about the connections they create between us. So when you come down to Austin, walk-ins welcome. We'll have a chat in the studio. Maybe we'll make something together. Maybe we'll do some drawing or something. I would love that. Like a zine.

I love it. Love it. Love it. Well, great. I appreciate you, man. Uh, this is great stuff. And, uh, yeah, like I said, we'll be talking soon. Thank you so much.

Great, thanks, Ryan.

It is the end of the Podcast Club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the Podcast Club. If you are, send me a note, ryan@learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Austin Kleon. A few takeaways from my notes: people want to watch someone who is activated. We are deeply inspired and attracted to leaders who are curious and fully activated, the ones who are obsessed. Jim Collins, Jesse Cole, Austin Kleon. To me, it's fascinating to be around people like that. It seems like this might be becoming more and more rare. So the question is, how can we become more activated, be more curious, be more obsessed with what we're doing each day, and then be a professional noticer of things. I think great leaders are constantly noticing— that's people, ideas, books, podcasts, things out in the world that can make them better. It's interesting to hear that Austin is so motivated by Thoreau and how he created this forcing function of writing in his journal that forced him to be aware and notice things in the world because He needed something to write in that journal, and Austin has his newsletter to work as this forcing function for him.

So I'd ask you, what are some forcing functions you're creating or that you have in your life to ensure you're a professional noticer of things? And then I love thinking about that picture of Bill Murray in his studio to serve as a reminder to, quote, stay light and stay loose, stay relaxed in your work, specifically The photo acts as a visual anchor for him against this pressure of taking himself too seriously, mainly thinking about when he has deadlines or he feels like his work needs to be formal or, quote, important. And I think we'd all be better off if we could stay light and stay loose and stay relaxed. We'd probably play and perform better. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the word and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader's Show with Austin Kleon. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, you subscribe to the show, you rate it, hopefully 5 stars, you write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.