Steal Like An Artist - Austin Kleon

Growing up, my dad would take us to the Borders bookstore in Singapore for hours on end — sometimes all day. We’d only pause to eat lunch or sip coffee. Singapore was just an hour away by plane from our home in Jakarta, Indonesia, but those trips felt like little adventures into a world full of stories.

To this day, I keep books around me. Sometimes I read them, sometimes I don’t — but their presence always makes me feel safe.

What follows are notes I took from a fantastic book on inspiring creativity: Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.

• Get comfortable with being misunderstood.

• Marry well - it takes a real champion of a person to be married to someone deeply passionate about their creative pursuits.

• Creativity is subtraction.

• Learn about money.

  
  

• Make yourself a budget.

  
  

• Live within your means. Keep your day job. Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art.

• Establish and keep a routine.

• The best way to get approval is not to need it.

• Show your appreciation without expecting anything in return

• Take time to be bored.

• Build your world.

• It helps to live around interesting people. Not just people who do what you do.

  
  

• Oh, and food. Creatively, socially, spiritually, and you know, for fuel.

• Be nice, the world is a small town. If you talk about someone on the internet, they will find out.

• Stand next to the talent. Please find the most talented person in the room and stand next to them. If you're the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.

• The only people in my circle who are worth learning from are those who I can learn from. - Quest Love

• Make friends, ignore enemies.

• Creative people need to sit and do nothing, preferably in a beautiful place or somewhere you can be without your phone and computer.

• A hobby is something that brings you happiness; it is regenerative, much like church.

• "If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

• OBSCURITY IS GOOD - you'll never get that freedom again once you've made attention.

• It's not that people are mean or cruel, it's just that they're busy.

• People love it when you give your secrets away.

• Surround yourself with things that you love: books, art, music, nature, animals, and humans.

• The ideas in this book inspired me, so if you need a little inspiration, check out Austin Kleon's work https://austinkleon.com/

• You can purchase the pretty hardcover here:

https://geni.us/steal10th