Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again!
If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room
Fake it ’til you make it. Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself.
Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want—that just kills creativity.
Not So Secret Formula
Do good work and share it with people.
Step one, “do good work,” is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. You should expect to stink for a while. Fail. Get better.
Step two, “share it with people,” was really hard up until about ten years ago or so. Now, it’s very simple: “Put your stuff on the Internet.”
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Remember “garbage in, garbage out”? You’re only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with.
In the digital space, that means following the best people online—the people who are way smarter and better than you, the people who are doing the really interesting work.
Steal Like An Artist
Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.
You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences.
Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.
If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.
Imitation Vs Emulation
Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style.
Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing.
All you need is a little space and a little time—a place to work, and some time to do it; a little self-imposed solitude and temporary captivity.
Creative
Life is a lonely business, often filled with discouragement and rejection. Validation is for parking, but it’s still a tremendous boost when people say nice things about our work.
It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don’t have that energy if you waste it on other things.
Learn from them; steal from them.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Curious
You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead. Google everything. Google your dreams, Google your problems. You’ll either find the answer or you’ll come up with a better question.
Reveal Your Secrets
Step 1: Wonder at something.
Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you. You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about.
If everybody’s wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges. The more open you are about sharing your passions, the closer people will feel to your work.
Artists aren’t magicians. There’s no penalty for revealing your secrets.
Make Stealing A Habit
Figure out what time you can carve out, what time you can steal, and stick to your routine. Do the work every day, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop.
Parkinson’s Law: “Work gets done in the time available.”
Get a calendar. Fill the boxes. Don’t break the chain.
Limitations mean freedom
In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out so they can concentrate on what’s really important to them.
In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in; it’s the things we choose to leave out. Choose wisely.
Copycat
We learn by copying.
We’re talking about practice here, not plagiarism—plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work off as your own.
First, figure out who to copy.
Second, figure out what to copy.
Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them”!