Advice Stolen from “Steal Like an Artist”
Welcome to Books @IdeaBooth, a book club I’ve started with the eight apprentices working at Idea Booth this summer. If you work closely with me, you know that I believe reading is vital to personal growth and self-development. I try to read at least one book a week and am trying to pass this onto my co-workers and apprentices. Each week, we will read a book and one of my apprentices will respond with their thoughts and takeaways. This week we read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, a book that inspired many of my business decisions and helped me find my personal voice by borrowing from others.
Towards the end of my senior year of high school, my AP Psychology teacher said something that has stuck with me. Nothing, he said, is unique anymore. My initial reaction: he’s crazy. My reaction today: he’s right.
I like to think of myself as a creative person, but my ideas, no matter how cool they end up being, are never my own. They’re always stole them.
Mad? Think I’m a phony? A fraud? You’re wrong and I don’t care. Read Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. He gets it.
Here’s the thing — and Salvador Dali said it best — those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. If you want to create something, start by copying. Copy your heroes, the people who inspire you and who you aspire to be. That being said, don’t copy blindly. It’s not what you copy that’s important, it’s the thinking behind what you’re copying. You copy your heroes so you can see how their brains work.
Eventually you’ll find out the truth: you can’t copy them perfectly. Just like you’re the best you in the world, they are the best them. Your attempts at imitation will eventually turn into emulation and that’s when the magic happens. Through failing to be someone else, you end up finding your own voice. Don’t underestimate this process; it’s something that some people never achieve. The people who can’t overcome this hurdle are the ones that don’t make it.
So you’ve found your voice… Now what? The answer is not to plop yourself in front of computer screen and mindlessly word vomit. Technology is inertia and inertia is the death of creativity. With computers, there are simply too many chances to hit delete. Nothing even remotely creative ever started at a computer screen. You must start with your hands. Kleon has his workspace divided into two parts: analog and digital. Start with analog. Move to digital only when you have a concrete idea or content you want to edit. When you get stuck, return to analog. Repeat until you have a finished product.
It might suck. In fact, most times it probably will suck. That’s ok, you want as much failure as you can stomach. When, you get to a point that failing is so painful that you want to quit, good. Steel yourself and then take even more. Failure paves the path to success.
However, stealing and failing are only half of the equation. You also must surround yourself with greatness. NEVER be the smartest person in the room, according to Kleon. Personally, I want to be in a room of people that inspire me and who I can learn from. I want to take what they know — and then do it better.
The summer before my junior year of high school, I attended a two-week intensive creative writing workshop at Kenyon College. Going in, I thought I was hot shit. It only took me about an hour being there to realize that out of 90 kids, I was the worst writer. I was among Presidential Scholars, published poets and future Ivy Leaguers. I was left humbled and hungry. The workshop lit an indomitable fire inside me that has never left. This book reaffirmed what I already knew: you don’t learn anything if you think you’re the best.
Just like the title suggests, Steal Like an Artist isn’t original. All of the concepts are things that I — and probably you too — already knew. The best thing the book provides is permission. Permission to borrow, steal, copy and most importantly, find yourself. I’ve only discussed a few of the tips that Kleon covers in his book. The rest — figuring out what to steal from him, and me — is up to you.
Thanks for reading! Want to join our book club? Follow this publication and read along with us. Up next: Manage Your Day to Day.
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