Subtitle: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
Listen Here
Interesting People
Naval Ravikant (Website/Twitter/Must Read Free Book)
Interesting Links
Books Mentioned
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon
Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Pre-Suasion by Robert B. Cialdini
Keep Going by Austin Kleon
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Zero To One by Peter Thiel
Extra Notes
These are Notes that didn't make it into the episode, but still hold value in them.
A personal story of mine. When working on the first series, I moved into a different apartment for a few days. I remember I'd be working, then getting tired. I'll take a break and start watching YouTube and checking Reddit. But, eventually, I'll get bored. I remember I was so bored that I actually chose to get back to work than sitting doing nothing.
Learn about money and managing it. And always stay out of debt. Tips for Everyone
Remember our territory from The War of Art. One of its characteristics was it being self-sustaining, without the need for external validation. However, sometimes, you'll get praised for your work. Here, you should have a praise folder. Take screenshots of messages, emails, or comments that you liked. Keep them in a folder for the rainy days, but don't get too lost in the past glory.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn"~ T.S Eliot
Episode Transcript
Episode Introduction
[0:00] Hello and welcome to the TLDR Show, a podcast where I distill the knowledge of books just for you. I am your host, Abdelrahman, and I am very excited to have you with me. For today's episode, we continue our series on creativity. In the last episode, we covered The Art of War by Steven Pressfield. We talked about what's resistance, its characteristics, and its symptoms. We learned how we can defeat it by turning pro and got to know the angels and muses. Today, we'll start Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist trilogy. Just like how the War of Art was broken down intro 3 sections, defining the enemy, turning pro, and beyond resistance. This trilogy has a similar structure. The 1st book will give us the needed tools to start. The 2nd book will be about using these tools to create something we love. And the final book will set us to start our journey, in a way beyond our horizons.
I read this trilogy when I was deciding on whether I should be making this podcast or not. And I have to admit, in those doubtful days, they gave me a push.
Without further a due, let us dive into our second book, Steal Like An Artist, subtitled 10 things nobody told you about being creative by Austin Kleon.
Austin Kleon Introduction
Let us start by introducing our author. Austin is a writer who draws. He makes art with words and books with pictures. He's the author of the best-selling books Newspaper Blackout, and our lovely trilogy Steal Like An Artist. You can find a number of his talks at TEDx, Google, SXSW, and Pixar on YouTube. You can find him on Twitter at AustinKleon and on his website Austinkleon.com
Steal Like An Artist Introduction
Now, the book is written to follow an artist's early journey. From answering where ideas come from, to copying and at the end of it all, sharing the work. As always, you don't need to be a creative person in the literal sense to get value out of this book. And as Austin says, "These ideas apply to anyone who's trying to inject some creativity into their life and their work. This should describe all of us". So, let us get started.
I break down the book into 4 sections. The myth of originality, the importance of input, the creative process, and sharing the work.
Let us start with the myth of originality.
The Myth of Originality
[2:40] Every artist gets asked, "Where do you get your ideas?". The honest answer would be," I steal them". You look into the world for what is worth stealing. You grab what's worth it and move on.
This points out something very important. There's nothing Original. It's just that we don't know the references. Every work is built on something else. This's the core premise of the whole book. If you embrace it, you won't have to suffer through trying to be original. But rather, you'll focus on being your authentic self.
The Importance of Input
[3:14] This leads us to what creates your ideas. Just like how your parents' and ancestors' genes, determine your mix. Your mentors, friends, choice of books, music, and activities determine what comes out of your mind. And the quality of what comes out is correlated with the quality of the input. As anyone who did any software simulation or modeling knows, garbage in, garbage out.
So, how do start creating a good input?
I- Curiosity
The key is curiosity. It's about having questions, looking them up, letting the rabbit hole take you, and enjoying the process. A dear friend of mine is a master of following rabbit holes. He'd read a tweet or a statement somewhere, and then oops, 6 hours later and 30+ tabs open. He'd be telling me the most fascinating things about the world.
So, do you have a question, google it. Check YouTube if you don't want to read. Found interesting links, save them somewhere for future reference.
This also relates to the podcast tagline "Be Curious, Be Critical". I want you to have questions and look into things and devour as much knowledge as you can. After getting all the input, the key is to be critical. Analyze what you just read, watched, or heard. Does it make sense? Is it contradicting another idea that you have? Is there a different way or place to apply this knowledge?
One of my goals is while you're listening to these episodes is to question what I'm saying. Check the show notes for links and extra notes that didn't make it into the episode. And whether you agree or disagree, I'd love to hear from you.
II-Great Mentors
[4:57] So, curiosity is the foundation for good input. Let us see how can you find mentors.
You start by finding someone that you really like. And just follow and devour their knowledge, styles, and content. Then, look into another 3 people that this mentor-like, and repeat. In a way, you'll build your tree of mentors, starting with one, then branching out of them and repeating that.
For me, this was finding Tim Ferris back in 2017-2018. He introduced me to Stoic philosophy, Ryan Holiday, Naval Ravikant, and many great people that I consider my mentors. For you, your mentor could be a family member, a colleague, or like me someone that you probably won't meet. Your mentorship could be formal in the sense both of you, your mentor, and mentee, acknowledge the relation. A piece of advice from Tim is to look for a mentor that doesn't necessarily give you answers. But rather, gives you a better way of looking for ones. So, instead of saying this's the way, they could say well, let me walk you through the process of how I could have done it.
On a side note, Tim has a whole book titled "Tribe of Mentors". Here, he reached out to top performers in the world in every field. They gave answers to questions like what are 1-3 books that greatly influenced your life? Two of my favorites are, do you have a favorite failure of yours? And When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?. I highly recommend reading this book.
III-Reading Books
[6:42] Now, coincidentally, the idea of the tree of mentors reminded me of a quote by Naval about how to start reading. He said "Read what you love, till you love what you read". So, you start with what's fascinating to you. Sci-fi, romance, fantasy, or any genre. Eventually, you'd want more, so you go up into non-fiction and science. And you keep climbing this knowledge tree till you can pick any book and start reading it.
Since we mentioned earlier, the garbage in, garbage out. What to read matters as well. For Naval, you should read, microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers. And these should give you a very strong foundation to better understand yourself and the universe. I'll link to his podcast as well as his reading recommendation in the show notes.
IV- Quality People Around You
[7:37] The last key on quality input, and a very important one, is the quality of people around you. Again, quoting Tim Ferris, "You're the average of the five people you associate with the most". These 5 could influence everything in you, from simple things like favorite restaurants. To major ones such as your view on money, political parties, how you spend your free time, and maybe even partner preferences.
So, to optimize your input, be curious, be critical, have mentors, read quality books and choose your close friends wisely.
Starting Your Work: Copying
[8:17] Now, when the ideas start flowing in you, they'll need to get out. So, you should start making stuff. You shouldn't wait till you know who you're or what's your niche is. But, we saw how resistance can be tricky to battle.
If you're asking, how do I start? Well, you copy. You copy the work that you love. Don't pass others' work as your own, but reverse engineer it and add your personal touch. Remember your tree of mentors, copy their work, internalize their styles till you find your own voice and breakthrough. As Kobe Bryant said, "I have stolen all of these moves from all these great players. I just try to do them proud, the guys who came before, because I learned so much from them. It's all in the name of the game. It's a lot bigger than me". So, copy and transform it into your own work.
As you copy, there'll a faint glow of your style being developed. Here, you will start to question, what should I create now? Just like Naval's advice on reading what you love, you should create what you love. Start by creating the story that you want to read, the music that you want to hear, build the app that you want to use, the business that you want to run, or in my case, the podcast that I want to listen to.
The Creative Process
Use Your Hands
[9:38] Now, let us move into the 3rd section and see how can we improve our creative process.
The first tip is to simply use your hands. But, not on a keyboard and a laptop, but rather using pens and paper. When creating ideas, engaging as many senses as possible is the optimum environment for ideas to flow in. So, if possible, introduce analog into your process. Have some pens, a whiteboard, sticky notes, and paper. Whenever you're in need of creating ideas, use them, Scribble on the sides, stand while working, have some arrows connecting ideas all over the work. And when you're done, transfer it to your computer and start working.
Side Projects and Hobbies Are Important: Practice Productive Procrastination
[10:24] The second tip for your lovely process is to always have some side projects and hobbies.
For hobbies, In my opinion, they're a necessity in anyone's life. You should have a hobby, or two that you do just for yourself. You do them, to wind down, empty your mind, and recharge your soul.
As for having multiple side projects at once, this falls under productive procrastination.
Let us see few examples. If you're learning to code, and you're giving it your 100%. When you meet a wall and procrastinate, you'll stop for a bit. And if you don't have a hobby to recharge, the sense of guilt on stopping will set in, and resistance will take control.
Now, if instead, you're learning to code and photography. When you stall on coding, you can move on to photography. This sense of making progress will recharge you into getting back to coding.
A second example is from reading books. In our first series, the last book Pre-Suasion was the toughest to complete. I procrastinated on it for days. So what I did was, I picked up a fiction book. At the time, I chose "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir, which I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. Reading a fiction book helped me wind down and ease myself back into reading Pre-Suasion.
So, when reading books, pick a few that you think you'll like. Have a fiction book on standby, and whenever you get bored from one, just move to the next.
On boredom
[11:58] Our 3rd tip to help with the creative process is to embrace boredom. Boredom isn't having anything to do. It's when the available options, are satisfying enough.
Don't always try to elevate it by doing something or checking your phone. You need to be bored in order for your mind to have a chance and work, for ideas to connect.
The best ideas come from when we are doing boring activities, washing the dishes, hoovering the floor, folding our cloth, or simply staring at the wall. I'll link to a video on YouTube video by Veritasium titled "Why Boredom is Good For You" in the show notes. A nice quote from Franz Kafka, the German author, "It isn't necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't wait, be still and alone. The world will offer itself to you"
So try and impose this self solitude and be bored. Every now and then, disconnect your phone and laptop and just sit down, and as Austin says in the book, Keep Going, Airplane Mode can be a way of life. If your house is too noisy, then go for a walk. Don't listen to music or podcast. Just listen to your voice and thoughts. And maybe, just maybe, the muse will come down and tell you a secret.
Keep Your Day Job
[13:15] Our next tip is to keep your day job. It'll give your financial cushion. Provide you with social interactions and most importantly establish a routine for you. As Austin says, "Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time. Inertia is the death of creativity". I'll go further and say, without routine, you can't establish any new habits, review your life direction or even measure your current progress. We'll come back again to daily routines when we cover the last book of the series, Keep Going.
Physical Calendar
[13:51] Talking about routines, the next tip is having a physical calendar. This's how you can apply it. Take an A4 paper. Make a table, write the things you want to commit to in rows and days of the month in columns. Going on a walk, practicing a new language for 20 minutes, studying or reading 10 pages, exercising, meditating. Whatever you want, just write them down. In front of each activity, have a box for each day. Your job becomes to just cross that box by the end of the day.
Our minds can't understand the compound effect of long-term goals and habits. This calendar will help you keep the chain in mind. In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, there's a graph that shows the difference of improving and declining 1% per day for a whole year. The mathematical expression is as follows. Staying the same over the course of a year would be (1)^365=1. Nothing changed. Now, declining by 1% will be (0.99)^365= 0.03. This means if your skill was at 100%, you'll only have 3% by the end of the year. How much do you think improving by 1% each day for a year would return? (1.01)^365=37.8 times the improvement.
So, have your calendar, and make tiny baby steps each day, and keep pushing your flywheel from the previous episode. Trust me, it'll pay off.
Parkinson's Law
[15:41] Our next tip will introduce us to a new law. Parkinson's Law says that "Work gets done in the time available". So, if you put 10 days to read a book, you'll probably use them. If you put 3, you'll probably finish it in 3. The trick is not to be so lax that you stretch everything, and not be so unrealistic that you never meet any of your goals.
Use the Agile framework. It was created for software development. It calls for continuous improvement and flexibility as you're working on the project. So, for you. When you set a goal, keep measuring your progress. If this method isn't working, then learn and be adaptive. Don't wait till the end to review and course correct for the next one. The idea of applying business principles to individuals comes from the book Zero To One by Peter Thiel. Which I mentioned in the previous episode, and I'm planning to cover in a future episode, so stay tuned.
Creativity Is Subtraction
[16:43] Our final tip is to understand that what's important and what to leave out. In our 1st episode of Predictably Irrational, we mentioned how we have an irrational tendency to leaves all options open. This gives us choice paralysis, and we lose focus on what's really important. At the time, my advice was to use the 80/20 principle, which's still applicable. Choose what 20% can really deliver your message, and leave the rest. In a way, this's the essence of the TLDR Show. It's about subtracting any book to its core ideas. So, yeah, choose wisely and have fun.
The Secret: Do Good Work & Share It with People
[17:24] Now, you started copying, you're working on side projects and hobbies, and you start producing some work.
The next step is to share it with the world. We're not talking about showing it to a small group of friends and asking for an opinion. You should be letting it out to the whole world.
The good news is when you're unknown, there's no public image to maintain, no huge paycheck on the line. It's just you and the work.
Also, you'll eventually get some negative things said to you. We talked about how to face criticism in The War of Art, and we'll discuss it again in the next book, Show Your Work. But, I'd like to share a different piece of advice here.
The Man in the Arena is an excerpt of a speech delivered by Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th American President. It talks about the ones who deserve credit. The ones who're doing the work despite the critics, success or failure. It goes like this. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat".
Conclusion
[19:22] To wrap things up, The book opened with a quote from Pablo Picasso, "Art is Theft". Today, we talked about how originality is a myth. It's the shackle that tying down a lot of people, and preventing them from starting their work. We moved from there onto how we can get ideas, quality input, quality output. The keys for quality input are curiosity, having great mentors, reading books, and having quality people around you.
From there, we talked about starting the work by copying our mentors. We keep copying till we start to create our own style, and ideas start to flow. Here, we learned some tips to help us in the creative process, from using analog and boredom to Parkinson's Law and the agile framework.
And we wrapped all of this, by sharing our work with the world.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Let me know which parts were useful to you? Did use any of the tips for the creative process? Send me your thoughts and stories over Twitter and Instagram at TldrShow.
Next week, we will cover the third book of this series, "Show Your Work" and continue our journey and have a very nice boxing lesson, so stay tuned.
As always, make sure to check the website at tldr-show.com for the show notes, links to social media, episode transcript, and the extra good stuff. Till next time, be critical, be curious.
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