The Daily Stoic - Ask Daily Stoic: Austin Kleon

Episode Date: March 14, 2020

Ryan chats with Austin Kleon, author of great books like Steal Like An Artist.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. Or each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at alestowac.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to Business Wars on Amazon Music,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome to another Saturday episode of the Daily Stoke, really excited about this week's episode because we're doing Ask Daily Stoke with another author with a great friend of mine Austin Cleon Austin Cleon wrote Steel Like an Artist keep going show your work He has a steel like an artist journal even his poetry is really great He does his newspaper blackout poems. He's awesome

You can check him out on Instagram as I think it's at Austin Cleon But I thought I'd tell a quick somewhat funny funny story about Austin. When I first moved to Austin, Texas, I'd always been a big fan of Austin, Cleon, and our books had both come out at roughly the same time. This is 2012, 2013. I shot Austin an email and he said, hey, I live right down the street. I'll take you to lunch.

And so we met for lunch at a place that no longer exists in Austin because everything is getting torn down and replaced. But so we had lunch. I remember I had meatloaf. I don't remember what Austin had, but then Austin was like, I'm going to drive you around and show you the town. And so we were driving. And I think Austin was going slow, or the person behind him was, when front of him was

going slow. Anyways, you know how it goes, like somebody honked, somebody flipped into another person off, and then road rage ensued, not by Austin, but by this person who was mad at us of this person sort of races around us at Honks and then it sort of disappears and we think that's gonna be the end of it and We're driving around Austin and then we're coming up. This is on airport boulevard in Austin If you know it's sort of there's like a a long john silver is like sort of MLK between 12th and MLK on airport boulevard. And we're driving. And all of a sudden, I see out of the corner of the eye, maybe like two or three hundred yards up the road, the guy that had been honking at us. And I

said, awesome, that's the guy. He's like gone around and is like cutting us off. And I was like, no way, that's insane. And I'm like, Austin, he, that's the guy. He's like gone around and is like cutting us off. And I was like, no way, that's insane. And I'm like, awesome, he's out of the car. The guy had gotten out of his car, gotten in front of us, gotten out of his car. And I see him reaching to his car. And I'm like, oh man, this is not gonna go well. So he's gonna shoot us, like what's gonna happen.

And then he grabs like one of those like 52 ounce giant sodas from 7-11 that he had in his car and he hurls it. And I see it hurtling through the air. Not like a perfect spiral, like a football. It's just sort of hurtling through the air. And I'm doing the math in my head about looking at the trajectory scene where it's going. And then it occurs to me that the window of the car is open

and I go, there's no way this could possibly, you can't possibly hit a moving car from that distance with a cup full of soda. That's the craziest thing I ever heard. But sure enough, it's coming and coming and Austin kind of slams on the brakes and it lands on the hood of the car in the windshield and it just explodes everywhere. And that was my welcome to Austin, Texas, by Austin, Cleon.

It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life, one of the weirdest things in my life. And I think a good reminder of this stoic idea of anger always makes stuff worse. Seneca had this great joke. He said, like, you would never return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule. And I just, I laughed so hard when I think about this guy. But whatever Austin could have possibly done to him, no matter how mad he could have possibly been by this experience of, you know,

not liking someone's driving, he literally wildly drove, cut us off, laid in weight, and then threw a giant soda. And almost, he almost nailed it. I mean, if it didn't explode it in the car, I mean, it would have been unreal. And yet, so preposterous. So sometimes when I get upset, I think about that guy, and I think about him when I'm driving all the time, and I wonder what he's up to. I can't imagine things are going well, because that does not seem like a personality well-suited to this aggravating world that we live in.

Well, that's my intro for Austin Clean. I think you did a great job answering these questions and I can't wait for you guys to listen. March 14th, the Daily Stoic, Self Deception is our enemy. Zeno would also say that nothing is more hostile to a firm grasp on knowledge than self-deception is our enemy. Zeno would also say that nothing is more hostile to a firm grasp on knowledge than self-deception. Self-deception, delusions of grandeur, these aren't just annoying personality traits. Ego is more than just off-putting and obnoxious. Instead, it's the sworn enemy of our ability to learn and grow.

As Epictetus put it, it is impossible for a person to begin to learn that what she thinks he already knows. Today, we will be unable to improve, unable to learn, unable to earn the respect of others if we think we're already perfect, a genius admired far and wide. In the sense ego and self-deception are the enemies of things we wish to have

because we dilute ourselves into believing we already possess them. So we must meet ego with the hostility and contempt that it insidiously deploys against us to keep it away if only for 24 hours at a time. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the

world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to

learn along the way, like confronting big challenges and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery. Alright, welcome to this week's episode of Ask Daily Stoic. People send in their questions, info at DailyStoic.com, and then usually I answer them, but sometimes we have awesome guests. Today's guest is Austin Client, one of my favorite writers.

If you haven't read Steel Like An Artist, you definitely should. I think it was a profoundly influential book for me as a writer. If you're not a writer or a creative, but you're thinking about this, I think your most philosophical book is the new one Keep Going, which is like sort of how does one find hope and optimism and structure inside the chaos of the modern world. So we've got some questions. The first question today is from Jim. So he said he's read the daily stoke emails, watched the YouTube channel that he knows the stokes were big on the practice of journaling, was journaling their approach to meditation or simply reflecting on their day, what stillic approaches do they have to improve creativity? So let's start with that with you because I think that how does journaling help foster

creativity in your practice? I think that what journaling does is it shows you what you're actually thinking. Now that's something I sound really weird, but I think a lot of people think that writing is about having an idea and then putting it down on the page where writing is actually about figuring out what you think as you're writing it. So a lot of times when I really sit down and journal in the free way that I do it,

I'll discover things that I didn't know I was thinking about. Sure. And things will come out of me. You know, your brain is working on stuff all the time, but you don't know what it is. So when you let your brain kind of speak to the page, then you like sort of see what you've got. And that is essentially a creative act,

that you're making something new in the world that even you didn't know existed. And so I think it's pretty rare in our lives that we have situations in which we can just kind of let our kind of subconscious or what we're, you know, let things happen basically. And I think there's a freedom to journaling that you don't even really know the full depths of what you're thinking until you really sit down and start writing about it. I think that's totally right.

And I think if we're tying journaling to stoicism, one of the things that they're obviously doing is writing things they're obviously doing is writing things they already know or they've already thought, so there's a repetition to it. So also the idea of journaling as like priming the pump as sort of getting yourself going with sort of things,

like sort of riffing, like in the way if you were sitting down with a guitar to warm up, you would play through scales or you would play through, you know, like the risks from some of your favorite songs, or go through different chord progressions. You're warming up to get to a place where then you can be improvisational, or you can be creative. Very few people can just like go from zero to 60. You have to warm yourself up. And so for me,

journaling is like, it's stretching a little bit, it's warming myself up. It's just, it's doing the act of writing, but with no real intention other than for doing it. And then, yeah, sometimes you pop up ideas or I also like, like one of the reasons, one of the, we have this in the daily stock journal is like the idea of prompts, like also giving yourself a question to respond to is, is a way to maybe get started. I think that's a big problem for a lot of people is they look at a blank page and they're like, what should I write down? And so I think having a prompt, having like, I know some writers that

it's like, I just, I think it was Lydia Davis, she said, like, I just never look at a blank page. That just doesn't happen. So, you know, Sholeys shoulder, I even find that just writing the date at the top of the page is enough writing to just get me, okay, I'm in that mode now. I just really believe, as someone who also draws, there's something about the lines that you put down, influence what comes next. Like the lines sort of speak to you and give you new ideas, like just seeing yourself right, a word or a sentence, then kickstart something else in your brain. So I think it's really just about the doing. Okay, I love that. All right. So the next question is from Ryan Ling. He says, uh, my wife and I just had our first son 11 weeks ago prior to his son's

arrival. He was on track reading, he was mastering new skills, et cetera. He did our read to lead challenge. I think you know where this is going. Yes. So now that the son is here, it's hard to find time to read and focus and learn while he is reading.

Do we have any advice for making time to read or making books sticked while he's so sleep deprived. It says, I don't wanna miss time with my son or miss out on reading. I'll leave the first. My advice would be to give yourself a year. I just think the first year of having any kid is kind of a wash.

I would say, I'm a big fan of like, what's the one-armed version of what you can do. Like, so like, what can you hold a baby? Yeah, sure. I like to. So audio books. So like audio books, I have a buddy who swears by the new AirPods because he can just like have that going while he's like with the kid rocking it.

Yeah, there's no core to get in the way. I would also give yourself the excuse to read things that you think might be below your level. Yeah. Like to just like one of the things I've been doing that I do at the breakfast table is I read books for kids. So like I just read a history book that was written for kids in the 30s and it's amazing. It's like it's a better world history than I've ever read before. But it's technically below my like reader level. But it's what my brain can handle in the morning. But my main advice to new parents is to go easy on yourself. Totally. Totally. You have a much more important

thing than reading. And you can learn so much about yourself, about humanity, about biology from just like actually engaging in this experience that you're in. And don't, about humanity, about biology, from just like actually engaging in this experience that you're in. And don't, you know, don't discredit. You should read whatever you wanna read to them. Like, they're not understanding anything that's happening. So just, what they like is your voice. Yeah.

So, yeah, so read either, either read, like, we're just starting to go through the children's illustrated classics right now. But also, yeah, just read whatever you're, if you're reading a business book, read the business book out loud, like they're not going to notice. So that's definitely one thing I would do. Yeah, take it easy. Sometimes you're going to be so afraid you just need to like relax and vege out in front

of the television. Don't feel bad about that at all I don't think although we just started doing something in the car. I realized it was like I was like I listened to podcasts myself What I was like what earth? So this is for a slightly older than an 11-week old obviously, but I was like What could we listen to that would make my kid better? Yeah And so I found these old radio recordings of ASOPs Fables. Oh, cool.

And so like some of them are real dark. But like, I was like, oh, like people have been learning, this is what we use, we would have sat around the campfire or the fire place in our log cabin in 150 years ago. That's the idea. And well, not the radio. I would, you would read in,

I would be reading Hans Christian Anderson or you'd be reading Hans Christian Anderson, or you'd be reading, you know, A-Sop, or whatever. Like so, also just start actively thinking about like, what are the ideas or lessons or morals you want to teach your kids and you can read those too. So what I would think. That's nice, I like that. And the other question we get a lot related to this,

is like, how can I introduce, you know, like stoicism to my kids? That's the other thing we get a lot related to this is, like, how can I introduce, you know, like, stilicism to my kids? That's the other thing we're starting to think about. It's like, don't baby your kids when it comes to books. Like, just read them the stilics. Like, like an eight year old, a thousand years ago would have been expected to read Seneca in the original Latin at age eight.

You know what I mean? Like, so, so like, let them read it. They don't have to understand it, but let them read it or encourage them to read it or read them passages. Like, don't be, I think the idea of baby in your kids when it comes to books is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, so we started doing the A subspavals and it's like, he's talking, he's three, a little over three.

He's talking to me about, he's at least, I can tell he's at least getting that the animals are up to things. Do you know what I mean? And like, so we'll listen's at least getting that the animals are up to things. Right. Right. Do you know what I mean? And like, so we'll listen to him a hundred times and eventually he'll get it, but like, why not start that instead of dumb kids songs?

I mean, my kids both read now and he just reads them a lot and you have to make sure that they see you reading and that you have a lot of books in the house. Yeah. Two. Like, I find this with parents all the time is that they want their kids to do things that they don't do themselves. Like, how can I get my kid to learn the violin or play the piano? It's like, well, how do you practice it?

What instrument do you practice in front of them? Right. They want to do what you're doing. Yeah. Most of the time, you're watching TV or typing on your phone. Yeah. And then you're surprised that. They want to do what you're doing. Yeah. Most of the time you're watching TV or typing in your phone. Yeah. And then you're surprised that they only want to do. That's what they want to do. I was really, for a while, we were thinking about homeschooling our kids and we still reserve that option. But one of one of the guys I got super into when I was reading about that, he's a guy named John Holt.

And he wrote some really beautiful books in the 70s and 80s. And his big thing about kids, he's a guy named John Holt. And he wrote some really beautiful books in the 70s and 80s. And his big thing about kids is he felt that children were in the world seeing adults doing real work enough that they were sort of siloed off at school and that they didn't get to. Now, a lot of us do work that isn't very demonstrable. I mean, we do sit in front of a computer all day,

but that's why I think it's so important at home is to have like physical activities that they see you doing. One of the first emails we wrote for daily dad, which is the other thing we do other than you know, they spoke, but it was like let them see you work. Like the work, you know, like how they created those cargo cults, like where people would see the planes land. And that these cults, like where people would see the planes land, and that these indigenous people would see these planes land.

They didn't get where it was coming from or whatever. Where it can't be this place that you go and disappear to and come home and they vaguely understand that it's related to money and related to, you have to bring them into what you're doing, so they learn to love it, and they learn to see that it's something that you love, and that it's something to be admired, and that it's a part of you not a hidden thing that you do behind closed doors. And I think reading is a great example of that.

Yeah, if you want them to read, show them day to day the ROI of reading. Show that it's a place of connection with you, show that it has an outsized role in your life. Like, don't talk about it, be about it. You know what I mean? And that's the key. For me, the hardest thing about parenting is that you have to become the kind of man that you want them to be.

Sure. Like, you have to become the kind of human being that you want them to become. And that's the hardest. Just. Well, that's the hardest. Just. Well, no, that's the hardest part of parenting. That's absolutely. That's Marcus really this thing. We have this print.

I have it actually. On the way up to my office, I have the original, like the actual sort of letterpress metal thing that they made it on. I think it looks even cooler. But he says, like, let's waste no more time talking about what a good man is. Let's, he says, be one. And I think, yeah, it's like, you're going to read a million parenting books.

You get asked for advice from all these people, like, just doing, doing Lichit is like the way to do it. Like, you got to be about it. I would also encourage specifically dads. I think a real trap for a man who's starting out as a father. So think about all these things. You're going to teach them. Yeah. Teach them how to write book, teach them about Marcus Roois, teach them how to do the best, but all this stuff. Yeah. You are not going to teach them that much. What you are going to do is you're going to set up a world in which they're going to learn things. Yeah. And if you can modify your thoughts in that way, if you can think about, I'm going to create an environment for them.

I'm going to be a model for them in which they can learn to do these things that I want them to learn. It sounds like a small, like, readjustment. It will save you so much heartache to think about yourself as a person who creates spaces in which your kids can learn things versus directly teaching them because having a curriculum and having things that you want to teach people, people learn when they're ready for things. I would encourage other men in particular,

because I think women on the whole are better at nurturing and growing what wants to be there. I would just encourage a lot of other men to think about you're creating a space in which your child will become who they are. When I think this ties into the craft of writing too, because that's the note you get the most often, right? It's like show don't tell. Yeah, you illustrate the story. You actually don't have to put the conclusion on it

It lingers it and it's actually when the people feel like they're uncovering it themselves It's actually more powerful than when you rammed it down their throats If you want to raise a reader when you slammed it down their throats. If you want to raise a reader, then growing up in a house in which people read all the time, it's probably a good start. Yeah, totally, totally.

All right, so Paul, this is our last question. He's asking me, but I'll be very curious for you to take a sec. Do I see myself as a stoic thinker who is contributed to the school of stoicism or a writer motivational speaker who popularized the ancient Stokes works. I was rereading Gregory Hayes' translation of Marcus,

really recently, and he had this interesting thing, he was like, if you asked Marcus whether he was a Stoke philosopher, he probably would have said no, he would have said I study philosophy. I think going around calling yourself a Stoke, definitely going around calling yourself a philosopher is to like miss the point, and pretty douchey to be perfectly honest.

But I think this idea of like contributing or popularizing, that's a top of Utahque really well. So talk about like how one sort of remixes or works with, you know, great source material. Well, I think this is what all writers do. They just maybe on her is explicit about it as what you're doing with stoicism. I mean, a lot of, if you think about what all artists and writers do is they sort of take who came those people and then they sort of update what they've learned from all those people who came before them to the specific context. So I mean, I think about this a lot

in terms of when you're a young artist and you're starting out, you might wanna be Picasso, but you aren't alive in his context. Sure. So you have to kind of deconstruct what made him an interesting artist. Right. Yeah, you don't live in New York in the 70s. So you can't be Andy Warhol.

Yeah. But one of the things you can take from Mike, like one of my artistic heroes is David Hockney, he's a painter and artist who's worked forever. But one of the things that instead of like, you know, Hockney did these really interesting experiments with facts, machines and copiers and photo printing and stuff like that,

one of the things you could be like, oh, I'm gonna do like facts, machine art or something. Like when you're younger, you're like, oh, I wanna get this like, I wanna do facts, machine art, like Hockney or whatever. No, what you need to take is Hockney engaged with the technologies of his time to try to advance the kind of art he's trying to make so like just trying to extrapolate the right lessons From the people you look up to and then updating them for the context

That's what all artists do and I think that what you're doing with Stoicism is just a more explicit version of that. Oh, I think one of the, one of the things you learn as a writer is that, and I think this is actually a very critical thing in Stoke Philosophy too, is like, it's not for me to say whether I'm contributing or not. It's for me to do work that I find interesting and compelling and fulfilling, and by the way,

that like in a way that the market supports, right? Because you, I don't admire starving artists. Do you know what I mean? Because the art's not getting seen. So for me, the job is to write about what I'm interested in and what is resonating and working with a whole host of factors. Whether that makes me a popularizer or an original,

whether that makes me a philosopher or a self-help person or what at like the labels that other people put on me or I have to always remind myself like are not only are they not mine to say but are like actually irrelevant in meaningless. What matters to me and what I have to always be focused on is the work. Like whether they call you a poet or an author or an artist or a hack, right? Like whatever they call you, that's not, you don't control that. And you got to like tune that out and just focus on like how you see yourself. And like there is that debate in writing on am I, can I call myself a writer?

Am I a writer? It's like, I think you primarily answer that question with your work. And I think there's these like two schools of thought when it comes to like creative work now, it's like people, there are some people out there who write, you're an artist, just call yourself an artist, and then you can make art. I'm an opposite.

I'm like, don't worry about being an artist, just make art. And then when you're an artist, you'll know because people call you an artist. I mean, that is my approach to it. I mean, who could call themselves an architect? Yeah. Who hadn't practiced architectures? Sure. You know what I mean. So, yeah, and it comes back down to that, you know, if you want to be the noun, do the verb, thank you again. But I just think that the other thing

that I think is really constrictive about what we're talking about here is nouns are like solid objects. And if you think of yourself as just, like if I just thought of myself as a poet, would I draw, would I make comics? I see a limitate. It's very limiting to think of your, so that's why I call myself like a writer who draws. That's usually how I

describe myself to people. And that sort of leaves open possibilities. But I never think of myself as like a speaker, even though that's like how I make a good part of my living. Like the speaking is a byproduct. It's a verb that you do. It's something I do, I speak. When I think actually identity is a real dangerous, tricky thing. And so, like, for me, when people go, you're at party, so, oh, what do you do? I'm like, I'm writer. And then I hope the conversation ends there.

I don't have to talk to you anymore. And then they go, oh, what are you right? And then I go, books. And then, then, hopefully, they'll leave it there. And then, like, oh, what are you right about? And I go, like, business books, and then, or whatever. Like, I'll leave it there. And then, like, oh, what are you right about? And I go, like, business books and then, or whatever. You know, like, I did not become a writer to talk about it at dinner parties.

Like, it's almost like a private joy and privilege that I have that I get to do this thing. That's what it is. And then the awkwardness of the labels is almost like, a curse that goes with the blessing of the thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, if I could tell people, I used to just tell people, like, oh, I'm in marketing because they would leave me alone.

And then I don't have to, like, I sell you used cars. You need money. No. Like Paul Graham has this great essay called Keep Your Identity Small. And he's like, he's like, labels make you stupider. And like, so if you call yourself a poet, you're saying, I'm not these other things.

Yeah. Or I am this thing. It's like, when you call yourself a poet, you're saying I'm not these other things. Or I am this thing. It's like when you call yourself a Republican or a Democrat, you have now limited your ideology to a party. When you should just be like, think what you think, you know, and like, I vote for this party or that party. But I am not that. That is like, like, hey, I've been to about it.

If you're like a Cleveland Browns fan, you don't say like, I'm on the Cleveland Browns. You know, like, I'm a Brown, right? Like, you don't identify, you know, who herself on the sports team. You know, like, yeah. And so it's like, I think some, it's like to go to the back to the question is like, I see myself as someone who writes about philosophy,

whether a thousand years from now, I am lumped in with philosophers or if I'm utterly forgotten or if I'm just like a person who wrote some books that people read, like one, I'll be dead so I don't give a shit. But two, like, I'll let the work answer that question. I couldn't say it better. All right, should we close it there? Well, thanks so much for this was really cool. It's fun for me. If you guys have more questions, you can write in at Info at Daily Stoke.

And then definitely check out Austin stuff. So your at, are you at Austin Cleon pretty much everywhere? Yeah, everywhere. AustinClean.com, at AustinClean on Twitter and Instagram. Your Instagram's great. Your drawings are there. My drawings are there. My favorite thing I do is my weekly newsletter.

I was going to bring this up. And that's on my website. Every week I send out a free list of 10 things I think are cool that week and it's simple and fun and it's like my favorite thing I do online. So I love it. I've got a long time. Alright, thanks man. Thank you. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the daily stoke email, go to dailystoke.com slash email. Hey prime members, you can listen to the daily stoke early and ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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