444 | Don't Call It Art with Austin Kleon
Today I am joined by best selling author Austin Kleon, the author of Steal like an Artist, Show Your Work, Keep Going, and his newest book, Don't Call It Art.
This conversation feels timely because I've been hearing from so many people lately who are just feeling creatively exhausted. They've built businesses around something that they once loved making, but somewhere along the way the creativity started to be replaced by running the business.
Those production schedules, the marketing plans, inventory, emails. All the things, right? Austin and I talk about that tension that a lot of people feel in this episode. How easy it is to lose the playfulness and the curiosity that got us into business in the first place.
We talk about the pressure to always be professional, the fear of looking stupid or not knowing everything, and why staying curious actually matters so much as we grow our businesses and ourselves as creative leaders.
We also talk about creating like children do. Experimenting, playing, making bad art on purpose, working with your hands, getting outside, taking walks, journaling.
There's a really interesting conversation here about how creativity doesn't always come from sitting and thinking harder.
Sometimes it comes from movement, from changing your environment, from using your hands or stepping away long enough for your brain to reconnect the dots in the background.
Today’s episode is brought to you by our Proof to Product resource library. It’s where you can get your hands on our free resources to help you start, streamline and scale your business in your own way and at your own pace.
MEET AUSTIN
Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a series of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, and Don’t Call It Art. He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker.
His books have sold over two million copies and have been translated into over 30 languages. He’s been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work “brilliant,” The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.”
He speaks for organizations such as Pixar, Google, Netflix, SXSW, TEDx, Dropbox, Adobe, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons.
CONNECT WITH AUSTIN
WEBSITE: https://austinkleon.com | BOOK: https://austinkleon.com/dont-call-it-art | INSTAGRAM: @austinkleon | SUBSTACK: @austinkleon.substack.com
Connect with Katie Hunt
Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.
Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct
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