Chapter 111: Austin Kleon draws on doodling to design and dream

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Buckle up!

Today we are flying down to hot, hot Austin, Texas where we’re going to grab three chairs on the grackle-filled patio of Mi Madre’s restaurant and order ourselves some enchiladas and #0 breakfast tacos before having lunch with the wise and wonderful Austin Kleon.

Austin in Austin — a treat! Austin Kleon is “a writer who draws” and the author of a number of my favorite books including Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going. His books are kalaidoscopic collage-patchwork delights, focus on themes of creativity, are massive bestsellers and have sold over a million copies.

Austin has a wonderful well of wisdom at AustinKleon.com which is home to his new great Substack community and his endlessly arresting Friday Newsletter. (One of the few newsletters I open and read religiously every week!)

We are going to talk about: writer and reader energies, the Japanese word tsundoku, violence in America, dumb questions, the power of doodling, nature as a metaphor, car problems, Austin Kleon’s 3 most formative books and much, much more.

Order yourself a taco, grab a margarita, put on a tank top and some shades, and come hang out with us down on the teal metal-grid table on the patio of Mi Madre’s Mexican Restaurant in east Austin, Texas.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 111 now…

Chapter 111: Austin Kleon draws on doodling to design and dream

What You'll Learn:

  • Why should you order a #0 Taco at Mi Madre?

  • How do writer and reader energies complement each other?

  • Why should unread piles not stress you out?

  • What is the intersection of reading and travel?

  • Why is an awakening to misinformation crucial to growing up?

  • Why is violence so prominent in the US?

  • What is ‘home’?

  • Why should we all have ‘a room of one’s own’?

  • What is the difference between lies and bullshit?

  • What is real freedom?

  • What’s wrong with the car?

  • Why are dumb questions the best?

  • How do we manage giving our kids freedom?

  • How does mentorship shape you?

  • Why should you use your hands when you create art?

  • Why is teaching like a quilt?

  • What is the power of doodling and why should we all draw?

  • How does keeping a diary promote writing?

  • What is the true power of a walk?

  • How can social media be used … productively?

  • Why is nature the best metaphor?

  • What is the optimal tension for creativity and life?

  • Why should we all take public transit on a regular basis?

Notable quotes from AUSTIN:

“People get real guilty about their unread book piles. To me it's a win for possibility.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Books are time travel devices.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Home is where you come in the door and you're accepted.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Bullshit can be toxic, but it can be benign. Lies are direct manipulation.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Freedom should be your ability to move freely throughout your community, to be free from harm, to stay healthy, to live your life and to make connections.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“I actually think dumb questions are the better questions. The dumber your questions the better you can get to the heart of the situation.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Every teacher is up against impossible odds. To be a teacher is already to enter into a kind of, if not outright poverty, a poverty of respect and compensation.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“If you can write words and draw pictures, you've got two different modes of communication at your disposal.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

When people start drawing, they draw what they think should be there rather than what's there.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

About Thoreau and Sedaris: “What they did for me is show me a repeatable way of working indefinitely. You set up systems in which you're never devoid of material because you're constantly, constantly writing.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“I use social media as a public notebook.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“As a writer, you're looking for metaphors all the time and nature just ends up being like a rich one.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“If most Americans wanted to live in the real world, they should take the bus on the other side of town. That's the real world.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Write the book you want to read.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“Stay open to the possibility that you might be the worst judge of your own work.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

“You put the energy you can into the work, but then it takes the energy of other people to unlock it.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast 

“Make lots of stuff and put it in the world and see what happens.” Austin Kleon #3bookspodcast

connect with AUSTIN:

word of the chapter:

Resources Mentioned:

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