Steal Like an Artist

The book ‘Steal Like an Artist‘ by Austin Kleon is one of the most fun and inspiring books I’ve read in a long time. And I’ve read quite a lot of books. Austin managed to take away the last restraint of my writing ambitions.

I’ve always had the urge to write, but I struggled with what to write for a long time. What if someone else already wrote something about the topic I had in mind? My first intention was to write unique, one—of—a—kind blog posts about topics that no one else had written about yet.

If I had stuck to this ambition, I wouldn’t have written a single post by today.

Nowadays I’ve changed this mindset drastically, basically, anything can result in a blog post:

• Problems I solve for customers. Sharing the problem and solution (with the specific context) might help someone who struggles with the same problem.
• Articles I stumbled upon during my quest to learn. Writing a summary and adding my personal opinion and experience might be helpful for people interested in a short read. And it gives the author some free publicity. I have always done this before, but would only add the summary to my Evernote. Why not publish it?
• Books that inspire me. Writing a short review might help other people achieve the same inspiration.
• Lessons learned. Sharing my lessons learned, gained insights and reflections might help someone with their own growth path.
• Models, frameworks, methodologies. Basically, every ‘tool’ I use as an Agile Coach might be worthwhile to share.

Most of my articles are based on other people's articles, books, and videos. I read something, consider it interesting, give it some time for reflection, and then share the idea combined with my own experiences and insights. Austin describes this as a good theft. Good theft is about honoring, studying, stealing from many, crediting the source, transforming, and remixing. It’s about practice, not plagiarism. Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work off as your own. Copying is about reverse engineering. It’s like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works. The contrary is bad theft. Bad theft is degrading, skimming, stealing from one person, plagiarism, imitating, and ripping off.

If you recognize the struggle I’ve described, this book might be a good investment for you, too…

My favorite quotes

• What is originality? Undetected plagiarism. — William Ralph Inge
• Nothing is more impotant than an unread library. — John Waters
• It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected. — Mark Twain
• You start as a phony and become real. — Glenn O’Brien
• Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy, you will find yourself. — Yohji Yamamoto
• We want you to take it from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and put it in your own voice, and that’s how you will find your voice. And that’s how you begin. And then, one day, someone will steal from you. — Francis Ford Coppola
• The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life. — Jessica Hische
• Modern art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn’t — Craig Damrauer

Austin Speaking

• It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re just talking to themselves in the past.
• Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.
• Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.
• The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can’t refuse you as an apprentice.
• The reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you might somehow get a glimpse into their minds.
• In the end, merely imitating your heroes is not flattering them. Transforming their work into something of your own is how you flatter them. Adding something to the world that only you can add.
• Ultimately, creativity isn’t just what we choose to put in; it’s what we choose to leave out.

Originally published at www.barryovereem.com on July 30, 2015.