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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast it's episode 257 I'm your co-host Mike Parsons and as always I'm joined by the man himself Mr Mark Pearson freand good morning Mark good morning Mike good morning listeners subscribers viewers and anybody else who's dialing in looking to try and get either a bit of inspiration a little bit less or maybe Mike a little bit of moment of creative muscle growth boy do we have a brand new series as well as brand new show kicking off on the moonshots series today yes Mark I would say it is protein packed that's right Mike that's right and who's delivering the protein well it's n none other than New York Times bestseller Austin Cleon now Mike Austin Cleon is an individual that we've probably referenced on the show before some people such as uh our listeners will probably be familiar perhaps with his work that we're going to lean in towards on our Austin Cleon series kicking off today with steel like an artist but cleon's done a really interesting job over his over his uh short years short ten year years of being you know a bestselling artist in the fact that he's done a lot of it from scratch you know he created a lot of work but also he's helped us understand how he went out and did it and I think as we lean into this brand new series that we're going to kick off today it's going to be filled with a lot of inspiration a lot of tips and a lot of tricks as well as I think a lot of fun because some of the work that Austin cens created is pretty pretty inspiring isn't it certainly is because what he basically does is he takes where we got to in the Seth Goden Series where we were presented with hey your products need a big idea a big story around it it needs to be very creative so you and I put on our thinking caps and said well okay what would be the perfect series to get into after going deep on Seth Goden and Austin Cleon is the one so if you know you want to build a product a service a community a project and you're looking to tell a creative story you're looking to unleash your creativity in the world and you might be thinking oh this has been done before my ideas are crap here's the thing taking some inspiration from not only Seth Gorden but also Elizabeth Gilbert you can do this because we've got a bunch of ideas from Austin on how you can create ideas and it doesn't and this is the important one mark it doesn't matter if it's been done before we've certainly not done a show like this before where do you want to begin oh I want to begin from hearing from the legend himself Austin Cleon so Austin's done a lot of great talks in this first one Mike that I thought we could kick off our show with today is a talk that he did with Google he's going to break down a key Insight from his book steal like an artist today and I think Mike this one's going to stand out for all of us because nothing comes from nowhere what a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere all creative work Builds on what came before nothing is completely original this itself is actually not a new idea it's right there in the Bible uh Ecclesiastes 1:9 uh that which has been is what will be done and there is nothing new Under the Sun now some people find this idea completely depressing um but for me it's always filled me with hope um as the French writer Andre Jed put it everything that needs to be said has already been said but since no one was listening the first time everything must be said again see I think if we're free of the burden of trying to be completely original we can stop trying to make something out of nothing and we can Embrace influence instead of running away from it to have this idea that every new idea is just a remix or a mashup of one or more previous ideas and this is a little trick they teach you in art school you can play along if you want to um you draw a line on a piece of paper and then you draw another line parallel to it well how many lines are there on the paper at first you think there's two there's the first line you drew and there's the second line you drew but then if you look in between them there's a line of negative space running in between them 1 + 1 sometimes equals 3 and here's an example of what I'm talking about genetics you have a mother and you have a father you possess features from both of them but the some of you part you're a remix of your mom and dad and all of your ancestors everything is remixed Mark like this is really interesting because nobody as a human doesn't occur this unique thing this unique mark this unique mic all had two people needed to Tango in order for us to but here's the interesting thing when you look at great artists I've got a list here like just check this out Pablo Picasso he was influenced by African art Iberian sculpture and the artist pul saan so he was getting inspired by others V go Jean franois M Japanese woodblock were his Inspirations um William Shakespeare took historical accounts and classic texts the The Beatles were inspired by Indian music and mot so you kind of realize that everything comes from combinations even ourselves great art great artists so here's the great thing then as when we put on our little Creator hat Mark then we know that we can take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and put them together and we get something new it's like human like family trees that's how it works it's how the artists work it's how business works like think about it right now all the innovation in the technology and business area is taking traditional businesses and saying now with AI it's combination right so I think when you truly accept the notion that nothing is original like you cannot say that Picasso was the first because he was inspired by some guys and some women and then they were INSP by some other people and then those people were inspired by other people so it's this big loop of creativity of remixing and you know we get really to the source of things with this book which is still like an artist and we're going to explain how to do that but the reality is we first need to accept this is like first principles thinking yeah is everything is a remix nothing is original even the greatest artists apply to this even our own genetic family trees they use this model I think the reason I'm calling this out we've got to really accept this because once you do then you can say well it's natural 1 plus 1 equals 3 but if you deny this you're kind of stuck right I I totally agree and you're right hearing the list of individuals that inspired a lot of those folks whether they be musicians artists or Business Leaders or even companies I was pulling when we were pulling together this show Mike for today I found it very reassuring so and you've already CAU out Elizabeth Elizabeth Gilbert with big magic there was a real sense of reassurance and um energy that comes from studying her book big magic because she calls out the fact that nothing is original but it's better said it's original because you haven't done it before right so if I was to pick up a pen today or you and I as we're exploring Austin kon's work he's already said it but what we're doing and creating is something original because we are interpreting it for the first time yes everything is unique because it hasn't been done before whether that's you recreating a portrait by Picasso it won't be a Picasso portrait it'll be a Picasso Portrait by Mike Parsons exactly be the first time you've ever done it yes but no matter what it is whether you're tracing an idea or whether you're getting inspired by something that's unique and then that informs the product or the idea that you're creating for me Mike like you say it is that first principles it is that moment of embracing where the influence comes from and I love this idea of community you know the fact that you're seeing this inspiration whether it's in architecture artists whoever it might be it all is a product of what came before which I which I think is great right well it's liberating and I want to stay here for a moment I got another list for you okay Facebook was inspired by Myspace and frster Apple for example Apple put the graphic user interface into computers instead of using like dos promps and terminal well that actually came from zero Park do we do we for a moment say Google hasn't been wildly successful because alter Vista existed before or Yahoo no we accept them as great things so the awesome thing is it doesn't matter if it's been done before and it doesn't matter who did it or what you haven't done it and everything everything is building on prior art prior history so this to me opens it all up for creativity and blue skies right yeah if anything Mike I think that this book this Insight is very very Moon shoty because what we're doing and what we're calling out is you are learning from what's come before yeah artists are learning from previous Inspirations same with music you're sampling a particular beat that's because you kind of like it you kind of dig it and you've learned it from somebody who's created it to then that inject that into your product or for you and I and our listeners we're injecting some of these tips into our lives in order to become that little bit better yeah all we're doing there is boring and being inspired by what's been created yes what a perfect kind of moonshot message isn't it keep on being lifelong Learners yeah yeah it really is and I mean just to bring it home I mean we would never for one step discount the creativity and the the amazing Ingenuity of rap and hip-hop artists their whole genre is built on sampling IE taking historical samples from like mtown and other cool things and repurposing and Reinventing and we would never for a moment think that that's not creative well the great news is you can use it yourself remix create build upon prior art and build something new because it's everywhere this pattern is everywhere it's almost like how much you can get out of the idea of being a member of moonshots even though there are plenty of members already yeah you're totally right not only do we find Mike that there's a plethora of individuals who are supporting and being part of the moonshots family but they grow each and every week and I think you're right that is because they're getting inspired by one another they're getting inspired by the moonshot show I have to tell you sorry I've got to interrupt that's not it the reason that people become members is that they Love the official M Pon Freeland trumpets this is why everyone's tuning in come on well let me just the good news for you Mike is I've been tuning it all week long and it is ready to make a big celebration for all of our individuals who support the moonshot show including Bob Ken dietar Maran Connor Rodrigo Lisa and Sid Mr boner Paul Berg and cman Joe Christian samuella and Barbara Chris Deborah Lassen Steve Craig Eva nikara Ingram Durk benata Marco Jet and Roger Steph raw niman Diana Kristoff Denise Laura and Smitty round out all of our individual members who have joined us for over 12 months many of whom are even longer than that so guys thank you so much for your continued support we're glad you're getting your lunar powered dose of Good Karma each week along with Corey Daniela Mike and Dan Antonio Zachary Austin and Fred jez Ola Andy Diana Margie Chris and Ron all of you guys are rock stars as well thank you for being part of the moonshots family we are eternally grateful and we appreciate all of your help for us to still like artists to take hang on we take clips from people talking about these ideas we're doing it ourselves Austin Cleon would be proud and he would also be proud of some of the deduction that we do but I think in his mind and in the kind of storyline of his book it's really about this idea of subtraction isn't it Mt that's right so let's hear now from Clark hegley who's going to break down one of the key Concepts from Austin cleon's book still like an artist in a way that is super super simple and it calls out this concept of creativity being all about subtraction Dr Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 words the best part about this story is that his editor dared him he said whoa Dr Seuss you wrote 2 36 words this book sound like crazy I bet you can't write a book in 50 words and he turned around said I can and wrote the cat and the hat or was it green eggs and ham I don't know which one but phenomenal so if he can write a best-selling book one of the bestselling books children's books of all time with just 50 words imagine what we can do like what's our excuse we have to have the best words we have to have the best punctuation we have to phrase it right stories a lot gets lost in the details and when you strip all that down focus on the core element that makes it work 50 words we're able to create something another example Apple they were obsessed Steve Jobs was obsessed with design he wanted the iPhone to have only one button on it they said Steve we can't do that we need a lock screen we need a off we need volume we need up and down and he was he was livid he wanted it to just have one button on and off took them extra years but they finally did it with the lock screen right or with the single button right there they're obsessed with minimal design they want everything to be streamlined and simple I got some great advice from a public speaking teacher he said Clark never give someone more than three points any more than three they're not going to remember it and so if someone comes up there and they're speaking they say all right today I got 15 points for you on how to change limiting beliefs you're going to be like oh my God I can't do that but if someone gets up there and says I have three points limiting beliefs like all right I can follow three so in other words when you simplify the message it's even more effective when you go from 236 words in a kid's book to 50 when you go from you know an old phone that had dial pads on there to one button on an iPhone it's more streamlined people understand this they like the minimalism um so however it is in your life simplify it figure out what the core is the last thing I'll say on this point is that you know with creation a lot of it is by what we take away and not by what we add uh why is it that Simplicity is so hard because I think when you reduce things down you get to the call and it makes me think about this show we take an entire book and put it into four Clips yeah so that very process we're asking ourselves and all the work we do before we make this show together like right now is about what should be in how does it how does it sound is it complete what can we remove and for me this Con this this constraint of making things so simple is actually very powerful for creativity it's almost like if someone said hey guys you can do 50 clips for 5 hours I feel really sorry for our listeners and viewers and members that would be pretty painful stuff but isn't it interesting how well we wouldn't need so much discretion mark because we could literally just find every Austin Cleon clip and throw it in and Ramble On for five hours but funnily enough it's actually harder to do an hour show with four Clips because we have to think what's going to have the greatest impact how do we organize this and much like when you're presenting to a client when you're making U product packaging you have limited time and space you have to get to the essence of things and that art of simplifying is something that takes time but I believe that's where the great creativity comes from and I will go back to what we saw with Picasso he made he deconstructed and simplified many shapes such as The Bull and the way and the work that he put into that simplification should never be underestimated that's why his work is so great he was able to deconstruct and simplify if you think about how simple The rhythms and Melodies are of The Beatles but they're amazing and catch and they're still with us right yeah yeah the point here is that art of reduction is a key to creativity because actually we're being a bit lazy when we over communicate when we make 50 Clips when we make the product packaging so big so we can put every message on it when we take two hours to explain a very simple proposition in a meeting that is the absence of creativity the real creativity comes from the reduction I like that and that's a great um accumulation Mike that that idea creativity being the reduction because if you think about the benefits of having constraints in work you know whether that's time whether it's availability to present to somebody else or whether it's just your own availability of time a lot of that informs a more creative approach to the way that you deliver the work sometimes you're going to have to delegate sometimes you'll find yourself procrastinating and then you have to catch up yeah but what you'll find is giv yourself giving yourself kind of um borders and time frame and ways that you really need to focus the work it then becomes better because you're right if we were to create a show with 50 Clips it would be um awful incomprehensible it would be too large yeah you know we're looking for those shorten Sharp key insights that will inform you and I and all of our listeners to learn something from each of these these topics and books yeah so in order to distill really fur down into you know that the juicy morsels is really really keep but it's freeing because once we know okay we've got four Clips we want to hit the key things that stand out for us let's get into it that for me is reassuring when I'm going into a big presentation with a client or when I'm thinking I need to create something for my team where do I start sometimes by having those constraints figured out in terms of timeline in terms of delivery date in terms of available resources that then helps how you approach it so I see this concept of subtraction or or simplification or the idea of constraint being so important to going out to create anything because it helps you stay in the lanes and helps you actually deliver the work on time and also in a in a fashion that is digestible yeah totally how how when you're faced with the need to simplify let's say let's take something that I think all of us face like communication how do you go about trying to cut it down like what's your starting point yeah big time I I think communication is the key uh topic really that actually simplification is is so key for because well one you're trying to get across a a a simple or complicated idea in a simple and concise way so sometimes so how do you do it how do you do it then like how do you do it I I'll so I'll start by writing it down yeah so typically whether that's more nowadays I'll write it I'll type it out yeah and then I'll go back through and maybe I'll highlight in bold or light you know physically you know yellow the key topics or the key areas that I really want to try and land let's say I'm pitching to another another business yeah or or somebody else I'll come up with a script I'll come up with those key points and I'll figure out what those key talking areas are I'll then make sure to trim out all of the fat you know I'm English so sometimes I'm a little bit Vose so I'll try and trim out any of that additional chat that is not necessarily needed and instead focus on having those pillars really really tight really really concrete and make sure that you hit them in a fashion that makes sense yeah because much like we were hearing from Clark much like you and I have just broken down if we have a whole meaty meal or a whole meaty conversation that you're trying to process I think the individual who's hearing it only absorbs 20% I I can't remember that figure that we've once covered I think on the show but if you he let's say it's an hourong meeting you're only going to absorb a certain amount before your brain sort of turns off so really getting those key points early in the conversation early in that meeting I think is intrinsically key as well what about you Mike when you're thinking about the idea of uh simplification or getting across an idea in quite a concise way I know that you do it a lot and you've done it a lot in the past condensing those complicated ideas into simple ways what's the best method that you find is is helpful uh I've got some Goto for you here on this one number one write the headline or write the subject of the email first that that's really good like try and write the email in the headline in in the subject line the next one is um when writing email lead with the action that you're requesting and then explain it after so something you've heard me say a lot is don't bury the lead concept right so it can be tempting to like go I want to tell you a story of I'm going to ask you to do something but first let me tell you the entire story I think it's always good to be like hey can you send me a document tomorrow before end of Play here's what I need here's why I need it reach out to me if you need anything so leading with the action required um and write the the headline write the subject line whatever is appropriate first um you know I love this idea that I um was um taught in my time as a Madman on Madison Avenue and this was with elevator pictures and high Concepts so um something I can't remember if we've mentioned this on the show but when Ridley Scott was pitching alien to the studio he just walked in ready and he just goes I want you to imagine on a spaceship and the executives were like what that is crazy I mean talk about creativity right that's a great example I like that isn't that so powerful right and imagine if every one of our email subject lines were like that so I think the key if I was receiving that pitch from Ridley Scott maybe one day who knows or I was receiving that email from yourself or or a colleague suddenly as a receiver so now if we're putting ourselves into the other individual shoes I know exactly what's expected of me there's no lack of uh consideration there's no miscommunication when you simplify everything and obviously we're leaning more towards the delivery of of tasks or the request of information it makes it so much clearer for people who are receiving it doesn't it I would be relieved to get that emo and know okay right Mike's looking for Jaws in space he wants me to go X Y and Z cool I'll go and get started it makes a lot easier for those around you as well as for you and I as the creators because we know exactly what we're looking for in our own heads don't we yes and let's not forget there was a lot of work done to get to Jaws in a spaceship so it wasn't just like coming up with something R there was a there was a lot of work uh there and um I think that art of simplification is truly really F I would also say that if you go to Moon shots. you'll find us decoding the universe to make it simple for you to get the most out of these Superstars these authors academics experts figuring out how they do it Eric reesing startup Tim Ferris growth mindset you name all of those subjects you will find beautiful little summaries beautiful lessons learned how to apply it in each of the shows just go to moonshots I mean what's our belief Mark that if you spend enough time listening to the show it's um what do you become empowered with there's something lunar powered uh what happens oh I mean conveniently Mike you and I are recording I think it's a full moon today it is so not only will our our members be receiving the moonshot lunar power dose of Good Karma but they'll also be receiving the moon Karma as well so I mean right now Mike is a time to be creative clearly gez I'm I'm just uh when I hear that I just want to sink into creativity and let loose on this full moon I want to bring out my inner werewolf where are we going next on this journey well an inner werewolf individual that's going to come out howling for us today on atin CLE on steel like an artist is Maxwell Nichols so Maxwell is GNA break down a little bit about this idea of focus we now know the concept of simplifying an idea maybe creativity being an act of subtraction let's now think about how we find those ideas and how we can get a little bit more focus by sinking into dep you might be thinking now that it's going to be so much easier to create when you can just unapologetically steal from everybody you're wrong in this new context you don't have to worry so much about being so original but you need to relentlessly consume and research our new measurement for good work is the depth and quality of our sources obviously execution is the ultimate measurement of good work but here in the ideation stage be concerned with the quality of your curation a significant challenge is what to ignore we're smothered with content every waking second which I actually think is kind of great but you must choose what to forget or ignore and hold on to the things that genuinely resonate with you an easy way in reducing the overwhelming quantity of work is to sink into depth focusing on the Nuance of a single artist or subject attention to depth happens to be more lucrative as well you'll reach an executable level of understanding much quicker than if you splayed your concentration across multiple disciplines and artists there's a rule called the three book rule that simply states by reading three books at any specific subject you'll become an expert relative to the general population in this day and age I feel like there's some topics that You' only need to read one book about imagine how proficient you can become in any Niche by dedicating a substantial amount of time to that specific topic by focusing on the depth of a matter and eliminating the Limitless assortment of materials you could study you'll find ideas and themes worth working on you'll begin to recognize what ideas inspired your favorite artist what ideas push them to follow the same path as their influences oh I mean it's like he's talking about what we do here focusing on books we have three books in this very series Mark I mean holy smoke hopefully we get a little bit of good karma from that but um to me he started with this interesting idea this is not just going out into the world and ripping off what already exists right no I think this is important so I'm going to share with you and all of our viewers uh something from Austin that totally it's like a checklist which is totally Moon shoty and it talks about good versus bad theft okay so what's good theft where you honor the works that came came before rather than degrading where you study the work before rather than just skimming where you steal from many rather than stealing from one where you give credit rather than plagiarizing where you transform rather than just imitating whether you just remix rather than ripping off this is exactly what we're talking about in this clip and I would say I want to do a fun job I want to sell this idea to our viewers our listeners and our members right the reason why you don't want to take one thing and just degrade it skim it steal from it plagiarize imitate and rip it all off right is invariably the person that made that has done all the good things spent a lot of time in effing it so anything you do without the same level of effort off the back of that is going to be substandard to the original Source now however if you study as per the clip three pieces of work in this given area and then you can see some interesting things what are the patterns because when we study Elizabeth Gilbert and Austin Cleon we see this clear similarity where they want to give us permission because we're all unique therefore we can all have UniQue Ideas this must be I mean this is literally the science of what we do on the show where like okay this is a clue we're like Sherlock Holmes because we're studying a subject creativity in this case and we're actually starting to see that great people from different walks of life have come to through their work the same Aha and what we do is we summarize it and give it to our audience and say well look this is a moonshots patent we see this time and time again so if you were studying three different companies you could build a great company of your own if you studied three musicians you could make a great song of your own because you see the pattern and what you do is when you see patterns you relate to them you're like oh this really works for me how might I use this right there are many other patterns in When comparing Elizabeth Gilbert and Austin Cleon one of the ones that really jumps out to us the one of the really strong ones is this idea of per permission and uniqueness right this is where gravitated towards we wouldn't have known Mark that this was so strong if we had only studied Elizabeth or only stud Austin so our conviction is far higher we can use it much more Mark viewers listeners and members this to this is my pitch to you on why you should always go out and look at what's come before and really steal from many would be the key key key thing yeah yeah I totally agree Mike the the only build I can do there is I'm reminded when I was studying when I was younger when I was reading a lot of uh you know ancient books on history and so on when I was writing a dissertation I'm also reminded of medical papers that you know those around me who've studied or Taken part in all of those uh um records include references and Source material you know throughout history it's always based on the account of somebody else and that idea of taking from many or being inspired from many or as Austin saying stealing from many is based on a broad range of experiences and what's nice when we're able to take a look at those quality of sources and be able to create and um focus on depth immersion and so on is that we can then go out and prove the value that is in the work that we go ahead and create you know we're able to really go ahead and celebrate aren't we based on the insights that we can find from others and this to me this studying of a couple of you know three for Works in any given area be it creativity entrepreneurial sports fitness health whatever to me where we start to intersect which is really fun is with this idea of deep work so uh In that clip we heard about this idea of sink into it right which is so adjacent to this idea of deep work yeah lock it off three hours and go deep an hour per book boom boom boom boom you've got the pattern H how much do we love the idea of deep work Mike you know we've focused on you know Cal Newport once again he's coming up here this idea of digital minimalism I and deep work I think is part and parcel with Elizabeth as well as Austin as well you know might he might be more in the vein of actually uh production you know time block yourself likewise with Mii CH Mii getting yourself into flow those are both physical techniques to really become a Creator you can't you can't achieve Flow State according to Mii unless you do the focus and the Deep work right exactly that's it that's exactly where I was going to take it yeah and isn't it interesting once again we're finding that permission you know if we're inspired by mihi or we love the work of Cal the the insights that we've learned from Austin and the builds that we've now uh accumulated on Elizabeth Gilbert help us really appreciate okay well the less is more concept is so valuable because then people will understand my idea the focus really gives me the ability to become an expert you know that's uh really a habit I think that we've learned on the moonshot show immersing yourself becoming as much of an expert as you can in that time you know you and I like to dig into key insights throughout the moonshot show but there's also a plethora of external elements and pieces of information and and Inspirations that drive a lot of these topics and books that we dig into as we're hearing from Austin on today's show he was inspired by many others who came before him I'd say the same with BR brown with Oprah Walt Disney and so on a lot of them have become also Dyson even Steve Jobs were inspired by those who came before them as are you and I withot show yeah but being able to really get into that depth is so so key isn't it it it really is and and I hope that what we're seeing here is not only the inspiration and the permission but we're starting to see a little bit here make it simple get focused remix go deep this is starting to unlock a creative work style a creative work habit a way for you to unleash what's also interesting just to prepare all of our members listeners and viewers is that in the next book from Austin he gets into like networking and how to take your work out into the world something that can be a little bit intimidating but then in his third book he talks about this Loop and the resilience you need to keep working on it like the happiness series we learned this as a muscle so that's all ahead in future shows but Mark where do we want to Pivot to now I think you've got a cheeky fourth clip up your sleeve I I do and the reason why I think you find this a bit cheeky is because it is a great demonstration of some of the lessons that we've already learned today so obviously as youve just broken down this will be our first episode in the Austin Cleon series and there's a great journey that Austin does through the books that he's created what's interesting about this final clip that we're I have today on steel like an artist is a demonstration in my mind of the idea of creativity being an exercise in subtraction as well as an exercise in focus and depth so let's hear one more time today from Austin clean author of Steel like an artist who's going to help us understand the difference between an artist and hoarders as well as something called newspaper blackouts I think that human beings are collectors and artists especially not Hoarders mind you there's a difference hoarders collect indiscriminately and the artists collect selectively they only collect the things that they really love an artist's job is to collect ideas and the best way I know to collect ideas is to read and what better thing to read than the Daily Dispatch of Human Experience there is the daily newspaper so in 2005 I was right out of college right out of undergrad and I had a horrible case of writer block I would sit and I would stare at the Microsoft Word screen and that little cursor would blink at me as if it were taunting me um and writing which had once given me great joy was now it was it wasn't any fun for me anymore so one day I was staring at that screen and I looked over at the recycle bin with that stack full of papers and I thought here am I here I am without any words and right next to me are thousands of them and they're delivered to my doorstep every day so I thought I might steal a few and this is what I did I picked up my marker that I used for drawing and I started making boxes around words that popped out at me and I started connecting those words into little phrases and and funny sayings and when I was done I blacked out all the words I didn't need and this is what it looks like it looks like as if the CIA did Ha coup um and I I really wasn't sure what I was doing all I knew was that it felt really good to watch some of those words disappear under that marker line um and so what I did was I uh I started posting them to my blog and I called them newspaper blackout poems and slowly over time uh they spread around the internet and I collected them in my first book newspaper blackout M how cool is that he was so stuck I mean the classic writers block everyone has experienced this like ah I have nothing nothing's coming to M so he just looked next to him and looked at the newspaper and started blacking out a few words and this has launched him into a New York Times bestseller this to me is one massive invitation to be curious about the world right to put yourself in a place in a moment that you do look across at that newspaper and say how might I what if right great creative prompts and play with this idea of remixing old things with new and just experimenting and if you actually have that curious mindset that you want to go out and collect and remix then what I believe is happening is you are charging your mind and you you've got like this energized database of possibilities and you just shake your brain and then sometime at some moment in some place it will pop out and you will quite can quite literally see this Source moment this original origin moment for his entire career came down to he was stuck and he's like oh well why don't I just black out a few words and then away we go and isn't that a great founder story so to speak you know and again I believe this inside and this behavior of his this newspaper blackout approach came from the pure inside of less is more there's a great relief in being an author and a writer and him being able to create from work that already exists literally he's picking up newspaper and blacking out some words for me I think that's a pure demonstration in creativity he's creating from something that already exists much like a a marble uh sculptor from back in you know the old Roman times they find a big uh Stone and they chisel it away and then they're left with this stunning um you know item that you find in a melum but this is a more modern day approach you're taking a plethora of words and you're distilling them down into something that you want to communicate to your readers I personally think that this is a good exercise that I'm probably going to start doing Mike to be honest I think it's just a really fun game first of all to see what comes out but I think what would be unique and interesting is how each individual if you and I sat down with the same newspaper will be able to come up with something different yeah I'm sure if all of our moonshot members all sat down with the same couple of paragraphs we'd all create something pretty unique and pretty interesting because we all have a different approach and that's the key thing I believe that we learn from steel like an artist yes just because Picasso was inspired by uh eight other individuals before him does not mean that you and I who are going to be inspired by Picasso will create the same work yeah we will create different work based on the inspiration that we get from them that's right and that for me is just so exciting and I think a little bit there it it's funny like if if you're asking yourself well where do I start with that for whatever reason as you were talking I just thought of Pinterest Pinterest is so neat because you can collect inspiration oh I like that so I have on my Pinterest I have boards around the classics like food and and fashion but I also have illustrations books all sorts of design and brand stuff like it's really a collec I even have just color palettes that I like I have no idea why I'm collecting them but I'm like oh I like that so I think that's like a really good place to start we thinking practically how might we collect inspiration that's a great build I I find sometimes I use Instagram to a lesser extent but now the bookmarking uh capability is very very handy so if I ever find uh motos or piece of inspiration boom I'll save them and I'll come back to them next time I like the the build of having colorways and so on you know you and your design mind I know you've got architectural books surrounding you as we speak so you're probably looking at all these different you know physical pieces of design that are inspiring you I'd love to see your Pinterest at some point yeah yeah but you're right it can come inspiration can come from anywhere yes and the important call out that I think we've got from that final book is to collect it yeah collect it collate it store it in a way that you can revisit it you can utilize in the future much like when you and I are making notes in any of our meetings or any of our shot shows all of that is getting absorbed and it's only going to be for the better in the long run absolutely absolutely now you mentioned inspiration a lot there from The Collection the bigger question right now on everybody's Minds is which of those four Clips are going into Mark's homework activity which one well look I think the I think we've really made the case and I hope our our listeners viewers and members agree I think we've made the case that stealing like an artist is a behavior and a habit that can Herald brand brand new ideas I think for me Mike the idea of subtraction so the the clip that we heard from Clark Breaking Down uh a complicated idea or complicated uh insight into something that is very very clear-cut and and small and simple to communicate is going to be the key thing that I can work on and that I would like to work a little bit more diligently within what are the areas for you today I mean all of these clips were pretty unique and interesting today but what stands out to you Mike I when I take a look at the list and think like I want to do more remixing like taking two old ideas but that not from the same family right so take something from business and architecture and combine or creativity and food right or you know like the the like making different combinations for some reason he makes me want to be like an creative remixer of some sort you know what I mean yeah oh I absolutely know what you mean but what a fun job that would be the creative remixer oh yes yes well Mark you've been my creative remixing buddy today so I want to say thank you to you I want to say thank you to our listeners viewers and members for show 257 of the moonshots podcast where we studied the work of Austin Cleon still like an artist and boy did we do some stealing today we learned that number one nothing comes from nowhere nothing is original everything comes iteratively from history and great creativity is not about just randomly collecting it's not about hoarding it's about creativity is subtraction the hardest thing is the Simplicity but that is where the great creativity comes from and to do that you need to sink into it you need to go deep into it and remember don't hoard collect find the inspiration and you will be able to unlock your creative ideas which is such a great part of what we do here on the moonshots podcast that's a wrap