Austin Kleon

sense of certainty about what it is that you do and what you know and i always think that every great ceo should probably be put in a room with a four-year-old you know because i think that if you matched a ceo with a four-year-old they both learned something i'm pretty positive of it well you talked earlier about i think we're attracted to people who are activated i also believe

Well, and I think that, you know, when we're talking about leadership, you know, I think a lot of people think that the leader is someone who speaks and everyone listens when, in fact, the leader listens and the leader asks questions and the leader is curious and wonders how everyone's doing and, like, what's happening around here.

And so I just think that the cool thing about a four-year-old is, like, they have this kind of activation we're talking about.

They are...

Such a learning machine.

I mean, they're not a learning machine.

They're a learning creature.

They are a creature whose whole job is to learn and to be alive to the world in ways that we used to be before we learned the names for everything.

And we learned supposedly how everything worked.

And oh, yeah, that's a tree.

Yeah, trees, whatever.

You know, when you actually think about a tree and how a tree comes to exist, it's just as mind-blowing as it is to a four-year-old.

So in some ways, you know, one of the things about being around my kids is like, how can I kind of make the world as new and magical every day as it is to this little creature who's experiencing it for the first time?

You know, how do you do that?

How do you do that?

I think for me, it's about, I think, a little bit of magical thinking, actually.

You know, because one of the things that four-year-olds do is everything's alive to them.

You know, a house is just as alive to them as a tree.

And so...

One of the things I do is just go around and think, well, what does the universe want to show me today?