Austin Kleon

They're going to work.

They're raising their kids.

It's all good.

But people are really hungry to see people who are really on fire for stuff.

And I've sort of always had the confidence and the chillness, I guess, I don't know, or the delusion, if you want to say, that if I...

truly let myself be interested in what I was naturally interested in.

And then I found a way to share that interest with other people that there would be people in the world that would connect with it.

And that's really the very basic, you know, the past 20 years of my career has just been me being interested in things, figuring out what's the best way to share that interest with other people.

And then people who are interested in that stuff, they show up.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter if it's like a...

mom who's really into cooking healthy meals for her kids, or if it's like a dude who's like working out or, you know, or, or it's somebody who's like, let me show you how to fix the GFCI circuit in your bathroom or, you know, whatever it is, you know, it's like people who are activated, people who are doing things, you know, I think that word activated, I mean, we're a very passive society right now where we take things in, we kind of let things happen.

And I think that people, particularly Americans, I think, have always been inspired by people who seem to be doing things, that seem to be acting.

And the verbs, you know, they have verbs.

And things that they do, you know.

I think everybody has those people in their lives.

And I think what's really interesting about it is that the energy is so infectious.

I have a hero of mine, her name's Linda Barry, and she's a cartoonist.

And I met her, I couldn't have been, I wasn't married yet.

We were engaged, so I would have been 22, I think.