EntreLeadership - #99: Austin Kleon—Steal Like an Artist

Episode Date: June 8, 2015

Business requires creativity, and best-selling author Austin Kleon shows you how to develop it on this week's podcast. You'll discover your own path, get directly in touch with your artistic side, and let that creativity flow to better your efforts and win. Another great episode sponsored by our friends at Infusionsoft. http://www.entreleadership.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are coming to you from the Music City. This is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders.

It's our privilege to have you with us. We take your ears very seriously. Fun podcast coming up. One of my favorite books of all time is a book called Steal Like an Artist. Ten Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. Austin Cleon is the author of this book. It's a New York Times bestselling book, and I absolutely love it. Cannot wait for you to hear that conversation.

This is fun. About once a month, Dave Ramsey does a small business hour, where the entire hour is dedicated to small business questions. questions from entrepreneurs like you men and women who are listening. And so Eric the producer, he went back into the vault. And from a recent small business hour on the Dave Ramsey show, we're going to play a few of the calls and Dave's answers. You're going to love that.

And of course, Clayt Mask from Infusion Soft stops by with a business tip for you. So it's going to be good stuff. I want to do a quick qualifier here because if you consider yourself to be creative, you're going to love this conversation. but more so I want to speak to you who would not define yourselves as creatives. You think, I'm not a creative. I hire creatives. I've got a whole division or team of creatives, but I'm not a creative person.

Yes, you are. Because if there is one unifying commonality between entrepreneurs, it is that you see problems and you believe there could be a solution, And you believe there should be a solution. And thus, you're in the business of solutions. I mean, at the end of the day, that's true. And so for those of you who don't consider yourselves creatives, this conversation is going to be huge for you. The book is a must read.

It's 140 pages. I believe it was three years ago. I'm on a trip, and I'm in an airport waiting for a plane, and I go in to get a book or a magazine or something to read on a cross-country flight. And this little black book, and it looks like he wrote, steal like an artist, you know, with one of those oil pens. You know, on a black canvas, white pen. And it just jumped off the shelf. 140 pages. And I'm telling you, it's so great.

Steal like an artist. What does that mean? It's not mean to plagiarize. He goes in great detail, so don't be alarmed. This is a fantastic book, and it is a must listen. Get out your pens. Get out something to write on. This is Austin Cleon, talking with me about steel like an artist.

Austin, the book, Steal Like an Artist. I think is mandatory reading for anybody who aspires to create something. They may not even call themselves a creative, but if they need to create something, I think this book is something they ought to start with. And when I read it, multiple, multiple times,

I pass it out to as many people as I can possibly do. There was a quote that jumps off the page, page 15, for those of you following at home. And you wrote this, and you talk about this idea of when we steal like an artist, how we go about it. And you wrote, chew on one thinker, a writer, an artist, an activist, a role model, someone you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker,

and then find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them, repeat this as many times as you can. And I think this is breakthrough stuff, because it really speaks to what we love and what moves us and then kind of gets those creative juices rolling. I want you to expound on that. I think that's such a powerful thing and how that has worked for you this process. I think when you start, you know,

whether you're running a business or you're trying to make art or you're just trying to go about your job, you know, it feels very much like it can be fairly lonely. I think the idea of just being like one singular person and trying to take on this great task, you know, it feels like too much. And the thing I like about building a kind of creative family tree is that you feel like you have this kind of background,

you know, this kind of history behind you. When we talk about innovation or creativity, there's so much emphasis on newness. And yeah, we're trying to get to something new. we're trying to make something that nobody's ever seen before. But a lot of innovation and creativity is about knowing what came before you, looking at what everyone else has at their disposal, but they're not looking at,

and seeing the parts that no one's put together before. And so I think stealing like an artist is really about saturating yourself with the right influences, picking and choosing your influences, finding out all there is to know about the particular world you're interested in. And that's the first step to then being able to pick and choose the parts that you want to reconfigure and make into your own work. And see, that's what I love about this book so much, is because you give us a game plan and you really kind of uncover all of the myths and

misnomer about copying and stealing, because what this does is it helps us find your own voice. by studying the voices that move us, we then find our voice, correct? Yeah, Billy Collins, the poet has a great way of putting it. He said, you know, it seems contradictory, but the way to be original is to actually become a kind of mashup of six or eight different voices. That's kind of how you find your voice as a poet. So, you know, you take a little bit from Emily Dickinson, take a little bit from Walt Whitman, you know, here and there, throw it in the mixer, and then you come up with something unique of your own. But I think people start out in the beginning.

They say, oh, I have to find my voice in order to make stuff. And it's like, well, actually, you have to start making stuff and start throwing stuff into the pot, you know, and mixing it up before you can actually find what it is. It's yours. So our audience also knows that I'm a curiosity nerd. I wrote a book about questions. I'm a professional question asker. But I just don't think we can spend enough time talking about the value or rather the importance. of curiosity. And I'd love for you to just sound off on that in your own life and work. And then, of

course, you study great artists. You extol the importance of studying people who create great things. Talk about curiosity and how very valuable it is that we keep that inner antenna, if you will, raised. You know, my favorite quote is from the Riza, one of the members of the Wu-Tang Klan. He said, even when I didn't go to school, I would always study. That's great. I think that, you know, if you can learn how to be a self-propelled learner, if you can learn to be someone who, any hunch you come across, any little tidbit, any little factoid that, like, sounds some little bell in your head, if you can then learn to follow those leads and to research, and not only research, but search. You know, I think, you

curiosity is about being on the lookout for things. And I think, you know, we're such a shallow culture. On the whole, everyone's kind of reading the same blogs and reading the same books, and, you know, spreading around the same information. I think it's a matter of effort. If you just throw a little bit of effort into the search, if you just dive a little bit deeper than the average Joe or the average person in your field, it's amazing what you can dig up. You know, and so I think it's just pushing yourself to go one further than most people go. David Foster Wallace said that the, you know, the difference between a great nonfiction writer and just a regular person was that the writer spent more time thinking about a subject than the other person, you know, to put in more time. Now, I wouldn't get you to comment on something else.

I don't know if you have kids yet. Do you have kids by any chance? I do. I have a two-year-old son, and I have another son who's due here in about a month. Okay, perfect. You are perfectly qualified. You were already, but now you're extra qualified for this question. This is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I really want the leaders here to lock in on something. I'm going to kind of ask a parenting question, but this is a personal growth question as well, and it ties into what you were just talking about. I did some research a couple years ago when I wrote my book, and from the University of Michigan, a basic study came out that said that by the time the average American Austin reaches the eighth grade, we're only asking, two to three questions a day. And yet you have a two-year-old, two-year-old, and another child on the way, and you know this inherently. We come into this world hardwired, asking thousands of questions, it seems.

And then by the time we reach the eighth grade, we're asking two to three. Now, this is the average American, according to this research. And I don't want to get on a soapbox. I just want you to speak to this. But I feel like our Western education system at large is, you know, is. kind of stilted towards teaching kids how to answer questions, and we've forgotten the art of just being curious, which is what you're talking about. Would you speak to that issue about how we, as leaders, as parents, can foster that true curiosity and make sure that that fire never

burns out? Gosh, that's such a great question. I think that, for me personally, I think practicing an art form is one way to keep that curiosity alive. And this is going to be kind of a hard connection, but I'm going to go for it. I love it. All children draw. You know, all children, you know, can make marks on a page. And if you ask like a five-year-old, you know, to draw you a picture, there'll be no problem. You know, yep, sure, here you go.

Take it. I don't care what you do with it. It's very much about, it's not a big deal. And then, you know, like you said, about around middle school, eighth grade, all of a sudden, if you ask someone to draw a picture for you, they'll say, oh, well, I'm not really an artist, or I'm not really a drawer. Something happens in between when we're children and when we hit about middle school, you know, like solidify or petrify in a way. And I think that's a good word, petrify because it means to harden, but it also means, you know, you get scared all of a sudden. But, you know, it's like something happens where the world becomes less about, you know, asking questions and discovering and just getting the right answer. You know, someone has the right answer, and I just get it, and I regurgitate it, and I'm done, you know.

And I think one of the things about art, you know, really great art, it doesn't actually solve any problems. It just asks questions. It pushes us to ask questions. and I think the act of drawing in particular, if you keep drawing in your life, that means that you constantly have to look at things and you have to really look at them in order to be able to draw them.

And simply in the act of looking very closely at the world, these questions arise. And so I think in some ways, you know, the arts, which are constantly being devalued in our culture, I think the arts in particular, the act of drawing, which is just one of my favorite, It can keep that curiosity in mind and keep your mind alive and keep you looking at the world and asking questions. Love that, by the way. I think that's so good for all of us.

The last chapter of the books, deal like an artist, is really a breakthrough for so many, I think, creatives. And it's simply titled, Creativity is Subtraction. I'm going to let you explain what that means and what that looks like. I think that, you know, we have this idea if only we had more time or we had better tools or if we had, you know, more education, we could start making the things that we want to make or run the business we want to run. But creativity is about making do with what you've got. You know, the true act of creativity is taking what's at your disposal and turning it into something that you need or you want to use or something that we've never seen. you know and so i think that people need to do as they need to realize that creativity isn't about having this immense set of options available to you creativity is really about setting some limits on yourself dr seuss wrote the cat in the hat with like you know 230 words i think or something

like that or or even smaller than that but the idea is like go ahead what what kind of business could you start with a hundred bucks like could you shoot a film with your iPhone on your lunch break. You know, could you draw a good picture with a ballpoint pen and your legal pad at work? That kind of thing. Like, just to jump in and really go for it. And to know that it's really the limitations on creativity, it's the constraints that push us to really come up with the interesting work. Folks, that right there is worth the entire conversation. Because I'm such an Austin nerd, and I told him this a head of time, so he's not feeling strange. But folks, from 138 of his book, he talked about the Dr. Seuss thing.

Listen to the follow-up. Of course, Austin, you know where I'm going. Actually, you were right. It's 236 words. So impressive memory. He wrote the cat in the hat. Dr. Seuss wrote the cat in the hat with 236 words. So this is the part that I love that Austin shares on page 138.

So his editor comes back and bets him he can't write a book with 50 words. So Dr. Seuss doubles down and wins with green eggs and ham. 50 words. 50 different words. So, I mean, it just really illustrates your point. And I love this. You also give us a Jack White quote. And being in Nashville, the Music City, Jack White, big presence here. He said, telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all of the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want, that just kills creativity. And of course, you just illustrated that for us. Boy, that's so very true. So let me put it to you. Let's go practical here, Austin. We have a bunch of entrepreneurs. people who are solving problems, and by solving problems, they make money because they provide the solutions to solving those problems. From a business standpoint, how do they put limits on themselves as they're creating new businesses? What I see when I meet entrepreneurs is this kind of scrappiness, you know, with the really good ones, the idea of just doing what you can with

what you've got and kind of, you know, I guess the term is bootstrapping, but the people I really look up to are those people that, you know, they don't have to go out and look for a bunch of venture capital funds. They don't have to go out and like, you know, really, they're, they somehow figure out how to, how to get a business off the ground out of almost raw necessity. You know, I said I'm not a business person, but actually, that's not true. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I do run my own business. I am my own business, and there are just certain principles like creativity of subtraction, right? I've always found that the key to a beautiful life is low overhead and no debt, you know.

And so there's a great Bill Cunningham. He said, you know, if you don't take their money, they can't tell you what to do. You know, so if you want creative freedom in your work and in your business, you know, you have to have that kind of that business sense to, you know, not extend yourself. too much and try to make do. Well, you tell us in the book, steal like an artist, you talk about being boring. And there's a phenomenal quote you give us

in the book from Gustav, I guess it's Floubert, if I'm saying that, correct. Yep, Flobert. Look at that, I'm hooked on phonics. Unbelievable, I did not test that out. But he says, be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent

and original in your work. I got goosebumps when I read that. Oh, it's like one of my favorite, you know, just one of my favorite quotes of all time. A perfect example of that is an artist like Renee McGreet, the guy who paints the, you know, the bowler hat, the apples in front of the guy's faces, you know. Here's this, here's one of the pinnacle guys of surrealism, probably painted some of the weirdest paintings we've ever seen. And yet he lived this very orderly life in his house with his wife of many years. and he just lived this very suburbid and quiet existence.

You know, that's what I love. I love to see people who are spending their energy on their work. And in the meantime, living a quiet, kind of humble life. You know, I think someone like, there's a great documentary called Giro Dreams of Sushi, which is kind of a great portrait of a master like that. A guy who's very humble and keeps his overhead low and just puts everything he's got into doing his work. And I love that. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I wasn't planning to ask you this, but you just said something that made me think about this idea. You know, in 2015, Austin, we see less and less master craftsmen. You know, people who really work their entire life trying to master something. And the irony of that whole deal is is they never really do it. But then they become masters at what they do. What are your thoughts on that? I am really torn on the subject right now because I think we're almost living. in this culture that doesn't necessarily, you know, reward masters as much as the kind of scrappy

amateur. Yeah. I feel like we're in this culture where, you know, the people who are going for it, who are trying out the new tools who are going, you know, they're, you know, flapping together code and they're thrown up businesses and just kind of going for it, I think those are kind of the people that are finding early success. What I think is so important about mastery to me is how do you make a life out of those? Because that's one of the big questions I ask myself.

It's fine to have early success and to get that startup off the ground. But how do you turn a business? You know, how do you turn that into a business? And even more than that, a career, something that'll last you throughout. And then I think that's where the mastery comes in. And that's where your 10,000 hours or your, you know, decade of work is really going to come in handy. That idea of having a long sustainable career versus, you know, building a startup and selling it off right away. You know, that's kind of the choice that we've got going on these days.

And I think in some ways, mastery is a kind of personal thing. It's about, you know, what are you pushing yourself towards? Because we're not just building businesses, you know, we're building businesses. you know, we're building lives for ourselves, too. And I think there's a neat balance between being an amateur, someone who, you know, tries a lot of different stuff and does things for the love of it and just kind of like jumps in and monkeys around in the garage, you know,

and tinkers and tries a lot of different things. There's a balance between that and then doing that slow kind of Kung Fu Master Pass to, like, getting rude. I think there's a balance. I wonder if maybe to, you know, attempt mastery while retaining an amateur spirit with it all. Maybe that might be the way to go. Now, that would tell you something. That's huge.

I'm telling you right now, if no one else gets anything out of this, first of all, you need to check your heart. But, Austin, I think you've got to run with that. In fact, I want you to say that again, because instead of making people rewind here, I want you folks to write this down. Austin, can you recreate that statement about this idea of attempting mastery but keeping that amateur spirit? I think, yeah, let's change that word amateur to students. I love it. To attempt mastery, but to always retain the spirit of a student, of someone who's curious and always trying new things, you know, because the problem with becoming a master is sometimes you get too far into your own mastery and you lose touch.

with the world around you and experiencing what's going on. And like we started the conversation, having that sense of curiosity, you know, not becoming petrified, not becoming hardened, but to let yourself stay loose and open and curious to new opportunities. Yes. Dude, I'm telling you, that's great stuff. You could write a book on that because you know what it is. It's about keeping wonder alive.

And that's what great artists, they just wonder. Well, we've all been in that experience where once we've seen, figure something out, it becomes kind of dead to us. Right. Right. So you have to constantly be pushing yourself to go back to having that kind of childlike wonder. So good. All right, now the follow-up book, to steal like an artist, is show your work. And you just need to go by both of them and just read them in about an hour, then reread them and tear them apart. And, you know, I've made copies of these books and hung them on the side of a wall, you know, when it hits me right. Oh, I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've,

You've created in the book these mini posters. If you just go photocopy pages and pin them up with pushpins, that's what I love about your books. Yeah, I love that. That was what I was hoping. You know, books are interesting because you kind of collect these little bits and pieces, and then you kind of shape them into this hole. And then when people get them, they start breaking them apart again back into pieces. And I love that.

That's a lot of the feel like an artist's ideas. You take all these bits and pieces. form it into something, and then people take your work and break it down and turn into something their own. Absolutely. And while I'm at it, I'll tell you, folks, what else I do? You can just take a picture of some of these pages in these books and just Instagram, give the man credit, because you're not bright enough to do it, but you'll get a lot of likes and you'll inspire people. So there's another little freebie.

Absolutely. So I want to talk about the process, because this is huge for anybody, man or woman who wants to do something that matters, And if you've got some ambition, which can be a really good thing, it has some ugly sides to it as well. But I want to talk about the process because you talk about showing your work along the way. That's a big theme in this book, show your work. But I want you to describe what you mean by showing it and showing it along the way. But I want you to talk about maybe the underside of that.

And that's learning to savor the process, even when it doesn't taste good. But, you know, the failure, the trying part, because that's a big part of it. I think particularly for artists, you know, we're always told, think process, not product, you know, is that you have to, like if you're a painter, you need to fall in love with the act of painting, not just having made a finished painting and hanging on the wall. You know, so you have to love everything. You have to love finding the images, you know, preparing the canvas, you know, mixing the paint, getting the paint on the canvas. You know, it's the whole process of things. But up until, you know, recently, the kind of status quo has always been processes for yourself. Process is something that's only for you or your internal team, or it's something that you keep hidden.

You don't show people, you know, behind the curtain, so to speak. There's a great, you know, line that we've all heard. You don't want to know how a sausage is made. so to speak. But I think we're living in this time and age in which people actually do want to know how the sausage is made, and quite literally, if you think about the foodie movement. I mean, think about how important it is for people to have, you know, sustainable, natural meats and things like that.

And so I think what happens, we're in this era in which if your sausage is made well and the process is good, it makes the sausage even tastier. And so I think some of the point I'm trying to make is that we're living in this age in which people who interact with our businesses, the story of how our products are made and how we do our work is almost as important to the way people feel about our business as the products themselves. And so I wanted to write a book about how to kind of keep an open, you know, kind of how to show your work. right, how to show people what you're doing while you're doing it. And it's a very tricky dance, but I think it's a very powerful one. What do you enjoy most, Austin, about the process of taking something from idea to creation and execution?

I like the surprise, you know. I'm in the process right now of a new project. And when we started out, we had this very defined idea. And I said, oh, great, we can do that. And as I started to work, as I actually started to do the work, these interesting connections started happening. And, you know, the work starts to appear to you. And, you know, as much as you have an idea about where you're going, if you're doing really interesting creative work,

it'll leave you somewhere that you didn't expect. And so that, to me, is the most fun. of the whole process is just surprising yourself. Now, I think to a lot of people, it's also the most scary part of the process because the idea that you might get taken somewhere that you weren't ready to go. And so then it becomes a matter of staying open

but also staying on track, you know? But to me, it's always the surprises that come along in the process. And I think that, you know, when you're showing your work to people, I think that we have to remember that the things that surprise us about our work, that kind of energy will come through in the work and other people will be able to detect it. Last question for you, Austin, and this is probably my favorite question. And if you would indulge us, I would love to know, who are you stealing from right now? Oh, my goodness. Who am I stealing from right now? Who are you not stealing from? Probably is the better question. Yeah, who am I not stealing from? Well, I always have my old. I always have my old favorites.

I love old cartoonists like Saul Seinberg, Charles Schultz, who wrote Peanuts. I'm a big Linda Berry maniac. The cartoonist Linda Barry is great. Right now, I'm really interested in, there's a, there's a musician named PJ Harvey, who's actually, she's recording her new album behind glass, and she sold tickets to to her fans, they can come and watch her record this album through the glass, but it's only one-way glass. She can't see them.

So it's a very interesting. I love this idea of setting up a way that people can watch you work, but you're not aware of having an audience. And so I'm kind of thinking about how to steal that idea right now. But yeah, the great question is maybe who I'm not stealing from. Yeah, yeah. I knew that as soon as I asked that I knew better. I have to think about that.

That's right. I don't know. I think that, but I think that leads to a greater point is that I have always emphasized that you have to surround yourself by the best people doing the best work. And that's how you find things to steal. But the truth is, is that there's always something to steal from people who are doing crappy work, too. But what you steal might be more like a lesson of what not to do. So there's always something to steal from somebody. Well, awesome.

I got to tell you, I love your work. I sincerely mean this when I say I believe that your work, your books are a gift to creatives everywhere. We're grateful for your time. And you have a standing invitation to come hang out. If you ever get to the Music City, if I get to Austin, I'll try to harass you for a couple of minutes, come see you. But I really do enjoy your work. And I know our audience is better for hearing this conversation.

He is Austin Cleon, the book, Steal Like an Artist, Ten Things. Nobody told you about being creative. Now, we're going to give 10 books away right now. Now, you know how to qualify if you've been listening for an amount of time. If you're new, welcome aboard. Here's how you qualified to win one of the 10 books. We want you to tweet something about our podcast and mention at Entree Leadership. That is our Twitter handle at Entree Leadership.

And whatever you say, and please make it nice, you have to put in the hashtag conversation that matters. That's all you do. If you put the hashtag Conversation That Matters in a tweet that mentions at Entree leadership, you're automatically qualified. Eric the producer will then put all the names in a hat, and 10 of you lucky listeners will win this book, steal like an artist. And can I just tell you, go get this book. In fact, I bought a case of these books when I arrived here and gave them out. I think this book is a must read for anybody who is involved at any level in any work. I don't

care if it's a nonprofit, if it's a ministry or, of course, business. I think it's must read, so there you go. jump on that. Well, folks, I'm getting all kinds of feedback from you. You're loving these short, bite-sized, practical pieces of wisdom from Clayte Mask at InfusionSoft. Clayt joins me back on the phone again. Hey, man, I'm enjoying these. I hope you're loving it. Oh, I love it.

It's great to be with you, Ken. Thanks so much. All right. So here is the question of the day for our entree leaders. What is the science behind effective follow-up? This is interesting to me because you say there's a science behind following up. explain. Absolutely. It's not something where you just show up and say, hey, you're there, you're there, you're there. It's not tiring people out and boring them. It's effectively these five things,

segmentation, education, repetition, variety, and automation. Following these five steps is about sending the right information to the right people at the right time, and when you do that, you can dramatically increase sales. It's something we've done in our business, in the early days we saw this happen. We see it happen with our customers all the time. These five steps to help you do effective follow-up will change the game in your business. All right. That's good. Folks. I'm going to say these for you again. You need to write these down and then follow with infusions off because trust me, they can help you with this. All right. Here they are segmentation, education, repetition, variety, and automation. Clay, how do you walk alongside these men and women leaders to help them

actually do this well so they can see huge results? Yeah, we love business owners. We love helping them be successful. The key is for them to have the right system and the right help so that they get organized, grow sales, and save time and have a successful business and a successful life. That's what we do at InfusionSoft. Here's the good news, folks. They have the system. You just need to reach out and learn everything and get involved quickly. You do that very simply by going to infusionsoft.com slash entre. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree. As always, Clay, you're always bringing the power, baby, and it's fast and simple and easy to follow. Love it. We'll talk with you again very soon. Thanks, Ken. Appreciate it.

So we thought it'd be fun to play a little bit of the Dave Ramsey show, specifically our small business hours. Dave does these every once in a while, and they're great fun as he only takes calls around business-type questions. This is so good. Here's a little bit of one of our recent small business hours. It's a small business theme hour. Christy Wright is my guest for three or four of the segments this hour. As we talk about business and answer your questions about that, is brought to you by Entree leadership. Trey is on the line in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Trey, your question for Christiane and me. Oh, I'm so excited around out. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. Okay. So I ran a company before for like three years, and it kind of just fell in my lap. I learned

a lot of great things. I learned that I wasn't a really good boss because I didn't know how to delegate. So the staff that I chose to work with kind of got overwhelming for me. I had people who were either really, really older than me that had a hard time taking authority from me because of my age or had people that were a lot younger than me that I had to babysit. So I was getting calls and texting emails at all hours in the night. So I really kind of drove myself into the ground health-wise with that, and I just shut it down. Now, I'm starting another company this time around. It's more web-based, still promoting other people and other businesses.

I do like to market other people's passions for them and help them really achieve their customer base. But in order for me to have something to present, to invest, Obviously, I have to have some type of prototype, business plan, you know, active web page, those things going. And there's a lot of things that that's not my forte. I'm the idea guy, and I can do well with operations. I'm trying to actually select another team now, and I was thinking of maybe going with college interns, but the only thing is I don't want to babysit again. So I'm in the catch-22.

I have great ideas. I've got some things in place, and I'm kind of halfway doing business plans and things like that. Okay. Christy, what's your ideas? Yeah, I'll say, speaking from experience, when I'm managing, lifeguards at the YMCA, they were getting paid $6 an hour, and they were 15 years old. So you're dealing with the least motivated lowest pay grade. The two things that you can really control is making your company, making your organization,

a fantastic place to work. And that's something that Dave has done here with us winning best place to work. So you then draw the best of the best because you're really, you have something to offer. You offer this incredible place to work. You value your employees. The second thing is you really compel to the why of what you're doing. We talk a lot about that here with your mission and your purpose. But when you sell them something bigger than themselves and they're not so caught up in the hourly pay or what the pay grade is.

And you can really compel on a deeper level and get buy-in and a whole different level of commitment towards you and your mission that really makes it possible to start out paying very low because you're all in this crusade together. And you can share profits going up. Yes. You can start about a low pay grade, but agree to share profits as they go up. And they can make a lot of money by sharing in your profits if they help you make a bunch of profit. and that attracts another entrepreneurial spirit to walk with you, and that's how we grew this place around here, and it has worked very, very well. Hold on.

I'm going to send you a copy of the book, Entree Leadership, to help you with some of those things. Bertina is with us in Des Moines. Hi, Bertina. How are you? Hi, Dave. I have a question in regards to starting our own business with an LLC. My husband's been looking into this. He does baseball and softball instruction.

And he's had friends that are small business owners and attorneys tell him that my name should not be included with that paperwork. Why? What do you? They said it's easier. Easier for what? A divorce? Well, that's what I was wondering. Listen, I own about 15 LLCs, and my wife is in every one of them.

Okay. So that's BS. I mean, it's easier if you, you know, you've got to sign some paperwork, and when they get ready to a bank account, you've got to sign the paperwork for that. But he can sign the checks. He can do the operations of the business with no trouble once you sign the initial setup of the LLC. Why does he need an LLC to coach baseball? I don't know.

I don't either. I don't think he does. Okay. What would constitute when we would need that? There is no tax advantage to having an LLC or a sub-S corporation. So you don't do it for taxes. The only reason you do it is if you're worried about liability. And the only reason you'd be worried about liability is if you're in a business where people get sued a lot.

I mean, what are you going to get sued for? Because Johnny struck out? I mean, really. More injuries, possibly? Well, possibly. I don't know how the coach is liable on that. That's really questionable. I think you buy a liability policy and you keep it as a soap.

pridership. It's a lot easier to run your life personally. The only reason you would do in LLC is if you're in a litigious industry or the business has gotten big enough that it's got a target on it or your personal assets are large enough that they've got a target on them. But if you're middle class family starting a business out of your garage on how to coach baseball, I would start it as a sole proprietorship. This is the Dave Ramsey show. Well, we hope you enjoyed a little bit of the Dave Ramsey show. And I want to remind you that all three hours, hours of the Dave Ramsey show are now podcasted, of course, on iTunes and then Dave Ramsey.com. So you can get all three hours, commercial free. What a great benefit that is. So do take

advantage of that opportunity. I'm very excited because coming up our next podcast will be our 100th episode. What a privilege it is for me to be a part of this amazing podcast platform. Chris Hogan so ably handed the baton to me, and we're excited to celebrate 100 episodes. You are the reason we do this, and you are the reason that we've been able to keep doing it. So thank you so much for listening and for spreading the word. All I'm going to say is, very special guest. We'll join me and Daniel Tarty, who runs things for us at Entree Leadership. So it's going to be fun.

Don't miss our 100th episode. Eric, the producer, working hard on some of the best moments over those 100 episodes, and then the very special guest. So that's coming up on our next episode. As I always do, I want to thank Austin Cleon, our guest. We love Clayton, and what he's. is bringing to you as well, and we want to thank our entire Entree leadership team, Eric, the producer, and of course you, the audience for listening. We'll talk with you again very, very soon.