Latest / The Daily Writer / Make Your Life & Work Fun Again with a Creative Habit | Mike Brennan

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Make Your Life & Work Fun Again with a Creative Habit | Mike Brennan · The Daily Writer

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert series.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you think back to the early days of your writing journey, no matter if you're at the beginning or you've been doing this for a while, I'll bet you were filled with joy and wonder at the power of writing.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: But somewhere along the way, you probably lost the spark a little bit.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: You grew up, life got hard, and you felt overwhelmed with responsibilities, with family, career, and other things.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's a pretty common story that most of us have experienced, especially if we do this full time.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's hard not to let the tasks of writing and business totally consume our thoughts and our habits.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we have to be intentional about injecting a sense of fun, curiosity, and wonder back into our lives again.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: My guest today is here to help us do exactly that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Mike Brennan is an author and artist who tells stories on pages and stages.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's a passionate advocate for reigniting the lost art of fun and creativity in our lives.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: He does this by the transformative power of fun, play, and creativity in both his storytelling and in his work with clients.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Mike is the author of several books on creativity, including Creative Power, 30 Days of Creative Affirmations, Make Fun a Habit, The Creative Playbook for Making Life and Work Fun Again, and the Daily Creative Habit Creative Journal.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this call that you're going to hear today was from a session in our Profitable Writer membership last year, and I wanted to share this because we had such a fun time on this call with Mike.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Mike helped our group explore our creative side and work toward building meaningful creative habits into our life and writing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm confident you're going to enjoy this just as much as we did.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I always encourage you to check out our membership at theprofitablewriter.com.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: In addition, make sure to check out all of Mike Brennan's books and offerings at MikeBrennan.me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, here's our conversation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: I want to introduce you guys to Mike Brennan, who we've been friends for a few years, and we have we kind of connected online, and I know that a couple of you know Mike.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh MJ, I know you're familiar with Mike, and some of the rest of you may be as well.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've asked Mike to come and uh he's generously agreed to spend some time here on our call today, and I've asked Mike to come and help us with this theme that we have this month of creative thinking and creative habits.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we all know, of course, that writing by definition is an act of creativity because we're bringing something into the world that hasn't been there before, at least in that exact way.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And Mike is when I thought, who could I potentially ask to be a guest for this month's call?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: The only person I actually thought of was Mike.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I know a lot of creative people in my life, but Mike is the one who has really thought long and hard about this and put out some cool resources uh around creativity and creative habits, and also he's just a really, really amazing artist.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So Mike, glad to have you with us.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh super excited to to dig into some themes related to creativity and fun.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: So welcome officially.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Ken.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I appreciate your kind words.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start here, and I'm gonna approach this maybe for you know the first part of our call here, sort of like a podcast interview where I've got some things prepared that I'd love to just walk through, and then I'd love to open it up to some questions and answers, those type of things, which I always enjoy doing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Walk us through, if you would, your background uh professionally and how this led you to what you're doing now, which is writing books about fun and creativity and play.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're helping people think through these issues.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: What has actually led you up to this point in your professional life?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's kind of been a long, windy journey, as many of ours is, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um it started with art school and going into graphic design.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's my background uh here in New York City area.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I worked in several different agencies and companies, um, had a wealth of experience as far as like the huge corporate beasts where some of the clients were like mobile and Heineken and Chase, um, and then other places where I was the art department.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you have to get real scrappy and figure out how do you do things uh with no budget and really no other personnel on staff.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um so those experiences kind of all taught me something in that specific time and place.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um and eventually, you know, I do what normally happens, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: You you kind of get a staff position someplace and you you're working there for a certain amount of time, and then you kind of hit a ceiling, or there's some other kind of um, you know, block, whether it's a staffing issue or something else, and you feel like, okay, now it's time to move on to something else.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so every four or five years, I was pivoting and getting a new position and moving around, trying to, you know, do the let's keep climbing up and to the right, and um, you know, all the successes and things that are supposed to go along with that.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh my my job where I had um landed where I was doing actually editorial layout for this magazine.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um there were actually two magazines, and there was a deadline every two weeks, and the pace of that, the churn rate, was extremely taxing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I found that I wasn't able to really appreciate what I just did, and I was on to the next thing.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I also didn't understand something fundamental about myself at that point in life, where it was I really like to create something and then see the end user, if you will, see how what I create affects them, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it goes back to when I was a kid making greeting cards for family members.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'd create this card, I'd give it to them, their face would light up, and they'd be like, You created this for me, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: And there was this exchange that happened.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't know how important that was to me in the creation process.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so some of that laid uh a low-grade frustration as well, um, because I didn't get to experience that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: It was always just create and send it out, and where it goes, I have no idea.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: I have no interaction with anybody.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so all those things combined led me to this place of burnout, really, and going, This isn't working.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I'm I'm leaving my creativity altogether now.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going into something else.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: I went into full-time ministry for 10 years and put my creativity on a shelf for 10 years, didn't do anything really creative.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that led to a different problem, which was I'm not showing up how I'm created to be.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not creating anything, I'm not leaning into who I really am.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: And while I was doing so on the relational side, I wasn't doing it on the creation side.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that ultimately, along with a bunch of other life experience and circumstances, led me to a place of depression.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: And suddenly I was in this place where everything was being stripped away.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: I had to leave my job, I had to move, sell a house.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: My dad had been diagnosed with cancer and passed quickly.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like hit after hit after hit.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it was in that moment where I really was like, this is rock bottom.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't, I don't know how I got here, and uh, I don't know how to get out.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so through that place, I ended up hearing this voice inside me going, Can you can you engage with your creativity again?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, can you come back to your creativity, not necessarily for a career, but remember that boy who created that greeting card and someone who found joy in the process of creating?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, can we find that place?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I was honestly like, I don't even know if that exists anymore.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: And if it does, what that could even look like.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you re-engage with something that you've walked away from for so long?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so that led me to this uh project idea that someone had told me about, which was a 365-day art making journey where every single day you do something.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it scared me to death because I thought, I haven't shown up for 10 years.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: How am I supposed to do this in the entire next year every single day showing up and doing something?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so, long story short, I ended up doing it and um realized, like, oh, there's something at work here when you show up every day and make these small deposits.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's all I could afford in the beginning, because I'm struggling with mental health and my energy level and just trying to write size, you know, life, you know, and uh 10, 15 minutes a day was all I could manage.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: So it wasn't like a um, I didn't really have another choice, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: If I was going to do this, it had to be on those kind of terms.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so I realized that these small daily deposits spread out throughout a year actually did something.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was actually leading someplace.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then I started to pay attention to more.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I passed a year and I passed two years and three years and so on, and realized that there's a process at work here in my personal journey of creativity, rediscovering myself, discovering what I really like and don't like, um, stripping away a lot of the trappings and rules and context at which I used to show up with my creativity and going, like, what do I want this to look like?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I want to take ownership over my own creative self.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I identified these four parts of a process that I call a daily creative habit process that I help people through now.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so to kind of put a bow on your question to say, you know, how does it prepare me for what I do now?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it was that journey that led me to discoveries about myself and about creativity, about creativity being so much bigger than even visual art, uh, and branching into some other areas of life where I had creative expressions, but I always felt like they were competing with each other.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: So if I fed the visual art, then the written stuff got starved, or you know, the audio stuff or whatever.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: I had all these pieces.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: And um, anyone who is a kind of multi-creative person, um, I think you understand the tension of that when you're in a creative season where one takes the foreground and others go to the background.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so I realized the key thread here is all communication.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's what I'm trying to do through all these forms of creativity.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so these realizations, the process, all the stuff now goes into what I do now and in trying to really create resources and be an aid and come alongside other people to say, look, I understand how important creativity is, and I understand how important it is to own your creative process and creative self, because what flows out of that can be absolutely life-changing, because that's my story.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's helping people close the gap of here's where I am and here's where I want to be creatively.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, how can we do that and do it in such a way that's engaging, that's fun, and that highlights who you really are in the process of that, and not simply taking a template from me and my experiences and trying to just slap it on top of yours, but go, let's let's dive into this deeper.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and so get going with creating every single day.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's that's immensely powerful.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you guys all agree?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's so much to unpack there.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have like 10 simultaneously simultaneous thoughts I'm thinking of this.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: I wanna I want to come back to something to something that you mentioned for a second because it spurred my my thinking on something.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then I would love to investigate these uh like these four parts of a daily practice that you mentioned.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So something that um I've actually not made this connection until you were just kind of sharing um your story.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how does someone know what kind of career they should have creatively?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: What I mean by that is that there are some people who are very successful who they basically do one thing.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I saw a thing that uh somebody had posted on Facebook a couple days ago, a friend of mine, it was uh you know how in the front of a book they have the also buy page.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So if this person's written other books, they list those books there.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it it was a a fiction author who had written like dozens and dozens of books, and it had all the book titles there.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And basically, this person was saying, here's something cool that can happen when somebody sets their mind to one singular thing.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: They become very, very successful for that one single thing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: But then contrast that with okay, last night I was just scrolling through Instagram, somebody had posted a picture of Steve Martin, who is obviously somebody that we all know and probably respect and we appreciate his work over the years.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Steve Martin is he's a playwright, he's an author, he's an actor, he's a producer, he's a very accomplished banjo player, he does all these things.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious, Mike, in in your own life and with people that you have interacted with, is there a way that we can know how our career should take shape over time?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's focusing on like one single thing and becoming like the best in the world at that one thing, or whether our career should be sort of a collection or almost like a portfolio of here's the here's the various things that we do, and maybe writing books is one of those things.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sorry this is a really rambling question, but but some of the things that you mentioned kind of brought that to mind.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think the short answer to that is it depends, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um Right, which it always does.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, context uh is very important.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think you need to know yourself.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so the starting point, I believe, is awareness.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like know who you are, how you operate, what's important to you, what your values are, what you want.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like what you really want, not just what you were handed, not what somebody told you, not a role that you're playing, but like what do you really want?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a scary question sometimes, and it can take a long time to dig down deep enough to really discover the truth of that and not just grab something for the sake of having an answer.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I I'll say a couple of things on this, in that one, in terms of having one thing that you're doing, some people are are great with that and they're fine with that.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've talked to other people who that ends up being a trap because they get pigeonholed for a certain thing, and that's all that anybody wants from them.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: And they're growing as a person, their interests maybe and curiosity is going beyond what that starting point was.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: And yet they're trapped in that because that's what they're known for, that's what everybody wants.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so it becomes like these handcuffs creatively, and it's a hard thing to break out of.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and sometimes the change isn't really received.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, think about a lot of bands and stuff, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: That you listen to.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna say that exact thing, that exact example.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: They do something different creatively, and you're like, what is this?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: I want the last thing that they gave me.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: I want the 80s hits, baby.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly, right, exactly.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so it's very difficult to maneuver through that journey in a way that you feel like you're being true to yourself, true to your curiosity, um, and yet still uh engaging with people.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes your audience changes, sometimes your audience doesn't grow with you.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so, but I think it all has to start with you, because if you don't do that, if you don't lean into that, you'll end up being frustrated and either burn the whole thing down, you'll walk away, or you'll just uh be a shell of a person in a certain way creatively because you don't have anything else but that one thing that everybody wants.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now, on the flip side, I want to talk a little bit about the danger of of um or the the pitfalls of being kind of the multi-creative.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's hard to pursue all those things and do them well and have people really understand what you do.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh especially early on when I first started my business and went out on my own, people had a hard time.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, Mike, we love you and we think you do great work, but we don't know how to recommend you because you're kind of like a little all over the map.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, it's still within visual art mostly, and it's still within these certain boxes.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: But when I talk about you, I don't know what to say.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that for me was a big red flag.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Yeah, I I don't know what to do with that.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, one of the things that somebody told me once, and this was kind of I I wish I could go back in time with this sentence, and it was it's not that you can't pursue multiple creative outlets, it's just that sometimes you can't do it simultaneously.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's hard to do that because, in essence, if you're doing your thing and you need to take it to social media and you need to market it, then trying to market all these different expressions and outlets and and you know, um, services, if you will, it's hard to do that and not feel like you're either constantly changing the channel on what it is that you're talking about, and therefore sometimes losing people, or uh not really getting traction in any one area.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: So you've got a bunch of different things that are happening, but they're not really fully developed enough, nor maybe as much of an income stream as you hope they would be, or or they don't all do the same things.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's hard to separate yourself from some of those things and to take a step back and to say, okay, it's not that I'm going to just be the one thing necessarily, but if you're if you have multiple interests, saying, where do these fit into my life right now?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe something is I I do something, but I don't talk about it as much because it's more of a personal uh feeding my creativity.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: And at some point, maybe there's a tipping point where it comes to the foreground more.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: But I think in terms of ease of accessibility and understanding, people want to put you in a box for for better or worse.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's what we all want to do.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: We want to categorize.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you're hard to categorize, you're hard to hire and help people.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so that's been a hard that's a hard lesson to learn.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I've I've been learning that over and over again in my lifetime.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so uh, you know, it really depends on who you are and how you want to go about it, but I think taking action is also the other thing I would say is because it's not enough to just desire to be either the one thing and go, okay, well, I hope that opportunities come to me.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: I hope that you know someone comes and finds me or whatever.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta be taking action towards those things.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and the same with if you are going to have multiple things you have your hand in, um, look for connection points.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: For me, looking for that thread that I said before, communication is underneath all the things that I do.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: And once I realized that, that was completely freeing to me because I no longer felt like I was juggling balls, but I felt like, oh, there are certain circumstances where one might be more appropriate than another.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I can be on a podcast, I can have my own podcast and talk about something, and maybe that sparks something, and then I want to go write about it.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it can inform each other, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: I can make something visual art that has to do with a certain theme.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and and sometimes it's this is the best forum for this particular idea.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um I can't explore the depth and nuance of something in visual art the same way I can in written word.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I can't lead someone on the same journey because visual art may be like a little more open-ended, and whatever the viewer brings to it, that's part of their story and experience.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas whereas in a book, you can spell things out more specifically, you can be more intentional about certain things.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: So again, understanding that communication is what's important to me underneath that, and also creating and connecting.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: Once I know that those two pieces have to be a part of whatever it is that I do, I'm creating something, but it's really not done until I'm connecting with somebody over what it is that I've just created.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, those realizations were gold for me and really help me make sure that I got my head on straight.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: This this is all it's tough for us, I think, who are creatively wired, and everybody has creativity, of course, but for those of us in creative fields, this can be really difficult because we tend to be like squirrels, you know, I'm interested in this, I'm interested in this, I'm interested in this.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: But then at some point we do have to identify something where we go, okay, this is actually where I'm making money, I'm profitable, you know, hence the name of this group, prop Profitable Writer.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we have to kind of land on something.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um you know, I think sometimes we look at people who are doing quote unquote creative work and we're envious of them, but you know, like you mentioned the example with the bands, they can feel boxed in sometimes too.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think of one of my favorite bands of all time is Toto, you know, from the 80s.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're still out touring today, and every time I I'm on social media and I see little clips from their concerts, I'm like, man, how tired must they be of playing Rosanna for the six millionth time?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how can that possibly be creatively interesting on any level for these guys?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And but this is their job, this is how they make their living.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and it's funny when you see these bands and they're like, Hey guys, we got a new album out, we're gonna play our new song.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's like, We don't want to hear that, we just want to hear you know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: We want to hear Rosanna again and you know all this kind of stuff.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe the people who that that we admire in creative fields, maybe it's not all as cracked up to be sometimes.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: I I'd also love to just say sometimes we have a tendency to attach expectations to something and it's misplaced.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: Meaning, when I was doing some design positions on staff, I thought, well, I reached the goal in I'm making a living from my creativity, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like that was my goal after graduating.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: And looking back, I'm like, that's not a great goal.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's not specific enough.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's not measurable enough.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, sure, I'm doing that, but what does that really mean?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I realized that I didn't have another outlet for the things that I wanted to say, the things from my voice, right?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like doing client work is not the arena for me saying, I want to try this new thing out of the box and just say what I want to say about a particular subject matter, right?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so the problem becomes you're creating all day long for everybody else.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then the last thing you feel like you have energy and effort for is to create for yourself at the end of the day.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: But that's really the place where you need to be pouring into because those passion projects are the places where there is no client, there is no committee, there is no, you know, other things outside influences, and you're simply playing and exploring, and you're saying, I'm doing the work that I want to do.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe it becomes something and maybe it doesn't.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: But it's a place for me to explore, be curious, and follow that.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times that stuff is what feeds back into the client work, honestly, and gives a fresh take on something or a methodology or something else.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's not an either or, it's an and both.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're sort of forced, and I don't use the word force slightly, but we're put in a situation where we need to create things that we wouldn't create for ourselves, but we learn things in the process of doing that that we can then apply to our own stuff, which is kind of cool.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to dive into these four things that you mentioned that are part of our daily creative habit.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: You have uh an amazing series of books, and I know maybe you wouldn't describe them as a series, but they're a collection of books on related themes.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh creative power, make fun of habit, daily creative habit journals.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: So these are all really, really cool resources.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, walk us through these four things and how we can integrate these into our days if you can.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and I'll say, you know, it's I I haven't thought about those in a series necessarily, but more in terms of an evolution, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think as creative people, we're growing, we're evolving, our interests are um moving forward, uh or they should be, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so for me, embracing writing, not just visual art, was a big piece of my journey, and saying, Oh, no, actually, I am a writer.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's all about the the thought, the creative thought, and how I'm going to express that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so having the ability to write uh and exposing some of the lies of me saying, Well, I'm I'm not a writer because uh it doesn't look like X, Y, and Z, or because I'm bad at spelling, or whatever, right?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, all those things that kind of trip us up and stop us from doing the real work.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: So, anyway, the the process that kind of emerged through my personal journey that I recognized, um, I really break it down into four steps.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the first one is start small.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it was so important for me in the beginning because I couldn't do anything else but start small.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I think sometimes we have this bias of big.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like we want to swing for the fences right out of the gate.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: We want the home run, we want like everything just to come all at once, the overnight success, right?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like we want big.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, big paychecks, big experiences, big opportunities.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: But the the problem is that those are flash in the pans, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what typically looks like every day is just show up and do some work.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so starting small starts to flip the script a bit and say, what if today my goal was to show up and create for X amount of time?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I say 15 minutes, if you're just kind of getting into this, right?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I say 15 minutes is manageable because it doesn't feel like such an imposition that you'll either bump it because of some other expectation or responsibility.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, anybody can find 15 minutes.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you have a traditional nine to five job, you have a lunch hour, find 15 minutes in that lunch hour, or get up in the in the morning before everybody is up, or stay, you know, stay up later.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Wherever that 15 minutes comes, find that.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: I would also say look for places to redeem time because a lot of times I would find myself if I was in a store someplace and there was lines that I had to wait on, or someplace that that was kind of this wasted time.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of just looking at my phone, I took a sketchbook with me and I started to say, well, this is time that I can actually redeem and pour back into myself, as opposed to just wasting it or killing this time.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so identifying those pockets wherever I could was really valuable too.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, starting small means recognizing that a daily deposit over time can make much more of a difference than waiting for these huge blocks of time that seemingly never really come.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um and for me, with art supplies and things, if that big time came, I would kill most of it, setting up my stuff, getting myself prepared, trying to think of what am I gonna do, right?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm I'm preparing for all this time to create and eating away at the time that I've set aside to actually create.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then I get to the end of that and go, like, I'm exhausted and I didn't even really do anything.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: What is that about, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I say a lot of times it's like flirting with your creativity.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, hey, how are you doing?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's get together.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Let's, you know, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so it's these moments, but it's not consistent.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so daily deposits help you with that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: We understand that in terms of finances, right?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: If you put away a certain amount of money each day, that's going to grow.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: Theoretically, we understand that if you go to the gym, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you lift weights or you you exercise, you're going to see results because you're doing that and there's an accumulation over time.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing creatively.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's a muscle.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: The more we flex it, the better we're gonna get at it, and the more results we're gonna see.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: So, number one, to start small.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Number two, schedule it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: I know that I get pushback all the time from people, especially creative people who are more, I want to follow the muse.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: I want to wait for inspiration.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: The muse doesn't come at three o'clock on a Wednesday.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: The muse is busy somewhere else.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: So, how can I put three o'clock on my calendar to say that's when I'm going to show up?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: I won't be inspired.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and at the end of the day, it's not that I'm saying stifle your inspiration or the muse, not at all.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: But what I am saying is put something on a calendar so you know when the muse can show up because you're showing up.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we've all had those experiences where we get inspiration and there's nothing we can do about it in the time at which it comes.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: We're in the shower, we're someplace else, this thought comes, we're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: This is the next best, whatever.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden, it's gone because we didn't take time to record it.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't take time to act on it because maybe we couldn't.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's just gone.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I'm saying put time on the calendar so you know when you're showing up and protect it like you would a really important appointment, like a doctor's appointment or a birthday, an anniversary, something really important because it is, because you're investing in yourself.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: This is the time you've set aside to say, this is what I'm going to do.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of pushback comes also from people who are so in this mode and so wired because of maybe their life situations where they're always helping somebody else.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: They're always, you know, it's about everybody else, and then I get whatever's left over, right?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like, especially moms, right?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like that is that is a mom to a degree because it's I'm I'm I'm helping my family, I'm helping everybody else.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: And then whatever's left over, then maybe I'll I'll have that time and I'll try and figure out what to do with it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: And there's there's this guilty sense of like, well, if I take this time, is that being selfish?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: And we have to realize that if it's going to help us be the best versions of ourselves to pour into ourselves in this way creatively, then the people around us are going to benefit too, because we'll be the best versions of ourselves for feeding ourselves.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um we would not, we would not feed our family and not eat ourselves.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: We would die.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, some of us are dying creatively because we're not putting the time in to say, I'm going to do this and make this a priority.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: And the way that you make it a priority is you put it on your scatter schedule, you put it on your calendar, and you protect it with a machete and you say, This is my time.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: And going back to part one, start small, 15 minutes.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Again, it may seem ridiculous putting 15 minutes on your schedule every single day, but then you know when you're going to show up.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: There's no drifting, there's no, you know, good intentions that don't really materialize to anything.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: So um be intentional about putting on your calendar.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: So start small, schedule it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: Number three, this is one of my favorites, play.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh somewhere along the way, uh, we get real serious about what it is that we're doing creatively, and we're like, this is work, this is hard.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the grind of it sometimes it wears on us.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and if we don't have a place to play, we're not exploring, we're not being curious.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so in and amongst this, setting aside time, starting small, giving yourself places to play and say, what if?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: Let me do something that maybe this isn't going to lead to something that I'm going to sell or or maybe even is used in some context.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: But the act in and of itself is the reward.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's what fun and play is all about.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the reward at the end of the process, it's actually part of the process.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: And if we can start having fun while we're doing some of these things, we're going to be more engaged.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to look forward to showing up and doing these things.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I use the example of one time I thought to myself, how can I intentionally push into this play and explore idea?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to my yard and I grabbed a stick and I said, I'm going to put some paint on this and then scratch it across the surface of a canvas and see what that happened, you know, see what happens, see what it looks like.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so I did that, and then I stood back and I'm like, ooh, that's horrible.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like there was nothing I was going to do with that canvas, with that scratchy, gross texture.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: But here's what happened.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: I stopped for a minute and I said, okay, this isn't producing a result that I want, but if I ever want that texture on purpose, I now know a tool to use in order to do that.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: And playing is the thing that unlocked that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't have gotten that knowledge or experience had I not stepped into that moment to play.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh it's important to continually call yourself to play, to stop pushing at a problem, stop, stop trying to solve something all the time, let your brain rest and enter into the state where you can just be a little open and just, you know, this doesn't really matter beyond what I'm doing right now.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's why people color, right?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: Adult coloring books.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's like huge.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's why, you know, I mean, take the cue from the kids.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: They don't think about this in terms of, well, do I have to play?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: What am I gonna do?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's so they just show up and play.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's part of who they are and what they do.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Recapturing some of that is really important in this process because those are the moments where we'll have breakthroughs.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Those are the moments where we'll have ideas that wouldn't come otherwise.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that that's what guards us against getting into ruts and being stuck in certain places, even thematically, in our work.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that's number three play.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: And the final one, fourth, is um is celebrate your wins.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like you guys were doing earlier on this call, right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: Celebrate your wins.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: And that's important because in order to celebrate your wins, you have to track and measure what you're doing.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't celebrate a win that you're not aware of.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so for me, the end of every year, and by the way, this is my 12th year of doing a daily creative habit of my own, of mostly the visual art stuff.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: The end of a year, I put together this collage of all the images of what I created in that year.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then I take that year and I combine it with the previous years.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have this one image that there's these tiny little mosaic images that you can't even tell what they are at this point.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're talking thousands.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, think about you know, 365 times 12.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: I did even more than that because there were a lot of days where I did two or three pieces.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so all this is represented in this image.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason I do that is not just so I can share it on social media and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: But it's for myself that I can look at that and go, oh, in this past year, I can see where I hit a wall.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: I can see where I did a bunch of things that were bad work.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: But then following that, I also see where I had a breakthrough.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: I see another thing where I started using a different tool.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that affected my work.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I adopted that into my process moving forward.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's all right there because I've been tracking and measuring it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: And in order to do that, um, you know, you have to figure out what that looks like for you to keep the work that you've done in sight so that you're looking back and going, this is where I started, this is where I am, this is where I want to go.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I need to look back and realize, like, oh, I've already come so far.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: I've already done so much in that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: And if I don't celebrate that, then I just keep setting myself up for the the next over the now.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: And what I mean by that, there's always something new.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: There's always the shiny object, there's always a new heart.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we're we're we're people who want to achieve.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: We want to push to the next level.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so push, push, push, push, push.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're going to burn out.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're going to not realize that there are moments to celebrate that you missed along the way.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes celebrating looks like, hey, I'm going to buy myself a little special something to signify that I accomplished this thing.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: Or take myself to a special place, a park that I love to go to, or a museum, or a bookstore where I can go and they just have the this setting that I just love to just kind of sit there for a while.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like whatever that looks like for you, use that as a reward to celebrate the moments of what you've done.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because the more that you actually tie it to this kind of reward, the more you're going to reinforce the importance of doing that.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, Andy Stanley is famous for saying this what gets repeated gets rewarded.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so you want to do this again and again and again where you're feeding into this as part of your process.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's not simply like, oh yeah, you know, somewhere along the way, I know I did this thing, or I, you know, I wrote this book and I published this thing and whatever.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just so far in the rear view that it seems like the next exit is so far ahead, there's nothing to celebrate along the way except these things that don't really seem like they mean much.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: But in in reality, they really do.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: So having that ability to track, to measure, to celebrate your progress in your wins is huge.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know, for me, like an example, when I finished Make Fun of Habit, um, I bought myself these pair of sneakers that are like these really colorful, like rainbowy colors, like kind of splattery.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's just, it's very me.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like the colors behind me on my artwork.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I bought those because that was a reminder to me that every time I put those sneakers on, every time I looked at them, I would remember, oh yeah, I I wrote that book.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: I did it, I did the work.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's out there in the world.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it's an encouragement to me that A, I can do it, and B, okay, what's next?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: What else can I create?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so it keeps me going.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is beautiful stuff.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's really, really beautiful.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: So start small, schedule it, play, and celebrate your wins.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Four things that can really, really make a huge difference.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is really weird stuff.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you sharing this, Mike.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 39:12
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• 39:21
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• 39:53
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• 39:59
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• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's open it up for some QA.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Mike has given us a lot to think about, a lot of practical tools, but also some things that are more philosophical or big picture oriented.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um curious about your observations, reflections, questions.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: What have you got?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of comments going on here on the side, which is awesome.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um being multi-creative.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um having that focus is important, like you mentioned.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for reminding all the other creative things that you're thinking and pondering on actually doing or actually doing you, but it's just not right.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that you you know you're interested in everyone else.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great element.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great uh somebody was saying something.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go ahead.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when you first started your habits back up, did you immediately start with 15 minutes in the creative space that you were used to, or did you look for a different creative outlet?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the the initial steps back in were it's funny, somebody recommended to me to take a printmaking class.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought to myself, I'm like, printmaking class?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I haven't done that since college.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, what does that have to do with anything?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like it just seemed like this foreign thing.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I decided, I'm like, it was it was kind of a a greatest hits type of class.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so I decided to take that class, and I was like, it's something, it's it's doing something creative, so sure, why not?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was during that class that actually one of the professors mentioned this book that was um The Creative License by Danny Gregory.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: And that book ended up having a significant impact on my life because it was one where he talked about um, you know, sometimes in your drawing, if it's not, you know, picture perfect, that's actually okay.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: It may be part of your style.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so it gave it it uncovered a bunch of lies for me and made me realize, like, oh, there's stuff I need to work through here.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: So that was one key thing.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other thing was that, like, for me, my creativity looked like graphic design for so long that was digital.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't want to do anything digital because it reminded me of work.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, this isn't work, this is a personal journey.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great thing.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: I need to not do that, right?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_03: So For the longest time, I swore off.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not drawing on an iPad, I'm not doing anything digital.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is all, I'm getting my hands dirty with these materials.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm getting this experience that is different and harkens back to when I was in art school and when I was maybe a little more in love with the idea of creating.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was trying to surround myself with enough of that type of experience and materials that it would woo me back.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: And eventually I made allowance for, okay, well, maybe it's all right to do something digital because it's another tool in the toolbox.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: And now I'd say 85-90% of what I do is digital again.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it kind of came back around.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: But it was that journey.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: I had to I had to give myself enough places to get a little grab so that I wouldn't just throw the whole thing away again.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen in the chat who are my mentors.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, I I've had a I've had a lot of mentors over time, and they've been in a lot of different contexts.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um many that I haven't necessarily even met in person, but I've been mentored through their work or through their process, um, through their their stories and journeys.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: Honestly, that's a big reason why I started my podcast, Creative Chats, is because I s I love to talk to people about their journey, their experience, their stories, their process.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the more people I can talk to, regardless of whatever their creative outlet or expression is, I can find that thread and say, oh, they had that same experience as me, even though what they're doing is completely different.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or they had a life story and experiences that is way different than mine.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: But here's the the here's the common ground.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um and those experiences keep me going.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so I find, you know, I don't know that that's necessarily mentorship uh in a traditional sense, um, but I find it in in uncommon ways.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: And certainly there are some people mentors in terms of business, um, you know, and and some other friends along the way.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you have a mentor who's in place for a little bit of your journey, and then either you outgrow them or something changes and evolves, and it's okay.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: And you you kind of say, Hey, thank you for being on my journey for that leg, and now I'm off to somebody else who's gonna help me on the next part.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's natural and normal, um, as opposed to you know, those of us who have communities and wanting like everybody always stay here, be a part of this, whatever, you know, because then there's also like money tied to that, and there's always, you know, like there's a lot of moving pieces to that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: But I think, you know, altruistically, uh, it it's a um it's a sense of what who do you need right now?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um seek that person out and then also be that person for somebody else who's coming up behind you.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um be involved with the give and take of that.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's really important because you can learn just as much giving to somebody else because then you start talking about your story, your experiences, and you start saying out loud some things maybe that you've never said out loud, and you're like, wow, I didn't I didn't even realize that.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it can help you talk about what you do in a different context.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: And all this stuff honestly comes with a lot of scars.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: You have to you have to try things, you have to fail a lot and figure things out and keep going.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's where I think you gain a lot of wisdom.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Something that you said earlier, Mike, really um really struck me, and it it sounds so simple, but it's not so simple at all, which is knowing yourself and what you want to do and your goals and all those kinds of things.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: One of the one of the things that I struggled with a lot earlier and probably still struggle with, I probab I probably will always struggle with it, is the idea of having different people in your life who are mentors, but they're giving conflicting advice about things.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you might follow this guru or this author or you're in this mastermind or this group or whatever it is, or listen to this podcast.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: And all those are are very valid forms of mentoring and coaching.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: But then when you hear somebody say, Oh, this is the thing you should do, and then somebody else says, This is the thing you should do, um, that can be really difficult because you have to know yourself and be able to take what's valuable from those mentors or coaches or gurus, so to speak, but then dismiss the rest of it because that doesn't apply to you.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's really difficult if you're like a multifaceted creative person because it's just it's hard to sift through all of the emotional stuff that's happening in your life, your dreams and your goals, and what's working for your business, and what they're saying.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's I think that is a really big challenge.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I'm a little bit jealous of like my grandparents who I'm not saying that I want to go work at a shoe factory, but where I grew up in in southern Missouri, one of the big employers was uh a shoe c shoe company was called Brown Shoe Company.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Then that's what then they were actually bought out by Red Wing uh years and years ago.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: And my uncle worked there, my mom worked there for a time, my both my grandparents worked there, and there is something kind of appealing about the idea of you just go and you clock in and you do your thing, and you don't have to make all these decisions.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a very, very simple life.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying I want to do that, but there is a certain simplicity to that that we don't have today because we have endless options for our careers and what we want to do.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think it it reminds me of somebody asked me once about feedback, you know, critique on your work.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's something similar there where, you know, you you put your work out there, you put your work, you know, for me it was like in art school, we put our work up on the wall, and and the whole class would critique it as well as the professor.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: And those those moments you just are like, ooh, I know what's gonna happen.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_03: You're bracing yourself, get your thick skin on, right?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and it was very telling because there not all critique and feedback was the same.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the same with with mentors, not all advice is the same.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: There's there's nuance, there's context, and you also have to know who it's coming from, right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_03: So for me in that class, there were classmates who I know their goal was just to step on everybody else so they would look the best, right?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so I wasn't going to take their feedback because I knew where it was coming from and I knew what their motivation was.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, okay, say what you want, but you know, and then there were times where I had a professor and he was he was interesting, I'll just say that.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh he would he would say this one project, he he says to me, uh, I don't like the color black.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do it again.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, okay, that's personal preference.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: What kind of feedback is that?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what am I supposed to do with that?
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, you know, no, go do it again, and here's next week's assignment, too.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, that's totally not helpful.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like, so even though it was it was a professor and an authority figure, I needed to know enough of going, do I take that advice?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: Do I not?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, do I do it just in this context because I need to get a passing grade?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: But like ultimately, if it was this is the real world, right?
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_03: I need to trust myself enough.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: I need to gather enough data and intel by trying things and pivoting.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's what entrepreneurial world is all about of let me try this, let me put it out there.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't working, let me tweak it, let me pivot.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_03: This this becomes something else.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I think you have to know not everybody has earned the right to give you that feedback or advice.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: So be careful who you give access to.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um and sometimes you only know that by unfortunately getting into situations where you get burned or you get bad advice.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then you just go, okay, this was still a learning opportunity.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: It was a more painful one, but I learned Yeah, it's it's hard.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: You just have to know yourself and and have to make decisions.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: And gosh, all of us have probably been in the place where you you can't make a decision and you feel paralyzed for a time, and you're like, Well, I guess I'll just sit and do nothing, you know, while I try to figure this out, and then a year goes by and you're like, oh man, I could have been doing something this whole time.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: But instead I was just like stuck in my own analysis paralysis.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I'm sure nobody on this call relates to that on any level.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably just my own experience.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Mike, this has been a blast.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I really appreciate you stopping by the profitable writer.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, everybody give Mike a hand.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I'm having you clap on silent on Zoom calls.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: I hear it in the case.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't make any sense, but hopefully you can't hear, but hopefully you feel our appreciation and and love for what you're doing.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think you're awesome.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and plus you're a cool artist.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wish I could draw.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'd I would love to learn to do that at some point on some sort of basic level.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I just I love your artwork and your writing and what you're all about.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and this has been a lot of fun.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate you stopping by today.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: Again, it's been my pleasure, and uh I can't wait to see what all you guys create.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: Cool.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: My feedback is Mike is really kind.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's a kind person.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's different than these.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I really value that.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Mike, if you can, take the last couple minutes here and uh tell us how has your business been impacted by you writing these last few books?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually a pr or I guess a really big question.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like I'm throwing that in as an afterthought.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's not actually not an afterthought, but curious if you can walk us through that a bit.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so the question is how has the books um Yeah.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what impact have has being a writer with published books had on your business?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I think writing a book gives you a certain level of authority.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's certainly a place where for me, a lot of the things that I talk about in a and not everyone's going to catch a social media post.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_03: Not everyone's going to, you know, catch a video that I post or whatever else.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_03: Not everyone's on my email list.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: So getting my thoughts in this place where I can hand it to somebody and say, here, this is what my experience, this is what's important to me, this is this is what I want to say to you.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: Communicate, right?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_03: Goes back to me for communication.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: This is what I want to communicate to you to help you do what you do.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, to have that all in one place is so valuable.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_03: And in terms of the other things that I've created, like the Daily Creative Habit Journal, where it's not a full-on written book, but really it's it's a guide.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's questions and prompts and things, that still gives me the ability to design a resource for somebody and say it's aligned with me trying to help other people do what they want to do creatively.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so all these pieces that I'm creating, you know, I've learned over time to not be creating so many of these orphaned ideas that are out here that aren't really connected to what it is that's central to what I do.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but rather create these places that are steps and create these moments, uh, these resources that can become moments for conversation.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so for some of it, it opens up opportunity to come and speak, right?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so then it takes a written form to audio.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I get in front of us, you know, people and I'm on stage and I get to to talk about this stuff and make another type of connection.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so all these things are all tools, I think, that you you rely on, again, depending upon the context.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_03: And once you've created something like that, it's it's there for you, it's there for them.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's not going anywhere.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: So the more things I think you can create, the more things you can you can put out there into the world that trace back to you so that you can help other people, um it's huge.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that's only going to open up more opportunities.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and sometimes they may not be opportunities that you would expect or the ones that you're looking for.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_03: And other times it's like, okay, a little bit more crickets this season than I would hope it would be, right?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but I think that's all part of the flow of it, and going like, at the end of the day, I'm taking ownership over me, over my creativity and my creative expression, and making things and putting it out into the world, making meaning, making money, making purpose, helping other people.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_03: What more could you ask for?
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: Man, that's good.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: Even just that that's that's a lot, that's a lot of good stuff.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: Even just this idea of not creating, I think you use the term orphaned products or orphaned ideas that aren't connected to the rest of what you're doing, that is such an important idea.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we should definitely explore that more in some fashion.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: Just the idea of what's what's the connection between all these things you're doing and even things like creating book series or I mean, there's all kinds of ways to kind of create packages of of things.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's really cool.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_03: I do think that that it's okay sometimes to create things that seem orphaned if they are your personal passion projects.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: If they're things that are just for you, because that's a different context.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like you saying to somebody, here's my my set of books or or my products or my whatever that are that are part of your business, and then there's this thing that comes in from the left field when you're like, you know, um, that becomes more of a like, this is feeding me as a as a creative person, it's giving me an outlet.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that if it didn't never get sold, that's fine.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the purpose.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like the the movie director who's like, okay, I'll do a franchise film for you guys, then I'm gonna go off and make my little weird indie movie.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um a lot of I think most directors actually probably function that way, except for Christopher Nolan, who's like everything is a blockbuster, you know, or whatever.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: So well, this has been fun.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Mike, thanks for taking the time to be our guest today.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: This has been absolutely brilliant.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're such a brilliant guy, and uh hope that you guys have taken a lot of notes because Mike has shared a lot of really great wisdom with us.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you all again.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's been fun.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Mike.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I'd love to connect with any of you too.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm I'm available.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, you know, I'm on Facebook and all the other places too.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: So uh if there's anything follow-up that you want to just poke on or say hi, whatever, uh, by all means.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure and check out Mike's website, mikebrennan.me.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_02: All his books are on Amazon, and uh check it out.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's really, really good stuff.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, thanks so much again for joining me for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: As always, I appreciate you taking time to listen, and I'm super excited about the next episode, which features a conversation with several of my ghostwriter friends as I host my very first round table discussion here on the show.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're interested in ghostwriting, if you've ever thought about dipping your toes into that world a bit, you're gonna really love that conversation.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you've been doing ghostwriting for a long time, I'm confident there's a lot of things you're gonna learn from that conversation as well.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: So looking forward to seeing you then.