From Shrink to Supersize: Transform Your Creative Journey!

Ready to kick your creativity into high gear? Today, we're diving into the art of supersizing ourselves, inspired by the classic documentary "Supersize Me"—but don’t worry, we’re not talking about fries and burgers! Instead, we're all about amping up our creative juices and having a blast while doing it. I’ll share some golden nuggets on how to reflect on your values, set achievable goals, and surround yourself with a supportive crew. So, whether you're an artist, a dreamer, or just someone looking to add a little sparkle to life, this episode is for you! Let’s get ready to make fun a habit and tackle those inner critics like the creative warriors we are!

Making Fun A Habit Series

30 days to add fun to your creative practice. I will be going through Mike Brennan's Make Fun A Habit workbook and help you make fun a habit. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike on my other podcast Find A Podcast About and talking about his podcast Creative Chats. This workbook leads you through steps to rekindle the fun in your life and get you into a space where you are your most creative. This is a 30-day book and I will tackle each day as if it were a week and provide insights on how to use his ideas in your creative practice. Each chapter is broken up with a short story, questions to ponder, action items, and tips.

Assignment

Questions

1. Where are you tempted to shrink?
2. What could supersizing look like for you?
3. What are you afraid of? What are you holding yourself back from?
4. What are you willing to do to supersize yourself? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to work hard for?
5. How will you measure success? How will you know when you have supersized yourself?

Action Items

1. Take a personality test
2. Understand yourself better
3. Setting goals
4. Taking action
5. Building relationships

Tips

1. Challenge yourself
2. Take risks
3. Be persistent
4. Celebrate your successes

Thinking about how to supersize your creativity? Well, buckle up, because Timothy Kimo Brien has all the juicy tips you need in this episode of Create Art Podcast! We’re diving deep into the world of creativity, using Mike Brennan’s workbook, “Make Fun a Habit,” as our trusty map. Timothy kicks things off by discussing the importance of putting the fun back into our creative routines. Why? Because we all know that creativity can sometimes feel like pulling teeth, especially when the inner critic gets too cozy in our brains. So, what’s the solution? Timothy suggests a bit of self-reflection and setting some solid goals. It’s all about figuring out what you truly value and what you want to achieve, while also believing in yourself every step of the way. And let’s not forget about the power of community—surrounding yourself with positive and supportive people can make all the difference when you’re trying to push your creativity to new heights!

As Timothy navigates through the workbook’s chapters, he shares some personal anecdotes about his own creative struggles and triumphs. Who doesn’t relate to feeling like a fraud every now and then? That sneaky imposter syndrome can really mess with your head! But fear not, because Timothy’s here to help us turn that around. He poses some thought-provoking questions that encourage listeners to dig deep into their own creative fears and aspirations. What does supersizing yourself mean? How can you push past those pesky fears? And what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your creative dreams? Timothy’s candid answers and

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Create Art Podcast commentarySuper Size Me part of the Make Fun
a Habit series. Hello, friend.This is Timothy Keem o' Brien, your
head instigator for Create ArtPodcast, where I bring my over 30
years of experience in thearts and education world to help

(00:26):
you tame your inner critic andcreate more than you consume. So
we're continuing on with ourMake Fun of Habit series. And that's
brought to us by Mike Brennan,who hosts the Creative Chats podcast.
And he has a workbook calledMake Fun a Habit. Basically, what
this workbook IS is a 30 dayworkbook for you to do what the title

(00:52):
says, make fun happen again.And that's really important for us
creatives to put that fun backinto our creativity each and every
day, any way we can. So whatI've done is to take each chapter
and there's 30 chapters andcreate an episode and discuss what

(01:12):
he's talking about. Now, eachchapter starts off with a little
story and then it goes intosome questions for you to ponder,
some tips and some actionitems for you to do to do what it
says make Fun a habit. Now, asI said earlier, Mike Burnon has his
own podcast, Creative Chats,and I found that podcast when I was

(01:34):
doing my other podcast, Find apodcast about where I review podcasts
that I think are binge worthy.You can find it at findapodcastabout
xyz. I was really impressedwith what he was doing with this,
so I went through the book andread through it really quick, and
I found that, you know, whenyou go back through it again and

(01:56):
again and again, and right nowwe're on the 27th chapter, you get
a lot of great ideas for whatyou can do to put that fun right
back into your creativity. Sotoday's episode, we're talking about
supersizing ourselves. Now,Mike starts off with talking about

(02:19):
the documentary Supersize Me,which is a documentary of a person
going to McDonald's every dayand just eating McDonald's. And if
they were offered to supersizetheir meal, they went ahead and did
that. And that's not whatwe're talking about here. We're not
talking about going toMcDonald's, although McDonald's is

(02:40):
delicious. But if you like me.But what he's talking about is really
taking the time to kickourselves up a couple of notches
and to find ways to do that.And a couple of the ways that he
was presenting to us here is,you know, take some time for some

(03:03):
self reflection for yourself,figure out, you know, what your values
are. Next he talks aboutsetting goals and making a plan to
achieve them. So if we want tosupersize ourselves, we want to kick
it up a notch. And I stillkick it up a notch from Emeril Lagasse
because I used to watch hisshow all the time. But we got to

(03:23):
set those goals, we got tofigure out what we want to do. So
reflect, then set a plan andthen believe in yourself and your
abilities, believe that youcan actually do this and then take
care of yourself too. If wedon't take care of ourselves physically,
mentally, emotionally, we'renot going to be much good, much use

(03:47):
or much good to anybody. Andthen lastly, he talks about surrounding
yourself with positive people.And that's really important too,
because if you think you'reout there all by yourself and there's
nobody out there that reallyunderstands you, well, you might
be right. You know, it's goingto be really lonely. It's going to
be hard to take care ofyourself, it's going to be hard to

(04:08):
accomplish your goals and it'sgoing to be hard to be self reflective
on that. So just realizeyou're not out there on your own.
I'm here with you. I'm sureyou have other people out there with
you. So do all these thingsand that's basically how you're going
to supersize yourself. Butlet's go into the other aspects that

(04:30):
he talks about in thischapter. So we're going to start
off with the questions. Andfirst question is, where are you
tempted to shrink? And I thinkfor me, I know this is going to sound
weird, but sitting and talkingwith people, mingling with others,

(04:50):
I kind of, I don't want to sayI'm shy. I'm not really shy. It's
just I back away from it alittle too much and you know, that
is a self fulfilling prophecy.So maybe that's something I need
to work a little bit more on.And gee, I have the opportunity to
do that here. Coming up inSeptember with a podcast conference

(05:12):
and I'm going to be going tonext thing is what would supersizing
look like for you? So for me,what does supersizing look like?
Well, I'm, you know, runningmy own business and doing podcasting,
you know, all day every day.That would be great, you know, to

(05:32):
get paid oodles and oodles ofmoney so that way I can quit my day
job and just do this kind ofstuff and you know, get, get paid
for my art. You know, whetherit be through books or paintings
or Music or what have you. Sobeing able to support myself with
my art. Third question is,what are you afraid of? And what

(05:56):
are you holding yourself backfrom? So I think success is what
I'm afraid of. You know, toactually do that and to actually
support myself with my art issomething that I'm afraid of. I'll
be honest with you. You know,it's. Yeah, I can. I can be honest
with you. Can I? I think Ican. You seem like nice people. You

(06:19):
know, being successful likethat and really, you know, making
my way through the world,supporting myself through my art,
that really scares me. Becausethen, well, you know, I got wife
and kids in a house and a lotof responsibilities. So, you know,
it's the whole impostersyndrome. It's the whole, what if

(06:40):
I'm not good enough? What ifI'm fooling everybody out there in
the world and what happenswhen they find out about it? So that's
kind of what I'm afraid of.Next question is, what are you willing
to do to supersize yourself,and what are you willing to sacrifice
and what are you willing towork hard for? So to supersize myself,
I want to be able to, youknow, support myself through my art.

(07:05):
And what am I willing to do?Well, I think I need to get over
myself some days. You know, Ineed to believe in myself, believe
that I can actually do thisand make a living at it. And what
am I willing to sacrifice forit? Well, I think old ideas, old
habits, you know, the stuffthat internally blocks me from doing,

(07:29):
that kind of stuff. And thenwhat are you willing to work hard
for? Well, I want to show mykids that, you know, there is a different
way. You don't have to go tocollege. You don't have to do the
military. You don't have towork in corporate America. You can
go out there and makesomething of yourself by just finding
the opportunities and keepingyour eyes open for those opportunities

(07:52):
and to keep your eyes open tohave really good situational awareness,
look for the opportunities.And then lastly, how will you measure
success and how will you knowwhen you have supersized yourself?
Well, success for me is thisyear. I'd like to add another two
clients to my client list. Ihave one, and by the end of this

(08:17):
year, I'd like to have twomore on that. So that way, you know,
all my stuff can be paid forthrough my clients and through what
I'm charging them, and thatthey're happy about it and they tell
other people about it. So forme, that would be success. How am
I going to know when Isupersize myself, when I get the

(08:40):
first paychecks from thoseclients? That's when I know that
it's not just a one off kindof thing. It's people are seeing
my skills, my art, mydedication to the craft, and I'm
able to produce for them.Okay, we're going to move on to some
action items. And this firstaction item is to go ahead and take

(09:03):
a personality test to help youbetter understand your strengths
and weaknesses as well as yourvalues and interests. Now there's
a lot of, you know,personality tests that you can go
out there and take the migs,Myers Briggs type indicator test
or the phonogram and the discassessment, whatever it is for you.

(09:26):
I've done the MIGs, Breyer,Myers Briggs. I'm sorry. I've done
that test before in aleadership class when I was working
for the army and it was okay.I think part of the issue is I didn't
like the class that I was inand I didn't like the instructors.
So maybe revisiting that andfiguring out, you know, what my values

(09:49):
are, what my interests are.Now, after you take that personality
test, it should help youunderstand yourself better. You know,
finding out what you're goodat and what you're not good at and
you know, know what yourvalues are and your interests are.
After that, you're going toset your goals. You can use smart
goals, you can use whateverkind of goals you, you know, whatever

(10:12):
format of goals you need touse. But I think it's important to
set those goals. Taking actionis next so you know what your strengths
and weaknesses are, you knowwhat your interests are, you know
what your goals are. Now yougot to do something with it. And
that's where a lot of peoplefall flat on their face. I know,

(10:32):
I'm one of those people. Justdo it, all right? It's a Nike slogan.
I know, I get it. It's verycliche, honestly. Just do it. What's
the worst is going to happen?Okay, I'm not saying to go quit your
9 to 5 tomorrow to do yourart, but set the goals so that way

(10:54):
you can eventually setyourself up for success and then
build relationships is thelast action item he has there for
us. And realize you're notgoing to be able to do this all by
yourself. You're going to needto have people out there that you
can rely on that can help youget to your goals, whether it be

(11:15):
your doctor, your therapist,your family, your friends. Whatever.
Have people around you thatcan help support you when you need
it. All right, the lastsection is the tips. And first thing
he gives for us is tochallenge yourself. You know, a lot
of times we have these ideasabout herself. I'm guilty of it,

(11:38):
too, that, you know, you'renot worthy. You're not going to ever
do it. Challenge yourself. Youknow, turn it back around on itself
and go, you know what? I'mgoing to at least try. So I'm going
to go ahead and do it. Thenext thing is to take risks. Hey,
if it doesn't work out, atleast you tried. That's a big thing.
You know, there's a lot ofpeople out there that are not doing

(12:00):
podcasts, and they're like,oh, yeah, one day I'd like to do
a podcast, and then they neverdo. Well, I'm doing a podcast. I've
been doing it since 2006. I'vechanged the format here and there
and everywhere. Heck, I'veeven changed the name of this podcast.
It used to be known as KDOIPodcasting, and that stood for Chemo's
Den of Iniquity. Now you hearthat and you go, well, what does

(12:21):
that have to do with art? Idon't know. I just thought it was
cool at the time. It didn'twork out. So I took a risk and I
said, you know what? I'm justgoing to change that to create art
podcast. And. And here youare. Be persistent. So he's not saying,
you know, go full bore 24 7,you know, forget everything else,

(12:44):
but kind of what I do is I'mhere with you every other week. You
know, that's something that Ican do. Or every. You know, sometimes
I'm here every week. Somemonths I'm here every day, just depending
on, you know, if it's anational poetry writing month or
National Novel writing month.But just keep going, keep going at
it. Eventually something willbreak through for you. And last but

(13:08):
not least is celebrate yoursuccesses. I've had a lot of successes
here in podcasting. I've metsome awesome people I've got to talk
to people that I never wouldhave thought would want to talk to
me. You know, little old me,you know, just the guy, you know,
from Rockford, Illinois, that,you know, it's, you know, he's a

(13:30):
blue collar kind of guy who'sgonna talk to me, who's gonna want
to talk to me. But there'sbeen a lot of people that have wanted
to talk to me, and I've had tokind of put a hold on it at this
point right now because I'mlike, oh, it's starting to stray
from where I want it to be.So, you know, just keep on going

(13:52):
at it and eventually you aregoing to supersize yourself. At least
I hope you do. And you know,just keep working at it. Now if you'd
like to, you know, tell me howyou're going to supersize yourself,
you can always email metimothyreateartpodcast.com I want
to hear from you. I want toknow what you're doing to supersize

(14:15):
yourself. Very interested inthat. You can email me to be a guest
on the show or if you haveideas or topics you want me to discuss,
be more than happy to take alook at that and see what we have
going on there. Another thingI'd like you to do, if you would
please, is to go ahead and,you know, recommend this to your
friends. You know, maybe youhave a friend who's an artist who's

(14:35):
struggling, have them take alisten to a couple of episodes and
if it's done something foryou, it's going to do something for
them. And that's a great giftto give somebody. So definitely feel
free to go ahead and do that.Now as I mentioned earlier, I do
have another podcast. It'scalled Find a Podcast About. You
can find it atfindapodcastabout xyz and that's

(14:57):
where I help you find yournext binge worthy podcast and outsmart
the algorithm. Now I also runmy own business, it's called TKB
Podcast Studio. And that'swhere I help my clients lead through
the noise, through quietprofessionalism. I help people start
up their podcast. And whetherjust, you know, with the idea creation,

(15:21):
with the technology, with therecording, the producing, the posting,
what have you, I do it fromsoup to nuts, from, you know, nose
to tail. I'm willing to helpyou out with that. So definitely
check me out.TKBpodcaststudio.com you can see
my portfolio there, see allthe other podcasts that I work on,

(15:43):
check it out for yourself,email me from there and let's make
that conversation happen. Allright, that's all I got for you this
week. I want to thank you somuch for listening and joining in.
I hope you can go out thereand find ways to supersize yourself
because you are definitelyworth it. I'm worth it for sure.
But you're worth it too.That's why you're here sitting and

(16:05):
listening to me. So thank youfor joining in on that. Now go out
there, tame that inner critic,because it's a son of a. Sometimes
create more than you consume.And go out there and make some art
for somebody you love.Yourself. Remember, Love yourself.
That's taking care ofyourself. I'll talk to you next time.