Make Fun a Habit with Mike Brennan

Josh (00:00:02) - We got five minutes on the clock. What is your name and what is your podcast show?

Mike (00:00:07) - Hey, so my name is Mike Brennan and my podcast is called Creative Chats podcast.

Josh (00:00:12) - Creative Chats podcast. Now this is a fun show for you. Why is it so important to tie in your work and the thing you do with fun? Now, it's not just a simple question I because I think that there's some depth in that. But what are your thoughts, man?

Mike (00:00:27) - Yeah, so I was wrestling with the idea of fun recently, and actually it led me to write a book called Make Fun of Habit, and it really came out of me examining my own life, going, man, somewhere along the way, like, I feel like fun up and left the building. And even though I do creative work, even though there's a lot of cool things I get to do, you know when you're working for yourself, when you're doing all these things and pursuing a dream, there's a lot of hard work that goes into it, and so you can find yourself pursuing stuff, making things harder than they really need to be, believing the lie that, well, this is work.

Mike (00:00:57) - So therefore it has to be hard and not fun. And I think way we do ourselves a disservice when we think about fun in terms of like it's the reward at the end of the journey, as opposed to something that we need to do as part of the process on the journey. Yeah.

Josh (00:01:14) - One day you just woke up and said I should write a book on making fun of habit. What was going on in your world? I know we only have a short time here, but what was going on where you're like, I need to make this a habit. This is a book for me, but it's also a book for you. What was that?

Mike (00:01:29) - Yeah. So I, I had of a previous journey where I refer to it as my daily creative habit, where I basically walked away from my art for about ten years, suffering from depression. That was the catalyst that brought me back to my art. And then I said, can I even do this anymore? And so that introduced this whole idea of, let's start small, let's see what I can do.

Mike (00:01:47) - Let's be open and see where this journey takes us. And so that took me to actually this very day, 12 years later, doing something every single day, developing a habit and me going, you know, if I can do this when it comes to creativity, I'm sure that I can do this when it comes to fun. And it's fun as a mindset, right? Fun starts here. It doesn't start with, you know, a great opportunity, a big budget, any of those things. That's all kind of extra fun starts when we decide that we want to look for fun or make fun in a situation. And so sometimes it's even things that are tasks that we have to do that we're looking for. How can I make this fun? How can I inject some fun into this process? Or, you know, think about it in a different way so that my experience can change and I can start to really enjoy what I'm doing as I'm doing it, and not just waiting for the end result.

Mike (00:02:37) - Yeah.

Josh (00:02:37) - So brilliant. I'm so glad you came back to Art, because you might be listening in to this, but I'm looking. You've got to check out the YouTube because he has the coolest looking pictures that he did in the background. The artwork that you created is brilliant. Um, for the person who walked away from art and creativity because of whatever reason they might be going through, what advice do you have getting them back into it?

Mike (00:03:02) - Yeah. So I would say it is possible. I'm living proof and there are things that I have developed through my own journey where I tell people, start small, right? Don't go for the big thing, big blocks of time, big projects. But you know, don't underestimate what 10 or 15 minutes a day can do, because that starts to have a cumulative effect where it really brings momentum and momentum brings change. And so just get moving. That's really my my biggest advice. Um, stop overthinking it. Do something, create something, and then come back the next day and do something else.

Josh (00:03:40) - Yeah, a lot of times when I, when I speak with authors and creators and such like that, having the strategic outcome, like I got to create art because I have to make money and then art no longer becomes fun, it becomes work. What's a piece of advice you have for making art fun again or creativity fun again?

Mike (00:03:59) - I think it's important to have passion projects, you know, projects that are just yours, that are not touched by clients or committees or other budgets. It's something that's personal, that feeds you that you're excited about. You get passionate about where you have a place to play, experiment, have fun, break things and just figure things out. Right. Uh, protect that, have that. Even if your livelihood is tied to a creative endeavor or service.

Josh (00:04:22) - Yeah, I have that. I have a show called Uncensored Advice for men, and that was that's my passion project. I've made money over there, but it's just like, that's my I could talk about anything, do anything.

Josh (00:04:31) - I'm with other people. So I love that because I never really correlated it, you know, that way. So I appreciate you sharing that mic. Um, where can people find your book, which I would love a sign copy. Where can people find your book and your podcast show?

Mike (00:04:45) - If you go to make fun of habit? Com you can find the book and a whole lot of free resources there. And creative creative chats dot me. Me is where you can find the podcast along with all the streaming services.

Josh (00:04:57) - Cool! All under five minutes guys! Reach out to our guests and say thank you for that. We love you and we'll talk to. You on the next episode. See you.