I don’t know if it was the ghost of Elvis, denied entry in downtown Nashville, or retracing Tom Cruise’s steps but it was certainly memorable.

I’ve been reflecting on a road trip that I took during my college years. I referred to it as my “Triangle Tour”, as I had three major destinations.

I started at my sister’s house in North Carolina, then headed to a friend in Memphis, TN, over to another friend in Augusta, GA, then back to my sister in North Carolina completing my triangle.

I rented a car, and settled in with my music and snacks to embark upon my solo journey. These were days pre-cell phones and GPS maps, so I had a printed trip via AAA with highlighted routes and stops, and my trusty Rand McNally map that I dared not unfold for fear of never getting it folded back up again.

Although I had major destinations in mind, I left room for exploring along the way.

This was the first time I landed in Nashville, and right in the middle of some major music festival that shut the place down. I had no idea where I was, where I was going, nor did I know a soul. What I did have was a crush on Faith Hill, and an eagerness to try to find her and make her fall in love with me (all this from getting her first CD in a bargain bin, because I thought she looked beautiful. She was unknown at this point.) Alas, I never did find her.

Next, I found my way to Mud Island, the Memphis river museum, and the film location of the Tom Cruise movie The Firm (a clue to the time period). I took in the sights, the history, and the experiences.

Then I got locked out of my car by the ghost of Elvis (kidding… maybe) at Graceland. So I took the tour as I waited for a locksmith to come and bail me out.

I went to a huge drive-in theatre in Memphis and saw The Flintstones movie (bad choice), walked the streets of Memphis to see all the sights like Sun studios, and baked in the sun.

In Augusta, GA, I went exploring a local park, had heart-to-heart convos, and went to a college graduation with my host, and the family party that followed.

I wish I had taken a camera with me as all I have are these fading memories, mental snapshots of the trip.

I remember driving all that time by myself, wishing that I had someone to experience it with. Some things feel more real in the presence of others.

I remember being chatty at a gas station because I was looking for someone to connect with (unlike me as a NYer where you don’t talk to strangers).

Fragments of memories. Of a different time. Of a different me.

Yet, part of my journey, both physically and experientially.

Part of the reason why I was thinking about this road trip from long ago is that I’ve been reviewing my creative journey as I approach eleven years of daily creativity.

My creative journey has been like that road trip at times. I had anchor points and a lot of discovery along the way. Points where I got locked out of my car, creatively speaking. Points where the journey was lonely, wishing for some connection. And then thankful when I found some community among friends.

There were points of following my interests that led to new understandings, and then ones that led to dead ends.

It was a journey of self-discovery as much as it was a journey of destinations.

And for creativity, there is no final destination.

My creativity looks different today than it did when I came back to my art following my ten-year absence. I was broken. Suffering. Searching. I needed my creativity for me. To help me heal. To help me make sense of things.

These days, there’s less angst (thank God!), and I know a larger part of my journey is to help be a guide. To keep creating, and these days, it is much more than visual art. My creativity has enlarged.

And while the tools and technology have changed since my early days (much like gps replacing those paper maps) the desire to make something where there was once nothing has only increased.

I know the difference creativity has made in my life. And so this is why I’m on such a mission to help others step into their creativity, personally and professionally.

I really do believe that when YOU create, we all win.

We’re all on our own journeys, our own road trips. Different schedules. Different locations.

Yet, still so much the same.

Here’s to hoping to meet up at a gas station along the way, to fill up in more ways than one.

I’m glad we’re connected, even if it’s just for a season.

And if we go our separate ways, may we have some snapshots that we fondly look upon and recount the stories of days gone by. As we set out to new places. Creating as we go.

Unlock Your Creative Potential with This Simple Time Management Strateg

I started using this method a couple of days ago, and it’s helping me focus so I can not only be creative but prioritize my time and be productive. I shared this video in the Daily Creative Habit Facebook group.

Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you!

Need some Post-it notes?
Grab some here: https://amzn.to/3TmY19q

4 Strategies To Revive Your Creativity After A Bout Of Stress

Let's be honest: the world hasn't been an easy place to live in lately. Soaring gas prices, general inflation, and nearly two full years of a pandemic has nearly everyone in America experiencing unprecedented amounts of stress. Though you may think this'll pass, it's likely that your body won't see things in the same way.

That's right: stress can negatively impact our bodies in lasting ways. Online health resource SymptomFind explains that stress can put you in "fight-or-flight" mode. This triggers the production of inflammatory hormones that can put your health at risk in the long run.

You may even find that stress can kill your drive to create. As an artist, this can be especially harmful. Fortunately, there are ways of relieving stress, reviving your creativity, and even keeping yourself healthy in the long run. So below are a few strategies you can try out.

Create a conducive environment

Have you ever noticed that people tend to work better at coffee shops? The lighting, soft music, and low chatter of diners combine to create an ambiance perfect for productivity. The same principle applies to creativity. A workspace needs to motivate you — and if it's not doing that at a time when your stress levels are high, it's probably time for a revamp. On our blog, contributor Wendy Dressler mentioned you can go beyond a fresh coat of paint by dressing up your walls with art to inspire you. You can also try rearranging some furniture, organizing your desk, adding a few plants, and making sure that you're getting an ample amount of natural light.

Socialize

By getting in touch with family, friends, and fellow artists, you can do more than just fish for new and inspiring creative ideas. By doing so, it helps release a brain chemical called oxytocin, which this 2021 article from Scientific Journals explains is linked to improved creative thinking. What's more, the release of oxytocin into the bloodstream also has some anti-stress effects. What you get is the spread of a chemical that won't just offer you stress relief, but allows you to easily find creative ways to express ideas that are shared with and received from others.

Go for a walk

If you're more of an introvert but want to get that same burst of inspiration, walking is a great alternative — and a wonderful solution to this creativity-stress dilemma all on its own. This exposes you to a wide variety of stimuli that can fire your neurons and get you going. Walking at a comfortable pace in the sun while breathing in that fresh air also releases endorphins, another feel-good chemical that has stress-relieving effects. Researchers from Stanford even found that walking can boost your creativity by over 60%. By losing yourself in your surroundings and noticing things you haven't before, you're sure to find creativity knocking on your mental doorstep.

Indulge in some self-care

Don't underestimate the power of an all-out self-care session. Enhance your bubble bath with candles, a glass of wine, and a good book. When getting a massage, hit the sauna too. Finally let yourself try that skincare routine with more than 10 steps in it. This should be enough to give your brain a creative reset. You can even immerse yourself in crafts that need creativity on a level you don't really need to think about, like knitting or baking. These activities should do wonders for your stress levels as well.

What does Nine Consecutive Years of Daily Art Look Like?

Every year since I have embarked on this 365 day art making journey, I mark the passing of another year with a college of images, all created from that year.

If you’re not familiar with my story on how I came back to my art after a ten year absence and depression, you can catch up here.

Creating and sharing these images are a way for me to track my daily creative habit, and celebrate my wins.

I’ve also recorded a Creative Chats podcast episode of nine insights I have gained through my nine years of daily art making. You can take a listen here.

If you’re interested in establishing your own creative consistency, I’d love to have you join us in our free facebook group Daily Creative Habit!

And now…. Here’s what all 9 years together looks like!

I’ve been sharing my art for free everyday for the past 9 years and will continue to do so. If you’ve been enjoying it and feel like tossing in a few coins in the ol’ tip jar, you can do so below :)

How Can Visual Artists and Creatives Leverage Clubhouse App?

A quick disclaimer: I’m super new to this beta platform. Things are changing rapidly, but here’s my initial thoughts.

So what is Clubhouse?

There’s a new social media app called Clubhouse. Now, if you're not familiar with Clubhouse, you're not alone. It's very new, and still in beta mode, but essentially, Clubhouse is an audio only, invitation only (at the moment), social media app that's currently available for the iPhone only. So they've really narrowed things down to start with. I'm sure there'll be opening things up more as they roll things out. It took me a little while to get on. I kept seeing people posting about this app clubhouse and I started having, you know, serious case of FOMO, fear of missing out and was thinking to myself, I need to get on this thing. I want to find out what it is!

I tend to be a little bit more on the early adopter side. So for me, I really wanted to explore and be a part of some of the conversations that were happening there.

In Clubhouse there are “rooms” and people that you can follow like on all of the social media platforms. But unlike other social media platforms, there are no visuals other than your avatar profile icon . And there's no way of actually leaving or likes or comments. It's purely audio.

Upon entering the app, you see the “hallway”, which shows all the rooms with various themes that are happening. You might have themes that are around podcasting, making money, building your business, pop culture, art, faith, and just hang out rooms. Some of what you see depends on the people that you follow and their interests. You have to be a little more strategic as far as who you follow based on interest.

So in the hallway, you pick a room that you want to join. When you join in that room, there is someone who has created the room up, who is the main “speaker”, and typically the moderator as well. And then there's usually other people, who are “speakers” up on “stage.” You or other room members can be invited to come up on stage to share or ask a question. And the “listeners” (other people in the room) are hanging at the bottom of the room visually. They cannot speak unless they are invited to come on stage.

Anyone has the ability to enter any room, and either listen or participate. If someone wants to participate and they “raise their hand” (there's a little hand icon that you hit) to let the people in charge, know that you have a question or that you want to participate in some way. Then you wait to be invited up on “stage”, You unmute your mic on your phone and you ask your question and then mute it again. And everyone takes turns talking about whatever the various topics are.

That's kind of the general idea of Clubhouse. A lot of people think it's going to be a real game changer, as far as social media.

But I started wondering if there was any benefit to being on Clubhouse as a visual artist…

As I started to poke around, I searched to see if there were other visual artists and creative people. What I found was a variety of creative people on there (photographers, filmmakers, graphic designers, musicians, fine artists). So I ducked into some of their rooms. And I what I found was pretty fascinating.

It's a little bit like the Wild West right now in Clubhouse, because everyone is trying to figure out how to use it and what proper etiquette is. Everyone's a newbie.

No one needs something that's going to be another complete time-suck and waste of time. We have enough of those. So people are looking for what's the benefit, what's the value here? How can they show up and bring value? How can they create some things that are missing?

I ducked into a room that was for visual artists specifically, because this to me was the real test. If you can't see the art, what would this room look like? Was it going to be people just talking about their art? Or just a bunch of people sharing some art tips?

They opened the floor up for some questions. Some people asked questions about technique or about supplies, methods, things of that nature. Or they talked about what their subject matter was, or maybe process, or important themes within their artwork. Others talked about trying to market and sell their artwork, inquiring about connecting with clients and buyers.

At one point the room moderator said, “okay, we're going to reset the room a little bit here and just tell anybody new who's coming in, here's the expectation and purpose of the room” And then they announced taking a 10 minute break in the conversation for anyone who wanted to create something live while hanging out in the room. They played some music created by one of the people in the room, or a playlist from the person in charge.

I hung around to see what would happened, asking myself “how are people going to share what they're working on?” You can't share photos because it's not part of the platform, but you can temporarily change your avatar icon photo. People changed it from the photo of themselves to their work in progress. This allowed people right within the app to click on that little avatar and to see a larger photo of what the person was working on. They also shared some of the things that they were struggling with, ask for feedback in real time.

I wouldn’t have thought there would have been value in having a group of visual artists together on an audio only platform, but seeing people come together for community and connection in real time was pretty great.

Another room I entered had creatives sharing about what their biggest struggling in 2020 has been. Person after person shared stories of income loss, battling with anxiety and depression, as well as important business lessons they learned. When creative people are brave enough to share their stories and experiences, we start to see we’re not alone.

I had the opportunity to cohost a room about the Pixar movie Soul and the lessons about creativity is presented, alongside my friend Terry Weaver. We had a lively chat about what moved us in the film, and how the creative issues it brought to light effected us.

Terry Weaver and I co-hosted a room on Clubhouse talking about the Pixar movie Soul and the powerful themes presented for creatives.

I was pretty convinced that there's something special happening here on Clubhouse. And I think this is only getting continued to grow. Those who are on the platform early will have the opportunity to be a part of setting the tone and the pace and filling in some of those gaps that I mentioned before.

I also joined in a room that was talking about cryptocurrency and crypto art.

Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about right now, don't worry because honestly, I really didn't know what this conversation was about other than the fact that it had “art” in the title. What I found out was there's a whole other world out there - a digital one (No, not The Matrix). Some people call it like “the metaverse” (Kind of like a Virtual Reality Minecraft word). I'm not going to get too deep into that. (And if you're somebody who's reading and you knew more about that kind of stuff I'd love to hear more about it from your side of things.)

Within this world, there are people who are creating art galleries, wanting to set up experiences. The end user would put on virtual reality glasses (Oculus or whatever technology) to enter and view this virtual reality world where they would be able to actually step into these visual paintings and experience things on a whole new level.

That's where this whole thing of crypto art and cryptocurrency comes in. There are artists who are creating digital artwork, digital art shows and galleries. There's exclusivity in some of the digital art where they authenticate pieces. That's how they know that that's the “original”, otherwise with digital work, you could be reproducing and I'm sharing it in multiple places. If somebody is paying for a piece of fine art at a high price, they want to know that this is the real deal, and that it’s authentic (and rare). All this that is happening I became aware of simply because I entered into this room.

Some people were talking about having all sorts of different resources available for digital galleries and virtual events around the arts. Other people were sharing resources (someone else in the room asked for pitch deck templates). Another person had one and was willing to send to them.

People are having these quick conversations where they have a need, and having it filled by someone else showing up in that room can help. Everyone was being free with resources and with insights and knowledge, and just generally being helpful to one another. Being a community, people who didn’t know each other moments ago, and from all over the globe.

Being on Clubhouse has me asking what’s possible in this space? What could be created or curated here? And I've, I've only been on this platform for maybe less than a week right at the time of writing this.

Some people may say it could be a flash in the pan, like several other social media platforms that have tried and disappeared. Other high level people think that this one is going to be a little more of a game changer because of the nature of the interactivity, that you have to show up as yourself. (You can't have some kind of alias.) You have to show up as you, with your voice.

“Being on Clubhouse has me asking what’s possible in this space? What could be created or curated here? ”

At this point, some other people were talking about using these rooms for mastermind groups and training or coaching, which is really interesting to think about. Still others are on there simply trying to just build their platform and grow their audience, which is easily done with the ability to connect your Instagram and your Twitter account to your profile as well. They're making changes to Clubhouse constantly, so some of these features may upgrade, like being able to connect more platforms.

When you're in a room you can go and click on anyone’s profiles and check out their bio for more about them. But the cool thing is that even if you're not in the clubhouse app, audio continues to play while you're in other apps. So you can still be a part of the room, and be listening to what's happening, but also checking out other social media platforms at the same time.

Maybe you're reading this and you're not a visual artist, but a musician. What would it look like for you to show up on this app (where it's an audio only), and you have the ability to share your music or clips of your music, or maybe have like a real time writing session with somebody or a group of people? That could be incredible. It's a means to connect with fellow creative people and also connect with people who might be your audience, collectors or clients.

Again, I don't know where it's going to go necessarily, but I just know every time that I'm on there and I jump into a room, I'm learning some new things. I'm getting access to some resources (people mentioned websites for further information). It's really incredible the speed at which you can have these conversations and the amount of people that can be in the room (and who you're in the room with.) You could be in a room with some people who are really well-established in their industry, having conversations and access to them.

You wouldn't have access to them or on other social media platforms if they have a million plus followers. They would never see you because of all the noise. With Clubhouse, you can be in a room alongside of them asking them questions or having them interact with you.

So it's pretty exciting. I can't wait to see what else comes of this platform. And if you are on Clubhouse, feel free to follow me - I'm @MikeBrennan. I’d love to connect with you there, and who knows, maybe there's even some things that we can create together!

For a more detailed breakdown check out this post from Social Media Examiner.

So what are your thoughts or questions about Clubhouse?

Start with what’s in your hand

Start with what’s in your hand.

It just might be seeds of greatness, but to you, right now, it looks like something so small and useless.

Don’t be so enamored by huge dreams that you don’t use what is before you today. Remember what seeds are. They are beginnings. They are carriers of dreams, hopes, and our desires to make great things that can impact the world around us.

But if we never plant them, they won’t be able to do what they’re supposed to do. They won’t take root. They won’t grow.

They need to go into the dark, cold ground, where sometimes it seems like we’ve buried the dead. But they are waiting for the right time to burst forth with new life, and fruit.

Don’t give up. Don’t wait for the perfect time. Don’t despise humble beginnings. Use what’s in your hand right now and plant it where you are.

Feeling like your creativity is insignificant?

Feeling invisible doesn’t mean being insignificant.

Our feelings lie and tell us if no one is noticing us, or our work, then we’re not significant, nor is our art.

Significance comes from who we are. Our identity.

When we create from a place of security in that, we have the freedom to be ourselves and release our work.

We all want to create work that makes an impact.

We want followers, likes and shares. But after we create our work and release it, it finds its own way.

Today, you are significant.

Start with that.

Then create and release.