Spreading Kindness: The Art of Creating for Yourself and Others

Timothy Kimo Brien
00:00:04

Create art podcast commentary spreading kindness hello, friend.

This is Timothy Kimo Brien, your head instigator for Create art podcast, where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic and creates more than you consume.

So we're continuing on with our make fun a Habit series, and that's based on the book make fun a Habit by Michael Brennan, who also runs a podcast which is called Creative Chats. And I had him on my other podcast, find a podcast, about to discuss what he was doing with creative chats.

And when I had him on, I found out about his make fun a habit workbook. And it helps you do just what it says, make fun a habit. And I think it's very important that we include the fun in our artistic pursuits.

So this workbook is broken down in a 30 day challenge. You could say to like the title, it suggests make fun a habit. And in each chapter, you get the general idea of what he's talking about.

And then after that, you get some questions, some action items, and some tips for what you can do to make fun a habit in your artistic practice. So I am taking each of those chapters and making them an episode. And for this one, we're talking about spreading kindness.

And that's not only to the outside world, to your audience, or to your community, but that's also a little bit to spread some kindness to yourself and really take stock of what you have to offer and your skills and your passions. Now, this book, you can get through it fairly quickly. If you want to take it one day at a time, you can definitely do it.

When I sat down and read it, I knocked it out in about, oh, I don't know, two to 3 hours. I powered through it because I wanted to find out what he was doing and what he was talking about.

But I would recommend, you know, just read it one a day, or heck, you're already on the podcast. Here. You can listen to each episode that relates to the day that he's talking about at your own pace.

So let's jump right into the questions that he has about spreading kindness. First question is, what are your strengths and weaknesses as a creator, and what are you good at creating, and what do you need to work on? Now?

For me, I think some of my strengths are I don't let what I don't know how to do stop me from creating something. I like to be experimental that way. I also like to find out how things are done.

And sometimes before I start a project, I'll ask others, hey, how do you do this?

And so I always like to get, you know, as much information as I can before I try something out, which also could be seen as a weakness because I'm not jumping feet first into a project. I think it's a bit of the uncomfortableness that stops me on occasion and as a weakness that I have.

If I don't know enough about it, I don't expect it to be perfect the first time, but I want to know enough to make a good attempt at it. I don't like making beginner or noob mistakes, per se. So the second part of this three part question is, you know, what are you good at creating?

Well, I would like to think that I'm good at creating poetry, podcasts, you know, a lot of writing. I think that's where my strengths lie is. I can write a lot. That's, you know, that's what I'm really good at.

Music, to an extent, for the past, I don't know, maybe decade, more electronic music I feel good at. Then the third part of this question is, what do you need to work on?

While I need to work on the music, that's something that has been lacking for me. I need to work on my drawing and my painting skills, and I need to work on my sales skills as well.

You know, being able to be bold and go out to galleries or places and sell my art.

And I think this, this first question really helps us take stock in what we have to offer, because if we have nothing to offer our community, then what are we doing? We're getting in the way. We're, you know, occupying space without a reason.

So, definitely, I would say one of the first things that you need to do as an artist is to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are, what you're good at, and what you're not good at, what you need work on. So question number two is, what are your resources? How much time do you have and what materials do you have access to?

So, my resources for writing are pretty simple. I mean, I've got laptops. I have got my desktop computer here, the old fashioned pen and paper.

If I'm just talking about writing, I have that available to me. If I'm talking about making music, I have music making programs. I have keyboards. I have a bass guitar that's collecting dust.

So I have those resources. More intangible resources is I have previous guests that I have on the show that I can reach back out to if I have questions about things.

So these are some of the resources that I have. Now, tackling the second part of the second question, how much time do you have? That's.

That's where I fall a little bit flat, because I'm a dad, I'm a husband, and I work a full time job, and then I try to do a ton of other things, as well as starting my own company. So time, for me, is precious.

When I get it, I want to maximize the time that I have, and I don't want to wait on inspiration like I used to do or try to force inspiration through inebriation. So for me, time is precious, so I don't have much time, so I want to maximize it.

Okay, the last part of the second question is, what materials do you have access to? Well, right in front of me here, as I record this, I have access to a microphone.

I have access to various programs for graphic design to get inspiration for writing graphic design, and all that kind of good stuff. I've got keyboards. I've got pens and paper. I've got canvases. I've got paint.

So I have all the materials that I need in order to create what I want to create. It's sitting right here. Some of the resources, some of the materials are collecting dust. So I need. I need to work on that.

Hopefully, you're not in that same situation, but if you are, let's, you know, do a little dusting, do a little spring cleaning. I know as I record this, it's fall here. October 24, 2024. It's fall, but I. You can do spring cleaning in fall, right? Okay.

Question number three is, what are your goals for serving others through your creations, and what do you hope to achieve? So I had a really interesting thing happen to me a couple of Fridays ago at the poetry reading that I go to here in town.

It's run by my nephew, who also runs the coffee shop. Kind of convenient that way. And I had an interesting conversation with somebody who had been listening to me at that poetry reading for a few years.

He, you know, simply asked me, you know, why do you write poetry? He wanted to. He liked the poetry. He liked how I performed it. But he wanted to know more about what goes behind my, you know, what's.

What's the reason Tim does this? Basically, I told him that a lot of my poetry is observational poetry.

Some of it is, you know, I'm really releasing some emotion, but a lot of it's observational poetry, where I describe a scene, and I'm holding it out to the audience, and I go, is this normal? Is this. Okay, do you guys see the same thing? Am I missing something in this picture? And he said, that's an interesting way of going about doing that.

And I told him, I said I don't necessarily trust my perception because I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan who's a wonderful Sci-Fi writer, but I don't necessarily trust my own perception.

So I want to see if others have the same perception or perceive the same things that I'm seeing.

So I guess, you know, one of my goals for performing poetry is I am presenting my viewpoint on something to see if it sparks any ideas, discussion, conversation in my audience and, you know, any clarification or anything like that. So that's how I am serving my audience.

Now, for this podcast, what's my goal for this is to serve you, is to take away some of the mystery behind art, you know, not make it so woo woo. Because I know that that is a thing that I've experienced in my life where I met artists that are like, well, these civilians don't understand.

And I, and the thing of it is, is that the artist doesn't understand what they're doing. They don't understand their audience. So that's what I've experienced anyways.

And I want to break through all that for you as either a beginning artist or as a seasoned artist. I want you to, you know, think about that audience and think about who we're serving to because really, that's what we're doing here.

So the second part of the third question, I know this is getting confusing. You need we, I should have made up some cards here for, for you, but what do you hope to achieve?

So for me, it depends on what discipline we're talking about as far as for this podcast, what do I hope to achieve? I hope to give clarity, give you a voice and give you some chutzpah, for lack of a better term, to go out there and create something.

And if you do it for nobody else, do it for yourself. If you do it for everybody else, that's fine, but make sure you're doing it for yourself first.

So I want to make, I want to embolden you to be able to go ahead and do that because I know the benefits for me in my life for creating, and I want to share that with you. Now, if you had asked me when I was 18, I would say, you know, total world domination. That's what I hope to achieve.

I'm sitting at the ripe old age of 51. I'm not interested in world domination anymore. I'm really not. That's just too much work. It's just, it'll take me away from the art that I'm creating.

And plus my kids are going to take over the world anyways, so I if I take over the world, it's just going to be a big major fight in the house. And who needs that? I definitely don't need that. I'd have to play more jazz louder.

So for the last question, question number four is, how will you measure your success and how will you know you are making a difference? So for me, success again depends on the discipline I'm talking about for success in my poetry and in my writing. Having people buy books is fantastic.

Having people approach me after a poetry reading or after reading a book that I wrote, that's success.

You know, it obviously reached them enough that they impacted them enough that they thought, hey, listen, I can go talk to this guy and either ask him questions about what he's doing or say I relate, or tell him to, you know, screw off, he's absolutely wrong, or he's disgusting. So that for me is success.

Now, in terms of the podcast, the previous episode where I talked about listener reviews and messages that I had gotten sent into me, that success, yes, I would love to see, you know, a billion download numbers, but I would rather have five people write into the show and say, hey, you know, that really touched me, or hey, that didn't touch me at all. Or hey, make the music longer, make it shorter, do this, do that. I would that for me that success.

When you take the time out of your day and reach out to me and you can do that by the way, timothyreatartpodcast.com but that's how I measure success for the podcast and for my writing. Now, the second part of that question is, how will you know you are making a difference? And that's very simple to answer.

I'm going to know that I made a difference when people reach back to me and go, hey, that impacted me, or if it changes me as a person, if my art changes me as a person, helps me evolve to a higher state, a higher being, a higher whatever it is, when it brings joy to my life and maybe it brings joy to somebody else's life. You know, some of my poetry is not safe for work, but you know, it'll make you giggle. And that for me, I know I'm making a difference.

You know, with all the forms of entertainment that we have out there, you chose mine. So that makes me feel fantastic and that makes that shows me I am making a difference. Okay, so let's move on to action items.

We have five action items here to talk about. The first one is write a poem or a song for someone who is going through a rough time. Whoa. Ask a poet to write a poem. Oh, my God. Okay. That's crazy.

How dare you do that? How dare you, Michael Brennan? I write poetry. Yes.

So for me, that's not a huge lift, but to write it, write a poem or song for somebody that's going through a rough time. This is funny. This comes up because one of my first poems was about a buddy of mine in high school that was going through a rough time.

So how does that relate back to spreading kindness?

Well, like I said, one of the first poems I wrote was for somebody going through a hard time, and I wanted to encourage him that things were going to be a okay. And now let's see here. That was back in 1988. So rough math there. You know, we're looking at 40 years of writing poetry. Oh, my God, that's crazy.

35, you know, public school math there.

But that's kind of become my calling card, is, you know, usually it's about me going through a rough time, but, you know, when I write it for other people that are going through a rough time, I feel it, they feel it, and they know that they're not alone. Okay. Number two is create a piece of art for a local charity. This is something I haven't really done.

Maybe I need to go ahead and do that because that's something that I have not explored. And, you know, it makes me scratch my head and go, huh, that's a great idea.

So if you've done that, let me know, you know, email me and let me know about that. You know, if you want me to share it on the show, I'd be happy to do that for you.

I know some people, they're just like, yeah, yeah, I don't need any. I don't need any publicity for that. It's just something that I did. But I'd like to know how that went for you.

Like I said, I haven't done it, so if you have, email me, let me know. Number three is design a website for a nonprofit. Okay. Ye. Okay. I am designing the website for TKB podcast studio. Designing a website is tough.

It is not for the faint of heart. And, you know, I had to shave my head because I was pulling out the little tiny ears in my head.

Anyways, so I just went ahead and shaved my head and said, ah, the heck with it, we'll get, we'll pound out this website. But designing a website for a non for profit, sure, why not?

You know, again, not something that I have done, but if that is in your wheelhouse, why not, you know, it'll make you feel good, it'll help them out. And hey, it'll get your name out there. And if that's what you're after, knock it out of the ballpark. Why not? That's free advertisement.

Bake cookies for your neighbors. Now, this depends on what part of the country that you're in, because there are certain substances that are legal that you can bake into cookies.

I do not live in one of those states. But, you know, you can bake regular cookies, you know, chocolate chip, oatmeal, raisin.

You can send me cookies if you want to, but, yeah, why not bake cookies for your neighbors? I know we've tried that when we first moved here. We've been in our house now for this Thanksgiving will be this November will be ten years.

So I think, you know, I think I'm gonna make some cookies for my neighbors. Why not? I make good cookies. And the fifth thing is volunteer your time to teach a class.

Funny he mentions that because I am going to be starting up a podcast meetup podcasters meetup group here in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the very near future. And, you know, I have a certain amount of expertise in making podcasts. I've been doing it since 2006, and I'm going to be volunteering to do that.

And one of my affiliates, which is podmatch, is going to be helping me with that, helping me promote it to folks in the area, like within a 25 miles radius that are part of podmatch. And we'll talk about pod match towards the end here.

But yeah, that's something that I'm planning on doing anyways, is to volunteer my time and, you know, kind of make it more of a meet up. Not necessarily me talking the whole time, but, you know, providing a space at my nephew's coffee shop. Oh, geez. Here in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

So if you're in the area, go grab some coffee. But yeah, that's something that I've done in the past and I look forward to doing again. Okay, the last section is start with a clear intention.

So if you're going to do something kind artistically for somebody, have the intention for that, make sure you know why you're doing it and, you know, kind of focus your efforts because it'll make it a lot easier when you're spreading this kindness to others through art. So start with that clear intention. Why am I starting up a podcast meetup group?

Because I want to build a community of other podcasters and help them and get help from them because maybe they have more experience than I do, but I want to go ahead and do that. And, you know, I'm not going to charge them. As a matter of fact, I'm probably going to buy them their first drink at the coffee shop.

So that way Ogs will be happy to, you know, host this kind of event. They have the space, they have rent that they have to pay. They have staff that they have to pay.

So if I buy the first runner drinks for the people that come to this, even if they don't buy enough, even if they just drink one drink, I'm helping out my nephew, I'm helping out a coffee shop, and I'm helping out these people with the knowledge that I have, and they're helping me out with the knowledge that they have. They just don't know it, so don't tell them. The second tip is to consider the needs of your audience.

So if you're like, doing what I'm going to be doing, you know, doing a meetup for podcasters, I want to find out what they want to talk about. I want to create a space where they can sit and, you know, be open to talk about anything that's going on with podcasting.

And if they need to talk about other stuff, you know, I want to make the space available for them as well so that they're nice and comfortable.

And also, you know, when we do podcast conferences, a lot of times it gets lonely doing that because you don't know anybody there, but having a group of people that you can go, hey, I'm going to go to this conference. I scored some discounted tickets. You know, I can get you guys a discount to this to make it a little bit easier for you to make the conference.

You all want to come along, we can carpool, we can get a couple of hotel rooms together, and I can I chill out and hang out at this conference. Consider the needs. Consider the needs of your community. Do you know a local charity that needs a new website?

Because their website looks horrible and you have that skill set, why not go for it? The side benefit of it is you can get your name out there and you can introduce to people that you may not have been introduced to before.

The third point is, don't be afraid to ask for feedback. I always ask you guys for feedback every time Timothy at Create artpodcast.com. let me know what I'm doing right. Let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Ask it from your audience.

You know, maybe they like that painting that you did, or they kind of like it, but they wish it was something, you know, had more blue in it or had, you know, more sharks in it. I don't know. Well, then, hey, if you're looking for something to do, there you go. There you go.

They're giving you a kindness by asking for that feedback, and you're showing them a kindness because you care. You're showing them that you care about what they have to say and what they feel. Be patient is the fourth point. Be patient with this. This takes time.

It's cultivating relationships. My wife and I didn't get married until we knew each other for, you know, like, ten years, so you got to be patient.

And we've been married now for eleven years, so you got to be patient with this. You're cultivating relationships with your audience, with your community. Be patient.

Some people are a little bit touchy, a little bit squeamish, so be careful and be kind. Then the last tip is, be mindful of your resources.

So you may not be able to do all the websites in your local community and redo them all for all the. And not for profits or charities. Okay. You got to save some in the tank for you.

So make sure that, yeah, if you're doing stuff for free or, you know, you're doing stuff to be kind to other people or kind to your community around you, make sure you're being kind to yourself. Here's the thing that I tell my kids, and I'm going to tell you the same thing. You got to love yourself first before you can love anybody else.

Because then, you know what, love is the same thing about being kind. You gotta be kind to yourself first. Make some art for somebody you love yourself. That's why I always say that at the end.

Make sure you have enough in the tank for this. All right. Well, at this time now, I'd like to talk about a couple of my affiliates that I work with.

The first one is podmatch, and that's how I get great guests on this show. I use pod match to get these guests. Do I get a little kickback if you use my affiliate link? Yeah, a little bit of a kickback.

Do I get a little bit of a kickback from the guests, you know, when I put on the show? Yeah, a little bit. You know, we're not talking. I'm making millions and millions of dollars on this.

But it's a good, it's a good program out there for you to either get on other podcasts or if you have a podcast to find those guests, that would be good fits for you. Instead of getting these emails from you don't know who the person is and they're saying, hey, I want to be on your show.

It's just an easier way, in my opinion, to find those good guests that match with what you're trying to do or to find those hosts that match with what you're trying to do. So give it a shot for yourself. My other affiliate link I'd like to talk about here real quick is podcast Beacon. Now? What podcast Beacon is it?

It looks like a little wristwatch. It doesn't tell the time. I'll talk to my guy, Matthew passy about that later on.

But what it does is whenever you're trying to share your podcast, and this is specifically for, you know, podcasters here, but you're trying to share your podcast with folks, business cards, they get wet, they get crumbly, or they get out of date QR codes. You know, sometimes people not know how to do it, sometimes people don't.

But with podcast Beacon, they just put their phone right on top of it, right on top of the beacon, and then boom, their phone goes to the website and you're all set up and good to go. It's just the easiest way to do that, in my opinion. And Matthew Passy is an awesome guy, so he makes great products.

Now do I get a little bit of a kickback from the affiliate links? Yeah, I get a little bit of kickback. Not that much if you make that purchase, not that much.

But I'm not going to introduce you to stuff that I don't believe in that I haven't used myself. So take a look. You know, take a look at that.

If you was, you know, if, if you have that need, take a look at that for yourself and let me know what your experience is with it. Okay. It's that time in the show where I let you get on with your day. I need to get on with my day.

So I definitely first and foremost want to thank you for listening to this episode. I want you to go out there and make fun of habit for yourself. Okay?

If you'd like to reach out to me and give me some ideas about the show, tell me about your journey, what you're working on. I'd love to hear from you. Timothyreatpodcast.com if you want me to talk about a topic on the show that's giving you problems?

Let's start that conversation now. I do want to let you know that I run a couple of other podcasts.

One of them is find a podcast about, and that's where I help you find your next binge worthy podcast. You can find it at Findapodcastabout XYz. Outsmart that algorithm. And just to let you know, I have started up my own podcast consulting company.

It's called TKB Podcast Studio.

You can find it@tkbpodcaststudio.com the site is still a little bit under construction, but it kind of gives you a portfolio of the the podcasts that I'm working on. So from passion projects like this one to professional projects to federal government podcasts that I work on, take a listen.

Take a look at what I'm doing. So tame that inner critic, my friend. Create more than you consume. Spread some kindness. Spread some kindness out there. It doesn't cost you a thing.

And go make some art for somebody you love, yourself. I'll talk to you next time you close.