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Losing and Finding Your Creative Self:

Mike Brennan on Creativity, Identity, and Starting Again

The Power of Human Stories | Episode 8

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What happens when something that has always been part of who you are slowly disappears from your life?

That's a question at the heart of my latest conversation with Mike Brennan, an artist, author, speaker, creative mentor, and host of the Creative Chats podcast. Mike has spent years helping people reconnect with their creativity, but his own journey to that point was anything but straightforward.

I first crossed paths with Mike years ago when we were both working in church-related creative spaces. I was familiar with his colorful artwork and his message about building a daily creative habit, but I realized I'd never actually sat down and heard his full story. And as we talked, I began to understand just how much of his work today has been shaped by the unexpected turns in his own life.

When Creativity Becomes a Career

Mike grew up as a shy, introverted kid who found a sense of belonging in the worlds of cartoons, comics, and imaginary characters. He loved Looney Tunes, Calvin and Hobbes, and the colorful stories that filled his imagination. Some of his earliest creative memories involve drawing greeting cards for family members and seeing their faces light up when he gave them away.

That desire to connect through creativity eventually led him to study graphic design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He entered the industry during a fascinating transition, when traditional design tools were giving way to computers and desktop publishing. One lesson stayed with him: the tools would always change, but the ability to think conceptually and communicate meaningful ideas would remain valuable.

Mike went on to work with advertising agencies, publications, and major brands. But the demands of commercial design began taking a toll. Tight deadlines, long commutes, and the constant pressure to produce left him increasingly disconnected from what he loved about making art in the first place.

One part of his experience resonated with me. Mike talked about creating work, sending it out into the world, and rarely getting to experience how people responded to it. As someone who produces videos for a living, I understand that feeling. Sometimes we pour ourselves into a project, deliver the final piece, and wonder whether it actually connected with anyone. That feedback isn't always available, and over time, its absence can change how we feel about the work.

For Mike, that disconnect eventually led him in an entirely different direction.

Losing Touch With a Part of Yourself

Mike left commercial design and moved into full-time ministry, eventually helping plant a church with longtime friends. It was work centered on relationships and serving people, things that had always mattered to him. But as his responsibilities grew, his personal creative practice gradually disappeared.

Over the following years, Mike faced some incredibly difficult circumstances, including depression, major professional changes, and personal loss. We spend a meaningful part of our conversation exploring that season, particularly what it felt like to lose his sense of purpose while working in an environment where he was expected to help others find theirs.

By the time he began considering a return to making art, nearly a decade had passed since he'd maintained a personal creative practice. He wasn't even sure that part of himself was still there.

His return started at a Starbucks, where he pulled out an old sketchbook and drew a coffee cup. He thought the drawing was terrible. But instead of putting everything away again, he wrote two simple words at the top of the page: Day One.

That small decision became the beginning of his Daily Creative Habit, a practice that would eventually grow into thousands of pieces of artwork and change the direction of his life.

When the Habit Becomes Part of Your Identity

What began as a personal commitment to make something each day eventually grew into books, workshops, speaking engagements, mentorship, and an entire body of work helping others develop their own creative practices.

For 13 years, Mike showed up creatively every single day. Then life interrupted that streak.

A recent health scare forced him to stop creating the way he had for so long. Suddenly, the person known for showing up every day had to reconsider what it meant when he couldn't.

There's an interesting tension here for anyone who has turned a passion into a career. We build routines, expectations, and sometimes entire professional identities around the things we do. Those structures can help us grow, but they can also become difficult to separate from our sense of self.

Mike shared an analogy that stuck with me: the systems and habits we build are scaffolding, but they aren't the building itself. For him, the real goal was always a creative life. The daily practice was simply one way of supporting it.

That realization has also shaped how he thinks about the future of creativity. We spent some time discussing artificial intelligence and what happens when the technical aspects of creative work become easier to replicate. Mike is particularly thoughtful about the risk of surrendering our own creative judgment and agency to tools that promise greater efficiency. It's an interesting conversation, especially coming from someone who began his design career when computers were first transforming the industry.

Finding Your Way Back

From there, our conversation returned to Mike's personal life and some of the difficult seasons he's experienced in recent years. He opened up about relationships, loss, depression, financial uncertainty, and moments when it was difficult to imagine what the future might hold. He also shared how his faith and his understanding of creativity have helped him hold on to hope through those experiences.

There's a vulnerability to Mike's story that I hadn't fully anticipated when we sat down. Even after thousands of pieces of artwork and more than a decade of teaching others about creative habits, he's still learning what it means to live creatively through circumstances he can't always control.

Near the end, I asked what he would say to someone who once considered themselves creative but has since lost touch with that part of their life. Maybe they used to draw, write, play music, or make things simply because they enjoyed it, but somewhere along the way, those interests faded into the background.

His response was encouraging, especially for anyone who feels like they've been away too long to start again.

And when I asked what he would tell the shy little kid who once found belonging in cartoons and imagination, his answer brought us back to where his story began.

I won't give that answer away here, but I think it's worth hearing.

Whether you work in a creative field or haven't picked up a paintbrush, camera, instrument, or notebook in years, I wonder what part of Mike's story might resonate with your own.

You can also explore Mike's artwork, podcast, books, and creative resources at mikebrennan.me.

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