Creative Overflow with Jenny Kiehn

Have you got leaks in your business?  Maybe you have trouble keeping track of sales leads and don’t follow up enough?  Or maybe you have a pretty good following but don’t have many people on your email list?  Or maybe you meet people who appreciate your art regularly but don’t capture their contact details?  Or maybe you put off putting your artwork on your website?

These are all leaks that are costing you money!  It’s like a bucket with a hole and the money is pouring out!

I recently did a pretty stern audit on the leaks in my business and it was an eye opener!!  I realized I’m losing tons of money because of them and if I want to get to the next level, it’s time to sort them out.  In the episode I talk about my personal experience of doing an audit and systematically plugging the leaks.  Then I give advice on how you can do the same for your art business too.

This is something that has to be done regularly at every stage of business.  It’s one of the things that helps you grow.

If you enjoyed this episode, definitely tune in every Friday because I will be releasing a new episode each week. 

If you're interested in a conversation on how you can bring more abundance into your creative life, leave a review of this podcast, take a screenshot of it and email it to [email protected]. I'll invite you to a free group coaching class about exactly that!

If you’re interested in deeper weekly support, email me at [email protected] to ask about the Creative Abundance Circle.

This podcast is about a sneaky fear that a lot of artists have and which can cause definite blocks to your success. The fear of outshining others is the fear that your talent, humor, beauty etc will somehow have a negative effect on someone else.  For instance, it could make a younger sibling feel bad about themselves, or your parents might have gotten grumpy and uncomfortable because they didn’t have the bandwidth to support you.  This fear usually forms early in childhood and can be an unknown cause of blocks in your professional life.

In the podcast, I tell my story with my fear of outshining others and how I’ve healed it.  

Once you identify that you have an fear of outshining others, I offer two ways of healing it:

1).  Notice the part of your body that the younger version of you is located in.  This will be wherever the pain is coming from.  Make safe space for the younger version of you that is in pain, and allow it to tell its story.  It helps if you can imagine the pain flowing out and down into the ground.  Just hold safe space for that part of yourself and let it all out.  By doing this, you become the parent you always needed.  
2).  Flip the belief and let it sink in.  Instead of "When I outshine others, my family stops loving me" flip it to "When I shine, I inspire others"

This fear can also create a block against receiving money for your creations.  You may be willing to make them, but unconsciously think you need to punish yourself somehow for doing so.  Or you might just simply think you can’t make your creations AND receive ample money for them because that is shining too brightly. 

The beautiful thing is once you identify the problem, you can start to heal it and let it melt away.  

This is life changing!!

I also referred to “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks because it has an incredible section about the fear of outshining others.

If you enjoyed this episode, definitely tune in every Friday because I will be releasing a new episode each week. 

If you're interested in a conversation on how you can bring more abundance into your creative life, leave a review of this podcast, take a screenshot of it and email it to [email protected]. I'll invite you to a free group coaching class about exactly that!

If you’re interested in deeper weekly support, go to jennykiehn.com/podcast-coaching to find out more about the Creative Abundance Circle.

Just this week, something has finally clicked for me with Manifesting.  I had thought I was pretty good at it, but now things are really starting to fall into place for me.  I am manifesting things thick and fast right now.

Here’s the key:  You’ve got to daydream (or visualize) as freely and outrageously as possible.  Just enjoy it and whatever you do, don’t “be realistic”.  Just enjoy the beautiful feelings you experience when you imagine yourself being/doing/having whatever it is you want.  

I also like to imagine myself six months after I reached the goal I’m trying to achieve.  That way the actual achievement of the goal feels settled, calm and unquestioned.  It’s like, “obviously I achieved it - I did it a while ago”.

Basically, you’ve got to daydream in an unimpeded way.  When you were a child, you were brilliant at this.  Unfortunately, by the time most people reach adulthood, they have been trained out of this magical, creative skill.  However, you can definitely “remember” it if you take the time to get comfortable doing it.  

The first time I really dared to dream outrageously this week it took me about 40 minutes to get comfortable with it.  I used Abraham Hicks’s “Money and the Law of Attraction” cards and journaled for a while before I felt ready to go for it.  

Then, when I got into that blissful daydream, I felt this sense of ease, peace and satisfaction steal over me.  I felt incredible.  I soaked it up as much as I could.

Since then, I’ve been doing the visualization/daydream three times a day.  Once for about twenty minutes first thing in the morning, sometime in the middle of the day for about five minutes, then again for about ten minutes right before going to sleep.  

I feel a million times better and I’m telling you, beautiful things are falling into my lap.

Give it a try!

If you enjoyed this episode, definitely tune in every Friday because I will be releasing a new episode each week. 

If you're interested in a conversation on how you can bring more abundance into your creative life, leave a review of this podcast, take a screenshot of it and email it to [email protected]. I'll invite you to a free group coaching class about exactly that!

If you’re interested in deeper weekly support, email me at [email protected] to ask about the Creative Abundance Circle. You can also find out more at https://jennykiehn.com/podcast-coaching/.

Authenticity is essential for an art practice and art business.  In this episode I talk about all different stages of it and share some of my personal stories and experience.  Here are the stages that I’ve experienced:

Accept who you are (especially if you’re different than the people around you!)
Show up authentically in your creative practice.  Put in the time to create the artwork to eventually find your creative voice.
Continue showing up so that your creative voice evolves as fast as you are evolving as a person.
Start sharing your work (you don’t need to have it all figured out)
Ask for continuous feedback from the people who enjoy your work so you can better understand their perspective
Refine your artistic message as you learn more
Share your story, with an emphasis on the parts that affect the message of your artwork
Whether to share or not share any trauma you’ve experienced.
Provide avenues for people to really get to know you (I explain about my live artist talks)
Trust that all of this compounds

I also recommend two books that expand on this topic:

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann
Go Giver’s Sell More by Bob Burg and John David Mann

I’ll actually be doing a live artist talk today on Instagram if you get this message in time.  It will be at 12:00pm ET on Friday April 10th, 2026.

If you miss that talk, I’ll be doing a live artist talk on Facebook next week at 12:00pm ET on Friday April 17, 2026.

If you enjoyed this episode, definitely tune in every Friday because I will be releasing a new episode each week. 

If you're interested in a conversation on how you can bring more abundance into your creative life, leave a review of this podcast, take a screenshot of it and email it to [email protected]. I'll invite you to a free group coaching class about exactly that!

You can also join my podcast mailing list or check out my coaching options at jennykiehn.com/podcast-coaching.

As creators, we have a treasure trove of life skills that can be used to make a beautiful life.  Through making art, we’ve learned to follow a feeling or vision, create safe space for it, stay in Beginner’s Mind, suspend judgement, and see it through to the end.  Then, we we learn from the experience, hopefully laughing about it along the way!  We understand that every artwork is a stepping stone to the next artwork.  We don’t expect completion and if we’re wise, we don’t expect absolute perfection either, even though we might be chasing it.

All these skills are exactly what you need to create a beautiful life.  We have the whole toolkit.  It’s just a matter of applying these same skills to life projects instead.

For instance, what if you allowed yourself safe space to try out different tactics to improve your relationship with your partner?  What if you didn’t take it too seriously, figuring that something would eventually work out?

What if you allowed yourself safe space to build a business, starting it as a small experiment that you show to only a few people, then gradually build up from there?

What if you were willing to take a new step in life just to see what happened - suspending  judgement and not worrying about it?

Beneath all of this is threaded a truth that children know deep down.  When they play, when they jump into things because they know everything is supposed to work out for them.

They fight things that are boring or aren’t fun because they know they deserve joy.

When you step back and look at your life from a broader perspective, it’s easy to see when things that you thought were failures turn out be the best thing that could have happened.

Everything is working out for you all the time.  This is the most powerful truth to know.  It is working out for you, whether it seems like it at the time or not.

When you operate from this knowing, it opens the door to opportunity.

If you enjoyed this episode, definitely tune in every Friday because I will be releasing a new episode each week. 

If you're interested in a conversation on how you can bring more abundance into your creative life, leave a review of this podcast, take a screenshot of it and email it to [email protected]. I'll invite you to a free group coaching class about exactly that!

If you’re interested in deeper weekly support, email me at [email protected] to ask about the Creative Abundance Circle.