Call it the age of social media.

Call it years of grinding for success.

Call it whatever you want… but sometimes your highlight reel lives internally and isn’t ready for it’s public debut yet.

Right now, my internal highlight reel is pretty stacked.

My desk looks like a tornado hit a very (mostly) organized person's life — schedules, contracts for unannounced projects, meeting notes for things that don't officially exist yet, tour routing dates that lead to projects soon to be announced.

From the outside, it probably looks like I'm just shuffling papers and drinking too much coffee. (I am)

From the inside, it feels like something big is brewing while I’m trying not to jinx it by talking about it all too early.

Welcome to the entertainment industry, where "I'm working on something cool" is code for "I have seventeen meetings about a thing that might happen if the stars align and nobody changes their mind and this email gets replied to on time and a studio doesn’t fight with another studio."

This is the weird liminal space of creative work: peak productivity that looks like peak nothing.

I'm in more meetings than ever, but they're all about projects that technically don't exist yet. Not publicly, anyways. Offers are coming easier ever, but most of it happens behind "we'll announce when we're ready" energy.

It's like being pregnant but in the first trimester when you can't tell anyone yet. Except instead of a baby, it's a comedy special, a TV show, a tour or partnerships that might change everything or might fall through entirely.

I may not have actual kids yet, but I’ve had a lot of creative ‘babies.’ (Yes, we call projects our babies).

The entertainment industry runs on hurry up and wait. Hurry up and write the pitch. Wait six months to hear back. Hurry up and take the meeting. Wait to see if it pans out with this studio or that one.

Meanwhile, your desk becomes an archaeological dig of almosts and maybes.

The Hustle

The hustle used to be about making something out of nothing.

Now it's about making something out of everything while pretending it's still nothing until it’s something.

This phase of my career is weird. I'm busier than I've ever been, but it's all invisible work. For now. I'm in the best position I've ever been in professionally, but I can't really talk about it yet because entertainment moves at the speed of "soon."

It's why I grab the reins on any project I can control. I prefer being in the driver's seat when possible.

The productive paradox of creative work is that your biggest wins often happen in rooms nobody knows you were in, on projects that won't be announced for months, with people who can't be named yet.

Meanwhile, social media demands constant updates. Green rooms and events are filled with the ever-looming question, "What are you working on?" Which becomes this impossible question because the honest answer is "I don’t have anything to tell you ‘til it’s done."

So you end up feeling simultaneously like you're crushing it and like you're doing absolutely nothing.

Peak productivity, peak meh.

I used to think success meant being able to share every win immediately. But over the years, I’ve learned that real success sometimes means being comfortable sitting with good news in silence until it's ready to be real.

The entertainment industry taught me that the best projects often require the most patience. Not just patience from audiences, but patience from the person creating the thing.

Some highlight reels are worth keeping private until they're actually ready to be highlights.

The Chill

Working heavily in secret forces you to find satisfaction in the process instead of the applause.

When nobody knows what you're working on, you have to actually like creating it.

When it’s not time to post about your wins, you have to find other ways to celebrate them.

When your highlight reel is private, you learn to appreciate the behind-the-scenes moments that nobody else will ever see. Actually living the process.

I've gotten far better at sitting with good news in silence than I was at the start of my career — celebrating the small victories that happen in zoom rooms and email chains.

Finding joy in the work itself instead of the announcement of the work.

Maybe that's what real confidence looks like — being excited about something even when you can't tell anyone why. The feeling that just gets to be yours.

There's something weirdly freeing about this phase. No pressure to perform success for social media. No need to manage other people's expectations about timelines.

Just me, my messy desk, and a bunch of projects and conversations that might change everything.

The entertainment industry taught me patience, but it also taught me something more important: how to trust the process even when the process looks like absolutely nothing from the outside.

My internal highlight reel is pretty stacked right now. And for the first time in my career, I'm perfectly happy keeping it that way until it's ready to go public.

Some of the best work happens in the quiet moments before anyone else knows it exists.

Of course, so does eating an entire sleeve of crackers while staring at your computer screen, but we don't talk about that part.

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Upcoming Shows

Thursday June 11th — Late Night at Lincoln Lodge

Friday June 12th — Chicago Laugh Factory 7pm

Friday June 19th — Chicago Laugh Factory 7 + 9pm

Tuesday June 23rd — Chicago Laugh Factory 7:30pm

Thursday June 25th — Iowa with Jim Norton

Friday June 26th - Sat June 27th — The Den Theater with Jim Norton

Love you all and cheers to the hustle + chill. We turn our secrets into fossil fuel.

xx NPH