My brain currently feels like a browser with 47 tabs open, three of which are playing different videos, and somehow one of them is always buffering.

It’s probably because I actually do have 47 browser tabs open. Excluding the 1,477 on my iPhone… like, why?

My mind is always spinning things up. I have to work tirelessly to keep it at bay. Do you also invent seventeen things while simultaneously writing a new hour of material and a TV series in your head all while trying to fall asleep? Cool. Cool, thought so.

I had my final, off-book call with the TedX team this morning — the last meeting before live rehearsals begin in two weeks. 🤯 

I have a hard time believing it’s already almost here, and at the same time the second I walk off that stage, I’ll have a hard time believing it’s already over…

Time is wild, eh? (Just to make any of you Canadians feel seen)

As much as I’m combatting overwhelm in this season, it truly does feel like a calm before a storm. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels like it needs to happen yesterday. But at the same time, it feels like nothing’s happening at all.

Does that mean I’m due for a vacation? The answer is always yes…

Every single time my brain starts spinning the "too much, not enough time, I’m overwhelmed" story, I somehow manage to get it all done. Not just done, but done well, while having a good time doing it.

The TedX talk will happen. The partnerships will work out. The tour will be announced. (Me reminding my brain it’s allll gooood babyyyy…)

It’s only my job to do one thing at a time, do it the best I can, and not worry about all the other shit my brain tries to add.

I mean, nothing’s linear anyways…

The Hustle

I’m making a pit stop in London and New York this month before TedX rehearsals begin.

Instead of clearing my schedule and going into monk mode before the biggest speaking event of my life, I’m doing quite the opposite — London meetings and shows, New York meetings, events and shows — more travel, more partnerships, more commitments. But, a thoughtful amount of ‘more.’

This all might sound insane, but it’s strategic.

I somehow thrive in controlled chaos, and when my brain is left too idle before something big, it keeps inventing and editing. A little motion shuts out the noise.

When something feels monumentally huge and intimidating, the worst thing I can do is sit around thinking about how monumentally huge and intimidating it is. The best thing I can do is remind myself that this is just another day in my life, and this is the life I asked for. And I love it. And I always nail it. Always.

By keeping some of my regular chaos going, the big things become part of the flow instead of this isolated, looming thing.

So here I am, excited for a quick 40 hour trip to another country and two other cities… so that by the end of the month, it’ll feel like I’ve taken a shit the size of a toucan and I’ll feel a hell of a lot lighter.

The thing about overwhelm is that it’s almost always worse in anticipation than in reality. When you’re actually in the thick of doing things, you’re too busy executing to spiral about how much there is to do.

It’s the sitting still and thinking about it all that makes your mentals go haywire.

So instead of trying to create the perfect calm environment, I'm creating the perfect busy environment. One where I'm already in motion, already solving problems, already mid-action.

By the time I step onto that TedX stage, it’ll be just another Friday, like it feels for any big show. I'll be ready to rock it — I already am ready and I’m so excited — and I’m already picturing laying on the floor for a nice ten minutes afterward, whiskey in hand, decompressing from the thrill of this entire ride coming to a close.

The Chill

A month from now, I’ll be prepping to spend nearly the whole month of October back in LA. I’m overdue to be in my other home, and I can’t wait.

There’s something beautifully simple about touring life that I’m craving right now. Your days are wide open and explorative — you wake up in a new city, grab a $32 black coffee at some gentrified shop you’ve never been into, walk around, people watch — the day unfolds however you want and then you simply… stumble on stage and work (aka PLAY) for an hour.

Even while touring eight countries in Europe last year and living out of a suitcase taking overnight flights to a new city every few days, it was chill as fuck.

Aside from that one moment in Brussels where the train took off with me on a platform full of thieves carrying all the valuables while the doors closed behind Jake who was stuck on the train while he was getting our luggage… story for another time.

“Be funny and have a good time” isn’t an agenda. It’s a freedom that I get to carry to other parts of life.

Brussels story aside (seriously, that was chaos, and I can’t believe a video of me running after the train carrying a bag of valuables didn’t go viral in Europe LOL), there’s something about the simplicity of doing shows while traveling that cuts through all the noise in my head.

When I spend long chunks of time back in LA, I live there just like I did when I… did… full time. I hike the trails, take chill lunch meetings (that are usually never meetings about anything, but ARE however an excuse to ‘write stuff off’), do my shows and catch up with friends.

October in LA means settling back into a rhythm in the house that got me through a very hard year (2020… remember it? LOL), and gives me some time to miss Chicago. A nice hard reset.

When overwhelm does creep up, I've learned to actually acknowledge it instead of fighting it. 'OK, brain is spinning, chest feels tight, everything feels like a lot.' Then I remind myself this feeling will pass — it always does — and I go shake it out of my system physically. A walk, a workout… the overwhelm needs to move through your body, not get trapped in it.

Sometimes I need to get it out in words. Once it's on paper, it becomes something I can look at instead of something that's consuming me from the inside. (Or it becomes a haphazard joke I text to myself with no context and I can’t figure out for the life of me what it meant, so it never becomes a joke.) Same, same.

The plot twist isn't that nothing is linear — it's that the overwhelm and calm aren't opposites. They're both part of the same flow, just different seasons of it.

Upcoming Shows

What to check out in Chi-city:

Thursday 9/4: Laugh Factory Chicago 9pm

Friday 9/12: Laugh Factory Chicago 7pm

*Friday hops a redeye to London — stay tuned for showtimes at Angel Comedy that weekend!

*Monday hops a flight to NYC for 24 hours — stay tuned for drop ins in NY!

September 26th — TedX Chicago !!!

Saturday 9/27: Certified Bangers RETURNS to Three Cities Social in River North — tickets dropping soon so SAVE THE DATE

Announcing next: Los Angeles, New Orleans, Anchorage, Utah, Idaho, Colorado…

Love you all and cheers to the hustle + chill. We thrive in controlled chaos.

xx NPH