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We have somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts in a given day, according to studies.

The human brain generates roughly 48.6 thoughts per minute.

Up to 95% of those thoughts are the exact same ones we had the day prior.

And an estimated 80% of those thoughts are negative.

Roughly 85% of what we worry about never happens. And of the 15% of worries that do occur, 79% of people found they could handle the outcome better than expected.

…we all need to tell ourselves to shut the fuck up more often.

I generally have a good handle on asking myself if my thoughts are true before attempting to believe them. But I had some moments recently that really snapped me out of some absolutely bogus thoughts I was hanging onto.

Dumb Thought Exhibit A:

Shortly after dad passed, I had what felt like a really nice conversation with someone in the comedy world about family stuff. But the next day, I convinced myself they were just being nosy and disingenuous — you know how the grief brain works.

I hung onto that negative story for weeks. Then out of the blue, they texted me with a beautiful message of encouragement and sent me a gift for mom.

I had been entirely wrong about their intentions and let myself carry that for WEEKS.

Dumb Thought Exhibit B:

This week, a collaboration post between my company and another comic went pretty viral. A competitor platform (kinda the bane of my company’s existence, as they launched after me and have always claimed to be the first…) kept getting tagged in the comments, and that founder started chiming in.

I immediately jumped to ‘she’s trying to hijack this post and steal the attention for her own agenda.’ Turns out, it seems she was only responding to being tagged and didn’t even notice it was a collaboration.

We aren’t even the same type of company, to be honest. And my competitive paranoia helped absolutely nobody…

Two completely different situations, same pattern: I took neutral or even positive situations and wrote negative stories about them. Stories that lived rent-free in my head for way too long.

At the heart of things, I’m a collaborator.

I want to see others win. I want to believe in and find the good in other people. But sometimes the stories we tell ourselves alongside inundations from other people’s thoughts can steer us in the total wrong direction.

The Hustle

The stories we tell ourselves tell us more about ourselves than the truth.

And the stories we tell ourselves that we choose to believe actually determine how far we get to go.

When I assumed that comic was being fake, I closed myself off to genuine connection beyond that moment. When I assumed my competitor was trying to sabotage me, I wasted energy on paranoia instead of potentially playing into a more fun exchange.

When I default to thinking people are out to get me, I become someone who's constantly defending nothing instead of creating something.

Literal waste of energy at a cellular level.

But when I choose to believe people have good intentions until proven otherwise? When I celebrate my peers even when I think I deserve their success more? When I see other people's wins as proof that good things are possible instead of evidence that good things are being stolen from me?

That's when magic happens.

The comedy world is small and often competitive. It would be easy to see every other funny person as a threat to my stage time, my opportunities, my success. But every time I genuinely celebrate other comics — when I share their work, when I connect them to opportunities — that energy comes back tenfold.

Not because the universe is some wuwu roulette table, but because people want to work with collaborators, not competitors. They want to support people who support others. They remember who championed them when they were coming up.

There’s something energetically magnetic about someone who doesn’t create competition where it shouldn’t exist.

Yes, there's bullshit in every industry. Yes, some people will try to step on you to get ahead. Yes, sometimes less talented people get opportunities you deserve.

But I get to choose whether I let those realities poison my ability to connect, create, and celebrate. I get to choose whether I see every interaction through the lens of threat (fight or flight — AKA Primal) or opportunity.

The stories we tell ourselves become the reality we live in.

Guys. We gotta choose better stories.

Couple quick shoutouts here.

First, my friend Viv (pictured above) and I met at Edinburgh Fringe in 2024. She had a one-woman show about the CryptoCastle, which she lived and worked in at the dawn of cryptocurrency. Post Fringe, she turned it into a script and filmed a first season of a webseries. It’s BRILLIANT. Her and I have met on calls every 2 weeks since fringe, and we finally got to reunite for the first time in person since the fest this weekend.

She’s started crushing it in her viral videos on Instagram. And you can watch the first two episodes of CryptoCastle HERE. *She took down the rest of the season temporarily to negotiate funds for season 2!! But follow so you can see it all when it re-drops!

Second shoutout is to my friends at 1440 Media. I’ve mentioned I’m great friends with the founder of 1440 (Tim), and they’ve continued to be an avid sponsor of my newsletter.

For the cleanest, most unbiased morning dump of news, they’re your people! Such a great team and crew, great mission, and they do so much good in the world.

Smart starts here.

You don't have to read everything — just the right thing. 1440's daily newsletter distills the day's biggest stories from 100+ sources into one quick, 5-minute read. It's the fastest way to stay sharp, sound informed, and actually understand what's happening in the world. Join 4.5 million readers who start their day the smart way.

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The Chill

The reset isn't just about recognizing when your thoughts are bullshit.

It's about having a system for what to do when you catch yourself spiraling.

Here's what I've started working on in myself… when I notice I'm telling myself a story that makes me feel defensive, paranoid, or victimized, I ask myself three questions:

Is this thought actually true? Not "could it be true" or "has something like this happened before" — but is THIS specific thought, about THIS specific situation, actually true right now?

Generally speaking, if a thought we are having feels bad, it’s probably not true, or at the very least it’s not worth perseverating on.

Is this thought helping me move forward or keeping me stuck? Even if there's a grain of truth to it, is obsessing over it serving any useful purpose?

What would I tell a friend who came to me with this exact situation and this exact thought spiral?

Nine times out of ten, the story I'm telling myself doesn't pass the test.

The comic wasn't being fake — I was projecting my grief-brain onto a normal human interaction. My competitor wasn't trying to sabotage me — I was creating drama where none existed.

The reset happens the moment you ask better questions instead of believing worse stories.

Resets are actually about taking your control back, not about pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows. It's not toxic positivity. Sometimes people really are being shitty. Sometimes the situation really is unfair. Sometimes your instincts are spot-on.

But most of the time? Most of the time we're just making ourselves miserable with stories that are false and don’t serve us whatsoever.

The reset is permission to choose a different channel. To ask "what if they meant well?" instead of "how are they trying to screw me over?" To look for collaboration instead of competition. To default to curiosity instead of defensiveness.

50,000 thoughts a day…

That's a lot of opportunities to choose better stories.

We love a good story.

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Upcoming Shows

Headlining Comedy at the Cabaret in Madison, WI on Thursday May 7th!

Friday May 8th, Laugh Factory Chicago 7pm

Love you all and cheers to the hustle + chill. We always have a better story to tell…

xx NPH