EP #88 - On Finding Joy in Challenging Moments with Stand-Up Comedian Lucas Zelnick

(gentle music) - My philosophy on the power of comedy, when it comes to traumatic experiences or deeply personal experiences or simply challenging experiences, they're always bizarrely, sometimes in heightened way, especially in traumatic instances, like funny moments, and finding those funny moments, creating laughter from them, creates some element of joy, and finding joy in challenging things is a really emotionally productive way for me at least to move through the world. - Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast that discusses the importance of finding joy, happiness, and endorphins in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stephanopoulos, and this week I am so thrilled to have Lucas Selnick on the podcast to talk about comedy, happiness, and finding elements of joy in challenging things. Lucas is a stand-up comedian born, raised, and based in New York City, who challenges his cushy upbringing through punch heavy material. You might have seen some of his content on your free page on TikTok. Rees received over 50 million views on some of his videos and amassed a huge following of over 250,000 followers across social media. He's appeared in the San Francisco Sketch Fest and the New York Comedy Festival. He's also been featured in the New York Times and appeared as a guest on Amazon Prime videos, Sports Talk, Game Breakers, and is a tour opener for Ashley Gavin. In 2022, Lucas started headlining comedy clubs nationwide and he also received an NBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. So I'm really excited for you guys to hear this episode. We definitely get into some important topics related to mental health as it pertains to the lifestyle of a comedian and how he uses comedy to also explore some of these topics. And I especially loved recording this episode because comedy is one way to release your endorphins. But before we dive into the episode and get those endorphins rolling, I have a brief message from my sponsor, Anchor. Hi, Lucas, thanks so much for coming onto everyday endorphins. Thank you for having me. We were talking a little bit about this earlier, but I swear the TikTok algorithm really knows how to find their niche of people, which is how we ended up coming back into contact. Your TikToks were coming up on my free-upage. And I was like, oh my god, Lucas, my former, I guess, boss, kind of during my summer internship. I was like, oh my god, Lucas is now doing comedy and he's on my free-upage. How cool is that? So just such a funny, full circle moment. Yes, my TikTok seems to very effectively market to women who just graduated college. (laughs) Why do you think that is given your comedy? Some people that like it describe it as they feel that it's less formal than traditional stand-up, less set-up punchy. I mean, I post a lot of videos of Crabwork, which isn't actually what I do in a longer set, like I do material, but in order to put out enough stuff that I can post on TikTok frequently, all post Crabwork. And my Crabwork is very conversational. So I think younger people are connecting with slightly less formal stand-up, versus what they expect, which are like kind of one-liners. Yeah, that's a good point. I feel like a lot of the comedy content that I see at least on TikTok or like Instagram will be comedians like sharing their jokes, but less so the comedians actually engaging with the crowd. I didn't realize that was called Crabwork, so now I learned something new today. There you go, so early into the podcast. I hope you learned. Exactly. So how did you fall into comedy? Well, you never fall into it. It's utterly painful and it's torture. And if you want to do it, you have to push yourself into it every single day forever until you die. But I got out of school. I was working an entertainment. I was passionate about comedy. I love making people laugh. And I just did not feel any connection with any of the work I was doing. And everything felt like a job until I tried comedy. And I started with improv comedy, and I was like, this is not it for me. It was just improv warmups. They'd be like, go like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I would just be like, I'm an adult. I can't do that without wanting to kill myself. So I didn't do that for too long, but I did do UCB training. And I realized that I enjoyed performing for people. And then I kind of just pushed myself into taking like a stand up class. It was probably when we were working together, if not maybe a little bit after. I just connected with how it was done, and more importantly, really connected with the community of other people doing it. And over time, I just decided like, this is what I want to do with my life. That's a good point, too, that you don't really just fall into it. It seems like it's a lot of work, especially having shows and having to also like market yourself on other platforms like TikTok. There's a lot to it. More so than I think like the crowd necessarily sees. You also went to business school. When you were in business school, were you thinking about pursuing comedy? Like how did everything kind of come together, I guess, on a timeline of things in your life and your career? Yeah, so I had been working in like a relatively corporate environment and entertainment. And I had applied to business school because I was a little bit lost and I'd gotten in. And then I had also made a commitment to take comedy seriously head down for like six months. So I was like, I'm gonna give it every single day for six months and then I'm gonna pick my head up and I'm gonna see how I feel about it. So I did that and then I picked my head up and I was like, I think this is what I want to do with my life. So I called the business school and I said, can I defer a year and do comedy full time and then maybe come in two years? And they said, no, are you crazy or you high on crack? Why would you ever be able to do that? And I said, fair point, sorry. So then I was at this kind of crossroads of like, do I go to business school or do I do comedy? And literally the week I was making that decision, the pandemic started. So I kind of helped to make my decision 'cause I was like, I can't perform comedy. I don't know how long this will last. I can do my first year of business school while this is all going on. And then I can like kind of figure it out from there. So that was the timeline of that. By the time I started business school, I was certainly, I knew I was passionate about doing comedy. I was not certain that I wanted to be a comedian. And I started writing scripts with a writing partner who was another standup I had met through doing comedy. And we wrote scripts throughout all of the pandemic. I think we wrote three pilots in a movie together. And we started really enjoying that. And then we, as my summer internship for the first year of business school, we started a comedy club performed every day all summer. And it was after starting the comedy club that we realized, okay, but then I realized that okay, like this is what I wanna do. And then second year of business school, I would say, really I was more just a comedian who happened to have to attend business school classes during the day. - That's such an interesting experience. I feel like COVID made it so unique because COVID really allowed people. Obviously the pandemic was horrible and a lot of people suffered from COVID, but putting that aside, just having the world kind of be on pause and having all this time on your hands to do something like that's really creative, I think is super special. So do you think that like COVID in particular really made an impact in the trajectory of like how you started with comedy and then moved forward with it? - Yeah, I mean, I think with everything, you know, I don't think there are any live performers that are like grateful for the impact that COVID had on live performance just 'cause I couldn't get on stage and that's pretty much the only way to get better at stand up in particular. But it obviously also created a shift with how people consume content and specifically short form content. I think part of the reason why I've been able to make comedy a career relatively quickly is because of TikTok and Instagram. And I'm not sure those things would have been true necessarily before the pandemic. So I'm grateful for those like, I guess industry shifts or the rise of those platforms. I mean, I'm not grateful that like, you know, China has like all of everybody's data forever. And like this will probably be the United States of China very soon, but I am grateful that I've made a personal financial profit from China's capture of our data. (laughs) - That's a good way to put it. So earlier you mentioned that you always, you know, always loved making people laugh. And you know, now pursuing stand-up comedy full-time, like having this commitment to be a comedian, when you reflect back on your life growing up, do you think that you always had this sort of little comedian and you like, do you feel like this was kind of like a common theme in your life? Like your love for humor, your passion for making others happy, making people laugh. Was this something that kind of showed up consistently for you? - Yeah, for sure. I think it was, it was probably the only thing I ever thought I was at all competent at was talking to people and understanding them with some degree of intuition and then making fun of them for it. Three things. Like I would say I don't have intuition necessarily to, I'm decent. it like I think giving people advice and understanding what people are going through and empathizing with people. But more over, I think I was always good at taking a challenging situation and making light of it. For better or for worse, I think people process challenges differently. I always processed any challenges that I encountered through humor. And I also think the way that I built friendships was around people that valued humor in the same way. And so I think that's one of the things that really snowballed my passion for comedy was it wasn't just the ability for me to make people laugh, which I always love to do, but it was also finding a community of other people who valued that as strongly as I valued that. Because even as late as college, I was trying to create comedic sketches with some of my friends. And they were like, dude, we love joking around, but I want to be a consultant. And so I think I was running up against that until I got to comedy. And I was like, OK, these are kind of my people that have the interest, you know, the same interests in living like comedy in the way that I do. How would you describe your style of comedy? I would say personal. And I have one rule for myself, which is having as strict an adherence to honesty as I possibly can. I think like one of my goals in comedy, which weirdly, I think my approximation of its importance has changed over time. But one of my goals going into it was to have people know me and see me as well as like my best friends do, basically. And I think that comes from finding a way to communicate who you are off stage on stage. I think many comedians would tell you that, but that's not every comedian's goal. So my process has always been working through my own experiences and trying to put a very fine point on how I process them. And I think when I succeeded doing that, even if it's not necessarily relatable, which sometimes it is, I think when anyone can accurately describe what their mind goes through, because I think a lot of people's minds work the same way. But even if it's not relatable, if you can describe how your mind works well enough, that people really understand you, I think you can make a lot of things fun. On that point about finding that sense of relatability, I know that personally, I find things funny when I feel like I can relate to them. If I'm at a comedy show and I hear comedians say something that I'm like, "Yeah, this has happened to me." Or, "Yeah, I totally got that. I tend to find it funny." And I think that comedy is such a unique profession in an area because it's this ability to create community. And humor is really powerful because I think when you're able to kind of make light of a situation and make someone smile and make someone laugh, you're immediately bringing them joy in that moment. And that can be super powerful too. As a performer, as a comedian, do you feel that energy in the room when you're performing and when you're doing stand-up? Yeah, when I'm not bombing, I feel great energy. When I'm bombing, I feel a different energy, which is the energy of, "Please get off. We'll do anything for you to get off stage." But no, I think, here's what I will say, is my philosophy on the power of comedy when it comes to traumatic experiences or deeply personal experiences or simply challenging experiences. Some people feel that writing comedy about them removes their power. That's not so much my approach to it. My belief is that challenging things, traumatic things, they're always bizarrely sometimes in a heightened way, especially in traumatic instances, like funny moments. And finding those funny moments, creating laughter from them, creates some element of joy. And finding joy in challenging things is a really emotionally productive way for me at least to move through the world. So that's a very strong belief I hold about the value of comedy for me, which is that when I joke about my sister having special needs on stage, it's not to make fun of her. And it's also not to erase the challenging parts of that situation. It's simply to find joy in that situation, even if I also have to live with the challenging aspects of it too. That's a really good way to put it. And I was going to ask you, if there are any particular instances in your life or where in your life or in your experiences do you draw from when you're writing comedy, like specific moments that are deeply personal to you, that you use comedy as the vehicle to process or to create that sense of relatedness with your audience. You know, I look for situations that are unique and funny. But I think central to who I am, to some extent, I put it into camps a little bit. There are things that I talk about right now that I think I'll talk about forever because hopefully I'll become a better comedian over time. And the way I talk about them now is like I reduce them because, you know, to simpler ideas that I can't quite articulate because I just am not there skill wise. And then there's another camp of things which are just kind of like, you know, day to day things that are funny that happen and like bits that come out of that. Because like there's always going to be, you know, even if you're like, I'll just take myself for example, like growing up in New York City, growing up around a lot of privilege. That's like a big topic for me that I think is interesting and I think it's true to who I am. And I think if I can explain it well, I can make it relevant to everybody. But I can't talk about that for too much time in any given set. Otherwise everyone's like, why is this guy like the New York privilege guy? And also like I run out of ways to talk about it right now. I get bored of talking about it. I run up against like a wall talking about it. So then there will be another camp where it's like, I'm stuck at the airport and my flight got delayed and I watched a really weird thing happen in the airport and it made me think of this other random thing. And that's just like kind of an unrelated, okay, well let's see if I can make that funny. And I think hopefully over time I'll be able to like weave those things together so that I can create meaningful, you know, commentary on the day to day things as well as kind of the deeper things. But in the short term, I'm also kind of like, I just got to like walk before I can run a little bit. And so I'm like, I'll just make anything funny that I can make funny. And once I get bored of talking about stuff that's serious and personal and meaningful to me, I'll try stuff that's like trivial and silly until I'm like ready to go back to some of the stuff that I think is, you know, harder to approach. Yeah, like finding, I guess, a balance of the different types of content that you're sharing or the different kinds of topics that you're chatting about or making jokes about. I want to talk more about like the writing process for you. So how do you actually come up with a joke? Like how do you find that inspiration or do you have like a routine that you're in or like do you have like dedicated time every day to like brainstorm jokes or write or do these things just kind of pop into your head and you'll just jot it down as they come to you. It's definitely a combination. Most comedians would agree if you're thinking something funny, you should write it down whenever it comes to you. If you, you know, if something really seems funny to you or if you have a premise for a joke, you should pretty much always write it down. So typically what I'll do is I'll write premises down, you know, throughout the day, every day, or you know, some days I'll write a couple and then some days I'll write none, but I'll have a bunch that I need to write because a premise will be like one lie. Let me give you an example. I have cousins who are extraordinarily religious Jews. They're like ultra, ultra, ultra orthodox and I just want on vacation with them. So I wanted to write something about like my cousins being religious extremists, which they are. So I just wrote like my cousins are religious extremists in my notes. Which by the way, when I'm sitting at a cafe, like trying to write these ideas and someone's like looking over my shoulder at a notepad that says my cousins are religious extremists, I don't know what they're thinking, but so I'll write something like that and then I'll go to a cafe every morning. I'm not going to say which one because I'm there every day and then anyone could find me forever. But I go to the same cafe every morning and I sit pretty much in the same place and I take those premises and I'll try and spend if I can an hour looking at my phone and just writing that into a joke. So with the religious extremism example, I was actually writing it today, which is why I think of it and this will never, I'll say it because it will never end up being in my act. But like the first thing I wrote about religious extremism is I was like wow, religion, that's like a lame thing to be extreme about. I'm extreme about the Lord. And then I was like being extreme about like an old white man who you've never seen that makes all the rules. That's like being an extreme fan of Joe Biden. And so that's like something that I never organically thought. That's like a very written joke and it probably will never work. But it came from something that I was thinking about, which is like it's bizarre and definitely funny that I have extremist cousins. And that might be like an avenue to talk about it as I like tell a longer story about the actual situation. So how do you then decide like when? jokes, like let's say you're engaging in that kind of process, how do you decide which jokes you want to perform versus ones that you don't think are going to land well? Does that just take time like noticing how the audience is? Like how they'll respond to certain jokes that you've historically shared? No, it's more like if you write out any joke and you think it's funny, then you should try it on stage because you won't know until you try it on stage and you won't know until you try it on stage more than once to be exact. Because sometimes the first time you do a joke, it does great and then it never does great again and sometimes the reverse is true where you know you do it two, three, four times and no one laughs but if you really believe in it, you keep tweaking it a little bit and you try it and eventually you get it to work. And some jokes you know you're working on, I mean some people will work on jokes for years. Like I've certainly worked on jokes, I haven't been doing stand-up comedy long enough necessarily to work on jokes for like multiple years but I changed joke. No but that's not true actually. I have been, I'm working on jokes now that I you know wrote as one of the first jokes when I was learning stand-up. I would say for me I'll write a joke and once it's written I will pretty much always make an effort to try it as long as I think it's decently funny. Even if I'm not crazy about it, I might give it a shot just as something to try and then the speed with which I either throw it out or like pull it into my acts totally depends on a combination of like if it makes people laugh and also how much I care about it. So like I got a tattoo on my leg and I was writing a joke about getting a tattoo on my leg and how stupid it was. I hope it's not a thigh tattoo. And I wrote a joke that like thigh tats are like the male tramp stamp but I also like which they kind of are but like I also just I wrote about the whole experience because I basically realized I didn't want to tattoo right before he put the needle on my skin and then I was like well and it's happening. Too late now. I guess you could get laser removal. No that's too much. I live I need to live with it now. It's like a record. Now you're committed. Yeah, you almost convinced me into it just now that's how that's how barely I believe in this tattoo but you know what I believe in it to that extent at least. So I was writing a joke about that and I was doing it and it was like sort of working. I got like a couple parts of it working a couple parts of it weren't but I was also just kind of getting bored with talking about it. I was like why am I talking about this? Why is this important to me? Is this important to me? And then I kind of decided like this isn't super important to me at least now right now. So I'll always have that joke and I can come back to it and like maybe there will be a place this also happens where you'll try something you'll stop doing it and then six months later you'll be like oh now it makes sense to me but I stopped doing it just because in addition to the fact that it wasn't working very well it was kind of like boring me to talk about. When you're testing out these jokes and you're not sure if they're going to land what happens if you don't really get good feedback from the audience. I feel like you need to have like thick skin as a comedian when you're standing in front of tons of people trying out a new joke or not sure if they're going to like it and no one laughs. Like how do you not take that personally? How do you move on and how do you just not let that really get to you? You just do it so many times that like you kind of get numb to it. To be honest I think the people in the crowd are much more upset on my behalf than I actually am because people have like such nerves and second-hand embarrassment for stand-up comedians but I'm like we do this all the time and like I'm better now than I ever was before. So like forget how much I bomb now I used to bomb a lot more. So like it's like when I get a bomb now I'm like that's fine. I think when I bomb when I bomb a couple nights in a row or like I'm really kind of like slamming my head against a wall and it's not connecting. That's when I get down on myself. But like any given night I'm like you know you can usually identify a couple things that are going on. You know you can look at the crowd and you get a sense. You'll always like discount the bomb somehow. So you're like I know I did something weird I know they did something weird I know something weird happened. I know the person who I was following was incredibly good and hard to follow or so bad that they were hard to follow both things can be true. But you know typically for me it's pretty rare that I'll go up and bomb without expecting it now because I'm most comedians get so much information about what leads to a bad set that even if it's my head space you know I'm mostly surprised myself by doing well if I'm in a bad head space but if I'm in a bad head space where I feel like I'm in a bomb and then I do I'm like right that makes sense. So there's very few times where it's a good crowd it's a good you know it's an easy person to follow and all the things are set up perfectly for me to succeed and I go up there and it doesn't go well. But yeah when that happens that's probably the most jarring thing where you go oh they seem great but they don't like me that that's one of the roughest way to bomb. Shifting years a little bit and this is a great segue into what I want to talk about next is how you take care of your mental health and your well-being. So obviously there is this relationship between humor and happiness like we've described and I recently saw this thing on Instagram it was like a post about the different like neurotransmitters in your body and different hormones in your body and how you can like get more of those. So for example like if you want more serotonin like go in the sun but if you want endorphins have chocolate and go watch comedy. So clearly comedy is an activity it's something you can go and see that will bring you joy and happiness but I'm shifting more into just this idea around like mental health and wellness and how you take care of yourself either in moments where you're not expecting a bomb and it really sucks or just in life when you've dealt with hardship or struggle or challenges. What is your mindset to get out of that and you know how do you take care of your mental health? Yeah it's a good question. It's actually the more I do comedy the more I realize how challenging it can be from a mental health standpoint. I think the biggest thing surprisingly it's not bombing. It's almost the opposite the amazing sets like it kind of feels like you're on drugs and then it's like a calm down from an amazing set because it's basically the most joy and the most happiness and in this extreme adrenaline like feeling only to then be met with getting off stage and you know just like back to normal life and so I think it's created a bunch of challenges for me. In addition to just like having a hard time being present outside of comedy because comedy is this insane thing that kind of like snaps you into being present and then feeling a little bit absent-minded or like lost outside of comedy and it's been kind of hard for me honestly. The more I do comedy the harder it's been from a mental health standpoint. It's weird the way I describe it is that I'm the most fulfilled I've ever been but not necessarily the most happy and so I think the impact like comedy has on an audience and the impact it has on a comedian can be very different because for an audience that laugh could be really healing and for a comedian killing could be kind of damaging in a weird way because it like fries your brain because it feels so good and then you're kind of off stage and you got to figure out what to do with yourself. For me it's going to therapy spending time with people going through what I'm going through so whatever part of it has been an adjustment you know like this year the adjustments that I've had to make are like for the first time ever getting stopped and recognized specifically in New York from like the videos that have done while I'm tick-tock and once that starts happening it feels a little weird because you think it's not that it happens so much it's more just that once it happens a couple times you go are people looking at me and it's kind of a weird feeling and then you have to figure that out just like trying to step up to the plate a little bit and start to do bigger shows at bigger venues and more legitimate clubs and the kind of performance anxiety and the fear of failure and then in general just like the lifestyle of being on late at night and feeling you know like basically a natural high from comedy and then off during the day and those kind of like peaks and valleys and with all that I'm trying to you know spend time with people in similar situations talk to them about it um talk about it in therapy and then I've started trying to meditate a little bit just to have a better hold on how I can make myself feel present on command versus you know when it's forced upon me and I think that will help me hopefully on stage and off. That's a really interesting point you bring up just the build up to a show and coming off this like huge adrenaline rush and door-fen-high whatever you want to call it I recently interviewed um a DJ and she did like she talked about this term she called it like post-performance depression kind of because you're like so high and then the show ends and you're like okay now what and that's definitely like a really hard thing I think to navigate because like those experiences are super valid like just because you have like an amazing show or you had like you know you someone on the outside could think like oh you've such a great life like you're pursuing your passion doing comedy comedy and comedy is really fun and like, oh, this looks really sexy whatever, but like the day in the life actually of what you're doing is much more challenging than maybe what it seems to be. So, I think like figuring out how to make it less of an extreme is super important like coming off of this high and then feeling like such a low. So how do you try to find like that equilibrium besides meditating, which I also want to ask about. But there's any other strategies that you do to like balance out the two. Would love to hear that. Yeah, I mean, it's challenging because you can't really take away from how intense doing stand-up can be in a good way, but like intense, you know, because it's a lot of adrenaline and it's a lot of nerves and then it's a big rush when you're up there and then it's over. I think I try at the very least to take one night off a week that is like not only do I not have a show which might happen more than once a week, but like I also don't do anything comedy related. So you know, maybe I'll write in the morning or I'll work during the day, but then I'll really like I'll try and go to bed early or I'll watch a movie. Last night was a good example like I was going to give myself I did have a show, but afterwards I was going to give my try and give myself like kind of a self-care night and I there's a comedy special I wanted to watch and then there's also a movie that was just not about comedy that I also want to watch. And I watched the movie because I was like just give it like take cool it a little bit because you get very obsessively minded and I think one way to just have some semblance of not feeling the obsession with the cycle of it, which is like when you're off stage thinking about being on stage, when you're on stage enjoying it and then again and again and again is just like finding different ways to disconnect from all of it and take some time off and let your brain rest. And I think it's also a very helpful way to like write good comedy is I think most comedians would agree is to like live a life that's worth commenting on away from comedy for a little bit. So I try and make an effort to at least do that. I also find that I'm the most creative or like the best ideas come to me when I'm not obsessively thinking about it. Like when my mind is actually just like blank or I'm not anxious or I'm just calm and so I think that's really important especially if you're trying to like write jokes if something if you're experiencing like writer's block for example, taking time for yourself to do other things will actually help get like those creative juices flowing or you know get you back into that flow. And you mentioned that you recently started meditating. What's your meditation practice like? I'm doing YouTube guided meditations from bed. I wouldn't sound exactly an expert yet. I just have to see how it works. I a lot of my comedian friends do and they all do in kind of different ways. I've been using it as a tool for when I'm feeling anxious to try and not feel anxious. But I think ideally I could maybe do 10 minutes feels a little short because I feel like I'm in a 10 minute session. I'm waiting for the end in a weird way. Whereas 20 I kind of like let myself into it because I'm like if I think about the end it's just not going to come for 20 minutes. So I think I'd like to do like a 20 minute guided meditation at least three times a week. And then I'll look at you know headspace or calm or one of these apps. Once I feel like okay this is working for me. I want like a platform with a diversity of you know voices and options. But right now what's really available on YouTube seems to be doing it for me. Well there's also tons of like content on YouTube so I think that's a great place to start. It's interesting you say that 10 minutes feels too short because I think a lot of people that get into meditation or like trying to do it for the first time want to start with something that's like 10 minutes and only want to stick with that because 40 minutes can seem like for so long. And people I think are often you know they have this mindset like I can't sit still for 10 minutes like this is the hardest thing I've done even like a 5 minute meditation seems to be super daunting. So that's interesting that you would prefer something that's a bit longer. I personally think that trying like 20 to 30 ish minutes is actually really great because you're right like when you're starting you're not really like focused you're not really settled. And then I found like in those 10 minute meditations right when I am starting to like actually feel relaxed it's like okay this is done. And so like when you and you'd be surprised also like the more you do it like you I think that like it would come pretty easily to you if you commit to it and just try even like a 40 45 minute meditation because the time can like really pass. So curious to see how your whole like meditation journey goes. Yeah when I was really anxious actually I like this week I did like an hour. Or something but just because also like I was really not feeling good and I was like I'm going to be in bed until I feel better. So I was like I would love to do an hour or two hours three hours but I put on an hour long meditation I couldn't find anything really longer but I did that and that was fun. The problem with me is I typically have two modes which is very lot of chatter going on in my brain. And then once it turns off I go immediately to sleep. I guess soon as the chatter stops I'm just like amazing. I'm the kind of guy that's like never been awake when a plant takes off. So like as soon as I can clear my mind I usually do fall asleep but in this particular instance I think 20 is kind of the right amount of time because I go you're not going to get a good nap out of it. I'm like an hour like an hour you know I'm like once I'm 20 minutes in I might just drift off. But in a 20 minute I'm like you're not eating it you can get a good nap so don't even go there but you also have too much time to like have a chattery mind. So that's how I've been thinking about it but we'll see. Another thing that's helped I started a podcast talking at length. I didn't know that. Yeah well it hasn't been released yet but with another comedian we recorded 10 episodes. It's a comedy podcast but you know the conversation ranges and talking for an hour for me. I imagine a listening to me for an hour is a good consumer experience but for me talking for an hour is quite helpful to be present and kind of zone out or at least have a good connection between what I'm feeling and what's coming out of my mouth. I could attest to that too because for example when you're recording a podcast you need to pay attention. You can't be on your phone. You can't be looking around like you have to be focused and it's different like I think the nature of virtual recording is a bit different than in person like the in person experience is really special and like the time I find can go even faster when you're doing an in person recording but just like podcasting in general the way it works like it forces you to be on and focused and it also really energizes me like when I get to talk to people and hear their stories and talk about topics that I'm interested in that are largely around mental health and happiness like that really energizes me and so in a way it's like kind of a meditation. So I think you like starting this traditional meditation practice coupled with like doing your podcast like finding other things that allow you to focus and and build those like skills to stay present all kind of contribute to bringing more meditative practices into your life. A lot of what I talk about beyond just like meditation is health and wellness at large. So over the course of your life how has your perspective of health and wellness shifted if it has it all? Let's see I still eat like shit am I supposed to knock her some of it too late? No that's fine. I don't eat well so that hasn't changed. I mean I think I eat less poorly than maybe I did in college but that's a really low power but I exercise a lot which I think is something I've been doing for a couple years but it's a thing now where all of the mental health challenges I've had doing comedy are pretty recent and so exercise has been something that helps me clear my mind and adding meditation to that I think will also help me clear my mind. Often while this for me there means of like feeling good physically while not getting into unproductive ways of thinking. Just like not having the luxury to sit around doing over things that aren't you know changing or I don't know like it's a way to kind of just like zone out and I find that when I zone out I also get a little bit more perspective because I'll be working over something in my head like I'll be like nervous about my you know 30 minute comedy set that I'll be taking on the road this fall because I'm like oh is it good enough or do I have enough material that I want to do or whatever and then you know I'll work out and I'll kind of just zone out and then after that I'll be like it'll probably be fine and I think that's a better way to approach it because the best thing I can do now is just work in the time that I have and then just go do it and have fun and I think fitness specifically helps me see things from that perspective. I mean also exercise is another activity where you also have to be really present like you can't be distracted doing other things because you're focusing on working out like whatever you're doing. preferred form of physical activity is. And obviously it's a very endorphin-boosting activity because, like Elwood said, exercise brings endorphins and endorphins make you happy to quote legally blonde. But I think those are great practices to do in your life that have helped contribute to your perspective of health and wellness and also recognizing that like our physical and our mental health is so interconnected. So it's kind of like a no-brainer that if you're doing something like a certain exercise, if you're if you're working out, it'll also help you clear your mind and help you find that sense of like inner peace and calmness. Yeah and one thing I do when I'm working out, which is brutal but helpful is I lock my phone and a locker not every time because I can't have music but I literally all work out cold no music which sucks but sometimes especially like when because all of my job that is not doing stand-up happens on my phone like when we sell tickets I get a notification on my phone when you know we post Instagrams or TikToks all the views all that stuff happens on my phone. There's like a lot going on on my phone specifically you know emails, conversations with venues like all the stuff that's not comedy but required for me to make a living doing comedy happens on my phone and so especially when my phone's busy for whatever reason you know any of that is active locking it away and just not having access to it for an hour is like incredible. That's a good point because it's like it's part of your business like your phone is what you're using to do everything to support yourself doing comedy and I get stressed enough with just like Instagram notifications and regular emails so I can only imagine just it's a lot so that's I think it's good that you like put it away I don't think I could ever lock my phone away because I need music or like something to listen to so I guess that's like a unique skill that you have. Yeah it just comes from a flaw which is that I can't keep away from like one of the things which is like a business thing is I have on my Instagram that you should DM me to get ticket links to all my various cities because I don't have a link tree because it lowers conversion so I just have my mailing list as my one link so to promote to send people links I need them to DM me which is like not really a sustainable thing but it's what I'm doing right now meaning that like every hour or so I'll get a couple requests being like hey where can I see you in Chicago or Philly or Boston or Toronto and then I'll send them the link and just doing that is like really distracting but when I see that someone asked for the link I don't want to sit on that message because I'm like maybe they'll buy a ticket and then you know so I just I'm like the best thing to do is just not have access and that way I just don't think about it. Where can my listeners find you you know if they want to come into your shows I guess they'll have to DM you but where can they like find your Instagram or like your social media how can they follow along with you? Yeah so the best way to follow me would be @LukeHazelnick on Instagram which is also my TikTok handle but it's literally just @myname and on Instagram you can see clips some clips that are exclusive to Instagram you can get links to my shows through DM unfortunately I have a show every other week in New York City that you can come to and I'm also starting a podcast which we'll show up on there too so that's probably the best hub where all the things I do can be been. Awesome we're excited for this podcast I can't wait to tune in. My final question for you is essential question that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast very much related to endorphins happiness finding things in life that bring you joy so with that being said what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? God well now stand up doesn't count okay here's here's my piece of advice and this gives me joy every day is I have someone in my life who I speak to every single day without fail and I think a lot of people do I don't think that's very unique but it's something that I value highly it's just have at least one person doesn't have to be only one person in your life that you speak to every single day because I think for me one of the most valuable things that stays consistent across how I'm feeling is my comfort level with someone with whom I'm very close and having that having someone that checks in with me every day or I check in with them every day just brings me a little bit of joy and also a lot of comfort so that would be my endorphin thing. Your endorphin is people which is a great answer because that's something I hear a lot the strength of your relationships can they bring you happiness thank you again Lucas it was so great to chat this afternoon. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard make sure to like, rate and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events and all things related to mental health, well-being and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time.