The Dirty Bolt, alright a lot of you are probably like, don't do that, that's bad for you, and oftentimes it's true, however in today's episode we're going to talk about the value of a dirty bolt. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes a dirty bolt is just what you need, now in today's episode we're going to talk about who it's not for, who it's for, and then we'll give you some advice on how to do it the right way. The good, the bad, the ugly. Yes. The dirty, the dirty. So I think we should define first what we mean by dirty bolt because what we don't mean is eat all kinds of garbage all the time with no structure whatsoever. Yeah. That would be... No, a dirty bolt in my opinion is just utilizing heavily processed foods, hyper palatable foods. Yeah, hyper palatable, so desserts and sweets and things like that to push your calorie intake into a much higher level, which sometimes you need that extra boost. It seems very counter for our podcast to talk about considering we are typically addressing the majority of people and their relationship with food and being healthier versions of ourself and the psychology of wanting to be buff or shredded, right? So I do think that this is a bit controversial for... Oh, very controversial.  I can't believe you guys were advocating for this, right? So that'll come. Yeah, I would say that the dirty bolt really is really trying to get a large calorie surplus, right? A calorie surplus in excess of 700 or 1000 calories, right? Most of times when you go into calorie surplus, what's advised is 500 calories or so above maintenance and in some cases, you want to go far above that and within that context, certain foods can make that doable, right? So that's why Adam said the foods that are very palatable because let's say you want to get 1200 or 1500 calories above maintenance and it can be hard with whole natural foods because they hit that satiety button really quick so it can make it very difficult. Now, for many people, it's not a good idea. To go this hard, but for some people, it's a great idea and there are some potential benefits to doing so. Now, I do think that quote unquote dirty bulks should be limited even for people that it's really good for mainly because it can get out of control. But I think we should start with, I guess, the stuff that dirty bulks or quote unquote dirty bulks are associated with the bad, right? What are some of the bad things that get connected to these and why most people say don't do this? Yeah, well, the first thing that comes to mind for bad is just the extra fat gain that you get with it because you are pushing calories so high and you're using things like processed foods a lot of times. It's you're going to be less, less accurate to like your exact amount of calories you need and you're pushing well beyond that. If you're pushing well beyond that, you're more than likely going to add more body fat than you would be if you're hovering just around maintenance or doing a small surplus. Yeah, well, because a lot of times too, you're going to be doing this through liquids and, you know, shakes and whatnot like the calories themselves dense, dense calories you're going to get from this can get away from you pretty quickly if you're not like equating that into your diet. Yeah.   They'll often get that title of, oh, they're always doing a dirty bulk. There's definitely a point where you'd want to stop. But I get this, right? Because if you go, if you're 500 calories above maintenance and you're lifting weights and you're training properly, you're going to gain mostly lean body mass, gain some body fat, maybe, but mostly lean body mass. Like if you go above that, there is going to be additional fat gain. And for some people, this is really scary. And for some people, this is not a good thing at all, right? If you're in the category where your body fat's already really high, then you may not want to do something like this. So that's true.  The other one that's hard is the ability to reverse out of it. Because these foods are highly palatable, borderline addictive, you know, you start eating these and it's, and you decide, okay, I've put on the 10 pounds I wanted to, now it's time to cut them out. And you find yourself having a really tough time letting go or quitting a lot of these foods that you've now introduced into your diet. So I would say that's another big, bad or negative to the dirty bulk. Oh, it can be really tough because if you get used to eating, you know, 4,000 calories a day, let's say that's a good 1,200 calories above what you've identified as your maintenance and you've been doing this for a while. Like to go from 4,000 down to 28, that's a big drop. And that's two large meals essentially that you'll be cutting. And so it can be a big contrast. I mean, one of the challenges with, or should I say one of the strategies with helping someone create a sustainable approach is to not introduce too big of a contrast when it comes to diet, right? The larger the contrast, the more the person has to acclimate to the more that they have to change their lifestyle in order to accomplish the new task. So if the contrast is big, there's a lot of things that are changing. Like if you cut 300 calories in your diet, you know, that's just a little bit less than what you're currently eating.  That can be really hard for some people. Oh yeah, a lot of these foods are a little bit more processed. They are have such a distinctive flavor profile that's engineered in there to really, you know, enhance that. So it's like you compare that now to whole foods and it's like a dramatic difference. And once you get used to that, your body really promotes that craving. So it makes it difficult to cut it out. By the way, too, like most people probably are thinking that we're talking just about, you know, desserts and sweets and these package types foods or like, you know, highly processed foods that like junk food. But I actually experienced this with protein bars. So I've shared with you guys before that I had one prep where I said like as much shakes, bars, whatever I would allow, as long as I hit my macros, eat whatever I wanted to eat, basically. And then I had another prep where I said, I'm going to do this all through whole foods, no bars, no shakes. I'm going to do this all through diet and try and compare.  Now, I've told you guys that even though the macros were all supposedly the same, I felt a notice, a difference. But one of the things, but it was very little. The average person wouldn't be able to tell. I got on stage on both of them. I presented a great physique. I came down to single, small, single-digit body fat. So all in all, not much of a difference. The biggest difference, though, that I noticed was the cravings for the bars. I remember when I gave, said, OK, I can have as much as I want. There was times where I was eating four or five of those quest cookies and cream bars. Well, think about like how the industry has changed and evolved over the years. Like, I remember when I was playing in the three on three basketball tournament and they're introducing power bars and they just tasted like. Yeah, terrible. Like cardboard. Yeah, like awful. And so their, their mentality was to really engineer in like more flavor and a lot of these things that like, yeah, like we, we want stuff that tastes like birthday cake. We want stuff that tastes like, you know, donuts and all these things. And so to be able to engineer that into like, quote, unquote, healthier, like protein bars or protein shakes, it's it's it's following that same pattern of what they've done in the food industry. Exactly. And I had a really hard time after I had allowed myself to do that to go back the other direction. I found myself craving those, those sweets, those protein bars all time. And now someone might be going, oh, what's the big deal? Then why not their protein bars? Well, it's still not ideal. I've talked before about the goal is for me to eat all whole natural foods. We're just, there's certain things we're not getting when we're not eating it through whole foods and we're getting it through this, this, you know, packaged food, not to mention the addictive properties that came with the processed foods of me wanting more and more each time. So it isn't just these treats like ice cream or candy or things like that, even these protein bars, which people would consider a health food. Right. Right. I remember that market started to shift with detour bars. That was the first one that actually tasted like a candy bar. You guys remember that? No, I remember that. You remember that detour got sued because they were off the list of their macros were, which also a point too, is that, you know, these, these labels, we've talked about this before, they can be up to 20% inaccurate. So that's what they're allowed. Yeah. They're allowed to, FDA allows them to be 20% off. So in my case, if I'm eating four of these quest bars a day and the, and the, and as a protein bar, they're in the health category. Well, if each one is on average 300 calories, they could be off by as much as 60 calories each 60 times four, 240 calories. You could be off right down, right. And it's in their best interest to skirt the line on the opposite side when it's healthy, whatever it tastes better is going to work. Yeah. Yeah. And so if they're categorizing as a low calorie, high protein treat, well, they're going to say it's higher protein and lower within the confines of the 20% that FDA allows. It's in their best interest to do that. So, you know, and I'm not saying that I have any proof that, you know, quest is going out there and doing that by any means. I'm just saying that I would caution you if you're just buying these protein bars and shakes and assuming that the macros are exactly what it says. It's less likely to be precise because of how much FDA allows them to go left or right. Today's program giveaway is math strong. Here's how you can enter to win. Leave a comment below this video. The first 24 hours that we drop it, subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comments section.  Everything's on sale. It's crazy. This only happens once a year. If you want to take advantage, you got to click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. The other challenging thing or bad, I would say, about the dirty bulk mentality is it can definitely give someone the perception that it's like, oh, it means I can eat anything and everything, right? Like I could just go without, you know, abandon, right? Without any confines or discipline or structure.  Now that's, I think, where people really go wrong. And I think that's where the term dirty bulk came from was people were like, oh, I want to pack on size. I don't even know what my maintenance calories are. I just going to eat a ton as much as I possibly can. And so they end up with a two or 3,000 calorie surplus and they're eating a lot of garbage, a lot of candy, a lot of ice cream, a lot of fast food. And if what we're talking about makes you move in that direction, it's definitely not for you because that does the next point, which is it definitely will encourage an unhealthy food relationship where if you do this for too long and then you try to reverse out of it, then you may go in the extreme opposite direction and then you get caught in that, you know, crazy bulk, crazy cut, crazy bulk, crazy cut conundrum where you're never, you never have this healthy relationship with food. It's always super restrictive or it's always an unhealthy binge type mentality. That to me is the biggest bad. Well, back to your point about the permission to eat bad food.  I'm not sure if I shared this on the podcast or not. But one of the hardest things actually for me to reverse out of was so I had trained myself for a long time that I could when I would eat these, Friday used to be like my burger and Friday was like just all week long. I was eating my meals that I prepared Friday. I would have a lot of enough calories to get in there that I could, I could eat at five guys or in and out one of my favorite places. And at this time in my lifting career, you know, I'm 225, 230 pounds, single digit body fat, training hard and intense, moving a lot. So I can eat when I had ordered that it would be two, two burgers, a large fry and, you know, which is like a, almost a 2000 calorie meal that I'd be consuming and no problem. I mean, it was in within my calorie budget. I could totally do that high protein. Yeah.  Yeah. Right. So it helped me push there. Uh, that was long ago, still to this day. I were five guys just the other day last Friday or the Friday before we left, uh, to, to London and I still have a habit of ordering two of those, even though I'm half the man I was back then, I'm not moving nearly as much as what I was. I'm not training as intense I was, but I have given myself permission to when I eat this way, I'm going to eat this way and that it's okay. And really it's not. I don't have, I don't have the muscle mass on me. I'm not moving as like I used to. I'm not training as intensely. And so it's way beyond my, but yet I've, I've created that relationship with it for so long that I, I have to like catch myself and go like, no, I can't order two of these right now. This, the, the, God, the best evidence for what you're talking about, I would get with, um, clients who were high level athletes in college and then, let's just, you know, 10 years out or something, they maintain the same eating habits, the same calorie intake and all that. And they're not moving anywhere near as much. They just, they're just skewed. They're just skewed on what a normal meal should look like. I remember I had a young lady who, um, she was a competitive swimmer, um, and rower. She also did rowing, uh, in college.   And I said, well, can you show me what this looks like? And I'm like, that's a, that's like a 10 ounce chicken breast. I said, you know, you're serving as five ounces. She's like, what? I'm like, yeah, half of that, like that, right? That's like two cups of rice. You need to have maybe like a three quarters of a cup of rice. She's like, it's so weird because I was, I was, for so many years, I had to push myself to eat so many calories that it's really hard for me to really know what is an appropriate meal size for me. So I was, I used to get that all the time with those, uh, ex athletes. Now, now here's the person that this is the worst for. Okay. I was a terrible person. I'm an, I'm, I fall in this example. Okay. This is a terrible approach for somebody who has an insecurity of being too skinny or too small. Okay.  That was me. I was so afraid of being skinny that I learned nothing from going on a bulk. All I learned was watching the scale, making sure that it would go up a pound every single time. And even if it meant that I had the old water, that I had to weigh myself at the end of the night, by anything's necessary, by any means necessary. And so I never really developed a better relationship with food when I was bulking. In fact, I, for me, going on a cut was how I learned how to develop a better relationship to food. Now, I know most people are in the opposite category, but for those people who are like really, really insecure, I should say, not that they're skinny, but that they're insecure about being too skinny. And you know this, then this dirty bulk strategy is probably not for you.   This is not, it was the wrong way. And we did that, right? So I made that mistake. This is no different than the client that we've trained who is obsessed with their weight staying low and they're afraid to put on a single pound or two on the scale and they choose to do intermittent fasting because they're, they're more light. And the reason why that is, is if you're insecure about putting any weight on you, you follow a diet that gives you permission to basically starve yourself for long periods of time, you're more likely to push those boundaries. You're more likely to, oh, I'm supposed to not eat for 24 hours. Oh, why not 36 or 48 or maybe 72 or maybe what I do eat, I'll eat less than half of what I was supposed to eat. Like you flirt with those lines. The same goes for the, the skinny kid, right? Who is so skinny, he's insecure about being skinny and all he wants to do is just put weight on the scale so bad because he's been skinny his whole life and he's insecure about that. And then someone gives him the green light to eat whatever you want to bulk, to put calories on, you need this. And so you take it to the competitor, which is exactly what I did. I took it to such the competitive level that I used to weigh myself after every meal. Yeah, so obsessively like see, and like watching like, oh, wow, that meal put three pounds on me. Like, even though you know it's food and it doesn't even matter. It just shows you what a psychological disconnect that you have to like reality and just you become obsessed with wanting to see a number on the scale you've never seen before. And the reverse is true. Like it works for the person who's obsessed with being skinny and doesn't want to put weight on the same thing works for the kid who's so obsessed with wanting to put more weight on and is afraid the other direction. And so, yes, it is a terrible idea for someone like that, which by the way, this is the person that will be attracted to this advice or this podcast. And so you need to have the self-awareness to know that you're that person that you are insecure about being skinny. This is not an ideal way. A controlled bulk would be good. Yes, this is not an ideal way for you to go about this. All right, so let's talk about who would benefit from doing a quote unquote dirty bulk. Well, first category are men and women who are in an unhealthy lean place. People who are really lean, who always maintain themselves really lean and never really let themselves creep up above that really lean level. These people, their bodies are craving nutrients or craving calories. They would feel amazing or at least they would have improved health outcomes from from doing this for, you know, six to eight weeks. Right. So what do we talk about with this unhealthy lean? Now, this depends from person to person. So it can be quite a quite a range.  These people probably, again, there's always exceptions, right? So this can be different from person to person. But generally speaking, if that's you and you're living in a way to maintain that and you're hyper structured about it and you're afraid to gain a single pound type of deal, like a dirty bulk would probably be a good way for you to change your relationship to food and change your relationship to how food affects you. When I get clients like this and I would convince them to really push the calories after they settled with, OK, I'm not afraid anymore.  Oh, my God, I feel so good. Or my female clients, my period came back. My hair is thicker. I feel so good. This is amazing. And it's life changing for people like this. Yeah. I mean, this is what I was just talking about with the people obsessed with being skinny. Like sometimes this is exactly what they need to do is go have a cheeseburger. And you've probably heard us on the podcast, right? If you've been listening long enough, we've had enough live callers call in before and normally after a short period of time that we're talking to them about where they're at with their diet and their body fat percentage. We've we've I know we've given that advice before, like go have a cheeseburger like. Yes. Well, usually it wasn't the orthorexic. It's sort of that like over analytical people with food and like how everything has to be so healthy and organic and everything. I feel like. Yeah. Just bringing back that flexibility that you're going to be OK. We're just going to bump up your calories a bit and we can introduce some of these foods that, you know, like it really isn't going to have that damage even impact as long as like it's well balanced and we remain flexible. Yeah, loosely.  Like I don't like I don't want to gain a single pound of body fat. And we'll know this because I'll ask them. When's the last time you went on a bulk? Oh, I really don't do a bulk and you know that they're really lean. Yeah, or they say they've been on a bulk with their costs. It's like they let a day of like I had an extra salad. Yes, it's so structured that it's like 100 calories. In fact, we had a caller a while ago. Yes, I've been on a bulk 150 calories above, you know, my maintenance like you don't even know you might have been like sneeze that sometimes.  This is what I would do clients like this. They're so afraid of gaining a single pound. Their body weight has always been the same. They're trying to build muscle, trying to build strength, can't figure out why the hell it's not happening when the answer is right in front of them. And then I'll put them put them on a bulk like this and we'll include those types of foods because it actually helps. It actually helps them.  It's actually more challenging difficult and it also doesn't really show them that it's OK sometimes. That's really the main thing is I like to show people in this category.  You know what we noticed you're way stronger. Yeah, well, that's the way better. That's I mean, that's how you know if you are this person or like the a lot of times what ends up happening is that same person tends to have a lower sodium diet. They don't get a lot of saturated fats. They're just never in a surplus or always in a deficit and that meal kind of checks all those boxes. Yeah. Many times highly palatable foods or processed foods are high in sodium. They have more fats in them. They have obviously a bunch more calories. That person eats that one bad meal and they look better. They feel better. They were more better. It's like, whoa. And it's normally a huge indicator of like, yeah, that's because you've been starving your body of nutrients for so long and you've been low calorie for so long. Your body was needing that. And so there is a place for that.  Now, the last category is the hard gainer. Now, this is not you don't want to be a hard gainer and also be super insecure about being skinny. You know, we talked about that earlier. But if you're a hard gainer and you're OK with yourself, but you are trying to put on some size and you find it really challenging, a calorie surplus that's, you know, 50% or twice as big as what is recommended to the average person might just be what you need. I mean, I had this when I was younger. My metabolism had this amazing ability to speed up when I would bump my calories. It was like, if I did a 500 calorie surplus for me when I was in my teens in early twenties, you might as well have put me at maintenance. Not going to do anything. I had to go two or three times that much to start to notice some I found this with the high school athletes. It was one of those. And like trying to stress as much as I can, the importance of whole foods and like protein and protein sources and where to get them from and all that. And you know, we went through a good month or so with, you know, decent progress, but their calories were still so low and they're finding it very difficult for them to, you know, meet that need that they had to increase calories. So to be able to now add in shakes and other ways of like getting more hyperpalatable foods was like crucial for them.   So that's not you anymore.  You just lose muscle. Yeah. And so you're an example. I would say if somebody who still falls in that hardgainer category of you've you've ramped your metabolism up so much that, you know, you were probably better off while we're on that trip, enjoying that dessert or that high calorie, hyperpalatable type of food when you could because otherwise your metabolism is roaring so much right now, you're more likely to lose even more muscle if you didn't at least feed it some calories. Yeah, if I wanted to bulk now, I would definitely have to go a thousand calories above maintenance to notice because of that. But I'm in a different position now because I have more even more lean body mass. When I was a kid, I didn't have a lot of lean body mass like I do now.   I can't get away. And I'm 175 pounds. Like, okay, we got some strategies that might help you. I do have a tip for the kids that are or it doesn't be kid with just the people that are listening to this and they identify as that hardgainer. So probably the single best thing I ever did when I realized that I'm in this category, I've moved past my insecurities. And now it was like, it was actually this was during like getting ready for, you know, building a physique to compete. You know, what I would do was I I would make myself hit my my minimum macro targets through Whole Foods. And then and then I would use the food on there. Sure. Because what I had learned the young insecure version of me that was just trying to put weight on the scale and eat calorie calorie calories that I would actually end up missing some of my protein targets and my macro targets over on the car.  And I wasn't getting what my food, my body needed, yet over consuming on things that it didn't need. And so I find that you do this in a much more controlled way and it'll serve you more if you still go after hitting your at least your protein intake, right? And healthy fats through good sources of food. So whole natural foods. And then if you notice you're still under your calories, OK, that's where I could have my dessert or have the hyper palatable food to push the calories up beyond that. That seemed to serve me much, much more. That's excellent advice. All right. So what are some of the benefits if this is for you? If you fall into the categories of that we're talking about, what are some of the benefits of doing this? Well, first thing is it can definitely improve your mental health.  If you're always skirting the line of getting exactly and only what my body needs, never going above that, or probably possibly even missing that sometimes, because when you're always trying to be at the line, that means, especially if you're afraid of getting body fat, that means you're probably just under the line most of the time. Increasing your nutrient intake or calorie intake can feel like the most powerful neutropic of all time.  They'll come to me and be like, I feel like I took, I'm taking antidepressants or something and my energy is through the roof and I can remember things. You know, I was so absent-minded before and I told them, well, you were getting enough nutrients and now you're getting those nutrients.  If you're that person that's so scared of gaining body fat that you just, everything's so perfect, you finally break free that, oh, that is a freeing feeling and mentally that can be very healthy because then you can feel more free in the world. Not feel like you're so constrained by these, these, you know, rigid, you know, lines that you put yourself into before. Well, it can also improve your physical health, which I think then in turn improves the mental health. Of course. Just going back to that point I made that, you know, a lot of times what you'll see with the person that needed this is you give that meal to them and then all of a sudden they see a difference in their physical performance. You know what I'm saying? Their muscle bellies fill out so they look even better. They perform better in the gym and then all of that reverts back to like, oh, they have, they have better, they have a better mental relationship and better psychology now around it because they saw the physical performance that this meal that they would consider bad all of a sudden serve them in a good way. And so that helps shift the mental part to sometimes your bias is craving these extra calories for build and like we're depriving it. And so your bias is not functioning at its highest capacity. So once you start feeding it and like really fueling that process for you, like your body starts responding pretty, pretty great. Yeah, I've seen testosterone. So men who maintain too lean of a body fat just through restriction and overwork, you'll see them bump their calories in this way and you'll see their testosterone go up significantly.  I'm talking about a big bump. And then women, I see libido, hair, nails, skin. This was this was like this was step one in getting a woman's period to come back. If I had female clients and I would always work by the way, I want to be clear. I would always work with a functional medicine practitioner. But if I had female clients who had lost their cycle because they were athletes and they were always, you know, very careful with their calories. I mean, step one was we're going to really bump your calories. And like clockwork, we would do that and a couple of things. But this made the biggest improvement in getting their period to come back and improving their fertility because, you know, look, women have this incredible sign of health, which is your fertility. If you lose your period, it's because your body thinks you're not healthy enough to support a child. So if you're not getting your period, that's a sign right there. OK, something's off. Well, one of the common things that come in these highly palatable foods is fat. And we went through this, you know, 80s and 90s kick where we demonize fat. And women left over.  So they were already eating low calorie and then the macronutrient they were cutting out was fat. So you have someone not even hitting the RDA in their healthy fats every single day. So and that will impact libido. It will impact hair, skin, nails, all these things. Simply bumping that and adding that meal in there with all of a sudden all those things would improve instantly. Now, one of my favorite benefits of doing something like this is strength and performance boost. Now, you do this with the right person. They will notice a performance improvement the day after.  They're always trying to maintain lean and they're an athlete or they're an endurance athlete or a strength athlete or anything. And you have them do a day of high calories. I mean, I can't tell me times people would message me be like, oh, my God, like I gain 10 pounds and my squat in one day for meeting more. I'm like, it's more energy. It's more fuel. Your central nervous system is firing harder. Your muscles are stronger because they have nutrients. This actually I would do this more often with endurance athletes because I would have oftentimes my my experience people who ran a lot and did lots of marathons were also the same people that were afraid of gaining a single pound of body fat.  We didn't do anything else. I just had her eat a lot more and boom, she was so much faster and she was afraid she was going to get slower. Yeah, think about the recovery that provided. Yeah. So that's the thing is like that's a big component to when you train, like you have to be able to recover to then perform at a higher level or build muscle or maintain muscle or, you know, you need the nutrients there to pull from. So if you're not getting that nutrient, your body is going to feel that difference. Well, I think I mean this one is it can be so dramatic for some people, especially if they've been, you know, depleted for so long. But I don't think it's just the the calories are plus for the recovery and energy purposes too. Don't you think too? It's like a lot of times you're going to get the surge in sodium. We talked about the benefits of cholesterol. Like so I think it's like calories, cholesterol, sodium, micronutrients. I mean, I think that's why this can be such a dramatic swing for somebody that if you are hovering at maintenance or below and you've been doing that for an extended period of time, plus you're also training the body, it's like just trying to survive your redlining. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you give it a surplus of all these things that can impact performance and recovery and training energy. It's like, oh my God, like it's it becomes a huge difference by feeding them. There's also this, which is very like if like I don't I'm not eating at some deficit and I'm not eating a crazy maintenance. I'm just kind of eating when I'm hungry and hitting certain targets. But if I knew, for example, Thursday, the three of us were going to go see who could lift the most weight. I would bump my calories for the next two days. That would be the one thing I would do and it would make me a little bit stronger. So for athletic performance, that's it. It's great for like even short term strength, strength gain. Now, the last benefit, this one is interesting. This one might be a little controversial, but, you know, it became very evident to me later on in my career, talking to ex, you know, bodybuilders and people who had gotten to massive sizes. Muscle memory is a very real thing, meaning if you gain 10 pounds of muscle and let's say it takes you two years to gain that muscle and then you lost it, you gain it back very easily the second time around very quickly. Okay. So if you, let's say, did a quote unquote lean bulk, right, where your calorie surplus is just enough to gain lean body mass, and let's say you gained five pounds of muscle and only one pound of body fat, but let's say you could do a dirty bulk where the calorie surplus was even higher and instead of gaining five pounds of lean body mass, you gained seven pounds of lean body mass, so two more pounds, but you gained four pounds of body fat, so way more body fat in that particular scenario.  Now, of course, this can get crazy, so I don't want people to flame me here with the whole I gained 30 pounds of body fat and I'm trying to lose it every time, but there is some in the old school bodybuilders knew this, they knew this when they would do a bulk was they would push the calories to a certain point to gain that extra muscle because it was easier to gain at the second and the third time around. Now, this is very evident when you look at athletes who abuse and use anabolic steroids for years go off and they of course lose a lot of muscle, but they don't lose all the muscle. Some of it sticks around due to that muscle memory. So the occasional, you know, if you're relatively healthy and you do the occasional massive bulk where your calorie surplus is higher than the traditional five to seven her calories, the benefit may be if you do this right over time, you gain more muscle than you would have had you not done it. Yeah, I think that by far that's the most controversial thing that we've said so far.  But I also think that this is the justification with why bodybuilders continue to do this. Yeah, I know a lot of really smart, I shouldn't say a lot. I know some smart that are science based and they and they do understand like how to do this correctly. Yet they still choose to go this path where they all do these massive bulks. Anyways, even though they understand the science, I think that's the reason why I think they realize how difficult it is to push the body to that next level of size and weight and doing whatever it takes by any means, even if they put on a bunch of extra body fat along the way, is their justification of breaking through that that next size plateau and that the body will be that much easier and more adapted to getting there. I think that's the logic behind that. It's probably also the most controversial tip or point. So you have to have some good self-awareness around, you know, where you at with your relationship with food and diet and exercise. Where do you stop? Yeah, and exactly where you allow that, like intermittently doing that. I get it. And I think there's some there's always value to training and stretching yourself to limits like that. That becoming the way you bulk all the time going forward. Or you live in there. Yeah, or you live in there. Not a good strategy whatsoever. So that final tip, in my opinion, I totally get it. And I see where the logic behind it. But for sure, you need to have that self-awareness to know where you fall in. Yeah, the tips with this that I would say to be that are important to focus on are hit your protein targets, try and hit your maintenance with whole natural foods, then add the hyperpalatable foods to get that extra surplus that you're looking for. And also give yourself a limit like when do I stop? OK, when does this stop?   What you don't want to do is get stuck in this. Like again, you're that I'm afraid of being skinny. And so you just push, push, push, push.  But I think those those parameters make this effective. Not following any parameters whatsoever.  It doesn't work out so well. Look, if you like the show, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our free guides. We have free fitness guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal. Sorry, Mind Pump to Stefano. And you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam.


I met a woman who had no arms and when I first saw her, I thought to myself, what a difficult life she must have. I was thinking to myself, while I was looking at her, how does she put on her shirt? How does she put on her shoes? These questions were in my mind. Then she suddenly told me she was a teacher. I didn't want to make her feel bad so I was uncomfortable to ask this question. So I asked her, will you pass an exam to become a teacher? I thought maybe she sat in the examination hall and dictated her exam to somebody who wrote it. And then suddenly she took out a piece of paper. She put it on the floor and she wrote with her foot. I was looking from far so I thought she is just writing one or two letters. But she kept writing. She was not stopping. So then I got up from my chair and I went and looked what she is doing. And she was writing in the most beautiful handwriting I have seen. This is Karnataka and the government of Karnataka has stolen from that woman and continues to steal from millions and millions of women and men like her. I think it is completely unjust.


Hi. How are you? My name is Ryan Haddad and I am a writer-performer. I do autobiographical performance work and my show titled Hi Are You Single was done in the public theaters under the Radar Festival, which is why Andrew Kircher, who helped curate the incoming series, thought that I would be good at moderating panels because he said that I was charming and funny. So I'm going to try to do that for you tonight. I'm here with Noelle Elaine from The Bushwick Star. He's the artistic director and I'm here with Moises Kaufman, artistic director of the Tectonic Theater Project and director on your own as well. So let's join each other in a conversation of how did you make that? Geared mostly towards how did you make the two companies that you are the artistic directors of, but certainly if you want to talk about your art in other capacities, I'm not going to stop you. So let's begin with just a short description of your companies individually and what led you to the creation of those institutions. So let's start with Noelle with the Bushwick Star and we're going to use the microphones so that yes, great. I think, great. Hi, I'm Noelle Elaine. I'm the artistic director of the Bushwick Star Theater in Brooklyn. We are a black box theater that presents new work by New York City performing artists in theater, dance, music, performance, and everything in between. I fell into doing this by accident. I was an actor and I was part of a theater company from my undergrad. I went to Skidmore College and after being in New York for about four years and doing work with that company and doing work with other people and whatnot, I went back to school. I went to Juilliard to study acting and over that period of time the company kind of did a few things, but then people started to move on with their lives in different directions. But we had acquired this loft in Bushwick where we became a live work space for the company. So it had been converted somewhat into a black box theater, but people lived there, which turned out to be a saving grace for me in going into my fourth year at Juilliard. I had a housing crisis and needed a place to live and Sue Kessler, who is my partner running the space and now additionally John Delgadio sitting right over there. You know, I should put my glasses on before I start pointing at people. That's cute, right? Sue told me, oh, there's a space available if you want to live at the star, which we were calling it at the time and it's on Star Street. And I was like, I don't want to live. I don't want to move in there. It's got mess, you know. But I was having a crisis moment, so it was convenient to find a place to sleep and put my stuff. So I did that and then very quickly started to think about this space and its possibilities and to make a very long story short. I just realized, you know, the company had kind of come to an end and I was going to be graduating from school again and I just, it felt like a very blank slate moment and I had a lot of interest in trying to create a new creative community and this seemed like a way of doing that. So Sue and I started talking about that and it was, we had some grand ideas, but at the end of the day it was just about like putting it out there and seeing who wanted to use it and see what kind of, we've had ideas about salons or concerts or things, you know, it was pretty open. And then over time it's evolved into what it is now where we have a season of work each year that we present. Our model is kind of always evolving somewhere between presenting and co-producing. So that's my answer. So turning that on was the greatest success of my day today. Oh my goodness. So then we can do that for you. I can go now. So I started Tectonic Theater Project in 1991 and I started it because I was very unhappy with the work that I was seeing around me and I come from Venezuela, from Caracas and when it was growing up we had a really wonderful international theater festival. So I grew up seeing the work of Peter Brooke and Joseph Grotowski and Pina Bausch and that was my earliest experiences were with that kind of work, which were experimental theater companies that were really pushing the boundaries of what could happen on stage. I was so ingrained in that world that the first time I saw a realistic play I thought, this is so avant-garde. There is a sink on stage and water comes out of the faucet. And I often think that I must have had the same experience that the Russians had when they saw the seagull for the first time. That sense of, oh this is a new theatrical vocabulary and what are its possibilities. By the time I got to New York, 90% of what I was seeing was realism and naturalism and I was very bored by that. At the time when TV and film were doing that so well what was the theatrical vocabulary is that we could continue to develop in this stage. So this line of questioning led me to create tectonic theater project and tectonic means the art and science of structure as in architecture, architectonic, tectonic plates. And the name came out of the desire to do a real formal exploration of what could happen on stage and trying to stay away from realism and naturalism and realize and exploring what is the conversation that happens between the audience and the stage especially when it regards to narrative. We're very very invested in narrative and we're very very invested in exploring new theatrical vocabularies and new theatrical forms and trying to continue to redefine what that relationship is. The company just turned 25 years old and we're still schlepping all of our stuff around so that never changes and that's it.  Do you always do one project at a time or are you circulating lots of different ideas and then whenever one is ready okay that's the time to. Yeah the latter I think right now we have five projects in development so you know it depends on which one comes through fruition first. And when how do those ideas come to the ensemble is it something where you say oh this is an issue that I want to tackle or this is a story I want to tell or is there a different way. It varies. It's interesting that we're having this conversation today because today's the 19th anniversary of the day that Matthew Shepard was attacked. And that was an event that really immediately led me to go to the company and say let's go to Laramie and talk to people. So that you know sometimes something happens that captures your imagination. Currently we're about to open a new play called Uncommon Sense which is about life in the autism spectrum. And that was two company members who had a personal experience with autism and they wanted to explore it so they took to the rehearsal room and they created this piece. So it varies. It happens in many different ways how we choose what we do next. And know how have you as the company has evolved you say now you have a season and it's between presenting and co-producing. So what has that evolution been like and as you've sort of taken on the responsibility of we're going to have a season now what do you look for when you're putting things into your slots. What was the first part of the question? You're saying that it's evolved over the time since 2010. So what does that relationship look like with each artist. I mean I guess the rule is it's always different because each I think at a certain point when we were evolving we were trying to really you know formalize things and say this is the form this is how we're going to work with people and then we very quickly learned that we threw that out the window every time because every artist has different needs depending on where they're at and every project has different needs. So the rule now is kind of to sit down with people and say where are we at what do we what do we need to do how can we help this project specifically. But there are some like guidelines I mean we offer everything that we have to each of our season artists that means you know lots of time in the space for rehearsal we have a summer residency period of course the performances we don't have any kind of like you know minimum or anything that they have to pay it's like okay this is all yours. And we kind of started there from the very beginning when we didn't have any money we thought well that's time and space are valuable things and we have you know lights and sound and all that we can provide all that. And then as time has gone on and we've grown and our staff has grown we now you know give fees that we pay artists per project so we have like a certain amount of money that we can just put towards the project. Our staff has grown so we can help out in many different ways in terms of a fundraising plan and then just our production team helping the space and all these kinds of you know nuts and bolts things. But putting together a season it's a funny thing because I find like one of the most exciting things about programming is the intuitive nature of it and that's always fun for me to feel like I'm making a discovery a personal discovery when I'm seeing something or we don't really produce pieces we ask artists whose work overall we're really excited by what they want to make for you know at the start so finding work that's really speaking to me is really an exciting discovery. But when we do you look at the season you're looking for diversity in all ways and trying to strive towards that and that has to do with the artists and season has to do the type of work through you know different disciplines and that's become I think more and more of a focus as we move forward and start really becoming I think more educated about how you how you do that and how you foster you know a diverse institution that produces diverse work and going from being kind of like a couple of form well I'm say former artists but like you know reformers who are running a spaced saying how we how we how we're running an organization that has some kind of integrity and credibility. Sure you both are artists in your own right certainly but now also have taken on this hat of being an administrator of being a leader of these two major organizations in New York City and internationally in your case I mean Laramie Project has done everywhere everywhere and so what have you found to be as with the administrative hat on the biggest challenge for you that you have faced as an artistic director and how did you sort of surmount that challenge? The biggest challenge? I mean that's what I said but if you want to modify you're certainly welcome to do that. I think that I mean be perfectly honest I think the biggest challenge is also been one of the most rewarding parts of doing this which is we are in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood and have been from from day one um and when we started I didn't really know what any I didn't even really know that word and now I feel like um I have been my uh it's been education for me over the past 10 years learning how you work with um your community how an art institution works with this community how you build relationships and it's been a humbling experience and a really good one for me to go through it's and difficult at times or challenging on a personal level so I think that that's the most the biggest challenge. So I don't know I have been fortunate enough that I uh I have always partnered with really good executive directors and I trust that they will deal with the administrative part because I'm terrible at that I don't have that part of my brain I didn't go to I didn't go when God was giving that part of the brain I was I was late so I have but but the thing that that I find interesting about running a theater company and the administrative part of it is that I always try to have the work lead the the all of that everything else and it's a little bit with knowledge saying is you start with what is the work what does the work need one of the biggest the best experiences that I've ever had in development work was when we went to the Sundance theater lab and the reason for that was that they they had this form and the form was that you work three days a week you work Monday Wednesday Friday and then you take off every other day and they do it for a pragmatic reason because we're sharing casts so the same cast that is in my place and somebody else's play but what happens to you as a playwright director and as a company is that you work one day and then you have to you have you're forced to take the other day off and then you work and what happens is that in those days off is when the best work gets made right because your subconscious is working because you have time you know it's not the most financially savvy format right because you're paying people you know they can do it because of what they do but you know if I went to a commercial producer today or to any producer and said we're going to do a workshop of a new play and it's going to be three days a week and the other days we're going to be writing in our minds they would not be very eager to give me money for that but but what that taught me was that that often the models and the forms that are the rigor that are what's being used in the in the culture at large are not useful right so whenever I'm developing a new play I really try and start from what's useful is it useful to have half a day of video and sound work and then bring the actors in the afternoon is it useful to work with a writer for two days in a room without any actors and that you know how do we do it instead as opposed to trying to fit pre-existing models of development what I find most helpful you know Andrew Schneider right do you know his work he's fantastic and you know if I was working with him it would be a complete do you guys know Andrew Schneider he wrote a piece called I I am no I am nowhere or I am now here and he was really really wonderful and but he he needed to be in the room with all of the elements of the stage to create the piece it wasn't did you present it is that what you're cracking out who's saying you are am I cracking up there's no control over my face was I making a face yes he he developed some of it at the start but we didn't present it no but he's he's developed he's designing the show that we're working on right so I don't know so when you ask about how difficult is the administrative part I don't do it so I don't know but but I think that what is important more and more and more and more especially there are so many new theater companies that are really finding ways of working together lots of young theater companies yes and I think that's a very it's a it's a very exciting moment in American theater because you know the 70s 80s and 90s there were a bunch of theater companies and then the idea of a theater company as a way to produce work kind of fell off and now there's a new resurgence of that and there's a real excitement that that you're seeing it in the work you know less and less works are taking place in living rooms you know but I think I was actually making smiling because I was thinking of the I was having a conversation with someone recently about this this idea like where ideas come from and this friend of mine was saying someone they knew was saying that they have they have moments where they don't have any thoughts in their head and she was like I don't think that's a thing and I was like I I actually think I I go I need I go into that state and I need to because I could be sitting there trying to rack my brain figuring what to do about something but if I take a moment which is so rare these days I feel like to to pause and just look out the window nine times out of ten that's when I'm like I know what to do you know about the problem or whatever it is it comes out of nowhere and that's a freedom we don't offer ourselves and I think it's a very scary thing to stop and kind of just let yourself sit and I think there are two things about about that one is you know Mike Nichols used to say that when he was in pre-production for a film he would only work half a day because the other half a day his subconscious was doing the work so that's how much he believed in it that he put it in his contract at pre-production days we're only half day so the other half day he could dream uh and the other thing is other half day he could dream that's fabulous that's right uh and the other day I was in the shower and and we were late for uh for a for a thing and uh my husband knocked on the door on the shower and said we're late we're late get out then five minutes go by he comes back get out get out we're late finally he knocks on the door says stop writing and get out of the shower and um so yeah all right I think that's a good point at which to open questions up to the audience I know that there is a young theater company in the front row but I don't want to put you on the spot anybody have questions we have an individual with the microphone sure one moment we're going to wait for the microphone just because you can hear me we're live streaming that's the reason you hear me now mm-hmm I have a question for Mr. Kaufman I understand you work internationally and can you tell us a little bit about the differences you experience working in other countries other than America it depends but in in Europe for example there are much more ready to work the way that the theater companies are working they understand the process goes first and then kind of administration informs you know go second I think that it's interesting right I always think that in America this idea that the most important newspaper in America the most important section of arts on Sunday New York Times is called art and leisure right it's one word art and leisure right or art and entertainment and I think that you know in Europe in Latin America there's a different perception of what is the relationship with the stage and between the stage and the audiences and what can we expect from our theater artists so I think that that's still I mean I think as I said the new theater companies there's a new a new there's something in the air now that is very exciting about what can happen on stage and what can we do and what conversations can we have hi so you just mentioned the stages relationships of the audience which actually is what I had brewing in my head ever since both of you mentioned sort of inclusivity and including diverse experiences in your work and in the and in the artist you program how do you extend that same inclusivity and diversity to your audience like I know you're talking about feeling that like the theater itself is gentrifying a neighborhood like you're in Bushwick one of the most like diverse neighborhoods in New York City how do you how do you look for audiences who aren't looking for you yeah it's been a really amazing process over the past you know five eight years to figure some of that out and we're still learning but I think the biggest lesson I've learned over that period of time is that it's it's predominantly about forming trusting relationships first and giving opportunities to see work second I mean if there had to be an order that if you just say we're offering tickets to see this show you know or whatever it may be even if it's in Spanish even if it's free even if it's for kids in the neighborhood it's not necessarily gonna guarantee that anyone shows up people show up when you build a relationship with them where they feel like they have a relationship to your your space or your company or whatever it may be and I think in the past few years we've really besides our after school program where we're just you know forming relationships with the kids because we're spending so much you know months with them we're we're learning about ways that we can continue to build relationships in the neighborhood that have a kind of more form a stronger bond and that's often through the artists we're working with and through the work that they're making and as and a big part of it in the past few years has been our staff growth so that we also have the capacity to to do that work because it is quite a bit of work to get out there meet people be you know doing ongoing communication and and investigating opportunities and like that's that's you need the capacity to be able to do that so you have to figure out what that job is how can we start to do that most effectively and then and then you just um and then talking to people and listening you know what what are people looking for what what are the types of things that we do that match up with that how can we continue to grow to to further serve our media community and where we are hi we actually are all currently in a production of the Laramie project that goes up in the end of October and so this is all a surreal magical moment um I'm actually playing you so this is even weirder um but uh I'm so fortunate hi uh my question is sort of just like with everything that's been happening since the Laramie project and apparently and in recent events do you ever find because you also you you said how um you find what's useful and with your projects do you ever find and just are sitting there and think about the Laramie project and are just sort of of daunted and just thinking about how scary and relevant everything still is it seems like after the tenure mark after 10 years later after everything like do you ever think about that well it's bittersweet right I mean obviously I am uh thrilled that the conversation is continuing and that the place serves as a catalyst for that and I'm also really depressed that it is still so often performed right because it means that this conversation has not evolved as much as we wanted to evolve right today Jeff Sessions passed another idiotic thing right about religious freedoms right I always you know I think they're really good playwrights they always find the most incredible ways of calling things poetically what they're not I mean they have this incredible ability anyway but um so yeah so I think but having said that I think that the play although it deals with with the hate crime at its heart it is really about a community trying to come to terms with its way of thinking and I think that in that sense it transcends any one issue you know it was Matthew Shepherd killed because he was gay 1000 percent of course but he was also killed because he was a feminine and the definition of masculinity of the two men who killed him couldn't accept that right he was also killed because they thought he was a rich white kid and they were you know trying to rob somebody and so it is about of course him being gay but it's also about gender identity it's also about class it's also about religion it's also about all of the fault lines that are dividing our culture so the days when I get too depressed about how relevant it still is that's what I tell myself thank you where are you doing the play what a venue other questions okay I have one what would you tell the person who was just starting out what would you tell your younger self looking back I would say stay really really close to whatever it is that that launched in you the dream of doing this because as you get older and as more of the business part of it comes in you tend to lose touch with that every time that I've made a decision based on career I've made the wrong decision and every time I've made a decision based on what was it that I wanted to see on stage you know I would like to believe that I've made the right decision even when it failed I think I spent a long time making a lot of decisions when I was younger based on things based on fear basically the things I was afraid of failing at and there was a certain point in my life after I first moved to New York where I kind of like made the decision to stop thinking that way and that's when I started to like basically I feel like discover who I actually was so I would say don't hide from the things that are you know scary terrifying to you we will all fail like numerous times but you have to do that in order to figure out what it is you're meant to do in some capacity more oh there has to be me these are Titans people great for more says um what what sparked the idea moment work for you to basically pioneer that type of theater because I find it extremely interesting and explain it for the people who don't yes moment work is the the kind of process that we use a tectonic to make work and over the last 15 years we've been codifying it and we're about to come up with a book the random house is publishing called moment work which is our process and so we I always thought of tectonic as a laboratory right and the big question for the laboratory was how do you continue to explore you know what is theatrical and what can happen on stage and as I said before I was really disappointed with realism and naturalism Oscar Wilde said this hilarious thing he said that that when Shakespeare has Hamlet say that the purpose of art is to hold a mirror to reality Shakespeare is only saying that as proof of his madness so that Hamlet is so mad that he believes that realism is a good idea right um but so to me um when we started working we started to create exercises to ask that question what is theatrical how does the theater communicate what you know and what we began to find was that when we talk about dramaturgy we are always talking about uh dramatic dramaturgy meaning character plot development action all of these things that the playwright deals with right but we were interested in creating a theatrical dramaturgy meaning how do the elements of the stage begin to participate in a theatrical conversation right so for example Tom Stoppert tells the story of a production he saw of The Tempest and it took place at a theater like the Delacorte which was a theater that was outdoors and upstage of the theater of the stage was a lake and upstage of the lake was a forest and at one moment in the play Prospero um says farewell to Ariel and Shakespeare writes ariel exits two words ariel exits in this production the character playing Ariel started running towards the lake full speed and when she got to the lake she started running on the lake so the stage designer had put this put these things on the lake not visible to the audience where Ariel could walk on water and then when she got to the other side she ran into the forest and when she disappeared from view fireworks erupted so all of us so all of a sudden Ariel exits becomes a a a theatrical story about this character that can walk on water and becomes fire and they found a theatrical way of articulating the the what the spiritual nature of Ariel right and to me that that way of using theater to construct sophisticated storytelling is really exciting um Robert LaPage did this piece there were seven generations of people and um the the great grandmother the first person was a survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and she had this wedding kimono that she wasn't getting to use because the atomic explosion had deformed her um so there's this wedding kimono and somehow in in all of the part all of the acts of the play the wedding kimono makes an appearance and the last of the seven hours of this play is the great grandson of her who is studying buto and uh he's doing this dance and he's in his underwear and he takes the wedding kimono and he puts it on and he stands with the wedding kimono and the wedding kimono was so long that it covered his fingers and the collar was so tall that it almost went above his head so he looked at himself as himself in the mirror and he turned around and when he finished making that turn inside the kimono was the grandmother and then he turned around and inside the kimono his mother and he turned around and inside the kimono was him again so you know as a playwright I can write three pages about how objects have the ability to carry the DNA of our spiritual life blah blah blah right but he managed in one single gesture to articulate a very sophisticated idea theatrically so moment work is that the series of exercises that we created to profoundly understand what is a vocabulary of the stage how do you create theatrical storytelling and um you know I often say that if you're studying to paint you don't spend two years thinking about the painting and then coming to you you're you start with the with the brush and with the paint colors and with the canvas and so moment work is a way to do that theatrically so we come into the rehearsal room with an idea and then we allow the idea to class with the theatrical elements so that these theatrical elements begin to talk about the idea does that make sense yes so that's how that came about thank you somebody said that talking about theater is like dancing about architecture no sometimes that feels that way doesn't it now I'm thinking about like 17 different images at one time because of everything you just said go on could you both say something that you've learned about leadership what did Melanie say just about an hour ago she had such a great quote is it Melanie who said it was invitation things about invitation maybe it wasn't her who said it someone said um that uh and I really and I resonated with me that a great leader is concerned with being right but is much more concerned with but also concerned with being wrong yeah even more concerned with when they are are wrong and in discovering how they are wrong and learning from that I thought that was hit the nail on there for those who didn't want it was Jacob Padron of the Soul Project who was just being quoted that's right and you I don't know I think that I would say two things uh the question I often ask myself is do I want to be right or do I want to get what I want and you know so I don't need to be right and when I say get what I want that I mean get I mean lead us in the direction that I want to lead us and that's a really good thing do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want so that's one and then the other thing is I don't think that there's any one style of leadership that works or doesn't work I know a director friend of mine who's a tyrant tyrant radical you know really but he gets magnificent work from the actors you know I am exactly the opposite I want to create a room that people want to join right um and I want to have a room that people that inspires people and that nurtures people but I think that over over my life I've seen um that you know that there's not only one way to do it this is sort of like a half question that's forming my head but I was very um I was very much interested in in what at Moises you were talking about at the Sundance Festival which is like this weird not necessarily commercially viable way of like being forced to have these days off but like in these days off um in any projects where you're sort of able to daydream where you sort of do the writing when your husband's you know when you're in the shower and you're writing in there uh could both of you share if if something comes to mind something that would be considered a day off but in a way where you are engaging with the world in not a work sort of way that is sort of unlocked something in something that you're working on does that make sense I was I if uh I was wondering if you would share with us a recent moment where like on this day off sort of moment you're engaging with the world in a way in which it'll unlock something it's I'm just sort of curious I was working on my play 33 variations and I was at Sundance and uh I was stuck with a scene that wasn't working and I took and I and I and it was the end of the day so I just lie in the rehearsal room floor and I fell asleep and I dreamt a scene and the scene that I dreamt ended up being in the play like just exactly like that I ended up just placing the scene in the play and to me what what what there's proof that what we're talking about is not just how inspiration comes from your no it's not that it's this uh sometimes the scientist explained this to me he says if you say oh I have that word in the tip of my tongue but I can't think of it right let me talk about something else and then it'll come to me right and then you talk about something else and then the word comes to you so what's happening in your brain at that moment right what's happening in your brain is that part of your brain is still looking for the word part of your brain is still retrieving the word while you're doing other things and then that part of the brain that is retrieving the word finds it and brings it to the foreground so we know you know we know a lot about the subconscious so we know that there are things that are happening that we don't know that are happening so the question becomes how do you allow yourself the time to do it one big exercise that I do is when I'm writing a new play and I'm stuck if I if I go to sleep please know that sleep is becoming a recurring event right a recurring theme like before I go to sleep at night I'm like okay I need the solution for this I need to I need to come up with a solution for how to do this and I go to sleep and invariably the next morning I don't have the solution it doesn't happen magically like that but something has shifted and a new window is open where before there wasn't a window so I guess for me the question becomes how do you continue to have a conversation with all the other systems that are at work yeah I got I was just I mean recently I was John and I were talking about this earlier like it's been a really busy couple of weeks um so I feel like I haven't had that I like at that point we were needing some more of some more sleep I feel like sleep is like my present to myself these days you know it's like Christmas every time I go to bed you know but um and I feel like if I'm thinking about like moments of quiet moments I've had lately I feel like it is there like these moments of just existing and like how much of a gift that is to like stand like find yourself like maybe like there was a full moon the other night you know like just like look at the moon and be like I'm not thinking about anything I'm just looking at that the moon and and just feeling the air isn't that nice you know I'm not on my to-do list you know um but uh and I feel like the moments I mean I feel like for me lately um the moments come actually from talking to people that I more and more my discovery process comes from verbalizing just like can't don't know what it is until I start talking it out and all of a sudden I just said what I what I was looking for um and I don't know it's a similar process but I don't know exactly what that is I think there are a lot of playwrights who refuse to talk about the plays they're writing I find that I write my best plays when I'm sitting at dinner having a drink because I talk I speak about it and you're right you know the other thing David Lynch wrote a book called the fish catching the big fish catching the big fish and it's a really good book that talks about meditation and how the bigger fish residing the lower parts of your consciousness and meditation is a really good way to get down there it's sort of follow up how do you I feel like how do you feel the different times when you can take a moment for yourself and not focus on your work how do you differentiate between laziness and taking a break for yourself or just recognizing the time you need versus the time you need to like power through necessity and exhaustion when you need to stop like you know that you know there's that moment and then when you know something has to be achieved in a certain amount of time and you're focused on getting that done that focus that pushes you forward I don't I mean I can't remember the last time I felt bored or or like I was being lazy and in fact one thing I learned I feel like over the past you know number of years is that taking a break for yourself and allowing yourself to you know burning out is a real thing and if you don't take care of yourself on some sort of regular basis whether it be like little moments in the day or just taking a vacation at some point in the year to recharge though you're not you're not forming a long-term strategy you know I don't I don't function well if I if I'm too exhausted so I I just learned that about myself and I just know how to try to you know keep myself in the best condition possible to get work done yeah I think you know who was it that said that all an artist needs is a good idea and a deadline what he said how do you balance your work as an individual artist with the work that you're doing for your companies at large badly okay yeah not much I mean I don't I only work as an actor once in a while now when it's it's not completely irresponsible to make that decision and take that time away and and when and I think also when hopefully that and like a project or they want to do both magically line up so we did a show last year now and then I get the privilege of an artist asking me to be in something that they're doing at the star which is always a weird negotiation just in terms of like two two hats um but that show is now happening again in at the end of january so it's going to be one of those balancing acts uh no porto okay and miles from Mary but I'm not in miles okay okay um so um but that feels like oh I want to do this like this is a great opportunity and a great show and something we made at the star but it's taken a lot of there were years where I was like kind of slowly making the difficult um pros you know the difficult decisions about phasing out looking for work as an actor taking work as an actor said there was a point where it's like I'm not going out of town anymore I can't do that and then there was a point where I was just like they were doing this project and I can't take anything that conflicts with that and that just became more and more um common so I have like a kind of hope that in the back of my head that maybe we'll get we'll grow to a point where I'll be able to like have more freedom to take on projects of my owner as an actor but who knows I think it's interesting right because in the arts world we always start our lives in any art form in a mindset of scarcity right oh I don't have a job oh I don't you know where am I gonna get my next job where you know and there's a moment where hopefully it transitions and you do begin to get more jobs and you do begin and your life begins to get more into the realm you want and then you have to change your mindset from scarcity to abundance and then you have to start making very strategic decisions right so okay I've been offered to direct this play but I'm still working on the new play that it's about to come to fruition so which one do I take and um so those are the questions so it's so thinking long-term and strategically becomes imperative and I think this actually relates a little bit to your question before about advice um I never imagined I'd be doing what I'm doing now I always was just I thought I'd come to New York and try to be you know make a career as an actor and that path turned out to be more difficult than I wanted it to be and then this other thing came up and I started doing that and that seemed to be offering much more abundance in terms of like the success we were having and the direction it was going and I never I think part of me for a long time was thinking that's not what I'm that's not me that's not what I do until I realized that I really I should invest in this this is something that's working out and and so I think and people talk about this a lot that in this day and age it is good to have a you know to know to not to find yourself as one thing you're you could be a writer a director a performer a administrator you can you know or maybe just a couple of those things but like you can do different things and and and figure out which one um you know works for you I think it's it's really important in the in working the arts right now um maybe always maybe it always was and and then it's been amazing to me how that work has now you know helped lead to opportunities for me as as as a performer that I didn't I don't know if they would have been there otherwise so to follow the green lights as they say cliche to follow the green lights yeah like like traffic lights I think we're at time so thank you to Noel and Moises