Niccole Thurman is a Los Angeles-based Actress, Improviser and Writer. Most recently, you could catch her on Indebted (NBC), in the movie Desperados (Netflix). A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO) and Shrill (Hulu).

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TRANSCRIPT:

NICCOLE: I'm Niccole Thurman. I'm an actress. I'm a writer. I do comedy. I'm a cool aunt. Those are my jobs.

ZAK: There's this mantra Nicolle has for herself. Don't get jealous. Just work harder.

NICCOLE: Cause, of course you're gonna get jealous and want to be competitive. It's human nature, especially I think there's some American thing like, I want to keep up with the Jones'. I want this. I want that. You're not satisfied with what you have in the moment. But once you start to realize that getting jealous is not gonna do anything except creative negativity and take the focus off what you need to be doing. Once you realize that that's not helping you, your brain starts to rewire itself, I feel like.

ZAK: How do you see or how have you noticed your work ethic evolve since you've internalized this?

NICCOLE: It just changes the way you think about work because instead of working to beat someone else, you're working against yourself or you're working more within yourself so you are more focused than you would be. And I think that once you start having that mantra repeating in your head, you start working differently. You start working more within yourself and for your own goals and not looking in the periphery. You're just looking forward to what you want to do. And it's inspired by a positive reason. It's not inspired by wanting to beat someone else down or take them down. It's inspired by just wanting to better yourself.

ZAK: So I just went on to IMDB and you have so many credits. It looks like you're working a lot. You're in shows that I've watched and are respected. Do you think there is a point at which you get where the jealousy receded entirely?

NICCOLE: I don't know. For me, I don't get super jealous but I definitely want something more. Which is, you know, I'm learning to work through that and not do that as much because it's not helpful at all. It's also about learning to be grateful for what you have. When you say, I look at this and see all these credits and to me I'm like, Oh yeah, but they're not THE credits I want! So getting past that. But I think it will always be there. I think that's what propels you to do more but it also can hinder your work.

ZAK: This is good. And I really like that Niccole isn't claiming that you can get rid of jealously. Of course you're can't but you can quiet it down.

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