Lynn Harris (00:00):

Humor inspires trust. And that’s interesting because there’s something about, in some cases someone has to make themselves vulnerable to make a joke. Sometimes it’s a shield, but sometimes it’s making yourself vulnerable, you have to have a keen perception, especially if you’re not actually a performer.

Lynn Harris (00:17):

You have to have a keen perception of like who’s in the room, what’s the joke, what’s appropriate. And when you get that, they’ll trust you because they know you’re paying attention. They know you’re reading the room, they know that you’re speaking to you.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (00:35):

Hey, dear listeners, we need to let you know that Kevin and Stephanie offer investment advice through Private Advisor Group, which is a federally registered investment advisor. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you. Consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Stephanie McCullough (01:11):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit geeky and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (02:00):

Coming to you semi live from the beautiful Westlakes office park in suburban Philadelphia this is Take Back Retirement with Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:11):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (02:12):

Today we’re going in a slightly different direction. Our guest is Lynn Harris. Lynn is a culture shifting producer, award-winning journalist, and author or co-author of six books. Her comedy and campaigns for social justice and gender equity have changed laws and conversations from Capitol Hill to NASCAR.

Stephanie McCullough (02:30):

She’s founder and CEO of GOLD Comedy, a comedy school, professional network and content studio, which she’s going to tell us about. She co-created Breakup Girl, one of the first multi-platform internet success stories and served as the first VP of Communications at global human rights group, Breakthrough, where her blend of humor and advocacy powered some of the team’s most effective US campaigns.

Stephanie McCullough (02:52):

She has also worked as a Tonya Harding lookalike, which she says is a long story. Let’s get into our conversation with Lynn.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (03:04):

Lynn Harris, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Lynn Harris (03:06):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Stephanie McCullough (03:08):

I’m super excited about this conversation because it’s definitely kind of different than anyone else we’ve spoken to. Lynn, what are you doing now in the world, and how did you come to be doing it?

Lynn Harris (03:18):

Well, thanks for asking. I am founder of GOLD Comedy, which is the comedy school and professional network and content studio where women and non-binary creators and other others come to build their comedy careers or their creative side hustles and join a powerful community and make funny stuff that actually gets seen on all different kinds of stages and screens.

Lynn Harris (03:45):

And I came to it after … it’s sort of all my other careers, which were always sort of intertwined, all kind of funneled into this. I was a journalist for many years. I did standup for many years, and kind of the big tractor beam that drew me where everything coalesced was the idea of that comedy matters, that pop culture matters.

Lynn Harris (04:16):

That what if we could use, and what if we could use comedy, pop culture, all those things for good. To not just distract us and not just entertain us (which they do), but also to be a force for change. I’m not the first person to have that idea at all, but it is one that has always been very powerful to me, and one that of course, is a great excuse for watching lots of television.

Lynn Harris (04:44):

And then in particular with comedy, I like to say that comedy is power because when you make people laugh, you make people listen. And so, what my company does is, as I said, for individuals, we’re helping individuals … comedy’s hard for everyone, even straight white dudes, but we try to make it easier for the people for whom it’s the hardest, not just because comedy is work and women are people, but also because in the aggregate, since comedy is a cultural course, it matters who does it.

Lynn Harris (05:18):

It matters what they’re creating, it matters who we see. So, I see us as contributing to that, and that is my goal. And so, I came to it just because I like comedy. Honestly, when I was growing up, it was The Muppet Show, it was I Love Lucy, it was Rappin, it was Carol Burnett obviously.

Lynn Harris (05:37):

And that was just always the water that I swam in and that I was always drawn to. I never had a big stepwise plan to get to this point, not at all. But that was always where I was sort of felt summoned, and so here I am.

Stephanie McCullough (05:53):

I love it. So, Lynn, since our show is talking to women midlife and better, how do you think that what you’re doing is relevant to our people? I know you have thoughts.

Lynn Harris (06:06):

Yes, I have thoughts, yes. A lot of people who are in and around GOLD Comedy are in their twenties and thirties. They’re maybe just at a college and very serious about comedy and looking for their crew. They’re may be well into a comedy career and looking for the skills and opportunities that we offer. That’s all true.

Lynn Harris (06:24):

And we also had this very vocal, powerful, creative, awesome cohort of women in their forties, fifties and better who have come to us at a certain life moment, who whether all of a sudden, they’re looking around at an empty nest or maybe I still have that … I think it’s partly a COVID plus midlife thing of like, is this all there is post-COVID? When we all thought that, “What am I doing with my time?”

Lynn Harris (06:54):

And again, maybe it’s empty nest, and a lot of them are already very accomplished obviously, or certainly, because they’ve been around in their careers related to entertainment or not. And they come to us basically like, “Alright, I’m doing this.”

Lynn Harris (07:10):

It’s not just I’m going to try this bucket list (although that’s fine and we love that), but it’s really like, “I’m doing this. I have always wanted to do standup.” And whether it’s like I could never be out at night because kids, or whether it’s … by the way, many standups do that with kids, it’s doable. Don’t let it to stop you. It’s hard, but it’s doable.

Lynn Harris (07:29):

But whether it’s because they had other constraints or because yeah, any of us heard that message that women don’t need to be funny. Women aren’t funny, shush. Whether it’s because for whatever reason, they’ve had to be doing other things, but they’ve got either a desire to test out their writing or performing, or they’ve got a specific idea for a show or either a podcast or a film that they’ve had sitting on their brain on their heart in a drawer, and they’re like, “Where else am I going to do this?”

Lynn Harris (08:05):

So, we have our typical offerings, even just our standup bootcamp class is perfect for that. But then we also have, for example, I’ll just say briefly, a class that is perfect for that moment. If you’re in that place where you just have an idea that you can’t stop thinking about, but you don’t know what to do with it, which is a class where you build that idea into a fully realized plan or whether it’s a TV show, film, podcast, whatever. And you leave the class with a fully prepared, polished, practiced, industry standard pitch that is ready to deliver to, for example, TV people.

Lynn Harris (08:46):

And those people in those classes do go on to get their pilots into festivals and get things made. And for example, we have Billie who, she lives in Portland, and she has a long career in public health, and I hope I can swear a little on your show. She has pilot called Bad Shit Debbie that she developed which is loosely autobiographical.

Lynn Harris (09:10):

She developed in this class and that is now in development with a well-known comedian attached. So, like that, she was just like, “I’m doing this.” So, I have other examples, but it’s just this moment of whether it’s a little extra time or a little extra frustration with what else am I going to do? And a little frustration with waiting for the right time, that those are the things that drive these women.

Lynn Harris (09:40):

And candidly, the woman, Ryan who teaches the pitching class, she developed it, it’s a college level class. She developed it in a college setting and for reasons brought it to us. And she’s like, “Lynn, I love my college students, no shade. I love the energy of the 20 something or younger,” but she’s like “These women, they have even more energy, they have even more life to draw on. Even if their projects aren’t specifically autobiographical, they just come fully baked and ready to go.”

Kevin Gaines (10:09):

So, for our listeners, Lynn, when they are the people that come to you that are represented by our listeners (how about if I phrase it that way), are they more casual, “Hey, I want to try something,” or is it more of them have an agenda? “Oh, I want to, this is going to be my second career.” Or going back to the whole pitch class, for example: “I got a pitch I specifically want to do” versus like I said, the first option of I want to try something new.

Lynn Harris (10:38):

There are plenty of people who are just curious who do say, “Yeah, I want to try something,” but it’s usually with a bit of an agenda. It’s usually, in other words, it’s not, “This just popped into my head and I said, why not.” It’s something that they’ve been working on and wondering about for a while.

Lynn Harris (10:56):

And even if they start with sort of no set agenda, “I’m going to figure out how to pitch this show.” I’m thinking of another woman named Rocky who is a young grandmother, she’s 50, she lives in North Carolina. And she came to us basically saying about three years ago, basically saying, “I know I’m funny, but I don’t know how to write a joke. I just need someone to tell me how to do this.” And she didn’t say, and then go on to X, Y, Z. She was just like, it’s time.

Lynn Harris (11:21):

She had retired from a career as a high school art teacher, which she hilariously hated. You’ll hear about that in her standup. And she was just like, “I want to know how, I just want to know …” She had a plan, she didn’t have a five-year plan, but she was serious about this endeavor.

Lynn Harris (11:36):

Cut to, I just met her for the first time because she was just in New York doing her first half hour solo show of standup as part of a comedy festival in New York City that was organized by one of our instructors who’s kind of famous. And there were about 11 people in the show and six of them came through us.

Lynn Harris (11:53):

And so, Rocky’s touring, going to tour with her show, she’s also writing for a sketch team where she lives, this is what she’s doing now. So, she didn’t a hundred percent have that in mind, but she knew when she started that she was serious about wherever it took her. So, it’s like that’s sort of a perfect example where if someone may not be like, “Okay, I’m going to be the next Ali Wong, but I am very serious about committing to this.”

Kevin Gaines (12:20):

So, a little bit more interest than just wanting to hit an open mic night, for example.

Lynn Harris (12:25):

Which by the way, we welcome that too, because also far more often than not, they think that’s what they’re doing, and they get hooked.

Stephanie McCullough (12:30):

Yeah. Okay! So, it made me think when you were talking about this, is this all there is? There’s this quote from Brené Brown where she says, “I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders and whispers in your ear, I’m not screwing around, it’s time.” I feel like I and a lot of my friends have felt that way, right?

Lynn Harris (12:52):

Yeah, let’s do it. And there can be a lot of barriers to that, and I understand why people wait. In other words, open mics, he said Kevin, many exceptions to this. Many, many, but at least in people’s heads, typically people are like, “Well, okay, how do I try standup?” I guess at some point, I got to go do a mic and I’m pretty sure they’re all 25-year-old white dudes with hoodies and backpacks who we’re going to look at their phones the whole time.

Lynn Harris (13:18):

Even if they’re nice guys, it’s just not going to be my people. And so, that obviously can feel like even if that perception is wrong, it’s going to feel like a barrier. So, there’s a whole lot of misperceptions and just perfectly natural “reasons” to not give this the whirl. So, we try to help take those away. There’s also a time when we’re like, “Fuck it, we’re going to try it anyway. Who cares what they think?”

Stephanie McCullough (13:41):

Yeah, definitely, lots of eff it in the forties and fifties. Okay, Lynn, are some people just naturally funny or can anyone learn? Again, with our experiences, our life stories and our opinions, can we learn to put that in a comedic fashion?

Lynn Harris (13:58):

Yes. So, the answer to both of your questions is yes. Yes, some people are naturally funny, and yes, anyone can learn because tell me who you think is going to be more successful — a person who is naturally funny and just is, and kind of shows up at mics and be funny, or a person who has a sense of what they might want to do, and shows up and works and works and works and works and works.

Stephanie McCullough (14:24):

Yeah, the second.

Lynn Harris (14:26):

Because natural talent will take you pretty far, but it won’t get you better, and it won’t get you hired unless you also understand the science and the practice like the rules of anything. Great jazz musicians have to learn the rules.

Lynn Harris (14:48):

I’m sure there are exceptions. I know there’s people who are just like-

Stephanie McCullough (14:51):

Who just do life like prodigies.

Lynn Harris (14:53):

But by and large, your average, pretty good jazz musician had to learn, had to play whatever it is, had to learn and practice. And I think it was Charlie Parker who said you know, then you forget all that and just wail. You have to learn the rules first. I mean, you just have to, and you have to practice, practice, practice, practice.

Lynn Harris (15:11):

Which is another reason that typically a woman with two young kids at home is not going to be like, “You know what, I’m going to do standup” because she knows, I hope maybe, or she’ll be quick to find out that there’s no doing standup alone.

Stephanie McCullough (15:28):

You got to practice with other people.

Lynn Harris (15:31):

There is Zoom, but still you have to … obviously, we have banked on Zoom. Even before the pandemic, my vision was for this company to largely be online for all the obvious reach and scale reasons, and to find the people. All the funny people don’t live in … not all the funny people live in New York, Chicago, LA, Austin. So, there’s no standup in a vacuum, but all these skills, late night writing, monologue joke writing, improv.

Lynn Harris (15:58):

Even writing pilots; practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. And so, if you do take someone who, for whatever reason, for the same reason that some people might be more intuitive cooks or some people might be more intuitive athletes, of course, that’s true.

Lynn Harris (16:14):

But if you take someone who is a little bit intuitive and then you mash them with practice and hard work, I mean that’s Rocky who I was talking about, she’s worked her butt off for the last three years to get where she is, but is she naturally hilarious? Yes, she is, but she knew that she had to also learn how to do it.

Kevin Gaines (16:30):

So, you were on the comedy circuit back in the nineties, correct? What was it like then and how is it different now.

Lynn Harris (16:42):

So, I can ask you and your listeners to hold two conflicting truths at once. One is that everything is so much better than it was night and day, unrecognizable. That’s one truth. The other truth is that everything is terrible.

Lynn Harris (16:57):

And they’re both true at the same time. So, they’re both true. What do I mean by that? I mean that let’s talk about what’s great; the number of frankly overwhelming number of platforms and ways that you can practice various types of comedy, make yourself visible doing various types of comedy, and not always and not magically, but find work through those platforms, especially digital is beyond compare, beyond imagination, not in comedy.

Lynn Harris (17:33):

We had to send postcards about our shows. That was the truth. And gosh, if we wanted a video, we had Pete Guzman shout out to everyone in New York in the nineties, and it was Pete Guzman. We had Pete Guzman who somehow managed to be at every single comedy show with his video camera, I don’t know how, on the clock; shot your set on VHS and they had to go pick up from him in midtown one in two days.

Lynn Harris (17:11):

That’s what it was. So, now, it’s incredible. And also, there is a demand for — not just a presence of diversity, but a demand for it that didn’t exist before. And you really can go find a friendly open mic. You really can go find inclusive bookers who are inclusive, and you really can find people — even not just the cool people on the ground doing mics, but the demand for inclusivity and diversity in the stories that we see on television is through the roof.

Lynn Harris (18:25):

So, all that stuff is true. Also, I can’t believe this, but it is still not just possible, but kind of normal for a standup show to have only one woman. That happened a few weeks ago. Another one of our older “comics” was in town and she was an actor. And then she said, “Lynn, I blame you for my standup career” because now she’s doing standup all over the place. “What shows should you go see?”

Lynn Harris (18:48):

And we looked on the calendar for a very well-known local club, nationally known local club. And we were like, “Who’s on tonight?” And they have several rooms and several shows, they were like six different shows, and all of them had one woman this year.

Lynn Harris (19:02):

We have a club in Boston, also a very well-known club in Boston. They were having, okay, it’s called Nick’s. I have to say that because the title rhyme, they had a show called Chicks at Nick’s, which first of all, why do you even do that? Come on, I get that it rhymes but you can do better.

Lynn Harris (19:17):

And also, even still having all women’s shows is bothersome to me. You are all just comics. Can we please just … and so that was no big deal, but the image for the show was the comics, like their faces photoshopped poorly on the body of a naked Barbie.

Lynn Harris (19:38):

It’s like I’m too tired to even be angry. I’m just like come on. And a couple of the comics comments on Instagram, like, “Ah, that’s funny.” And I don’t even care if an individual or two of the comics liked it. That’s not the point. You’ve just shown us that you don’t care about your women comics or your audience. I’m not going to that show.

Stephanie McCullough (20:01):

Nope.

Lynn Harris (20:02):

I mean, all due respect to the comics who are working hard, but again, that’s not the point. And even the New York Comedy Festival (sorry, New York Comedy Festival), but the first group of headliners they announced included Louis C.K. Do I think that Louis had the right to work? Of course, he’s going to be fine. He’d work anywhere. Of course. Absolutely, whatever.

Lynn Harris (20:20):

He can go do his job wherever he wants to. I mean, not wherever he wants to, but to me, New York Comedy Festival being like, “Hey guys, guess what?” If Louis C.K. said to me, “Oh, we don’t care about women.” It’s fine. But do you remember that he was the same guy at the end guy, and he’s that guy.

Stephanie McCullough (20:39):

He’s still that guy.

Lynn Harris (20:40):

They had a choice to hire him or one bazillion other talented comedians with followings, and that to me was like … and so yeah, there’s a real short memory. And so, again, I kind of can’t believe we’re still dealing as good as it is every day, women can be Ghostbusters now. And also, I still can’t believe we’re dealing with this same shit that we were dealing with in the nineties and before.

Kevin Gaines (21:16):

So, when you were talking about only one woman in a show, for example, how much of that do you think is the old boy network, so to speak, versus supply that not enough women are feeling comfortable to be entering this profession, or to say, not half the comics are female, there’s only 20% are female or whatever, and a matter of just encouraging more women to get involved?

Lynn Harris (21:47):

There’s no problem with supply.

Kevin Gaines (21:49):

Okay.

Lynn Harris (21:50):

There’s no problem. I mean, sure, there’s no really good count of the numbers because it’s not an industry where there is a count, but there is no problem, try harder.

Stephanie McCullough (22:00):

It’s like when we have what we call “manels” at industry conferences instead of panels, they’re just all white dudes. You’re like, really? I know six women who would fit on this conversation. Ask me.

Lynn Harris (22:11):

It’s lazing up.

Stephanie McCullough (22:13):

My husband and I took a trip to Austin, Texas, and there was a bunch of other couples there that we knew, and one of the people said, “Oh, let’s go to a comedy show.” And we thought, great. So, they arranged it, and I guess the only thing that was open was the later night show. Okay, we got, there we’re all people in our fifties, husbands and wives for the most part.

Stephanie McCullough (22:32):

Five minutes in, we are like, “Oh God, this is not for us. We are not the intended audience.” How does someone who’s not necessarily an expert in the comedy, how do we find, say for me, a midlife woman who would like to hear people I relate to as the comics — how do we find the shows to go to instead of going once and going, “I’m not coming back.”

Lynn Harris (22:57):

I think the key is to ask for recommendations, follow a comic you like on Instagram, get on their mailing list and pay attention to where they are.

Lynn Harris (23:05):

Or just if you’re looking one night to go one night, you can certainly always look for them on Instagram. I guarantee you they will have finished polished clips of themselves on their Instagram or TikTok and you can get a sense of their vibe for sure.

Stephanie McCullough (23:20):

Got it. So, if there’s a name I don’t recognize, do a little research and yeah, okay, good tip.

Kevin Gaines (23:27):

Well, that actually inspires two questions, two divergent questions from me. Hopefully, I’ll remember both of them. First one is, if you see a headliner, “I want to go see this headliner,” do these shows get arranged that if you like the headliner’s comedy, chances are the opening acts, the undercard, whatever you want to call it — they’re going to be of a similar style or rating of jokes, if you will, that if the headliner is rated G, everybody else is going to be pretty good. Or if they’re X, then you can expect the jokes up and down the line. Does that give you any guidance?

Lynn Harris (24:07):

Chances are that there might be an opener and a headliner or an opener, midliner and a headliner or something like that; chances are all three will be loosely the same vibe at the most basic level. But their styles will probably be different because especially the headliner doesn’t want to feel like they’re repeating stuff, that they’re kind of … a headliner wants to stand out and they should.

Lynn Harris (24:34):

But they also want people who are going to have the crowd just in heaven and wanting more. And they want a crowd that’s primed for them, but not with the comics who are so much like them that it’s going to be repetitious, repetitive, repetition. Which one is the word? I don’t dunno.

Kevin Gaines (24:52):

Either way, they both work.

Lynn Harris (24:54):

So, chances are you’ll feel like you went to a show that’s all of a piece, but even with each comic having a different individual style. So, at a pub, that speaks to how blue they work. Blue means how-

Stephanie McCullough (25:10):

Inappropriate?

Kevin Gaines (25:11):

Thought I was the only one who still used that term.

Lynn Harris (25:12):

I mean, people just really talk about being clean or not clean, but even then, it’s not … yeah, I mean, comedy is all in different styles, and I don’t know if there’s a really good way to tell who’s going to work bluer than someone else. I guess you can again look on Instagram, depends on your preference. But yeah, everyone, there’s a lid for every pot.

Stephanie McCullough (25:30):

So, Lynn, for maybe people in our listener group that don’t think they really want to pursue comedy but are interested in your life experience and you having gone on this journey yourself, but also helped shepherd other women and non-binary folks, do you think there are lessons from the comedy world that apply to greater life, especially in this phase of our career?

Lynn Harris (25:58):

And I don’t think that it’s-

Stephanie McCullough (26:01):

Oh, tell me.

Lynn Harris (26:03):

There are at least, I think 2000 last time I checked or whatever it was, studies that link humor to all sorts of life and wellness outcomes. A lot of them have to do with work, which we are all still doing. So, for example, CEOs prefer to hire managers or hire people with a sense of humor. People prefer to work for managers with a sense of humor. And I’ll come back to why in a second.

Lynn Harris (26:27):

Qualified people prefer their brands to be funny, I’ll come back to why. That also speaks to work. Someone’s got to create brands and not just company, but branding and create the copy. That’s a job you can have that I would count as a comedy job.

Lynn Harris (26:43):

And all those studies also talk about how just embracing humor in one way or another helps you. And these are sort of comedy specific things or things that you can see. They’re analoging comedy. They help you think faster, write sharper, read a room and actually listen. That’s a big misperception. People think comedy is all about talking. I would say it’s like 75% listening and 25% talking. I made up that number, I don’t know the percentage, but it’s a lot.

Kevin Gaines (27:12):

It sounds good.

Lynn Harris (27:13):

And it’s a lot. Listening is essential, let’s put it that way, quite optional. It’s interesting because what I would say to sort of sum up what all of these scientific findings have in common … one of the things that they do say very specifically is that humor inspires trust, which is really interesting. A lot of people say (and they’re not wrong) that humor is something that is a delightful distraction or medicine. It makes us feel better, all true. But some of the other reasons, they’re more complex reasons that it makes us feel better have to do with, again, trust.

Lynn Harris (27:51):

And that’s interesting because there’s something about in some cases, someone has to make themselves vulnerable to make a joke. Sometimes it’s a shield, but sometimes it’s making yourself vulnerable, you have to have a keen perception, especially if you’re not actually a performer.

Lynn Harris (28:05):

You have to have a keen perception of who’s in the room, what’s the joke, what’s appropriate. And when you get that, they’ll trust you because they know you’re paying attention. They know you’re reading the room, they know that you’re speaking to you.

Lynn Harris (28:19):

So, I’m not just talking about rando guy in the office with a lampshade on his head. That’s fine, whatever or not. But I’m talking about the kind of thoughtful — it doesn’t have to be smart intellectually humor, but thoughtful. Even a thoughtful aside in a tense meeting or whatever it is inspires trust because someone’s reading the room and paying attention and saying what needs to be said. There’s also … again, knowing when to stop is also part of humored

Lynn Harris (28:46):

And even just the direct skills. The direct skills of, again, being able to write the thing that you want to say the shortest is also … I feel that you can get other ways, but also from practicing comedy. I really love all of the stuff that speaks to how comedy, again, doesn’t necessarily take us away as just a distraction that … and God knows we need it, all true.

Lynn Harris (29:12):

But the way it brings us together, also because the typical structure classic of any typical joke is set up and punch. And typically, what happens between a setup and a punch is, well, the comic or the writer, whatever the context, is sending you in one direction and you think they’re going this way and then, oops, surprise, it’s a twist.

Lynn Harris (29:38):

So, in order to follow that comic from direction A over to direction B, you have to get it. You have to be able to go around that sharp turn with that comic. And not everyone will get the same joke. When you’re able to sort of stay in the car on that sharp turn, that means that you all who got that joke have something in common.

Stephanie McCullough (30:01):

Yes.

Lynn Harris (30:03):

So, that’s how it brings you together, that’s how in some cases, it makes you feel like, “Oh, I’m not the only crazy one.” And can it stop wars? Probably not. But can it make people feel seen, connected, heard, belonging, sense of belonging — all those things? Absolutely.

Lynn Harris (30:18):

And yeah, there is the part where … this is about comedy itself, not about humor in your world, but there is this sense of how … well, actually, it can be in your world; how humor, adding humor appropriately to certain difficult topics can make those topics easier to engage with, discuss, et cetera. That’s true of performed comedy, and that’s true of just humor in life.

Stephanie McCullough (30:45):

Yeah, for sure. As I reflect on it, I feel like the comedy that I appreciate the most does come from a little bit, maybe a vulnerability. But if that person sharing their personal voice, their own experience as opposed to what they think will make people laugh, is there an element of finding and honing and maybe uncovering your own voice in this too?

Lynn Harris (31:08):

Yeah. One of the most important things you can do, especially if you’re thinking about doing standup, a hundred percent, but also it translates. Because there’s a reason why we spend an entire class in our standup bootcamp on your persona.

Lynn Harris (31:23):

Now, probably took 10 years to develop their personas, but we’d start thinking about, well, you’re starting thinking about it today. What’s your vibe? Are you shy? Are you full with energy? Are you scared of everything? There’s a million ways that you can frame it, but what’s your point of view? What’s your lens? And that’s important for comedy and life.

Lynn Harris (31:43):

In comedy, it’s important because you really need to be writing jokes that no one else can write, and you can all write about the same topic. We used to do workshops with teen girls, and typically, their topics were (and I say this with love and respect) parents and school.

Stephanie McCullough (31:57):

Yes. That’s what they knew.

Kevin Gaines (32:00):

That was their world.

Lynn Harris (32:02):

So, their topics are family, siblings, whatever. So, their topics are all the same, but they all wrote jokes that none of the others wrote, even though the topics are … they weren’t just like, “You ever notice how teachers are boring?” They would talk about their own teacher, they would talk about their own sip … not in a way that was too much information.

Lynn Harris (32:21):

And the same is true, but really sitting with that and having to really think about that in a class helps you think about how, I don’t know, you write your keynote or even just how you show up in your family, I don’t know. It’s a powerful exercise for sure, and I do think it makes for the most interesting comedy.

Kevin Gaines (32:39):

So, I noticed when you were telling some of the stories earlier about students, they weren’t in New York where they were from. So, do you do a lot of stuff remotely or can at least some of this initial stuff be done remotely before you have to go to the big city?

Lynn Harris (33:00):

Our headquarters and almost everything we do is online. And that was again, my vision from before the pandemic to be able to provide opportunities for comedy careers for people who didn’t already live in New York, Boston, Chicago, LA.

Lynn Harris (33:14):

And when we do improv, we actually teach improv for Zoom in ways that you can use this funny little rectangle as opposed to kind of like, “Well, I wish we were on stage, but we’ll make the best of it.” I mean, I know that this is not a visual medium, but it’s kind of funny when someone just goes like this. Props are funny on Zoom, props are not funny in standup comedy in real life.

Lynn Harris (33:36):

Props on Zoom are hilarious, but you can do so much specifically with this medium that we teach you how to work with. So, you can get a whole lot of practice. It doesn’t necessarily help you practice how to move the lower two thirds of your body on a stage. But even that, we have people who actually feel more comfortable, like they’ve set up a mic in their basement, and they’ll do our classes on their mic.

Lynn Harris (34:04):

So, of course, there’s no substitute for the live experience, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t get a full experience online. You can’t entirely recreate the live experience, but you can have a full experience. But yeah, we have plenty of people in New York, but we do have people from all over and small towns and the whole thing who don’t have an obvious place to go learn and practice where they are physically.

Lynn Harris (34:29):

And again, especially to learn how to do TV writing, whether it’s late night writing or writing a sitcom or dramedy, you don’t have to be in LA to do that, and you just have to be in LA if they hire you, which we’d like to help make that happen.

Kevin Gaines (34:45):

So, it sounds like what you’re saying is specific to you, but also probably more of a general comment as well, that as women, they’re done with their first career, they’re ready for something new. There’s one less excuse available to them to say, “Oh, well, I’m not near any place where I can learn this stuff. I can do this stuff remotely, I can put my content out remotely. I don’t have to have, in this case, a comedy club nearby. I got Instagram, I got TikTok, I got YouTube, I got fill in the blank.” Is that correct?

Lynn Harris (35:18):

People can really build almost entire careers doing what we used to call or kind of still do call front-facing comedy where you do characters or a character on TikTok, or when Sarah Cooper, who was doing Trump a long time ago, and Alison, oh God, midlife and better. Oh my God, I literally know her, the one who does Kamala.

Lynn Harris (35:40):

She can stand up here in New York, but she built a huge following just doing videos of her insanely hilarious Kamala and loving Kamala impression. So, she did leave her house to do other things, but she didn’t need to leave her house to build that particular part of her career, which really got her a huge national following.

Lynn Harris (35:59):

And just another sort of nuance that I’ll add is the women we have who are midlife and better are not necessarily done — Rocky was, but others are not necessarily done with their previous career. So, for example, we have a member who is not only a podcaster and not only working on her TV pitch, but she’s also a veterinary oncology surgeon.

Stephanie McCullough (36:20):

Dang!

Kevin Gaines (36:21):

Oh wow.

Lynn Harris (36:22):

By day and probably, night. And she’s been a comedian actually for a long time, so that’s a juggle right there. But now, she also is like I got to write a show. And we have another one who’s a medical doctor for humans who is developing a game show and doing both.

Lynn Harris (36:40):

So, it’s really just whether it’s they, again, are now looking at empty nest or just maybe they started saying no to a bunch of things that they finally said no to, so they have a little sliver of time for more time for their own, I would say professional creativity, they’re doing it.

Stephanie McCullough (36:58):

Awesome. Alright, Lynn, let our listeners know how they can find you, follow you, follow what GOLD Comedy is doing, and then also we’ve talked about the classes, but are there other kind of things that people might want to know about?

Lynn Harris (37:11):

Sure. Thank you. So, to answer your questions in reverse order, yeah, we have tons of classes all the time. Obviously, we talked about standup and pitching. We also have video editing for comedians who can learn how to do all the stuff that we were just talking about even with simple tools.

Lynn Harris (37:26):

Oh my God, we have sketch writing, we have comic acting, we have all sorts of production classes like producing digital sketches, which is I think part of the not only future of comedy, but part of the future of comedy. We also have teams. We have teams who make digital sketches like Only Island and I Think You Should Leave.

Lynn Harris (37:47):

And we have extremely friendly weekly open mics online. We have a weekly Q&A with a comedy celebrity or pro. So, we’ve had Margaret Cho, we’ve had the entire cast of Somebody Somewhere, Jeff Hiller, who just won an Emmy, Bridget Everett, all those people.

Lynn Harris (38:05):

Murray Hill, we’ve had Rachel Dratch, Rachel Dratch from SNL as an advisor. So, we get fancy people and then they also get people to come talk to you like whose job you didn’t know exist, but now you want them, when in production or development, talent management, all those things.

Lynn Harris (38:23):

And so, you can pretty much fill up your week. But again, it’s all online, so easy peasy. And you can find us at goldcomedy.com or on Instagram at GOLD Comedy. If you DM or email us and tell us you heard me on your podcast, depending on what you want to do, I’ll hook you up with a 10% discount.

Stephanie McCullough (38:42):

Woo-hoo.

Kevin Gaines (38:43):

Sweet. Thank you.

Stephanie McCullough (38:45):

Thank you. We’ll put the link in the show notes for sure in case you’re walking the dog or driving right now.

Lynn Harris (38:50):

Yeah, so that would be on a premium class or on membership, whatever it is, we’ll talk. We’ll figure it out.

Stephanie McCullough (38:55):

Awesome. Thank you so much, Lynn. We so appreciate your time today.

Lynn Harris (38:59):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Gaines (39:00):

Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Kevin Gaines (39:05):

Alright, so here’s the problem with doing these episodes, Stephanie, is we start off going one direction and we end up somewhere else, or we just never go that direction. So, that being said, sorry, we don’t know anything about her being a Tonya Harding lookalike.

Stephanie McCullough (39:23):

We forgot to ask her about the story. We got so into the conversation.

Kevin Gaines (39:28):

Anyway, Stephanie, what did you learn today?

Stephanie McCullough (39:31):

Oh my gosh. The conversation went to places that I wasn’t expecting, which of course is the fun part about talking to these people that we find doing interesting things. I wrote down her quote, “Comedy is power because when we make people laugh, you make people listen,” and how it’s important who does comedy and who we see doing comedy, which I think probably is her whole motivation for creating GOLD Comedy and getting more women and non-binary folks out into this space.

Stephanie McCullough (40:02):

But you could tell that she’s thoughtful, she’s looked at the research about the power of comedy and humor, and she’s passionate about it, which of course, makes for the best folks doing work in the world, but also conversations.

Kevin Gaines (40:15):

Yeah, I liked one thing we were talking about of modern technology, if you will, or the social media that between Zoom, between the social media platforms, there’s a lot of avenues for you to learn, such as taking her classes and getting your content out there or just trying it, and without having to commit yourself to travel to New York or to try to find a comedy club and purpose of this conversation.

Kevin Gaines (40:49):

You can do this from your own home nowadays so that you don’t want to leave for whatever reason; because of commitments, because of health, because of … you just don’t want to leave the freaking house. You don’t have to. So, as technology gets better, there’s less reasons for you to say, “I can’t.”

Stephanie McCullough (41:12):

What we were talking about with Lynn is not so dissimilar from episode 87 with Claire Waite Brown, where we were talking about kind of getting back into creative pursuits in midlife and later in life, and the value of that. Maybe comedy just being a subset of those creative pursuits, and the value of it.

Stephanie McCullough (41:37):

I mean, I appreciated when she was talking about the instructor who said, “I love my college students and what they bring, but these women in their forties and fifties and sixties, they come fully baked. They’ve got a point of view already. They’ve got opinions and maybe they’re not quite as inhibited about speaking them and working on finding our own voices.” I think it’s really powerful.

Kevin Gaines (42:58):

Absolutely. And this is what we’re trying to do with this podcast is to say, listen, you have things you want to do. You have things you want to say. You have the proverbial hopes and dreams, and what we’re trying to do with this episode and a lot of other episodes is say, “Hey, share yourself with the world. Have fun. That’s what this time is about, is having fun.”

Stephanie McCullough (42:25):

I agree. Why not? I think we are in the eff it period of life, and here’s another avenue that may be great, perfect for some people. But I’m more on the, I want to be the audience of the comedians. I have found several comedians on Instagram that I love following: Cally Beaton from the UK is one of them. She is fricking hysterical, often talking about this midlife and empty nesting and menopause, and she happens to be divorced, and she’s got her older father. Like all these issues that a lot of my friends and clients are facing.

Stephanie McCullough (43:00):

So, I want to consume this comedy and have it do those powerful good things in my life, and maybe not just on Instagram. I’m inspired to go out and try to find some live shows, because being in the room laughing with other people, it really does feel magical.

[Music Playing]

Kevin Gaines (43:48):

Absolutely.

Stephanie McCullough (43:19):

Thanks so much for being with us. We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Lynn. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (43:25):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Kevin Gaines (43:29):

Be sure to subscribe to the show, and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (43:43):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered Investment Advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.