CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
Side Mirror: Beth Sherman, Emmy-winning Hollywood comedy writer, on harnessing humour to create meaningful connection and genuine engagement with clients, colleagues and audiences.
In this episode I'm joined by Beth Sherman.
Beth is a speaker, comedian, and Emmy-winning Hollywood comedy writer who's written jokes for the biggest names in entertainment.
As a speaker, she helps individuals and organizations harness the power of humour to create meaningful connection and genuine engagement with clients, colleagues and audiences.
In our conversation we talk about how she found her way into writing and performing comedy and how skills required for comedy writing and stand up can be used to enhance communication, connection and business building in other domains including the corporate world.
We discuss how Beth now shares her significant experience gained in the entertainment industry to help those of us who, just like stand up comedians, need the people we deal with to connect quickly, engage fully and leave wanting more.
I have enormous respect for those who can write and perform comedy. The most enjoyable and engaging environments I've worked in have been highly professional and at the same time welcomed humour for all the benefits it brings.
I'm excited to be able to introduce you to Beth as someone who has made humour her profession and her craft and who is now sharing her skills through her keynote speaking and one to one consulting.
Contact Beth:
LinkedIn: Beth Sherman
Website: https://www.bethsherman.com/
Check out Release the handbrake! The Fulfilling Performance Hub.
About Andy
I'm an experienced business leader and a passionate developer of people in the automotive finance industry, internationally.
During over twenty years, I have played a key role in developing businesses including Alphabet UK, BMW Corporate Finance UK, BMW Financial Services Singapore, BMW Financial Services New Zealand and Tesla Financial Services UK.
At the same time, I have coached individuals and delivered leadership development programmes in 17 countries across Asia, Europe and North America.
I started Aquilae in 2016 to enable “Fulfilling Performance” in the mobility industry, internationally.
Connect with Andy
LinkedIn: Andy Follows
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Join a guided peer mentoring team: Aquilae Academy
Thank you to our sponsors:
ASKE Consulting
Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk
Aquilae
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror
If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app.
Episode recorded on 18 June, 2024.
I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida.
Sherene Redelinghuys:I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand,
Daniel van Treeck:Prague in the Czech Republic,
Osman Abdelmoneim:Cairo in Egypt,
Holger Drott:Auckland, New Zealand,
Shannon Faulkner:London, England.
Andy Follows:Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host, Andy Follows Hello, listeners, and welcome to this side mirror episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. If you're a regular listener, thank you and welcome back, you'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. From time to time we also publish these side mirror episodes to introduce concepts, tools and experts to help you enable Fulfilling Performance. In this episode, I'm joined by Beth Sherman. Beth is a speaker, comedian and Emmy winning Hollywood comedy writer who's written jokes for the biggest names in entertainment. As a speaker, she helps individuals and organisations harness the power of humour to create meaningful connection and genuine engagement with clients, colleagues and audiences. In our conversation, we talk about how she found her way into writing and performing comedy, and how skills required for comedy writing and stand up can be used to enhance communication, connection and business building in other domains, including the corporate world. We discuss how Beth now shares her significant experience gained in the entertainment industry to help those of us who just like stand up comedians need the people we deal with to connect quickly engage fully and leave wanting more. I have enormous respect for those who can write and perform comedy, the most enjoyable and engaging environments I've worked in have been highly professional, and at the same time welcomed humour for all the benefits it brings. I'm excited to be able to introduce you to Beth as someone who has made humour her profession and her craft and who is now sharing her skills through her keynote speaking and one to one consulting. If you're listening for the first time Hello, I'm Andy Follows. I help business owners and executives to enable Fulfilling Performance for themselves and those they lead and care about. If you'd like to know more about Fulfilling Performance, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. In it you'll find easily digestible ideas on how to increase levels of performance and fulfilment for yourself, and those you lead and care about. Go to Andyfollows.substack.com, or use the link in the show notes to this episode. If you listen to podcasts like Career-view Mirror, I'm guessing that you recognise you're gonna learn from other people. When I'm not recording these conversations with inspiring individuals, you'll find me facilitating guided peer mentoring teams in our Aquilae Academy. We bring together small groups of business owners and senior leaders from non competing organisations and create a virtual environment in which they can get to know and trust each other and share and support each other with their current challenges. If that sounds interesting, email academy@aquilae.co.uk. And we'll send you more details. You'll find that address in the show notes to this episode. Hello, Beth, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?
Beth Sherman:I'm coming to you from London, England.
Andy Follows:Thank you very much for joining me. And if you don't mind me saying your accent doesn't sound like you're born in England. So what I do with all my guests is I ask them please to take us back to the day you were born. Where were you born?
Beth Sherman:I was born outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's where my accent is from, which is on the east coast of the United States. It's about 90 minutes from New York
Andy Follows:and tell me a little bit about your childhood. What was your family like that you were growing up in?
Beth Sherman:So born and raised in Philadelphia, my parents were a bit older than my peers. My dad was a world war two veteran. He grew up in an orphanage. His mother was widowed with three kids during the Depression, just actually just before the depression. She worked in a sweatshop, these are Eastern European Jews. She'd come from what is now Ukraine. She came as a child but her older sisters were born in the old country. My dad was born in 1925. His mom was widowed, so she couldn't afford to raise three kids so he and his older brother ended up at a school for fatherless boys. It turned out to actually be a great education. But then his senior year of high school, Pearl Harbour was bombed and he joined the Navy and was a veteran of World War Two in the Pacific campaign and then stayed in the Navy for Korea as well. And he was a lovely guy. And he had a great sense of humour. My mom also had a great sense of humour. I mean, there's a real culture in that sort of Eastern European immigrant if you can't laugh, you'll cry. So let's laugh. There's a real sense of humour in it. My mom had a great sense of humour as well. She like my dad first in their families to go to college or university. She put herself she got a scholarship, at a time when women's options were to go to really be teachers, or mothers, or secretaries. My mom got a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, which is an Ivy League school, and became an occupational therapist. She wanted to be a doctor, but there was just no way her dad was a fruit salesman, literally fruit cart on the street, and then a wholesale business, there was no way she was going to the money was going to be found even she couldn't get that many scholarships. So two very smart people, but very, I guess, in the British sense, more working class really using education to further themselves. So my mom had a great sense of humour. But it was my dad, I think, that I got my sense of humour from because of his background. I know he had emotions, but no one ever showed him how to express them. And so humour for him really became his way of communicating. And I've worked in comedy for 30 years, but as I've been now, outside the world of comedy, explaining it to other people, I'm realising that humour was his love language and humour is a love language. And that was very much the love language that he used in our family because with humour, you can say things that you couldn't or wouldn't say directly. It's all between the lines, and it's a way of, because really, you're just you're nurturing people, you want to lift them up, you want to make them smile. And that was very much where he came from. He loved what I would call in the best possible sense sort of stupid humour. He loved physical humour. He loved the Marx Brothers, and he loved the Three Stooges. He absolutely adored Mel Brooks. For his 90th birthday, I got signed headshot from Mel Brooks, who's was a year younger than my dad. And I grew up watching all the Mel Brooks movies probably long before they were appropriate for me to watch. But the producers Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, that was my canon. That was what I came up on. And those films if you watch them, they use humour to well, humour also it can turn a negative into a positive so the Mel Brooks movies, they make fun of racism, Blazing Saddles is all about making fun of racism. The entire point of Blazing Saddles is we want to clear out this town it takes place in the in the 1800s. We want the railroad to go through this town. And how can we get all the people out of this town? Well, they need a new sheriff, we'll just send them a black sheriff and they're all racists, so they'll leave. And of course, it turns out that Cleavon Little as the sheriff is smarter than everyone and his sidekick Gene Wilder in between the two of them, they save the town. The Producers is about also Gene Wilder with Zero Mostel, but a crooked producer realises he can make more money with a flop than with a hit. And so he has to go out and find the worst musical ever written. And so he finds Springtime for Hitler, which is intentionally the worst one ever written. So I grew up understanding the idea that there are so many things you can say and do and use humour as a tool to love people up to make a point about the unfairness of the world to make a point to show well, hypocrisy, but to do it in a way that brought people together. Yeah, not just pointing the finger but to do it in a way where
Andy Follows:it's disarming, isn't it
Beth Sherman:Yeah,
Andy Follows:sorry to interrupt, but there's so many things I want to comment on that you've made me think first of all, humour being an acceptable way to express emotion. And then the phrase that came to mind many a true word said in jest, you can make a joke of things, but really you mean, you get a point out there, but it's, but it's more acceptable.
Beth Sherman:And and there's there can also be learning. I mean, and teaching in it, I mean, the same way you can put love between the lines of a joke, you can also put education and sort of erasing a little bit of ignorance, and doing it in a way that's very pleasing without telling someone that they're wrong or casting judgement on them. You can make them think, and you can maybe make them think differently about you. As a comedian, I spent a long time as a comedian and self awareness is a very necessary tool in it. Something that comedians use all the time not self deprecating, but self awareness. And if you watch any comedian, the first joke out of their mouth in any set, watch any Netflix special will be self awareness, which is sort of acknowledging what your audience is thinking or noticing could be about you, or could just be about the situation in general. But it's a way of saying something indirectly.
Andy Follows:Is that to do with connection, then is that to do with illustrating, we're both think, I know what you're thinking, you're looking at me and you're thinking, this guy doesn't work out, or
Beth Sherman:it's well, it's in a lot of ways it's empathy. Right, I'm putting myself in your shoes. I'm reflecting back to you what you're thinking. But that also means that I've taken the time and effort to think about what you might be thinking, or noticing. I mean, when I talk about it in the in the context of leadership, it can be a powerful thing, right? Because you're sort of just acknowledging what people might be thinking or noticing. And getting it out in the open instead of pretending it doesn't exist, which can then be a distraction. Yeah, it's removing potential distractions in its simplest form.
Andy Follows:And it could be prejudice or biases or those distractions.
Beth Sherman:Yeah, I mean, it's a couple of different things. It's so it's removing potential distractions, if you're doing it in front of an audience, or if you're a leader. And in the sense of Blazing Saddles, where it's educating, you're showing rather than telling, especially when it's about something as big as racism, you're taking away the sting of it, you're laughing at adversity, you're turning a negative into a positive, but you're taking away the power of those words, you're taking away the power that racists have, because you're laughing at them in Blazing Saddles. And again, I'm watching this stuff you know, I'm probably 5 6 7 years old. But you know, Mel Brooks, a Jewish world war two veteran, like my dad, you're watching Nazis make asses of themselves. You're laughing at people who have committed horrific atrocities. And again, you have to remember, like, in my dad's generation, this is not ancient history. And also, when those movies came out, that was really edgy, because that came out I think it was 67 or 68. So that's what less than 25 years after it all happened. So there were mixed mixed reviews at the time. A lot of people didn't think it was appropriate to laugh at and I just, I find that so powerful, the idea that you can laugh at something that has hurt you, and regain some of the control. And while you're doing it, especially with something like that, you're reinforcing your point, and you're educated in a slapstick and ridiculous way. It's just it sounds way more complicated. If you go gag by gag, it sounds like it's something that a lot of thought has been put into. And then you sort of watch it gag by gag and go, No, I don't think they were really their goal was not let us sit here and academically explain these things. But it's a shorthand. And I just love that.
Andy Follows:So going back to you. And so you grew up in this house, obviously, incredible story backstory for your parents, very colourful. When did you start to have ideas that you could be a writer for a career or for a job at least before it became a career if you like?
Beth Sherman:Yeah, And it wasn't an aspiration to be a writer. I mean, what happened? So I was exposed to all these movies, and then I loved humour, and I discovered comedians, because I also came of age, I'm 51 now so the comedy boom of the 80s and 90s was when I was also very impressionable. My mom loved flea markets, and I hated flea markets, I guess you call them car boot sales here, but that sort of thing. And so she would be off looking at whatever she was looking at. And I would find old albums, old record albums, and I got really into old comedy albums, George Carlin Bill Cosby, it was the 80s you could still listen to Bill Cosby with a clean conscience. There was a guy called Allan Sherman, Bob Newhart, and I would sit up in my room, I didn't listen to music growing up, I would sit up in my room, just listening to comedy albums, and so many of them were recorded live. And so it felt like you were in that audience and you could feel the energy of that laughter and you could listen to the comedian and feel the pauses the breaths because you know, when you listen to something that your favourite even if it's music, you feel every breath, you feel every, every moment of it. And really, I just loved that dialogue between the comedian and the audience. Now, if I were smarter, I would have thought, hey, I want to be a comedian. But most of the people I was listening to weren't like me. I mean, they were, you know, East Coast Jewish, but they weren't women. They weren't. There was. My dad worked in insurance. My mom was an occupational therapist. We were in suburban Philadelphia. So Oh, no chance of being a nepo baby. So it just didn't even occur to me that someone like me could do that. But when I was about 15 16, somewhere around there, there was a TV show that I really liked was a sitcom called Murphy Brown. And I really liked it. I just thought it was really smartly written. And it was a little different than other stuff that's been out there. And there was a news magazine show, and they did a behind the scenes of that particular show. And the behind the scenes was a week in the life of a sitcom sort of, and it took it from the script to tape day, because those shows were filmed in front of a live studio audience over one, you know, a couple of hours. So this particular show, instead of following the actors, they really focused on the writers room. And it was the first I ever found out this thing existed. So the writers room, it was a group of guys, and it was mostly guys, but 10 guys around a conference room table, whose entire job it was one person would write the draft of that week's episode and it would rotate. And then for a week, you'd have 10 guys around the table whose entire job was to make every line funnier. And not just funnier, but funnier in the voice of the character. Sitting in a room with a bunch of funny people trying to out funny them. It was a job like that i It blew my mind that this was a job. And when I realised that was a job for some reason, to me, that seemed much more doable than going on stage myself. I was very shy, you know, there was a reason I had a lot of free time to sit up in my room and listen to albums. Not a huge social life. And I have a brother, but he's five years older. So he was kind of out of the house. So in a lot of ways, it sort of felt like the only child thing. So once I realised that being a comedy writer who could work in a room was a thing. That's all I wanted to do
Andy Follows:And that was triggered by watching that show.
Beth Sherman:Yeah, it was a behind the scenes. I just saw how it was done. There were lots of sitcoms that I watched. But I actually saw the process. I had no idea what happens behind the scenes. All I knew was at eight o'clock on Thursday, you turn on the TV, and there was something that was 22 minutes long, I didn't have any understanding of how it actually happened.
Andy Follows:And when you said you liked it, you thought it was well written. Did you already have that sense of about writing? Or do you think it was the making of show that
Beth Sherman:I think I just thought it was funny, because I think the way a musician develops an ear. I think it really just it wires your brain to hear something because you've just got the reps in. And I knew that I thought it was funny. So I don't think I really connected it to be honest with writing, literal writing someone sitting at a keyboard or someone sitting with a pen. I just knew it made me laugh, because I had so much experience of listening to other comedians. I guess I thought, Wow, this makes me laugh. This is as good as some of the stuff that I think is great.
Andy Follows:So once you've had this idea, and you thought that's what I want to do, there's a room I can sit, I can write I can try and out funny the funny guys, what what did you do? How did you set about making that happen?
Beth Sherman:So I went to college, university because I didn't really have a choice. My family. Like I said, my parents were the first in their families to go to university. And they they really pushed education. So I went I went to Boston University, I majored in television, which they weren't thrilled about. And really, if you want to study television, I loved Boston, I loved being in a city, I loved that. But if you want to work in television, Los Angeles is really the place to be in the US. So I enjoyed college, but all the TV classes that I took, it was a lot of TV, culture and society. I mean, just a lot of theory, which I found very disappointing. So when I graduated, I moved to Los Angeles. And I tempt and I did my best to sort of get around TV jobs. And then there was a friend of a friend from school who got me a job as a production assistant on a sitcom. And the best advice she gave me was, if you're going to be a production assistant, it's a gopher, it's a runner. I mean, then they call it Gopher, because literally the job is go for coffee, go for scripts, go for this, go for that. But someone said don't be a PA for more than a year. This is the price of admission. Use this to see if what you think you want to do is actually what you want to do. Because a lot of people go out there and they think I want to be a director. I want to be a producer, but they don't actually know what that means. And even if you study it, you still don't know what that means. So you sort of float around as a production assistant and so I on a bunch of different shows because they were seasonal and it was freelance so I got to see it. I got to watch that one week cycle of making an episode of a sitcom on these different shows. I got to watch it from the stage and watch the actors rehearse for a week. At the time it was pre internet, so I also worked in the office on on other shows and, and I was a writer's assistant, which was sort of one step up. And that's where you're in charge of keeping track of changes, because the script will be written, there will be a draft of the speech. And then between the writers and the writers room, and the director and the actors on the floor, who are rehearsing, it evolves. And so there's lots of changes and the changes all have to go in. And every you have to everyone has to be able to keep track of changes. So there's different page numbers in different colours. And the script is just an absolutely literally a rainbow by the end of the week, because if it's this day, the colour is goldenrod. And if it's light blue, and it's dark blue, and it's this, it's a very elaborate system. And before internet, the cast is coming in every morning to rehearse the show for that week, if the shoot day is Friday, so they can be prepared when rehearsal starts at 10am. When the writers are finished at 10pm, the night before, the lowest rung on the ladder has to photocopy all those changes, and all those pages, and then go drive them around Los Angeles. There were weeks when I would put 700 miles on the car, and I don't think I'd been 30 miles outside Los Angeles, it wasn't like I was road tripping. It was just you drove all over the place and you left it on people's stoop, you left on their front steps. So seven in the morning, they woke up, they got their newspaper, and they got their changes, and they could show up for work prepared the next day. Obviously, I realised, yes, this is what I want to do. It was fascinating to see the process close up, because you could see how a joke, why doesn't this joke work, you can see all the problem solving and all the ways they would try to solve that problem. I mean, there were times when things did work. And then the network would come in and give a really dumb note and the thing would have to be rewritten, just sort of for the sake of it. Or an actor just couldn't say it or just couldn't get through it or had a different idea. And watching people who were really good at this is a fantastic education.
Andy Follows:Yeah. So you were able to watch people who are really good at their craft.
Beth Sherman:Yeah. And it's sort of it was a one of those. It's that time in your life when you can dedicate that sort of time to it. But yeah, I was 20 21 22. So early 20s. And that's when it's your whole life, because we'd be at work till 10 11 12 at night, all week. And then 2am on show day. Some of that 2am was we'd wrap at night and then drink with the guys from the props department afterwards. But it just becomes a lifestyle, but it just it becomes a masterclass and an apprentice business in a lot of ways too
Andy Follows:Were you enjoying it, though you say you were young, you could do those hours. Did you feel like you were in the right place for you at that time?
Beth Sherman:Oh, I absolutely did at that time. And again, this is just the time when I was an assistant. I very much did. I found like minded people, because even majoring in television, well certainly as a kid, in suburban Philadelphia, there weren't other people that I was friends with who were sort of obsessed in the same way. And then at university I I definitely got warmer, I met people that just had a great sense of humour and like minded and all that sort of thing and made great friends in college. But it wasn't until Yeah, I mean, I got there. And there are people that have the same dream issue, not just the same interest, but there are people that are paying the same dues because they want the same thing and that that's a pretty cool group of people to be with. It's almost in a weird way, almost like a conservatory, in the sense of you want to play classical music, you go to Juilliard, and you lock yourself in with a bunch of people who are just as obsessed and a bunch of teachers who were just as obsessed. So it has its ups and downs, but it feels like a team.
Andy Follows:Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in executive search, resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I've known them for almost 20 years and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan, whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client side experience, which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004, when he helped me hire regional managers from my leasing Sales Team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business, ASKE Consulting was alongside us helping us to develop our people strategy and to identify and bring onboard suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a two year performance guarantee, which means they have skin in the game when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew the team at Hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk ASKE is spelt A S K E. You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. Who did you really like writing for? Were there people who you just loved writing or were there characters where you thought no, I'm really like writing. Tell me a little bit more about that.
Beth Sherman:So what we've been talking about so far is sort of me as an assistant. And after a few years of being an assistant, I did realise, yes, this is what I want to do and saw the path to get to what I wanted, which was to be a writer on these shows. And eventually I got the opportunity but for me, so the sort of shows that I was an assistant on were scripted. So what what is called scripted so they were sitcoms, but well I went from scripted shows. And then I got a job as a writer's assistant on a show called Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, the comedian. And his show was more comedy variety. It was all topical, it was all day in date topical, he would do it once a week. So this particular show, my job as the writer's assistant was to pull premises every morning out of the newspaper and out of the news. And then all the writers would just write punch lines for those premises. And my job was to collate them. So the host of the show would have one premise. And then 20 or 25 different punch lines to choose from and he could choose the one that he liked best and there would be 20 premises and each with a tonne of punch lines. And that was an absolute masterclass in learning how to craft a monologue joke. I also had the opportunity to turn in my own monologue jokes, so I had to do my job. But if I had time, I could also write jokes. And I'd learned how to write monologue jokes there. And it was made apparent it was explained to me that I probably wasn't going to move up to be a writer there. It didn't help that I was a woman. But to the head writers credit, he said, but my friend is going to be Rosie O'Donnell is getting a talk show, sort of a late night show, but during the day, and she's looking for writers. Do you want me to submit you? Do you want me to give them your name? I said yeah, sure. So I had I was able to send this guy a bunch of my jokes that I'd written and gotten on the show, so I knew they were strong, because I'd gotten a handful on and they were chosen blind. So I knew they were okay. Anyway, I got a job on Rosie the first season of Rosie O'Donnell Show which was in New York. So I moved from Los Angeles after two years in LA, I moved to New York, and I had a job on the eighth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, you know, where they do Saturday Night Live, and you look out onto the Christmas tree and all that kind of stuff and the rink. And I wrote for the first season of that show, and that was they hired me as a writer.
Andy Follows:So you'd arrived,
Beth Sherman:I had arrived, I joined the Writers Guild. This was 1996, I was eligible to join the Writers Guild of America. I'm still a member. Yeah, I was there for a year. And then I left. And I eventually ended up at Letterman, and I wrote for about a year at Letterman. I spent a few years in New York, and then I moved back to Los Angeles because I just, I was ready. I'd love to New York, but I was ready to go back to LA and there were just more opportunities for me. There's only so many shows in New York.
Andy Follows:And by now your CV, your resume is stronger than it was when you left LA How long did it take you from deciding, you'd
Beth Sherman:Yeah. And I was going in as a writer. And also while I was in New York, I finally got the guts to try stand up myself. I'd been writing for other comedians. And a lot of the people, a lot of the other writers on the shows that I was working for were comedians, they were writers also, but they were comedians. And they said Why don't you? Why haven't you ever done this yourself? So I finally got the guts to go and do it. And unsurprisingly, I fell in love obviously had all this practice writing jokes. How long did it with it. I absolutely loved it. So I did a lot of stand up. take you to go from thinking I'm going to have a go at this to how did you do that? What was the process? do it, I'll go with you. And there's tonnes of open mic nights. Anyone who wants to you can just show up. I mean, it's an awful audience. It's mostly an audience full of comedians waiting to go up. Literally, I mean, who else? My first stand up was at a place called Tennessee Mountain Ribs in Soho. It was a rib joint, a barbecue sauce, rib joint, where they also had on Mondays or Tuesdays, they had stand up comedians, but a brand new stand up comedians, who at an open mic night. And so the first time I did stand up was in New York on September 11. But it was September 11 2000. I'm not a monster. It was the year before. And my wife went with me for moral support. And I'd had a set that I'd written. I mean, I had you get three minutes or five minutes. And I got a couple of laughs which in a roomful of comedians who are just waiting to go on, it's nearly impossible. But it was enough where I thought, Oh, this isn't so bad. I could do this. And then I just got obsessed with it, which is what comedians do. I mean, it's a drug, but you just do every single open mic, every book show you get people meet you. And so there are booked shows and things you can get into those. But I mean, you can do, it just depends how much you want to schlep around the city. But you can do two, three shows a night, you can do as many as you want, during the week, as many as you're willing to sort of drag yourself to and sit through until it's your turn. Which is tough. Yeah. But that also becomes a masterclass. I mean, it's just you learn by doing.
Andy Follows:This is fascinating, because you said you were quite shy as a child. I don't think there are many things I can think of that. I think I'm not the only one who thinks that's quite a scary thing. I mean, people don't like public speaking in general, being a stand up comedian is even worse, because there's an expectation, it's implicit that you think you're funny, you're gonna make me laugh. That's the contract before you even open your mouth. So how did the shy teenager overcome that?
Beth Sherman:Because once you do make people laugh, you chase it I mean, talk about the carrot at the end of the stick. And also for the shy person. I mean, all the shyness wasn't necessarily intentional
Andy Follows:It's just that people weren't that exciting.
Beth Sherman:Well, no, I mean, you feel seen if you can make people laugh, I mean it really is. It's coming around. But it really is connection. Yeah, you're making a connection with people. I still find, though, that talking to a group of people is less stressful than going into a party and talking one to one with strangers. I mean, talking to a group of strangers, there's something about a group of people that just made me feel safer. There's, weirdly, even though they're all looking at me, there's some kind of anonymity to it. And it's interesting now, because for about a year, year and a half now I've been speaking, I've been in the corporate world, speaking about how to use humour as a tool to build trust and rapport. And everyone, every speaker that I meet says, Oh, you do stand up oh that seems so hard, what what do you think is harder? And I said, No, no, stand up is easy. All I have to do is make people laugh. I mean, and with stand up it's late, it's dark, and everyone's drunk. But with speaking, you're doing it at 10 in the morning, you can see every face, it's fluorescent lighting in some conference room. Most of the people are sober at 10 in the morning, and I gotta teach you something. You just want me to go up there and make you laugh. That's just fun. And also, I, you know, I have, as you may have noticed, from the four hour interview we're doing on 17 different topics I have ADD. So making people laugh, it's a much softer goal, than I have to explain to you that a plus b equals c. That's more for my little brain to wrap itself around. I get I get very caught up in that. I'm trying to unlearn that, because it's been explained to me, you don't have to do that just go up and be funny, and people will put things together themselves.
Andy Follows:Really interesting. I'm just thinking where to go next.
Beth Sherman:Well I can answer the question you asked, which was 40 minutes ago, who have you really enjoyed writing for What voice. So I've enjoyed writing for most of
Andy Follows:oh, gosh, yeah the people I've written for. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to hate someone that makes you laugh and all the people that I've written for, they're successful. I mean, they make me laugh. But much of my career, I was the only woman in the room. And then the hosts, the comedians, I was writing for were guys. The same things are funny to the same people, but just the way it would be said or the perspective or the point of view changes. So in some ways, for that part of my career when I'm writing for someone that's very different than I am next to a bunch of people who are writing for someone who is similar to them, it's almost a second language. Yeah, having a fluency in a second language. But again, the content and the subject of the joke can be similar from one voice to the next, but simply how you package it and the point of view that can differ. So I did really like I wrote for Ellen for three years. And that was a voice that was that came much later in my career. But that was a voice that was much more similar to my own. So it didn't have to go through that filter. There could be things that my authentic observations about the world I didn't have to put it through a filter of Yeah, how would a dude think about this? Did that feel a lot easier then?
Beth Sherman:It felt a bit easier? Yeah. She was one of my influences. Also, I didn't have her albums, that she was sort of starting out when I was up in my room listening to things, but I remember seeing her on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I mean, I remember that as a kid. I mean, she's a few years older than I am. So it's a voice that it was a shorter trip.
Andy Follows:Yeah, a shorter trip
Beth Sherman:yeah, in her voice,
Andy Follows:It also reveals the amount of I don't know I'm thinking science, the amount of effort, the amount of structure, the amount of work that goes into writing a gag, it's not just rocking up and being funny, the fact that you're creating it, but you're also then putting it through a filter to take it from a male perspective, because the speaker is male, there's,
Beth Sherman:Yeah I mean, we're not all in lab coats with clipboards, trying to figure that out. But there's, there's intentionality behind it. And I think the skill for those of us that work in it, those of us who do it for a living, because yet most people are funny. I mean, people are funny people, a lot of people have a sense of humour, it's just simply being able to just keep singing. And being able, most people can be funny in a meeting, most people can write a best man speech or do something, but it's Can you just do these sorts of things over and over and over again?
Andy Follows:Yeah, as a job
Beth Sherman:as a job. I've also had the chance to write for, because I work on a lot of award shows, I've written for the Screen Actors Guild Awards a couple of times a few times, and the Oscars a couple of times, and lots of big award shows where we write the presenter copy, so we don't know who's going to win. Those speeches are up to the person who wins, but the presenter copy everything that comes before and the nominees are everything that comes before that is what we write. So Tom Hanks, Helen Mirren, just every celebrity that you can imagine, we have to figure out a way to say, to big up Best Supporting Actor, or Best Cinematography to explain what the award is going to be. But if you've got a celebrity with, especially one with a very distinctive voice, or personality, you want to put some of their personality into it. And that's fun. That's really fun. I've gotten to write for all sorts of people, with those shows in little bits and pieces.
Andy Follows:I'm loving hearing all the nuance behind it and things that we you know, I watch these shows that you don't I don't always think I wonder who wrote I just think, oh, there's a guy. There's the guy saying the things. It's funny. Yeah,
Beth Sherman:there's some sleep deprived person who's been eating takeout for two weeks
Andy Follows:To make that happen. Yep. Then how did you come to move to the UK? How did that happen?
Beth Sherman:Well, my wife is English. And we were both sort of over LA. But we were my parents were older, we'd move them to Los Angeles to take care of them. And we were ready to move Los Angeles. But we'd moved my folks there. So we kind of had to wait until that situation resolved itself. But we'd been thinking for five or six years that London would be the next chapter. And we didn't know when that was going to happen. But we knew that we'd be the next chapter. And my folks passed pretty close to one another in 2020. Not not related to COVID. But just during that time, it was a blessing for both of them. My dad was 94. And my mom was no longer herself. So it was a blessing. But we looked at each other a couple of days, actually, after that happened and said Did we mean it? Did you mean it when you said oh, I meant it? Did you mean it? Yeah, I meant it. And at this point, it was April 2020. And so wasn't a whole bunch of other stuff going on. So we had lots of time to do research and figure out okay, how do you do an international move? So we did that and we moved here in February 2021. And I had already started for the past few years in addition to my TV work, I was also working with clients outside the world of entertainment, doing a bit of ghost writing for speeches and also coaching them and doing punch up making things funny or showing them how to be funny and more engaging as speakers a lot of C level executives. And I thought that would be what I would lean on here, because I didn't think I could count on the TV work, the TV work has continued. But I mean, it's it's still freelance. So that that continued. And that's what I was doing here. And then I started to feel really kind of isolated after a year or two, because I had lots of work, but it was all in the US, and it was all remote. And that was fine. But it gets lonely after a while sitting in the second bedroom office talking to a zoom. Yeah. And I thought, Okay, I gotta, I gotta find my people. And I knew some because we, I've been coming back and forth here for 12 years with my wife. So I knew a couple people, but I just, I wanted my own life. And I thought, well, maybe I'll get back into stand up. Because I hadn't been doing it consistently for five or six years, I was working. And we were taking care of my parents and doing all the things that women in middle age get to do. And then I thought, Well, gosh, it's different hours. And I don't know if I want to do that. And as part of my speech writing, I was doing tonnes of coaching lots of one to one calls, with people just rewriting their speeches with them, and realising that a lot of the things that I do instinctively to make something funnier and more engaging, other people don't know. No. And so I was explaining comedy and explaining how, okay, this is, it truth is funny. And if you just a little bit of self awareness here and just put a little dusting of that, and what makes jokes funny, or is using specificity. And so truth is funny. And the details of the truth are hilarious. So just when you're choosing your example of what to say, don't just say, cereal, say, Coco Pops, whatever it is, but explaining how to use that. And I thought, well, that might be I'd like to do more of that. And I went down the rabbit hole, and I found a woman called Maria Franzoni, who used to run the London speaker's bureau now works with speakers, to develop speakers, and but doing it from the perspective of a booker, knowing what people want, and what they want a book. And yeah, had a very honest conversation with her is this anything that people could use. And she said, aha, but I've never never ever worked in the corporate world, I have only ever worked in entertainment. And I've only ever been, you know, the writers are just, we were the children in the back corner. We didn't have to know about budgets and all that kind of thing. So I had to learn what is my message? And how can it be valuable to a corporate audience. And that's what I've been doing for a couple years. And love it because, well, one, people are so bored of what they're hearing at conferences, and I get to be the treat, I get to be the dessert because I get to help them. And I get to make them laugh. And it's not that they're coming into a comedy club for me to make them laugh, they get to laugh just during the normal course of their day, which is usually pretty well received. Because a lot of the talks that I see given their like hostage situations
Andy Follows:they can be dry,
Beth Sherman:They can be dry and I don't think they have to Yes, I've found that last one as a facilitator that people don't be I mean, I work with a lot of speakers. I mean, they they come to me, I don't just tap them on the shoulder and say please do this. But they come to me to make their their content more engaging. And I help them find comedic opportunities and that so I work one to one. And also, I talk about how to use humour as a tool to build trust and rapport, because laughter is emotion. And emotion is a building block of trust. And you need trust if you're going to get people to actually take action. And the action can be buying something from you or booking you. But it can also just be as small as giving you the benefit of the doubt and continuing to listen to you for another 30 seconds or 10 seconds. like to miss a joke. So if their mind has wandered, and the rest of the group suddenly laughs they feel they've really missed out. So it's a great way to keep people engaged Yes people always ask me where in my speech should I use humour. Well, at the beginning, the middle and the end, seven Emmys. You're welcome. But you use it at the beginning because you can set a tone. You're you're introducing yourself, you're letting people know that this is going to be something that they might enjoy. And you're also in the middle. Yeah, exactly. You tap into that fear of missing out because even even in the best talks, you mind can wander your people are wondering, do I smell lunch being put out, is there coffee? How much longer I really have to pee. They're looking at their phone and if they hear other people laughing Yeah, they look back up. And then if you use it at the end, and it can just be a call back. You can refer back to something else that you've said that gotta laugh and just refer back to it. It's called a call back in comedy. But people's memories are very, very short, thankfully. And if you leave them on a laugh, or you're able to just surprise them with a laugh at the very end, they're gonna walk out thinking that Andy is funny. He's funny, he's really funny, even if the rest was here and there, you leave them on dessert, on a nice note.
Andy Follows:So here you are, you've written for the highest standard required in entertainment for these big award shows. And people can hire you to help them write something that's going to really make a difference. And I can invite you to come and speak to my people, and to explain why they might want to be being a little bit more intentional about humour, when they communicate with their customers with their people.
Beth Sherman:Yes, and explain that, why and how to do it, the keynote that I've been giving lately, I'm doing it twice in the next two weeks, actually. But it's I've called it a comedians guide to authentic connection. Because comedians, every time we go on stage, there are three boxes, we have to tick, connect quickly engage fully, and leave them wanting more. And it's not as hard as it sounds. I mean, when we do it, if you've watched any comedy, it doesn't seem like there's effort to it, it seems very natural. So I sort of decode what it is that we're actually doing how you can use a smile, how you can use the element of surprise, that truth is funny and how you can find comedic opportunities in truth by looking at self awareness and specificity. And giving examples from my own life and my own work, to show all of those things and show how they're relevant. That's the least funny explanation I've ever heard of a talk on comedy. But
Andy Follows:sorry, I wasn't laughing because I was enjoying. I was thinking, if you're a team leader, or a business leader you don't have to be as funny as the people you watch on Netflix. That's not what we need to be at that we don't need to be at that level. But if you
Beth Sherman:No, and please don't try because that's excruciating.
Andy Follows:That's when you turn into David Brent, I guess.
Beth Sherman:yes, exactly. And that's a lack of self awareness. But I talk about humour, to think of it as a seasoning. Think of it as salt. Everything needs a little bit, but not everything needs a lot. Sometimes, if it's, you know, a few flakes of sea salt on chocolate is amazing.
Andy Follows:This is true.
Beth Sherman:But if you put too much on, it's just weird. It's out of balance. Yeah. But if you are a leader, and you're, you're giving a talk, or you're talking to your team, even if it's just a weekly sort of circle thing, if you can just find a way to have those few flakes of sea salt, just something that makes it palatable, or, if it's already palatable, just makes it fun, or something that people just look forward to. It can be really powerful. The world doesn't need more bad comedy, it's not about that, and then find where you can find those flakes of sea salt. So that it's doesn't feel like you're just shoehorning in jokes for jokes sake, for it to be authentic to you? Well, truth is funny, it's just add a bit of truth, just sort of what comedians are really good at is we're good observers. And all we do is observe and report. That's really all it is observe and report. So if you're a leader having a bit of self awareness, when you use examples, can you use an example that is specific instead of vague? And just what can you observe from what's around you? They're tiny, little things, but they make a huge difference.
Andy Follows:And you, you talk about this in your keynote Beth, you explain some of the benefits, and also some of the things to focus on. And you give people a little bit of content, I guess, to think about to help them be able to apply humour and be more effective.
Beth Sherman:Yeah, be more effective in whatever it is you're doing. It doesn't just have to be speaking, it can be sales, it can be or leadership, but we feel connected to people who can make us laugh or smile. And we want more of them. Yeah, so that's really all you're trying to do is make a connection with someone so that they want or they're willing to tolerate a little bit more of you. I mean, in sales, it just if they want more of you, that means they'll choose you over someone else. And they'll recommend you over someone else because they've had a good experience. And if you can make people laugh or smile, or you're probably pretty good at relieving tension. So they also will recommend you to people because they know those other clients will be in safe hands, if something bad happens, you'll be able to sort of find the humour in the situation and take everything down a notch, and then solve it and just people will walk away, enjoying what just happened
Andy Follows:It's a really good additional skill and tool to have, isn't it for lots of situations? Excellent. Is there anything I haven't asked you about Beth, where I think we've missed an opportunity. I know you're gonna make a joke about how much I have asked you. But is there anything I haven't asked you about?
Beth Sherman:You know how people comedians hate to talk about themselves? No, I've really enjoyed this. I don't think there's anything you haven't asked me. I think if people want to get in touch with me, I'm on LinkedIn. My website is the very cleverly named Beth sherman.com. And you can find out about the keynotes there. And you can also find out how to work one to one with me. I love doing that. The way I've framed the service that I offer is just it's one hour, and we just create a little mini writers room.
Andy Follows:Oh sounds amazing
Beth Sherman:You and I sit there with your keynote or your talk or I'm helping with a lot of commencement speeches right now. And we just go through it from top to bottom. And I point out comedic opportunities, and we figure out, what you can add that will take advantage of that opportunity will be consistent with your message and advance your message, and will also sound like you will be authentic to you. And in doing that, it means we get to laugh a lot.
Andy Follows:Yeah that does sound like a lot of fun. And we will put your contact details in the show notes to this episode. And I'm just thinking of the people listening, who I'm excited to introduce you to them and to give them an opportunity about how about that, folks, you're writing something you've got a presentation to give, maybe you're gonna do the same thing you did last time. Maybe you're a little bit anxious about it. How about working with Beth and creating something that is just way better than you might have been able to do by yourself and have a lot of fun doing it. So I hope that some of my listeners get in touch with you and take advantage of that opportunity. Or have you as a keynote at one of their events to raise awareness of the benefits of humour.
Beth Sherman:I'm great after lunch when no one wants to come back.
Andy Follows:Yeah, you don't mind taking that the slot that nobody wants and making something of it.
Beth Sherman:I don't at all. And it's funny because in stand up having the first spot in a Stand Up Show, it can be tough, because there's no momentum, you have to sort of build the momentum, but it's called taking the bullet. Okay, you're kind of the first one up and out of the foxhole. But but also, it usually goes in standup, it usually goes to the person who's kind of lowest, you know, the newest person, but it builds character and it teaches you how to do it. So yeah, I'm happy to take the bullet and be the after lunch spot because, well, as a comedian, we're all about self awareness. I know that you don't want to be there. So I'm gonna have fun with that.
Andy Follows:Well, thank you, Beth, for being here today with me and for sitting down and recording this conversation. It's been a huge pleasure.
Beth Sherman:Oh my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Andy Follows:You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy follows. I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with Beth as much as I did. do reach out to Beth, you'll find her contact details in the show notes to this episode. Invite her to speak to your teams and let her help you punch up your own presentations and speeches. If you enjoy listening to our episodes, please could you do me a huge favour and share them with someone you lead parent or mentor or a friend you think will also appreciate them? Thank you to Beth for joining me to create this episode. Thank you to our sponsors, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae. And thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team without whom we wouldn't be able to share our guests life and career stories and offer you their expertise. And above all, thank you to you for listening.
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