VBB 343: Comedian Holly Shaw Gives Queen Lessons!

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Podcast, inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different.  Your hosts, Christopher and Heather. Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:15]:

A great man once said, “a day without laughter is a day, wasted.” His name: Charlie Chaplin. Charlie. Well, he is no longer with us to make us laugh, but his philosophy lives on through comedians like our guest, Holly Shaw. Holly, welcome to Virgin Beauty.

Holly Shaw [00:00:40]:

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Christopher [00:00:42]:

We are excited to have you. Now, Holly, you are a comedian. Yes. But you're also an author and coach who helps performing artists overcome anxieties that you likely faced as a child actor. Like, what lessons learned then still resonate and serve you today?

Holly Shaw [00:01:03]:

Oh, yes. Well, yeah, when I was an actor as a child, and when I say child, I would say, like, 12 to 16 years old. Still a child, right? But it was something. I just want to make it clear. It was something I wanted to do. I begged my parents to do it. You know, when we hear child actor, we think of somebody being forced into it. But I was, like, begging my dad to get me an agent, and it just felt like something I knew I should be doing was performing. And when I was a young actor, I would go to these auditions in Chicago, you know, and it would take. We lived in Indiana. My agent was in Chicago. The whole industry is in Chicago. It would take five hours on an Amtrak train to get to one audition.

Holly Shaw [00:01:57]:

And I would go in, you know, knowing my lines, having worked on it so hard. I worked myself into a frenzy. And then I would forget the lines, or I would stumble, or tremble, or shake, or I just didn't have a great performance. And then we would get back on the train and go five hours back home to Indiana. And you can imagine that train ride just feeling like the weight of that failure. And so it was. Stage fright was something that I dealt with then. And it took me until I was in my 20s and 30s as a dancer to really figure it out and recover and find out how to take that nervous energy and that fear and to alchemize it into something powerful.

Christopher [00:02:51]:

I still can't get over that. At 12 years old, you had an agent because you wanted it so badly. Where did that come from? Like, where did. Where did that drive to? I mean, at 12, what was, what were you doing, Heather? What was I doing at age 12? That is amazing. Where did that drive come from?

Holly Shaw [00:03:13]:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I have always been kind of ambitious and driven. But I will say I do remember, and this is in my book, the story of when I was just a wee little toddler, like three, four years old, I have this memory. My dad took me to a big band jazz concert at the mall, and it was so phenomenal. And I remember being a little kid and the music just lighting me up and just feeling my body start to move and dance. And I danced around in front of the band, and I remember looking out at the audience and seeing all the happy faces. And I felt like there was an energy filling me up from that. And then I felt it like moving out through me back to them.

Holly Shaw [00:04:03]:

And I think it's that energy. It's like that feeling of connection with an audience. No matter if I'm dancing, acting, or now doing stand-up comedy, it's all about connecting with that audience and having that wheel, that cycle of energy that's moving. I think that's what's most fascinating to me as a performer, not being a famous star. I mean, you know, obviously, when I was younger, that's what I wanted, but it's really about that real-time connection.

Heather [00:04:43]:

I love that you mentioned, you know, kind of over the opportunities that you've had in the. And the tryouts and auditions that you've had that you were able to take what was very nervous energy and transform it into something powerful. Can you kind of dive us through, like what happened? Because I feel that that's something that shows up for so many of us in those moments in life that feel like make it or break it moments. How did you, like, what was that transition like? And where do you go, maybe with affirmations, or with your own psyche, that kind of helped you to transition?

Holly Shaw [00:05:19]:

That. Sure. Yeah. Well, I feel like the real key was when I understood that, when I finally got it, that the energy that makes you shake, or be nervous. And this can be anybody. You don't have to be a performer. Right. It could be getting up and speaking to your boss, you know, or doing something you've never done before for anybody in that place where it makes you shake or you feel nervous, or you feel there's this overwhelming feeling like I shouldn't be doing this.

Holly Shaw [00:05:53]:

Right. But what did flip for me was realizing that energy actually means you should be doing it. It's just a matter of energy that's flowing to you and through you to help you do it. And you're nervous because you are excited about it. Right. So it's turning that energy. It's learning how to turn that energy into magnetism instead of fear. And I would say, you know, one of the key things is recognizing how your own thoughts about what's happening to you drive that.

Holly Shaw [00:06:32]:

So it was learning how to recognize the stories I was telling. You know, this energy comes up for us, and we want to be like, oh, no. Like, it means that I'm not worthy, or who do I think I am? And we make up all these stories, and the voices come, and it's learning how to redirect those voices. Understand that that's just fear talking because those voices are really going to drive where that… It's like a hose of energy. And the voices that. The things we tell ourselves really kind of drive how we can use that energy.

Christopher [00:07:06]:

How do we differentiate the fear from the, whatever that impulse is? It's like standing, okay, if you're standing on the edge of a cliff and you're fearful, there's a reason why you're fearful. If you're standing on the edge of a stage and you're fearful, how do you, do we differentiate the two?

Holly Shaw [00:07:28]:

Sure, right. Because your body thinks it's the same thing. It's a threat. All these people looking is the threat. It is. It's not normal. It's not normal to stand in front of a thousand people on stage. Like, that's not a normal thing, you know? And I think especially through standup comedy more than anything else, because the practice of it is that you're on stage as much as possible.

Holly Shaw [00:07:52]:

Like stand-up comics go out seven nights a week. Like, we try to get a little stage time wherever we can because of that, because it just normalizes it. It's like, this is just what I do. And it tells your body, this is what I do. If you see a comedian nervous, you can't laugh, right? It's like, ooh. Like you're. You're worried for that person, and then you're not. It's not cute, right?

Holly Shaw [00:08:23]:

So you have to learn to relax. And for me, the tools and tricks I learned as a performance coach have helped me in that. In that way. For me, like, when I first walk out on stage, I connect with the audience, right? It's the opposite of what you want to do. You want to. You're afraid of them. You know, oftentimes we feel a little afraid of them, and we want to, like, back off.

Holly Shaw [00:08:49]:

We want to close up, we want to not look at them, you know, but the opposite of that is actually what you need to do. So I'll, like, I'll try to look at certain people in the audience. I'll try to actually really take in, oh, there's a person with glasses. Oh, okay. Cute haircut. You know, like, I'll try to pay attention and then look in some eyeballs, even if it scares me, and kind of take a breath and take them in. So that I'm establishing that, like I said earlier, that flow of energy.

Heather [00:09:19]:

I think that's extremely powerful because, you know, what you've just said, there is rather than leaning into how you maybe want to feel, which is hide, retreat, kind of make yourself feel small or not be able to be seen. Hard to do on a stage. But I think that we do that intuitively a lot in life if you're in a new zone or a zone that makes you feel uncomfortable. But, like, I enjoy so much that you said before that if you're feeling that discomfort, but it's something you're really passionate about, like, that's exactly where you need to be. So to lean into the thing that you're scared of, which is that human connection, that eye contact. But, you know, you put it out there in a way that said, Ooh, cute glasses. Or, like, your haircut, like, little almost genuine compliments in your mind. I think one warms you up to the human experience of it. So I can see that it's really relatable to other pieces of life. When people want to retreat or do not feel seen to find something that makes you feel a little more at home, or with something that you appreciate, it can help kind of tear down some of those walls of discomfort.

Holly Shaw [00:10:30]:

Absolutely. It greases the wheels, you know, because we're all. We're all afraid of not being loved, not being seen, not being understood. And it's like, if we can just try to do those things for other people first, it kind of can help us be like, no. You know, like, we're all here together. We're all good. We're all in the same playground. Yeah.

Christopher [00:10:56]:

So, Holly, I want to ask you this. Okay? So you walk on stage. You've made the commitment to connect. You've started that bonding with your audience. But I'm sure there's always the one person who has to disrupt your stage presence. What do you do with hecklers? How do you handle that?

Holly Shaw [00:11:17]:

Well, that's a great question. So you're talking about hecklers, right? Oh, we get to my favourite topic. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing, because stand-up comedians always have to deal with hecklers. Like it's something you learn to do very early, and you just keep learning it because it's just, it's when we're up there, it feels like a conversation. If we're doing it right like that, we're having kind of a one-sided conversation. So you add alcohol to that, and people want to be like, yeah, sister.

Holly Shaw [00:11:50]:

You know, they want to yell at you and stuff. And some of that is like, not a big deal. You just, you know, like go with it. And then you have the ones that, like, really want to, like, say a joke or like they think they have a better tagline than you, or sometimes they do have a better tagline and it really pisses me off, you know. And then I make a little joke about like, comics don't like it when you're funnier than us. You know, you make a joke. You. I mean, I think ultimately why I wrote this book, Queen Lessons about standup comedy, is because I don't think comics are the only ones that deal with hecklers.

Holly Shaw [00:12:28]:

You know, we all are, especially women, but we, all of us, are like interrupted. People don't listen to us, people ignore us, they try to push us off our path. So I think for any of us dealing with those hecklers in life, you have to. Their attention is your tool of war. I guess I would say it's like you're like, where you can either, there are many tactics, you can either invite them in, you know, you can either be like, okay, you want attention? I'm going to give you all of our attention, and we're going to shine a spotlight on you. We're going to make a fool out of you and have some fun with it. You can also take your attention fully away from that. But I think the most important thing whenever I'm dealing with one of those hecklers is to keep a hold of myself, to stay loyal to myself.

Holly Shaw [00:13:31]:

So I have to be the most powerful person in the room, right? That's my job. I have a microphone and so it's like I can't lose control. But sometimes you do, but you've got to keep control of yourself. Does that make sense?

Christopher [00:13:48]:

Absolutely.

Heather [00:13:49]:

I think that's beautifully framed because we do all have hecklers in life where, you know, you're trying to stay true to yourself and your path and the direction that you're heading in. And people try to knock you off, right? Knock you off course, knock you off your, you know, the tagline, the end joke, where you're trying to head next. Your next step. So staying true to how you want to have that tagline land or, you know, I feel like part of what you said is sometimes you can roll with it, but as long as you're staying true to where you want to head with things, it takes away some of the power that they're trying to get out of you.

Holly Shaw [00:14:27]:

Right. And I think that's the key, like that emotional. I talk a lot about emotional fluency. Like, even if they are saying things or, you know, you're staying with yourself, you're not like being embarrassed, you're not looking like you're thrown off course. Maybe you are thrown off course a little bit, but you're like, hey, okay, what's interesting? Okay, what's happening? You know, you're staying with yourself. I guess you're never abandoning yourself. I think the worst thing a comedian can do, is all of us could do, is to just kind of abandon ourselves.

Holly Shaw [00:15:09]:

And we do that a lot. If you think about it, like, how many times have you asked for part of what you wanted but didn't ask for the whole thing because you were afraid, like you wouldn't get it, or you're afraid it's too much, or times that we like trail off a sentence because we're afraid nobody's listening. These little small betrayals of self, right? When I became a stand-up comedian, it started teaching me these because the audience will tell you, the audience will start ignoring you if you're abandoning yourself. They're like, oh, you know, they don't want to see that. So you start to be trained into this, this way of like sticking with yourself, you know, because these little betrayals matter.

Christopher [00:15:57]:

I really wanted to kind of congeal this into your experience as a woman and the gender part of what it is you have to face. Men on that stage may not even have to consider. What have you learned from a gender perspective?

Holly Shaw [00:16:19]:

Well, I mean, it was interesting to me because I started stand-up comedy when I was like, right as I was entering my Queen years. So, for their audience members that don't know, the Queen years are kind of the euphemism I put on perimenopause and menopausal years. So it's like the hormones start changing, and I started to feel, you know, just less clear, less, you know, the fog-brain happened. I started gaining weight. I couldn't, I didn't have the energy I used to have. And that was right when I started stand-up.

Holly Shaw [00:16:55]:

But also the beautiful thing about The Queen years is like, can I cuss on this? Like you don't give a Fuck!. Okay. Like, there's that whole TikTok thread that's like the I don't care club. I love that. That's perfect. It's like we don't, you know, you don't care so much anymore. And that's a beautiful thing to not care. And so in stand-up, you need to not care. Queen years, you start to not care. So it was like this beautiful combination. But yeah, I mean, it's challenging. Like, does the comedy industry want to see older women on stage? Not particularly. Like, it's not. I definitely feel that. And yet I also am buoyed by the power of, you know, the Queen years.

Christopher [00:17:48]:

I would say that, as far as mature women are concerned in entertainment in general, I think that you're right. We’d rather replace them with something younger. That's just the way that we have generated our interests. How would you transfer what you've learned in your queen years to someone starting out in their early years to have that same kind of effectiveness and self-control as they go through what it is they have to go through? What would you tell yourself at 23 that you know now, basically?

Holly Shaw [00:18:32]:

Right, right. You're so much more powerful than you know. Right. Youth is so wasted on the young. And also, you don't know shit at 23, you know, not really, and it's okay. And honestly, I think, you know, just these things that I've learned about courage and about how it's really a combination of being honest, being loyal to yourself, being persistent. Like the persistent person wins. Right.

Holly Shaw [00:19:17]:

It’s being able to learn how to be shameless. And there's a fifth one, and I can't remember it right now, but I would say, I don't know that I could tell that 23-year-old anything that they would listen to. I mean, I try when I see young people and they're open to it because these lessons are kind of things you have to, you know, that's why they're queen lessons. They're kind of things that you have to earn a little bit, and I want to bestow them, which is why I wrote a book about it. But at the same time, it's like you have to take your own experiences and extricate the wisdom from those.

Christopher [00:20:01]:

So tell us about Queen ears. Give us the full title. Now, this is not your first book, right?

Holly Shaw [00:20:07]:

Right. This is my third book. It's called Queen Lessons. I got it right here. Queen Lessons: What Stand-up Comedy Taught Me About Dealing With Life's Hecklers And Finding Courage In Your Queen Years.

Christopher [00:20:21]:

Beautiful.

Holly Shaw [00:20:22]:

Yeah.

Christopher [00:20:23]:

As you said, you wanted to pass on what you've learned to others. Do you feel in your heart when you pick that book up, and it's a big book?

Holly Shaw [00:20:35]:

Yeah. It's a good size.

Christopher [00:20:39]:

That it accomplishes what it is you set out to do, and what you hoped it would do?

Holly Shaw [00:20:45]:

Yes. I. Well, here's the thing, I was in a low place when I wanted to start writing it, and it took somebody, Megan Walrod, and she's an author, and she said this the other day, and it made me start crying because I realized it was true for me too. She said her book took her 10 years to write because she needed to become the woman who could write the book. And when I heard that, it resonated.

Holly Shaw [00:21:17]:

And I realized when I had the idea to write this book, it was me trying to raise my vibration, to find the lessons, find the inspiration. I was looking for a book like this. You know, there isn't. As. There's more now coming, which is exciting. There's more information about menopause and people writing about it, women writing about it, but there wasn't really what I was looking for. The book to inspire me, and I was like, well, I think I'm gonna have to write it, you know. And I had to become the woman who could write the book through the writing of it.

Christopher [00:22:01]:

Congratulations.

Holly Shaw [00:22:02]:

Thank you.

Heather [00:22:03]:

I feel like this is a great opportunity to ask you this, you know, in your journey with the book and what you've shared with us so far. Is there one of or all of the names of this podcast that you have a story around or something that's meant something to you over time with the Virgin, the Beauty, and the Bitch?

Holly Shaw [00:22:24]:

Yeah, sure. I mean, all of those words, but provocative as hell. But I would say the bitch. Right? It really. In your recent conversation, I think I wrote you about it in the email about placating and, like, how we try not to be a Bitch. That really resonates with me because I was a nice girl, you know, I was trained to be nice. And I've had to decondition myself just to be able to write jokes, just be able to find things that are funny that I'm willing to say. It's like, they're not nice things.

Holly Shaw [00:23:05]:

Like, comedy is not making me nice. And when I say nice, I don't mean, like, kindness and compassion are always important. We need more of those, but I'm talking about the niceness that's like the niceness where you're taking care of everybody but yourself. And I think we're so afraid of being called a Bitch. That we want to take care of everyone else in front of ourselves. And really, it's a contortion.

Holly Shaw [00:23:35]:

It's something that's taking us out of alignment with who we really are, our own needs, our own wants, our own desires. To the point where. I don't know about you, Heather, if you have this experience, but I talk to women and they don't even know what they want. They don't even. They're not even able to put their finger on it or name it. And then. So then it becomes the. The process of, you know, learning how to listen again to yourself.

Holly Shaw [00:24:04]:

Because we've been so afraid of this word.

Heather [00:24:08]:

I think that is so well said. And it ties so well into something you said earlier, which is the next piece of the journey of this podcast is looking at exactly what you've said as an element of personal betrayal as well. That we've been so conditioned to put other people before us and to not know ourselves and our own needs well enough to not only know them, but then be able to articulate them and expect that those will be, like, desired and upheld by the people that love us is part of the societal betrayal that envelops and breeds the personal betrayal.

Holly Shaw [00:24:51]:

Oh, God, yes. I love what you said about, like, the societal betrayal and how that feeds the personal betrayal. It's so true. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like we're all, we all suffer. Somebody the other day was talking about the patriarch. They were like, well, it worked pretty well for all these years. And I'm like, oh, did it. Can you cry? Are you allowed to have any emotions?

Heather [00:24:55]:

Like, yes, girl, yes.

Holly Shaw [00:25:20]:

It really is, it’s like when we really see it in the broader spectrum, like you're talking about, like the societal betrayal, like we're asking men to betray themselves, you know. One of the questions that was in the email was the feminine. And I'm like, how do you even? I love that we have non-binary now, and people are trying to deconstruct these things because you look at the dictionary definition, and it's like compassionate and sensitive and soft. And it's like, why can't the masculine have some of that too? You know, like, why. Why can't I be strong and big and loud? And I am, by the way. Like, why can't we? You know, like, we need to deconstruct these things because we're betraying ourselves by putting ourselves in these, these boxes.

Christopher [00:26:09]:

You know, you are absolutely 100% correct. And on the word feminine, I think what we've done with the word, we've made the word into a gender, and it's not gendered. I think that's the problem that we have with the word is that we have cornered it into something where it does not belong. And you're absolutely right as far as betrayal goes.

Christopher [00:26:15]:

So we've taken bitch the word and broken it up into an acronym, and the first letter of that word is betrayal, because that's where it all begins. So we are going to be doing a series where we go through each and every letter in the word, and each one has a meeting, but betrayal is where we begin. So I'm so happy that you touched on that because it just lays out the red carpet for what it is we are going to be exploring. It’s coming very, very soon.

Holly Shaw [00:27:07]:

That's fascinating. Are you allowed to tell me what the other letters mean? I'm so interested now.

Christopher [00:27:13]:

I'll tell you when we get off because we want to keep it, we want to keep that a big reveal. We're happy to share it all with you once we go silent.

Heather [00:27:26]:

The behind the scenes.

Christopher [00:27:29]:

We are so happy that you dropped everything on short notice to be with us here today. We could not be more overjoyed to have this conversation. It's been absolutely sparkling. I love it.

Holly Shaw [00:27:42]:

Thank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for your great questions.

Heather [00:27:46]:

Holly, we talked at the beginning that it feels like we're part of each other's tribe, and I feel that even more now. So thank you for your insights, and we're looking forward to staying connected with you.

Holly Shaw [00:27:59]:

Yeah, let's do that. I would like that.

Christopher [00:28:01]:

You've got it. And you have been listening to the.

Heather [00:28:04]:

Virgin, the Beauty, and the first B, Betrayal Bitch.

Christopher [00:28:11]:

More coming soon. More coming soon. Thank you for being here with us.

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