Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday, or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Comedian tag Nataro is known for her dead pan humor.
Speaker 1: She was nominated for two Grammys and an Emmy. Her
Speaker 1: memoir I'm Just a Person is a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 1: Let's start a family who had children six years ago?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like a big change? But that's what
Speaker 1: I was hoping for. That's what everybody would say to me, is, um,
Speaker 1: you know your life is going to change drastically. Hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I want, right, I'm signing up for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or when people say enjoy every moment, like yeah, so
Speaker 1: we're both parents together we have seven children, but not together.
Speaker 1: She has four, I have three. Um, so has your
Speaker 1: humor changed since you started parenting. I wouldn't say it's changed.
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, there's kind of been a
Speaker 1: slow shift in the Before I got married, I used
Speaker 1: to just say whatever I wanted on stage, and then
Speaker 1: that changed a little bit because my wife Stephanie was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's really what happened or that's
Speaker 1: really personal to us. And then I started looking at
Speaker 1: things a little differently in that way where I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that doesn't go on stage. And then when we
Speaker 1: had kids, there was the other place of protecting their privacy,
Speaker 1: deciding what to share whatnot. So it's more of a
Speaker 1: filter process with Stephanie. Say that parenting with you is
Speaker 1: very funny, No, I think there are funny moments for sure.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Even just this morning, our son we
Speaker 1: went on vacation, our son, which I think I can
Speaker 1: tell this, but our son max Is. We asked, you know,
Speaker 1: are you excited to get back to school and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got I've got a lot of martial
Speaker 1: arts classes to teach, and yeah, We're like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? I said, well, I just I teach martial
Speaker 1: arts in school. And you know, Adrian's in the class
Speaker 1: and Lucas is in the class, and so it's funny
Speaker 1: in that way. But parenting is. I remember old friends
Speaker 1: of mine who had been together since college. They were
Speaker 1: each other's first girlfriends, and they said that their relationship
Speaker 1: was just smooth sailing until they had children, and then
Speaker 1: they said we argued about everything down to how to
Speaker 1: cross the street with our children. And I didn't understand that.
Speaker 1: And not that Stephanie and I are arguing about everything
Speaker 1: at all, but it really is challenging to because we
Speaker 1: didn't discuss before we had kids, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about this? What do you think about this? So what
Speaker 1: do you do down the road and any of that.
Speaker 1: We were just like, yeah, let's have kids, and we did,
Speaker 1: and we were like, wow, you think that you feel
Speaker 1: that doing that, I'm doing this and it's really interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's also within the filter of being exhausted all
Speaker 1: the time, So not only are you negotiating that, but
Speaker 1: you're doing it while you're exhausted, which leads to so
Speaker 1: many more arguments and intention about things that you normally
Speaker 1: wouldn't care about, but when you're hanging by a threat.
Speaker 1: When we were when our babies were tiny and we
Speaker 1: were both working and they you know, we didn't sleep
Speaker 1: train and then I finally I was filming a TV show,
Speaker 1: and I said, I think I'm gonna do sleep training,
Speaker 1: and Stephanie was against sleep training and I was like,
Speaker 1: but I'm We're in the writer's room that was filming
Speaker 1: all day, Like, I'm losing my mind. And so she
Speaker 1: agreed to try it, and we put the babies down,
Speaker 1: we walk out of the room. They start screaming and
Speaker 1: we're standing there and um, I said, Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: we just go back to our room. And she said,
Speaker 1: so you're just fine with this. You're just fine with
Speaker 1: sing to our baby scream And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I am not fine with this. This is devastating.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 1: We had the exact same argument. I think it's every
Speaker 1: couple if there's always one like end path like me.
Speaker 1: He was like, I can't bear ever one second I listen.
Speaker 1: I couldn't bear story. I hired. I got desperate and
Speaker 1: hired a woman on the phone who lived in Idaho
Speaker 1: to teach me how to teach gets to sleep. But
Speaker 1: she did. I was like, are you like, like she
Speaker 1: taught me how to do it in three days for
Speaker 1: a service like that, And then we never we were
Speaker 1: all over the place. We were just like, Hi, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm giving my credit card and then we got
Speaker 1: what do we do? And I was like, we a
Speaker 1: company favorite clients because we never called. Well, Harvey carp
Speaker 1: came to our house. You ever him from the Happiest
Speaker 1: Baby on the Block. He wrote this amazing, amazing but
Speaker 1: tappy seeing on the black and he taught us how
Speaker 1: to teach our child to sleep through the night at
Speaker 1: thirteen months. Oh my gosh, that was her first night
Speaker 1: to sleep at you. Meanwhile, my brother and his wife
Speaker 1: had a baby five months ago and they called us
Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, Mark sleeps eleven hours a night.
Speaker 1: He's like dying. We didn't have that, and nor do
Speaker 1: we have. Stephanie would always point out kids that were
Speaker 1: just sitting at the parties. She was like, how are
Speaker 1: how's this kid just sitting on someone's lap. Our kids
Speaker 1: are just up the tree and in the pool, and
Speaker 1: so what kind of kid were you? Um? I was
Speaker 1: into stuff that was definitely into I was up the
Speaker 1: tree and you know, well, yes, of course, Um. I
Speaker 1: failed three grades, I dropped out of high school. I smoked,
Speaker 1: I played guitar, I snuck out of the house, you know,
Speaker 1: drove without a license when I was you know, I
Speaker 1: was like eleven and driving around smoking. And so when
Speaker 1: did you get straight? In terms of you're not, I
Speaker 1: would say, I feel like, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: process of, honestly, speaking of when did I get straight?
Speaker 1: Was figuring out that I was gay, and you know,
Speaker 1: learning who I was. I was like, oh, this is me.
Speaker 1: And then um becoming a comedian, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is me. And so I think I was just
Speaker 1: slowly getting on a path in life and stand Up
Speaker 1: really really whipped me into shame. What was the first
Speaker 1: name that you did? Stand up? What was it like?
Speaker 1: It went really well, and I got cocky, and I
Speaker 1: was like, from this is easy. I guess I'm just
Speaker 1: naturally great at this. And then I went up the
Speaker 1: second time and I bombed and ran off the stage
Speaker 1: and drove home while my friend Derek left hysterically at
Speaker 1: me on the car ride from Orange County. He was
Speaker 1: just he was in tears. It's true, And so how
Speaker 1: do you go back the third time? You know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like sadly like an abusive relationship where it's
Speaker 1: like you keep finding hope that like Oh it'll be better. Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: it'll be nicer, you know, and it's tied to some
Speaker 1: sort of terrible thing I guess in people's lives where
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I'm I'll make them happy. I'll do
Speaker 1: it right this time, you know, and you're stuck in
Speaker 1: the cycle of like bombing and then doing well, and
Speaker 1: then bombing and doing well and over and over and over.
Speaker 1: At what point did you feel like you've broken through,
Speaker 1: like I've actually made it or some semblance have made it.
Speaker 1: Truly the first open mic I did because I never
Speaker 1: imagined and people think I'm exaggerating, but my whole childhood
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a stand up comedian and I
Speaker 1: never thought I could. I didn't think it was I
Speaker 1: always say that, And this is a terrible example now
Speaker 1: because what I was going to say is it's like
Speaker 1: wanting to be president. You know that not anyone can
Speaker 1: be president, but now we know anyone can be president.
Speaker 1: But it's more of like that feeling of like, how
Speaker 1: do you go to space, how do you become president?
Speaker 1: How do you become a stand up comedian? How do
Speaker 1: you research? How? I mean, what did you do well?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I had no plans to really become one
Speaker 1: my best friends that I grew up with. They were
Speaker 1: moving to Los Angeles and I had gone through a breakup,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I guess I'll just go
Speaker 1: with you. And I went and I opened the l
Speaker 1: a weekly, and there was so many opportunities to get
Speaker 1: on stage, and so I started going to watch stand
Speaker 1: up for two weeks to check out the scene, and
Speaker 1: then I just thought, well, I guess I'll sign up
Speaker 1: for an open mic. And when I got on stage,
Speaker 1: I I couldn't believe I was doing what I had
Speaker 1: always dreamed of doing. That it was truly just signing
Speaker 1: my name on a paper and walking on stage, but
Speaker 1: spending the two weeks prior talking to myself in the
Speaker 1: mirror and I would hold a UM flashlight and talk
Speaker 1: to myself in the mirror. And then I one did it.
Speaker 1: So you have succeeded. It's something that most people don't
Speaker 1: Why you mean stand up? Because I was not asking
Speaker 1: the marriage. Why do I think I have succeeded. I
Speaker 1: think there's something too consistency, and I think in stand up,
Speaker 1: if you're getting at the time laughs, I feel like
Speaker 1: you're on the right track. And so that kept me
Speaker 1: sucked in and continuing. And but I also once I
Speaker 1: had that initial bite in the open mic, I really
Speaker 1: couldn't stop. I was on stage seven nights a week,
Speaker 1: and I was always told that I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be a headlining comedian because I was too low key,
Speaker 1: or I was female or gay or all of those things.
Speaker 1: And it's hard for people, maybe now to realize you
Speaker 1: really were told that. And I used to think, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I'll just do this as long as I can, and
Speaker 1: then I'll end up in a writer's room, which is
Speaker 1: what I was told was where somebody like me would
Speaker 1: end up this, you know, working for somebody that's on
Speaker 1: stage or on the show or something. And I thought,
Speaker 1: that's fine, if that's down the road, i'll end up there.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to do this as long as I can.
Speaker 1: And I just kept doing it. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really key, is showing up and being passionate. And boy
Speaker 1: was passion I didn't even have a car. I rode
Speaker 1: my bicycle from Hollywood to Santa Monica. I would go
Speaker 1: and people couldn't sweaty and I'd be like, all right,
Speaker 1: guy walks into a now a quick when was the
Speaker 1: last time you had an off open mic night or
Speaker 1: an off night doing stand up. I did a show
Speaker 1: on I just finished a seventy plus city tour and
Speaker 1: there is a city they will remain nameless where people
Speaker 1: simultaneously felt like, how did you recover? After that? It
Speaker 1: was truly like I have been all around this country.
Speaker 1: You're not out in the city. You're not gonna because
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna have to go back there another year
Speaker 1: and the same people are going to come back because
Speaker 1: they didn't think that's an optimist perspective, But it was
Speaker 1: a weird feeling where I was like, I've been doing
Speaker 1: this twenty five years. I've just done you know, so
Speaker 1: many shows on this tour, and you're telling me this
Speaker 1: is not funny. I mean, there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that I have had a certain amount of success which
Speaker 1: has built up my confidence that truly, when I have
Speaker 1: a night like that, I just in my head going,
Speaker 1: I've been through worse and just take the money and run.
Speaker 1: Amy Before we dig into our time with Tig and
Speaker 1: I have to admit I barely knew who she was.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was familiar in her face to me,
Speaker 1: but like I really didn't know her work before we
Speaker 1: interviewed her, and I am obsessed with her, Like I
Speaker 1: was online looking for tickets to her show. I think
Speaker 1: she is the funniest human she was. On her website,
Speaker 1: she has a section called secrets, and then it says,
Speaker 1: please do not share this information with anyone. And the
Speaker 1: secrets are things like I loved drawing Civil War portraits
Speaker 1: as a child and oh my God and Amy holding one.
Speaker 1: More guilty pleasures are America's the funniest rome videos and
Speaker 1: walking upright that's articulous. The truth is, like, this is
Speaker 1: a woman who can opine about what it is to
Speaker 1: live a life and be a woman in the middle
Speaker 1: of her life and deal with things like cancer and
Speaker 1: romance and kids and sexuality, and like find that humor
Speaker 1: that we desperately need to get through the hard parts.
Speaker 1: So what did you think of tig I think she's
Speaker 1: incredibly smart and brilliant. I love her. I want to
Speaker 1: be her friend. Are you surprised? No? I mean I
Speaker 1: really want to be her friends, Like, I really want
Speaker 1: her to come to one of our dinners. Like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like obsessed fan girl of hers. Did you
Speaker 1: get her email? Not sure? Amy? But you know I
Speaker 1: can find it because I can find anyone's email. I
Speaker 1: have her email. Maybe I'll hear with you. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're so sweet. Look how generous Amy emails and is
Speaker 1: I love it. I am like open source, open source
Speaker 1: is my motto about networking. Be open source with your networks.
Speaker 1: But Amy and I are open source, of course, But
Speaker 1: like I feel like and this just like goes into
Speaker 1: a conversation about networking, which is probably an unlikely place
Speaker 1: to take the taking into interview. But I do think
Speaker 1: like you and I are two of the best networkers
Speaker 1: I know, and part of it is because we are
Speaker 1: generous with our introductions, but we're also smart with them, right,
Speaker 1: So I just want to share one or two tips
Speaker 1: about smartly introducing people. One way to smartly introduce people
Speaker 1: is to introduce people that you know. They're sort of
Speaker 1: a mutually beneficial reason that you are introducing these two people.
Speaker 1: So like, for example, I know if Amy's introducing me
Speaker 1: to someone, and even if for that person at the time,
Speaker 1: there's probably a reason Amy wants me to know that person,
Speaker 1: and that person is someone who will probably reappear in
Speaker 1: my life in various ways. Professionally. I think that sometimes
Speaker 1: people make the mistake of introducing someone to someone just
Speaker 1: as a favorite to them with no benefit to the
Speaker 1: other person. And I think that when you do a
Speaker 1: cold intro like that, there has to be a benefit
Speaker 1: to both people. I think that's right, And I just
Speaker 1: want to bring up the point that, like, we know
Speaker 1: each other because somebody introduced us, who thought we should
Speaker 1: know each other because we were both starting companies at
Speaker 1: the same time. So Rachel Star introduced us, not because
Speaker 1: I asked to know you or you asked to know me,
Speaker 1: but because she said, these two people need to know
Speaker 1: each other. One thing that you and I will probably
Speaker 1: always disagree on is the double opt in intro. We're
Speaker 1: always going to disagree on. It drives me crazy when
Speaker 1: people write me or call me to ask if they
Speaker 1: can introduce me to someone, because if you're someone I trust,
Speaker 1: you have an open invitation to introduce me to someone.
Speaker 1: How I follow up with that is my own thing.
Speaker 1: But you never have to ask me and then ask them,
Speaker 1: and then it's like two weeks before you've introduced us, Like,
Speaker 1: just do it fast and move on. Well, okay, so
Speaker 1: this is so, this is the issue, right, is that
Speaker 1: like I do not have inbox zero, I am can
Speaker 1: never get to inbox zero. By the way, Amy, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry one of the reasons for friends because you've never
Speaker 1: mentioned in box zero. People who mentioned their inboxes are
Speaker 1: people that I would like to stay away from me. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I have an issue with my inbox. This is why
Speaker 1: we don't talk about it. Like, as you know, there's
Speaker 1: no way I respond to every email, and then I
Speaker 1: feel like an asshole if someone sends an introduction and
Speaker 1: I don't see it, you know, and and that person
Speaker 1: I'm not responding to might not know that I'm just
Speaker 1: not seeing the email, or that I'm buried or you know,
Speaker 1: and so. And the other thing is I think I
Speaker 1: probably feel this way because the biggest area of my
Speaker 1: life where I get asked for connections is two vcs.
Speaker 1: In vcs always want double opt in intos. So if
Speaker 1: you're not in the startup world, the VC as the
Speaker 1: venture capital investor, and the startup world is small, and
Speaker 1: I am always happy to try to connect people, but
Speaker 1: some investors are pretty pesky about wanting the double optum.
Speaker 1: I guess also right now I'm very anti VC. They
Speaker 1: fund so few women and I just feel so like
Speaker 1: bitter about it and a little bit burned by vcs
Speaker 1: and kind of sorry I ever really took that route.
Speaker 1: So I just I don't want to based on any
Speaker 1: of our behavior on how vcs behave, because I think
Speaker 1: vcs are patterned on a certain class of men who
Speaker 1: aren't open source. Like I always think it's so funny
Speaker 1: when you see a venture capitalist on LinkedIn and they
Speaker 1: say they care so much about diversity and getting pitches
Speaker 1: from everyone, and then you go to their LinkedIn and
Speaker 1: try to connect with them and it says you need
Speaker 1: their email address to connect with them, but I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in everyone's pitches. Like that, to me is the
Speaker 1: epitome of bad VC behavior. Anyway, let's go to take
Speaker 1: because it's a much more pleasant topic. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Take is far more pleasant than talking about investors. And
Speaker 1: by the way, oh my god, Amy, how she talks
Speaker 1: about parenting is the funniest thing. It is amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: she is like a big kid at heart raising kids,
Speaker 1: and it's like delightful. Well she just has that you're like,
Speaker 1: hilariously like kind of third person perspective on all of it,
Speaker 1: and it seems like being her partner would be super
Speaker 1: fund like I'm infringing on her partnership or anything. It's
Speaker 1: a really weird namous I'm not like auditioning for the role.
Speaker 1: She seems really happily married and I'm super happy for her.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy.
Speaker 1: We would appreciate it if you leave her view wherever
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Speaker 1: to our producer Stacy ra and our male perspective blue
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