Heroes in Business - Dan Nainan Interview

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Dan Nainan the clean comedian President Obama calls hilarious is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes show on Money Radio amfm. They discuss Nainan's career, pranks he's pulled, and how he got his start in comedy from a position at Intel where he would tour the world with the CEO doing product demos and entertaining employees.

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. Now, back to our super host, David Kogan, founder of Alliances. Thank you again, Money Radio. That's right. This show is all about heroes, those that take risks, those that may be starting or expanding companies or entertaining or adding joy to someone's life. They leave their mark on the community. And this morning, we just had the

star from the reality TV show, Hardcore Pawn. We also just had the co-executive producer of the jobs movie about apple founder steve jobs we'll be ending the show with the famous tv doctor on vh1's family therapy but now we're going to get started with another hero now before we reveal to everyone your background, first question I've got to ask you is, were you the class clown at school? Believe it or not, I wasn't. I was the total nerd, AB guy that didn't talk to any girls and was just kind of the geek. And no, not at all. Now, once in a while I would blurt out something funny, and everyone would laugh, and I'd get kicked out of class for the day. But by all means, I was the diametric opposite of what you would expect in school.

And let me reveal to everyone, we're talking live with Dan Ninen. Now, he is the one who has performed on all late-night shows, and even for President Obama. And you could reach him at ComedianDan.com. That's ComedianDan.com. You can also go to Alliances.com. We'll have his information, the clip posted there. And you're a comedian.

You performed for Hillary Clinton, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Howard Dean, Tony Blair's wife, Donald Trump even. Who were you most nervous performing in front of and why? Well, believe it or not, I mean, I loved performing for Mr. Trump. He was really nice to me. I mean, I didn't know what to expect when I met him. He was extremely nice. But believe it or not, the most nervous was performing for none other than Steve Wozniak. As you may know, he invented the Apple computer and along with Steve

Jobs, they started Apple Corporation. And that was the most nervous because I'm a geek, he's a geek, and fortunately he loved it. Well, that's huge. That's huge. Being able to talk with him one-on-one and being able to perform, I mean, that's absolutely huge. Now, not only that, you've also performed with noted comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Saget, Tim Conway, Gary Shandling, the list goes on. Now, I know there has got to be a lot of pressure, pressure doing this, right? You're performing with huge, huge, huge people. What's the best advice you can give to our listeners who may be performing in front of crowds? Because it does relate directly to business and everything. And whether you're CEO performing in front of audiences or doing group presentations, the pressure's there.

And you've got a great deal of pressure. What advice can you give to our listeners? And you've got a great deal of pressure. What advice can you give to our listeners? Well, here's how this all got started. I used to work at Intel Corporation, and my job was to travel with the executives all over the world doing technical demonstrations on stage. Now, being Indian and Japanese, that came quite naturally, the technical part. In fact, I like to say that when I applied for the job at Intel, they said, you're Indian and Japanese. You don't even have to interview. You can be vice president. But the tough part was speaking on stage in front of thousands of people at events all over the world, sometimes millions on TV in Asia. So I took a comedy class to get over the

fear. And that led to performing for 2,500 Intel employees on my third show. And a lot of people there thought that I was a professional comic pretending to be an Intel employee. And so I would say to anybody, take a comedy class because you will never be terrified of presenting in front of your boss or a presentation. If you do a comedy class, you'll never be afraid. And that's the key. Also forgot to mention, I performed with Robert Schimmel, who actually originates in Scottsdale. And he's one of the dirtiest comics you can imagine. Most of the comedians I perform for, filthy dirty, might act as completely clean, no profanity, no vulgarity, no picking on anyone.

And those comics, they really liked my stuff because they knew that I wouldn't do dirty stuff and step on their material. Incredible, Dan. And we're speaking with Dan Ninen. You could reach him at ComedianDan.com. Again, ComedianDan.com. You're listening to Alliance's Heroes on Money Radio AM 1510 and FM 99.3. Are you a hero in business?

Go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Now, Dan, this is huge. You also performed, as I mentioned, in front of President Obama. In fact, you even have him on tape saying how hilarious you are in a little bit more graphic detail. But how, I mean, you've also had Mayor Michael Bloomberg. We talked about co-founder of Apple being Steve Wozniak and others providing you, not only listening, but providing you testimonials. So you mentioned, but why do you think people are so attracted to you and so

attracted to your humor? Well, I think what it is, is the key is to, I think, get in front of those people by doing clean comedy. And you're not going to see that caliber of people at comedy clubs. And so if you do dirty jokes, you're not going to be able to get in front of people like the president of the United States. In fact, there was sort of, if you recall, the president had another comedian performing for him in 2008, Bernie Mac, who was filthy dirty, and a lot of people were upset. And so when it came time to propose me to perform for him, they're like, nah, you know, we don't want a comic because we had a bad experience. And, you know, the people who were pulling for me said, no, no, no, this guy's totally clean, no profanity, nothing to worry about. He's not going to embarrass you.

And so I think the key is to do clean comedy. You can perform anywhere, senior citizens' homes, elk flogs meetings, the nights of pithiest, you know, Toastmasters. So I think that's the key is to stay clean. And clean leads to green. I love it. Clean leads to green. I got to remember that one. Right. And you also do many, many voiceover impressions. Would it be, can you share with us maybe what a couple of your favorite impressions are? Well, now, I'd like to say something to the American people.

I think it is time that we have a female president of the White House, which is why I am pulling for Carly Fiorina. All right. Oh, amazing. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Now, I also wanted to say that this whole thing about Hillary and the emails, not a big deal, because she has gone from a free to a paid antivirus, and she's gotten off of AOL. Okay, Dan, we're going to go ahead and we're going to move on. All right.

All right. Very important. Experts say that when anyone presents in front of a crowd, and this could be any crowd, CEO presenting to world leaders, startups doing a pitch for fun, that humor, humor is what people will remember most. So what are perhaps the top three tips you can provide to others of how to find their inner humor funny side? Like you were able to. Well, I think it's really, really important because most or many speakers, they get up there and it's just so boring. And the PowerPoint foils that look like eye charts.

And the key is to be funny. Start with a funny joke. And here's the thing, you want to make sure that you don't do anything that's offensive. Don't be sexist. Don't be racist, especially in a corporate environment. No one's going to like that. You're going to get in trouble with HR. Keep it clean. But I would say get some joke books and get some jokes. Have a comedian write for you sometimes, and you can hire comics really, really cheap anywhere in the country, even online, to do that. And again, my top tip

is take a comedy class, because that will help you in business. It helped me in business. I was not nervous anymore. It changed my life. Take a comedy class, take a comedy class, take a comedy class. That's tip one, two, and three. Excellent. And you know what? Because they're all the same, I think I'll even be able to remember that. And you could reach Dan Ninen by going to Comedian Dan, who's performed on front of all late night shows, even for President Obama. And quickly here too is, you know, you talked about Intel, where you had a solid career, gigantic company company every benefit you could possibly imagine secure job stock options stock options you could have who knows you took a huge risk to leave it for comedy as what many entrepreneurs do what what's the driving force what did your family what did your

friends think they all thought i was insane and you, I left a perfectly good job. And it took two years to make $5. And to make that $5, I had to stand in Times Square. If you've ever been to Times Square, you know you'll see these comedians saying, come to my comedy show, come to the show, so I got five bucks total. And so, yeah, it was really tough, and everyone thought I was crazy to leave that cake job, but it turned out to be the right move because sometimes if I do a corporate event, I can make what it used to take me three months of sitting at my desk to make in one hour, so it's well worth it. Incredible.

We've got a little less than about 15 seconds, but I've got to ask you, do you ever wonder where it would have taken place if you stayed at Intel? I'd still be there, and I would always have kicked myself wondering what would have happened if I tried to talk to you. Well, anyone that can make someone laugh and perhaps forget their troubles, if even for a moment, is a hero, a hero at Alliances. And Dan Ninen certainly is. When we return, we're going to have the famous TV doctor on VH1's Family Therapy. Thank you again to our producer at Alliances, loopydocs.com.