Posted Under: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Our Heroes

Get ready to laugh and learn with our today’s guest, because today we’ve an employee turned entrepreneur, no scratch that, we’ve a geek turned professional comedian with us. Ladies & gentlemen, I’m chatting with Dan Nainan, the former Intel geek who took comedy classes to improve his public speaking and fight the stage fright and never looked back to geekry (if that’s a word) and is making his mark in the comedy world. Today, in addition to hundreds of comedy shows around the world, Dan has been in TV commercials and we will soon see him in two major motion pictures… Here’s our chat where he candidly talks about his journey from a geek to comedian… 

DD: Who are you and what kind of corporate job were you at?

DN: My name is Dan Nainan.  I’m a professional comedian who travels all over the world doing only clean comedy.  I performed at the Democratic National Convention, as well as at three Obama inaugural events, and I’ve also been in two major motion pictures, “The Hoax” as well as “The Last Airbender”.  I also had a principal role in an Apple commercial, one in the “Get a Mac” series with Justin Long and John Hodgman. My corporate job was with Intel. It was my job to travel around the world with Chairman Andy Grove, doing technical demonstrations on stage. These events took me all over the world, to every continent except Antarctica.  Designing the technical demonstrations was easy (after all, I am half Indian and half Japanese, so I was bred for it), but the terrifying part was speaking on stage.  To get over the fear of speaking, I took a comedy class, and had some great beginners’ luck.

DD: What made you leave the job? When did you realize that you wanted to be an entrepreneur & why?

DN: Even though I loved my job, I always had the desire to be my own boss and do something that would use my creative talent.  I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak; I guess you could say it started when I had a paper route as a kid, which is kind of like being your own boss in itself since one works without supervision. I would also do a lot of snow shoveling whenever there were snowstorms.

DD: What did you do to break the corporate jail? How did you prepare for the employee to entrepreneur transition?

DN: In a way, one could say that the decision was made for me. I was promoted to a job two levels higher, which necessitated a move from Silicon Valley to New York City.  I purposely wanted to be in New York City, as that was one of the two best places in the States to do comedy.  Even though the new job was a significant promotion, it was nothing like my technical demo job at all.  It was a sales job, and home-based, and involved very little socialization, no travel, and hardly any geeking out with computers.  After a year, I couldn’t take it anymore, and decided that despite the tremendous risk, that I would go ahead and take the plunge.  Looking back, I’m certainly glad that I did – it truly changed my life.

DD: What is one resource that helped you the most/best?

DN: A book that really helped, and one of my favorite books of all time, was “100 Ways To Motivate Yourself“, by Steve Chandler.  Mr. Chandler has a way of making yourself believe you can do anything, and it was listening to that book on tape, and then purchasing it (I almost never buy books, I get them at the library, but I had to have this one), the truly made a difference in my decision.  I actually contacted him, and he was extremely nice, and came to one of my shows in Phoenix, where he lives, and meeting him was absolutely fantastic.

DD: What do you know now that you wish if only you knew when you made the transition?

DN: To be honest, I would not have done anything differently.  My only regret is that I did not pursue this years earlier, when I was in college – I could’ve been so much further down the road from a comedy standpoint.

DD: What are your suggestions for aspiring entrepreneurs?

DN: By far the most important thing is never to listen to other people who try to tell you that it’s too risky, that you can’t do it, that you’ll have a hole in your resume, and other negative inputs.  The truth is, they’re just jealous of you, and what they’re really saying from a psychological standpoint is “I don’t have the guts to do what you’re doing, so I’m going to validate myself and my sticking with the boring job by trying to discourage you from pursuing your dreams.”  Andy Grove once said that you should never follow the crowd, that people who are doing something different are the ones that really accomplish things, and I truly believe him.

DD: How are you doing and how do you feel now?

DN: I’ve never felt better in my life.  Every day is pure ecstasy – I feel like a manic depressive, just without the depressive side.  I get to travel around the world in first class on someone else’s dime (they don’t pay for first class, I just get upgraded because I have super elite status – in fact, I like to say that my life is like that of George Clooney in “Up in the Air”, just without the sex LOL.)  Of course comedy is hard work – it looks like we work less than an hour a day, but there’s a lot of preparation and support work that goes into this job, but it’s very exhilarating because I’m my own boss.  I’ve become a bit of a minor celebrity, with online video views in the millions, as well as the movie and commercial roles I mentioned.  Also, my income has more than doubled that which I was earning at Intel, so the financial rewards are wonderful as well.

Of course, I’d love to have a sitcom and be a breakout star, but the important thing is to enjoy every day and not be too focused on the goal.  So many of my fellow comedians, some of whom are much more successful than I, are bitter and angry because they haven’t become household names.  That’s no way to live.

DD: Ladies & gentleman, this was Dan Nainan definitely check out his website and his videos on Youtube. Also, in terms of entrepreneurship, I want you read one of his statements again and again and then print it and put it in front of your desk or on your fridge or wherever it works for you and that statement is “never listen to other people who try to tell you that it’s too risky, that you can’t do it, that you’ll have a hole in your resume, and other negative inputs.  The truth is, they’re just jealous of you, and what they’re really saying from a psychological standpoint is “I don’t have the guts to do what you’re doing, so I’m going to validate myself and my sticking with the boring job by trying to discourage you from pursuing your dreams.”

Very well said, Dan! Don’t let the naysayers bog you down!

Success too all!!