thank you so I was 23 years old working
with a private equity firm commuting
every week from Boston to Los Angeles
that was a heck of a commute I was
coming back home to visit family in
North Dakota for the holidays and I look
up and I realized on the plane I’m
seated next to Louie Anderson one of the
greatest comedians of all time one of my
comedy heroes I figured I got a pretty
captive audience he’s not going anywhere
so I start chatting him up and we ended
up having a fantastic conversation
talked the whole way back to to
Minneapolis he invited me to one of his
shows he was looking for some help and a
book he was working on at the time
called the f-word how to survive your
family fantastic
fast-forward a few months the books
ready to come out and Louie’s looking
for a manager and I knew I had about 18
months or so before I was gonna go to
business school and I ended up deciding
to give up this fantastic job in the
private equity world to go out on tour
with a comedian and I ended up learning
more about leadership during those 18
months on the road with Louie Anderson
that I have in all the years since then
I thought I’d share just a few of those
lessons with you it’s one of the things
that that really attracted me to this
was I’ve always been amazed at what
comedians do on stage you think about
what they’re up against think about a
Friday night crowd you’re coming to the
theater you got the weight of the week
on your shoulders you’re thinking about
what’s going on at work thinking about
what’s going on at home thinking about
anything other than what’s going on in
that theater and for an hour the great
comedians make you forget about all that
and they’ll take you on a journey going
wherever they want you to go I wanted to
learn how to move an audience quite like
that so we go out on tour and I ended up
one of the first things I realized was I
met a number of comedians and I realized
that comedians are not who you think
they are I think we’ve got this
perception that comedians are just the
class clown that ever really grew up
well the reality couldn’t be further
from the truth
end up being some
the smartest people I’ve ever had the
pleasure of working with they’re
introverts ultimately comedians are
observers they’re the folks standing in
the back of the room observing what’s
going on trying to figure out the
interaction points of everybody in the
audience trying to figure out the
interaction points of how to actually
make a connection and they have this
really odd job because we grow up and
it’s drilled into our heads that if
you’re gonna do well in your career you
got to take it seriously and they’re
trying to be funny they’re ultimately
taking funny seriously well I started
think about it and I realized that in
order for me to take something seriously
you got to see all sides of it on any
given topic and I don’t know that I’ve
seen all sides of an issue until I’ve
found the humor in it so to get serious
find the funny so we go out on on to or
for about 18 months or so it was
fantastic
I saw Louie in every single environment
you could possibly imagine everywhere
from a converted bingo hall in New
Mexico complete with the bingo board on
the stage behind him a couple weeks
later he’s playing a a charity event in
in Washington DC he’s co-headlining with
James Brown The Godfather a soul or as I
call that the hardest-working man in
show business with the laziest man in
show business a couple weeks after that
he’s playing to a sold-out four thousand
seat theater in Minneapolis you couldn’t
get three more different venues and yet
the material was very similar the
audience reaction was almost exactly the
same he killed it across all of them the
amount of effort he put into each show
was exactly the same and the amount of
time that he spent with fans after the
show was also exactly the same the
paychecks were totally different but I
asked him afterwards I said Louie how on
earth you do that how do you get just
his up to perform in front of a hundred
people in a bingo hall as he do in front
of 4,000 people in a great theater or in
front of a roomful of celebrities and
what he said is always stuck with me he
said Dave what choice do I have
I can’t control the venue I can’t
control the size of the audience but I
got full
control over how entertained they are
once they get there and I felt like what
a fantastic lesson in leadership because
as leaders oftentimes we get so wrapped
up in all the things outside of our
control it might be what’s going on with
our competitors what’s going on in the
market all outside of our control when
if we can just encourage our teams to do
fantastic work on everything that’s
within our control we’ll succeed
a lot more quickly it also taught me a
really solid lesson about the
criticality of working hard as a leader
again he put in the exact same amount of
effort in front of all of those
audiences it didn’t matter how much he
and I took that and realized that
there’s a little element of stand-up
comedy that a lot of people don’t
realize if you go to Los Angeles or New
York go out to a comedy club late night
on a Friday on a Monday or Tuesday night
11 o’clock midnight there’s a really
high likelihood you’re gonna see some of
the biggest comedians in the world
playing in front of really small
audiences they just do Poppins might be
Chris Rock it might be Jerry Seinfeld it
might be louis c.k they all come because
they recognize that it doesn’t matter
how successful you are as a comedian you
have to continue practicing they all
know that practice never makes perfect
as a comedian practice never makes
perfect as a leader but practice always
makes better you know that little voice
we all have inside our head where
wouldn’t we think of something we think
this is hilarious and then you verbalize
it realize you’re totally wrong the
comedians have exactly the same voice
but they know it and they know that
they’ve got to perfect something in
front of an audience they’ve got to
practice it over and over again in front
of an audience to actually make it work
one of the least funny comedians I’ve
ever seen was Chris Rock in front of 20
people on a Tuesday night one of the
funniest comedians I have ever seen was
Chris Rock in front of about 2,000
people on a Saturday night over that
time he had
figured out what it was about the
material that was resonating the cadence
that was going to work in front of a
larger audience and ultimately they know
that one might so one of my favorite
definitions of leadership is trust plus
vision equals leadership trust plus
vision equals leadership on stage you
are building that trust over the course
of an hour you don’t have a lot of time
to do it you got a few seconds to grab
an audience and a lot of times comedians
do it by making a very personal
connection with everyone in that
audience they’re showing that they’ve
got a shared set of values and once they
know the audience realizes you’ve got a
shared set of values they’re gonna trust
you and they’re gonna go wherever you
want them to go that’s an incredibly
powerful leadership lesson and every
comedian does it in a little bit
different way they’re not afraid to be
vulnerable that’s why these really big
names will perform in front of 20 people
completely randomly on a Tuesday night
because they’re not afraid to be
vulnerable onstage if it’s if it’s a
part of the effort of honing the
material every comedian does it a little
bit differently so one of the most
memorable experiences I had was that
very briefly I got to meet Rodney
Dangerfield I think we all know Rodney
is one of the great comedians of the
20th century but it didn’t start out
that way early on in his career Rodney
had a small family young kids comedy was
not putting food on that table so he
gave it up and for about seven or eight
years Rodney Dangerfield his real name
is Jack Roy goes door-to-door selling
aluminum siding for seven or eight years
and he recognizes in going door-to-door
that everybody loves an underdog
he started seeing that in people one on
one everybody loves an underdog and so
he started getting up the courage to go
back up on stage and eventually he
started honing this persona the guy who
gets no respect started playing in front
of bigger and bigger audiences
eventually gets on television and he
starts getting back on the up on The
Tonight Show and he becomes known for
these one-liners that were just
rapid-fire and it was material like my
parents they moved all the time when I
was growing up I always found him
all right oh I’ll tell you I was an ugly
baby I went fat I was so ugly when I was
born the doctor slapped the wrong end
and he hit the crowd at this one after
the other after the other right they
were classic he’d do dozens of these
one-liners over the course of a 6-minute
set on The Tonight Show they all pointed
back to this single element around not
getting any respect the guy who gets no
respect
over the next 30 or 40 years he hones
this persona and he becomes a big name
the comedian that we all remember today
what a lot of people don’t don’t
recognize or didn’t know is that during
that 30 or 40 year career he also
mentored every single big-name comedian
in Hollywood every single one and that’s
a big part of the reason why today over
a decade after his passing Rodney
Dangerfield the guy who built a career
getting no respect continues to be one
of the most well respected comedians
among comedians in Hollywood so I go off
I go to business school I end up very
fortunate to get into a fantastic
business school there at Dartmouth
College and was a strategy consultant
for a couple years after business school
I’ve been a software executive for the
last decade or so but I recognized I
stayed in touch with Louie and we became
very good friends I’ve been very blessed
to have him in my life for the last 17
18 years or so and I’d always get more
liners when you’re friends with the
comedian you’re always gonna give him a
line just to see if they’ll use it so he
did and they worked and so eventually he
said you know Dave if you ever want to
open for me in Las Vegas you’re more
than welcome to it took me about a split
second to accept that offer and about a
week to walk myself off the ledge it
being completely daunted by what I had
just signed up for because in that split
second I had forgotten that I wasn’t
that’s a critical piece of information
right there
I had chaos going on at work I was right
in that point in my career where I was
kind of pretty rapidly accelerating and
so I was working a million hours I
mentioned I got three kids at home three
kids under seven it was complete chaos
at home between my wife and the kids but
I accepted this and I accepted as a
challenge I said you know what over the
next six months I’m gonna do this
actors have Hollywood and Broadway
comedians have Vegas this is the
pinnacle for what a lot of comedians can
get to and I’ve just found a fast lane
so I went out and did an open mic at
least once sometimes twice a week every
single week for six months it was awful
it was terrible
right I would record every single one of
them and I’d listen to it at the end of
the night and after the first few the
recordings were crystal clear there were
no interruptions for laughter whatsoever
none I start realizing I was completely
different from everyone else that was
going up on that stage everyone else was
kind of in their early twenties they’re
doing material about dating or partying
I was putting my kids to bed and then go
into a bar it’s like it’s stage time and
talk about how hard it is to put a
diaper on a two-year-old in eight
seconds or less what I call the diaper
rodeo but material did not resonate at
all I also started seeing that once you
get to a certain point near life and
once you get to a certain point in your
career you stop failing and I started
noticing that once I was failing on
stage and I do what week after week I
keep at it and keep at it it actually
was paying dividends it made me a lot
more vulnerable and I didn’t mind kind
of putting myself out there that way on
stage it made me a much better leader at
work a much better manager I think a
more empathetic manager it definitely
made me a better father and better
husband I became a much better listener
so it was paying all these dividends
outside of the stage I think to yourself
when was the last time that you actively
failed at something I guess that’s
probably been awhile well but when
you’re growing up you’re feeling all the
time it’s nobody
deal every time you try something new of
course you’re gonna fail at it but we
start to get good at something we hone
in on this path and you get better and
better and better and all of a sudden
you wake up it’s 20 years later and you
haven’t actively failed in a long time
when you stop failing you stop learning
there’s one message I’d like for you to
take away from our time today it’s that
when you stop failing you stop learning
go out and actively fail it doesn’t have
to be stand-up comedy it could be music
it could be a new sport it could be
mentalism honestly doesn’t matter what
it is but that act of feeling pays so
many more dividends in other parts of
your life
so I end up getting to Las Vegas played
three nights at the xcalibur right on
the strip in Las Vegas and it was
fantastic we created memories that
lasted a lifetime it was a true bucket
list item but the memories that have
lasted the ones that have really made an
impact was all the failure that led up
to it there’s one thing I knew in comedy
it was Louie’s audience right Louie
Anderson’s audience I’ve been to over
200 of his shows Matt literally
thousands of his fan they are looking
for family-friendly material most of
them are parents themselves my material
ended up resonating with them and I was
absolutely thrilled but those acts of
failure leading up to it have continued
resonating so I’ll leave you with one
final lesson from stand-up comedians and
I’d like you to think about your
favorite manager who was your favorite
manager how did they become your
favorite manager how did they make that
connection with you I’m guessing it was
probably a very personal connection it
was one-on-one probably were pretty
vulnerable it was clear over time you
shared some values with them once they
had made that connection
all of a sudden they’d set out a vision
it might be weeks months years later I’m
guessing you probably don’t remember any
of the any of the disagreements you had
in the projects you worked on but I
guarantee you remember how they made you
feel those were the values that
sustained when they left the room this
is one of my favorite elements of
leadership true leadership are the
values that sustain
when you leave the room now think about
your favorite comedian going to see one
of their shows you’re walking out of the
theater after the show you’re probably
sides hurt from laughing so hard I’m
guessing probably not remember a single
joke they told it happens to all of us
but I guarantee you remember how they
made you feel so as you think about
building up your leadership toolkit I’m
encouraging you to leave room for two
extra tools number one I sincerely hope
you’ll be thoughtful about finding some
room for humor in that tool kit because
I think it can be really powerful and I
think if it’s used thoughtfully it can
pay dividends and number two I really
hope that you will be conscious and
thoughtful about the values that you
hope to sustain when you leave that
stage thank you
[Applause] [Music]
with a private equity firm commuting
every week from Boston to Los Angeles
that was a heck of a commute I was
coming back home to visit family in
North Dakota for the holidays and I look
up and I realized on the plane I’m
seated next to Louie Anderson one of the
greatest comedians of all time one of my
comedy heroes I figured I got a pretty
captive audience he’s not going anywhere
so I start chatting him up and we ended
up having a fantastic conversation
talked the whole way back to to
Minneapolis he invited me to one of his
shows he was looking for some help and a
book he was working on at the time
called the f-word how to survive your
family fantastic
fast-forward a few months the books
ready to come out and Louie’s looking
for a manager and I knew I had about 18
months or so before I was gonna go to
business school and I ended up deciding
to give up this fantastic job in the
private equity world to go out on tour
with a comedian and I ended up learning
more about leadership during those 18
months on the road with Louie Anderson
that I have in all the years since then
I thought I’d share just a few of those
lessons with you it’s one of the things
that that really attracted me to this
was I’ve always been amazed at what
comedians do on stage you think about
what they’re up against think about a
Friday night crowd you’re coming to the
theater you got the weight of the week
on your shoulders you’re thinking about
what’s going on at work thinking about
what’s going on at home thinking about
anything other than what’s going on in
that theater and for an hour the great
comedians make you forget about all that
and they’ll take you on a journey going
wherever they want you to go I wanted to
learn how to move an audience quite like
that so we go out on tour and I ended up
one of the first things I realized was I
met a number of comedians and I realized
that comedians are not who you think
they are I think we’ve got this
perception that comedians are just the
class clown that ever really grew up
well the reality couldn’t be further
from the truth
end up being some
the smartest people I’ve ever had the
pleasure of working with they’re
introverts ultimately comedians are
observers they’re the folks standing in
the back of the room observing what’s
going on trying to figure out the
interaction points of everybody in the
audience trying to figure out the
interaction points of how to actually
make a connection and they have this
really odd job because we grow up and
it’s drilled into our heads that if
you’re gonna do well in your career you
got to take it seriously and they’re
trying to be funny they’re ultimately
taking funny seriously well I started
think about it and I realized that in
order for me to take something seriously
you got to see all sides of it on any
given topic and I don’t know that I’ve
seen all sides of an issue until I’ve
found the humor in it so to get serious
find the funny so we go out on on to or
for about 18 months or so it was
fantastic
I saw Louie in every single environment
you could possibly imagine everywhere
from a converted bingo hall in New
Mexico complete with the bingo board on
the stage behind him a couple weeks
later he’s playing a a charity event in
in Washington DC he’s co-headlining with
James Brown The Godfather a soul or as I
call that the hardest-working man in
show business with the laziest man in
show business a couple weeks after that
he’s playing to a sold-out four thousand
seat theater in Minneapolis you couldn’t
get three more different venues and yet
the material was very similar the
audience reaction was almost exactly the
same he killed it across all of them the
amount of effort he put into each show
was exactly the same and the amount of
time that he spent with fans after the
show was also exactly the same the
paychecks were totally different but I
asked him afterwards I said Louie how on
earth you do that how do you get just
his up to perform in front of a hundred
people in a bingo hall as he do in front
of 4,000 people in a great theater or in
front of a roomful of celebrities and
what he said is always stuck with me he
said Dave what choice do I have
I can’t control the venue I can’t
control the size of the audience but I
got full
control over how entertained they are
once they get there and I felt like what
a fantastic lesson in leadership because
as leaders oftentimes we get so wrapped
up in all the things outside of our
control it might be what’s going on with
our competitors what’s going on in the
market all outside of our control when
if we can just encourage our teams to do
fantastic work on everything that’s
within our control we’ll succeed
a lot more quickly it also taught me a
really solid lesson about the
criticality of working hard as a leader
again he put in the exact same amount of
effort in front of all of those
audiences it didn’t matter how much he
and I took that and realized that
there’s a little element of stand-up
comedy that a lot of people don’t
realize if you go to Los Angeles or New
York go out to a comedy club late night
on a Friday on a Monday or Tuesday night
11 o’clock midnight there’s a really
high likelihood you’re gonna see some of
the biggest comedians in the world
playing in front of really small
audiences they just do Poppins might be
Chris Rock it might be Jerry Seinfeld it
might be louis c.k they all come because
they recognize that it doesn’t matter
how successful you are as a comedian you
have to continue practicing they all
know that practice never makes perfect
as a comedian practice never makes
perfect as a leader but practice always
makes better you know that little voice
we all have inside our head where
wouldn’t we think of something we think
this is hilarious and then you verbalize
it realize you’re totally wrong the
comedians have exactly the same voice
but they know it and they know that
they’ve got to perfect something in
front of an audience they’ve got to
practice it over and over again in front
of an audience to actually make it work
one of the least funny comedians I’ve
ever seen was Chris Rock in front of 20
people on a Tuesday night one of the
funniest comedians I have ever seen was
Chris Rock in front of about 2,000
people on a Saturday night over that
time he had
figured out what it was about the
material that was resonating the cadence
that was going to work in front of a
larger audience and ultimately they know
that one might so one of my favorite
definitions of leadership is trust plus
vision equals leadership trust plus
vision equals leadership on stage you
are building that trust over the course
of an hour you don’t have a lot of time
to do it you got a few seconds to grab
an audience and a lot of times comedians
do it by making a very personal
connection with everyone in that
audience they’re showing that they’ve
got a shared set of values and once they
know the audience realizes you’ve got a
shared set of values they’re gonna trust
you and they’re gonna go wherever you
want them to go that’s an incredibly
powerful leadership lesson and every
comedian does it in a little bit
different way they’re not afraid to be
vulnerable that’s why these really big
names will perform in front of 20 people
completely randomly on a Tuesday night
because they’re not afraid to be
vulnerable onstage if it’s if it’s a
part of the effort of honing the
material every comedian does it a little
bit differently so one of the most
memorable experiences I had was that
very briefly I got to meet Rodney
Dangerfield I think we all know Rodney
is one of the great comedians of the
20th century but it didn’t start out
that way early on in his career Rodney
had a small family young kids comedy was
not putting food on that table so he
gave it up and for about seven or eight
years Rodney Dangerfield his real name
is Jack Roy goes door-to-door selling
aluminum siding for seven or eight years
and he recognizes in going door-to-door
that everybody loves an underdog
he started seeing that in people one on
one everybody loves an underdog and so
he started getting up the courage to go
back up on stage and eventually he
started honing this persona the guy who
gets no respect started playing in front
of bigger and bigger audiences
eventually gets on television and he
starts getting back on the up on The
Tonight Show and he becomes known for
these one-liners that were just
rapid-fire and it was material like my
parents they moved all the time when I
was growing up I always found him
all right oh I’ll tell you I was an ugly
baby I went fat I was so ugly when I was
born the doctor slapped the wrong end
and he hit the crowd at this one after
the other after the other right they
were classic he’d do dozens of these
one-liners over the course of a 6-minute
set on The Tonight Show they all pointed
back to this single element around not
getting any respect the guy who gets no
respect
over the next 30 or 40 years he hones
this persona and he becomes a big name
the comedian that we all remember today
what a lot of people don’t don’t
recognize or didn’t know is that during
that 30 or 40 year career he also
mentored every single big-name comedian
in Hollywood every single one and that’s
a big part of the reason why today over
a decade after his passing Rodney
Dangerfield the guy who built a career
getting no respect continues to be one
of the most well respected comedians
among comedians in Hollywood so I go off
I go to business school I end up very
fortunate to get into a fantastic
business school there at Dartmouth
College and was a strategy consultant
for a couple years after business school
I’ve been a software executive for the
last decade or so but I recognized I
stayed in touch with Louie and we became
very good friends I’ve been very blessed
to have him in my life for the last 17
18 years or so and I’d always get more
liners when you’re friends with the
comedian you’re always gonna give him a
line just to see if they’ll use it so he
did and they worked and so eventually he
said you know Dave if you ever want to
open for me in Las Vegas you’re more
than welcome to it took me about a split
second to accept that offer and about a
week to walk myself off the ledge it
being completely daunted by what I had
just signed up for because in that split
second I had forgotten that I wasn’t
that’s a critical piece of information
right there
I had chaos going on at work I was right
in that point in my career where I was
kind of pretty rapidly accelerating and
so I was working a million hours I
mentioned I got three kids at home three
kids under seven it was complete chaos
at home between my wife and the kids but
I accepted this and I accepted as a
challenge I said you know what over the
next six months I’m gonna do this
actors have Hollywood and Broadway
comedians have Vegas this is the
pinnacle for what a lot of comedians can
get to and I’ve just found a fast lane
so I went out and did an open mic at
least once sometimes twice a week every
single week for six months it was awful
it was terrible
right I would record every single one of
them and I’d listen to it at the end of
the night and after the first few the
recordings were crystal clear there were
no interruptions for laughter whatsoever
none I start realizing I was completely
different from everyone else that was
going up on that stage everyone else was
kind of in their early twenties they’re
doing material about dating or partying
I was putting my kids to bed and then go
into a bar it’s like it’s stage time and
talk about how hard it is to put a
diaper on a two-year-old in eight
seconds or less what I call the diaper
rodeo but material did not resonate at
all I also started seeing that once you
get to a certain point near life and
once you get to a certain point in your
career you stop failing and I started
noticing that once I was failing on
stage and I do what week after week I
keep at it and keep at it it actually
was paying dividends it made me a lot
more vulnerable and I didn’t mind kind
of putting myself out there that way on
stage it made me a much better leader at
work a much better manager I think a
more empathetic manager it definitely
made me a better father and better
husband I became a much better listener
so it was paying all these dividends
outside of the stage I think to yourself
when was the last time that you actively
failed at something I guess that’s
probably been awhile well but when
you’re growing up you’re feeling all the
time it’s nobody
deal every time you try something new of
course you’re gonna fail at it but we
start to get good at something we hone
in on this path and you get better and
better and better and all of a sudden
you wake up it’s 20 years later and you
haven’t actively failed in a long time
when you stop failing you stop learning
there’s one message I’d like for you to
take away from our time today it’s that
when you stop failing you stop learning
go out and actively fail it doesn’t have
to be stand-up comedy it could be music
it could be a new sport it could be
mentalism honestly doesn’t matter what
it is but that act of feeling pays so
many more dividends in other parts of
your life
so I end up getting to Las Vegas played
three nights at the xcalibur right on
the strip in Las Vegas and it was
fantastic we created memories that
lasted a lifetime it was a true bucket
list item but the memories that have
lasted the ones that have really made an
impact was all the failure that led up
to it there’s one thing I knew in comedy
it was Louie’s audience right Louie
Anderson’s audience I’ve been to over
200 of his shows Matt literally
thousands of his fan they are looking
for family-friendly material most of
them are parents themselves my material
ended up resonating with them and I was
absolutely thrilled but those acts of
failure leading up to it have continued
resonating so I’ll leave you with one
final lesson from stand-up comedians and
I’d like you to think about your
favorite manager who was your favorite
manager how did they become your
favorite manager how did they make that
connection with you I’m guessing it was
probably a very personal connection it
was one-on-one probably were pretty
vulnerable it was clear over time you
shared some values with them once they
had made that connection
all of a sudden they’d set out a vision
it might be weeks months years later I’m
guessing you probably don’t remember any
of the any of the disagreements you had
in the projects you worked on but I
guarantee you remember how they made you
feel those were the values that
sustained when they left the room this
is one of my favorite elements of
leadership true leadership are the
values that sustain
when you leave the room now think about
your favorite comedian going to see one
of their shows you’re walking out of the
theater after the show you’re probably
sides hurt from laughing so hard I’m
guessing probably not remember a single
joke they told it happens to all of us
but I guarantee you remember how they
made you feel so as you think about
building up your leadership toolkit I’m
encouraging you to leave room for two
extra tools number one I sincerely hope
you’ll be thoughtful about finding some
room for humor in that tool kit because
I think it can be really powerful and I
think if it’s used thoughtfully it can
pay dividends and number two I really
hope that you will be conscious and
thoughtful about the values that you
hope to sustain when you leave that
stage thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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