Seth Meyers On: Handling Performance Anxiety, Managing the Inner Critic, Hacks for Better Conversation, and Staying Joyful in Dark Times

Plus, much more from the famed late-night TV show host. Seth Meyers is the host of Late Night with Seth Meyers https://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-seth-meyers. Before that, he was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for 13 seasons. In recent years he has released two standup specials: Lobby Baby https://www.netflix.com/title/81058497, on Netflix and Dad Man Walking https://www.hbomax.com/movies/seth-meyers-dad-man-walking/785e5ee6-cf73-4187-a0c8-afc3889437cd, on HBO. He wrote a children's book called, I'm Not Scared, You're Scared https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/im-not-scared-youre-scared-seth-meyers/1140275874. And he co-hosts two podcasts, Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-trips-with-the-meyers-brothers/id1693673771 and The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/th/podcast/the-lonely-island-and-seth-meyers-podcast/id1738121304. In this episode we talk about: How Seth maintains sanity while hosting a late-night show amid the firehose of news Joy and humor as resilience His early struggles with self-doubt How raising children is potentially harder than hosting a late night TV show The upside of anxiety The art of listening Friendship, loyalty, and the emotional sustenance of creative partnerships. Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris Thanks to our sponsors: LinkedIn: Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/happier http://linkedin.com/happier. Wix:  Ready to create your website? Go to wix.com https://wix.com. Cozy Earth:  Head to cozyearth.com https://cozyearth.com and use code Harris for up to 20% off.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hey, hey, everybody. How we doing? One of the quirks of the Trump era is that hosting a late night television show, which used to be a rather apolitical position, is now very much about drinking out of the fire hose of news and then commenting on it, hopefully in a way that makes everybody laugh instead of cry, and also gives us a dose of joy that can then produce some resiliency. That very much is the way my guest today, Seth Meyers, sees his job, and you're going to hear him discuss all of that in this interview. You'll also hear him talk about his techniques for staying sane in the middle of today's news environment, how he handles his inner critic when he receives tough feedback, how he's learned to find humor in his imperfections

• 1:03Dan Harris?

  as a parent, the value of mild stage fright, and much more. I think all of you know who Seth is, but just in case you don't, Seth is the host of Late Night with Seth Meyers. Before that, he was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for 13 seasons. In recent years, he's released two stand-up specials, Lobby Baby on Netflix and Dad Man Walking on HBO Max. He also wrote a children's book called I'm Not Scared, You're Scared, and he co-hosts two podcasts, Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers and The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast. Before we dive in, a quick plug for my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up

• 1:44Dan Harris?

  over at danharris.com. There's a free 14-day trial. Talking to Seth today reminded me that I've always nursed this desire to be a late-night host myself. That's almost certainly never going to happen, but I do host my own little weekly meditation show every Tuesday at 4 Eastern over on the app. We do a live meditation and Q&A session. Our next live sit is coming up on Tuesday, January 20. We do these every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. I'll be joined by our Teacher of the Month, Bart Van Melik. Sign up, danharris.com. We'll get started with Seth Meyers right after this.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over four million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code PODCAST for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Your joints help you keep doing what you love. Give them daily support with Ancient Nutrition Multi-Collagen Protein. Two scoops deliver 20 grams of collagen from 10 types, including clinically studied eggshell membrane. Plus, vitamin C and probiotics to support skin, hair, nails, and joint health. Visit ancientnutrition.com/protein and use code PROTEIN for $15 off. That's ancientnutrition.com code PROTEIN.

• 3:18Dan Harris?

  Seth Meyers, welcome to the show.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  So happy to be here, Dan.

• 3:21Dan Harris?

  Pleasure to have you. Okay, I have a million questions for you.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  I've got time for nine.

• 3:25Dan Harris?

  Okay, I have.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Do your best. Hit me with your best nine.

• 3:28Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I'll whittle it down.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 3:31Dan Harris?

  Just as a top line question, I don't think this was always the case for late night hosts. But now, if you're a late night television host, you are like in the news cycle deeply.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  That's a little strange.

• 3:44Dan Harris?

  Deeply. And so my question for you is like, how do you keep your shit together, given that you are by necessity drinking out of the fire hose?

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Well, one of the loveliest things is, an honest answer to where do I get my news? Is I get it from Late Night with Seth Meyers. In that I show up in the morning and my very talented writing staff has written a first draft. And so often I'm like, oh, that's really, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm glad we're talking about this, you know?

• 4:12Dan Harris?

  Meaning you have not encountered these items in the news before you've walked into 30 Rock?

• 4:18Speaker 03

  I will say, I do a little bit, but over the course of the weekend, what I've learned, and it is a gift. By the way, it's a Pyrrhic victory, Dan, in that the world is such right now that you don't actually have to pay attention to Saturday's news because it is such. Old hat by Monday, like so much is happening now. You know, when this show started in 2014, I really did think it was my job to like pay attention to the news over the course of the weekend so I could be ready for Monday's show. And now it's sort of like late Sunday, get sort of tuned back in late Sunday and that's ultimately what you can talk about on Monday. But um, yeah, I mean, am I part of the fire hose? I am, but I try not to get too caught up with it in that when I'm in the office, I'm paying very close attention to what's going on in the world. And then

• 5:03Speaker 03

  when I'm out of the office, I try to focus on being a part of a operational family.

• 5:08Dan Harris?

  And you're pretty good at the like digital hygiene when you're with your family?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  I am. I would say if I have a digital hygiene problem when I'm out of the office, it's probably like more sports related than like, you know, the actual, the actual news. So I can have wild swings, wild mood swings, but they're thankfully not due to anything that's happening in DC.

• 5:30Dan Harris?

  Right. It's pegged to your fortunes on FanDuel.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I'm happy to say it's more due to like real loyalty as opposed to any wagers. I'm not a gambler, but I've bet the entirety of my heart on a few sports teams that have not come through with me.

• 5:46Dan Harris?

  Which are those teams?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Pittsburgh Steelers.

• 5:49Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Live and die with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then I have a healthier relationship with the Boston Red Sox after the incredible run we had post 2004. I kind of feel like that's everything I had ever wanted as a kid. And now I'm gonna allow myself to have freedom from that.

• 6:05Dan Harris?

  So just back to late night, because you are, you said before, you're kind of part of the fire hose. And I don't know exactly what you meant by that, but like you are a vector of information at this point, which late night TV shows have become. And

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:20Dan Harris?

  Do you think about your responsibility in that light? Do you have a desire to be more heat than light? Or is it just make good jokes and keep it moving?

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Well, it's interesting because like, we don't want to like turn our backs on things that we think are bad and things that are important because of who they're affecting. But we definitely and certainly post this last election.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  There's a real effort to be joyous about the way we perform the show. That maintaining joy is a really important piece of strength to have. Because when people take your joy away, that's effectively a good sign that you've lost. And so, again, like, we're not like, hey, we're gonna, the show's not gonna be about bad things anymore. That's how we're gonna be joyful. We're like, no, we're gonna talk about bad things. But we're gonna make it very clear that we're having fun. We like being in an audience full of people that has chosen to spend time with us. And everybody here knows it's a comedy show, so we're gonna make sure that even when this stuff is serious, we're finding ways, oftentimes in like tangents or dumb impressions or like, you know, silly visual gags, to like, release the stress and the pressure.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  And look, it's a fine line, because I realize half of what I'm saying is like, oh, be irreverent. And the other half is like, these things are really bad and serious and we can't take them lightly. But ultimately, that's been the alchemy we're trying to hit week in and week out. And I do think since last November, we're getting pretty good at it. We feel like we're delivering on it pretty consistently.

• 7:43Dan Harris?

  I'm gonna deliver a full-throated defense of what you just said, and then you can react on the other side. And I know I'm supposed to be asking questions, but I just wanna-

• 7:50Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm very excited. It's like, I like that you're now my legal counsel.

• 7:55Dan Harris?

  What Seth meant to say was, um, there is a great quote from, I'm gonna mangle the quote, and I can't even remember who said it.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Great.

• 8:04Dan Harris?

  But it's something like, engage joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Oh, it's really good.

• 8:10Dan Harris?

  And as you said, if you take away the joy, you are depleting our resources to engage effectively.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:17Dan Harris?

  So I actually think there's a real public service in what you're doing, and it's not something to be like sheepish about.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's always interesting, because you don't wanna get, I've been doing this for a long time, and people since Weekend Update days have said like, what do you think about people who get their news from you? And I've always said like, don't get your news from me. Like, we're a good secondary source, you know? Get your news and then, but this is a different thing that I've like come to appreciate, which is like, people aren't coming to get their news from me, but like, they're coming to like, get a collective shared joy from a thing that otherwise would be depressing. And I think sometimes-

• 8:53Speaker 03

  There is a real strength to knowing you're not alone, knowing that your feelings about things are not solitary. Sometimes it's just in the vocabulary we're used to talk about things, which is like, oh, you're living in a bubble, or, you know, it's an echo chamber. But like, there is something to be said for, no, come here, and we're gonna lay out things that based on like, this moral code that we all thought we shared, some of us still share it. And we're at a place where we're allowed to say like, this is bad, and this is crazy, but it's also silly, and here's a joke about it. And yeah, it's not that we're just gonna throw our hands up and say, this is how it is now.

• 9:33Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I completely agree. It's like a kind of sustenance, like, we're in it together, we can laugh at this thing.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:39Dan Harris?

  So let's reengage from that standpoint.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  And I'm very frustrated that I have now said it twice, and you said it the best in your middle. And your very short middle section, you were very succinct about it. So for the listeners, I also think Dan said it best.

• 9:56Dan Harris?

  Well, I suspect that might be the pattern throughout the rest of this interview, so let's, let's see how it goes.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Okay, good. I'll do it, I'll do it really long, and then you just boil it down for...

• 10:08Dan Harris?

  Okay, so let me ask, you'll brush me off if I get too personal here, but you have spoken publicly about kind of your inner atmosphere, having an inner critic. You also wrote a book for kids back in 2022, I believe it's called I'm Not Scared, You're Scared, where you talk about anxiety. So you're on the record talking about inner critic and also having anxiety. I'd just be curious, like, how salient are those phenomena for you internally these days?

• 10:36Speaker 03

  It's better. Look, I think the hardest time I ever went through was getting your dream job of SNL, and then showing up and realizing everybody there. Was also like the best person, the last place they were. And that your bag of tricks is now seems very meager compared to the talent you're sort of stacked up against. And I was probably hired for the wrong thing when I got hired at SNL because I think if Laura Michaels could go back in time, he would probably say, oh, that guy will be a good writer as opposed to a cast member. And so I had to sort of like back my way into the job I was right for. And that was a really rough five years of finding my way there.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  And then you get a show like Late Night and it's the same thing, which is you spend the first couple of years aiming for sort of competence. So they don't take the show away and it's only after you feel your legs underneath you that you actually start trying to make it the show you want it to be. You know, those were rough years too, but nothing, nothing ever compared to the first five years at SNL. And I do think that having survived those, and look, it's why so many people, I think thrive in their years after working at that show is they've already been through the worst gauntlet they're ever going to go through. What makes it such a gauntlet? I think it's just weirdly it's a meritocracy against the very best people in the world.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  So it's hard to say like, I was treated unfairly. We all get, you know, our at bats every week, you know, you'd write sketches, you'd read it at the table. And it was pretty clear to me and, and obviously everybody else like, oh no, that wasn't in the best 10 things this week. You know, that sort of happens week in and week out. And you realize certainly there are very kind people there who are doing their best to get the best out of you. But at some point they're not going to put you on TV as a favor to you. And for me, the hardest time, again, I've talked about this as well, was like, I was in a cast where the other. Male cast members are like Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Kenan Thompson. And you know, I was writing sketches and I remember I would be like,

• 12:46Speaker 03

  man, I would be my seventh choice. You know what I mean? And so, and I've got a rooting interest in me. So, you know, one office over, somebody who does not have a rooting interest in me, I'm definitely their seventh choice. And so it was just not seeing a path out. And also, it wasn't that I thought, if only they saw in me what I saw in me. I was like, no, I see the same thing. It's just like not quite good enough.

• 13:13Dan Harris?

  Is it true, I read that there was an incident where you punched a very small hole in the wall?

• 13:18Speaker 03

  I opened a door so fast that the handle on the other side went through the wall. So it was like a handle shaped hole. Yeah.

• 13:25Dan Harris?

  Okay, that's a little less aggressive.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  It was a little less. It was pretty aggressive, though. I mean, I would have loved to have done it with my fist. Let's just put it that way.

• 13:33Dan Harris?

  What was the proximate cause of the door incident?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  I wrote something that I did think should have made the show and it didn't make the show. And then my producing partner now, Mike Shoemaker, who was a producer at SNL at the time, I remember he said, I'm not gonna have that hole fixed because I want you to have to look at it every time you're in your dressing room. And remember what a baby you were. And then, by the way, this is just, just to make it clear that I haven't, I'm not fixed. The self same Shoemaker, who's now a producer on Late Night, he recently had to leave. He's my next door neighbor and my dearest friend. And every time I feel like I'm about to melt down, I just go into his office and I yell in that room. And he just sort of like absorbs it. I'm not yelling at him. I'm never mad at him. I'm just sort of like yelling to get it out.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Remember those old cartoons where like people would like yell into a bottle? And then the bottle would have the screams and like, it was like to not wake up a baby or something? And then they bring the screams to the top of the mountain and let it out. You'd hear them. That's like what Shoemaker does. He's like the bottle I yell into and then he brings it to the top of a mountain. So, nobody else that I work with hears the yells. He's my release valve. He missed two weeks for a knee surgery and I made it all the way until like the last day of the second week and something happened. I was so mad I didn't have Shoemaker's office to go to and I threw a pen against the wall and it exploded and left like a Rorschach ink blot on the wall. He got a plaque instead of cleaning it. He put a plaque next to it and said, this is what happens when Shoemaker's away. So, I'm coming up on like 25 years in

• 15:05Speaker 03

  the building. Basically, every room I've ever been in has some mark of me being petulant.

• 15:11Dan Harris?

  I don't remember the cartoons you're referencing, but I do remember as a kid, I think I'm a little older than you, there was a character named Willie Whistle and he would argue, but in a whistle.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 15:21Dan Harris?

  Which I always thought was hilariously ridiculous.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  That does seem like something a very forward-thinking couple therapist would make two people do, like just give them whistles and be like, without words.

• 15:32Dan Harris?

  No, he was doing this with pursed lips.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. This wasn't an actual whistle?

• 15:38Dan Harris?

  No.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Well, it's a shame he didn't hit it bigger. Seems like a real talent.

• 15:44Dan Harris?

  We'll leave that to the history books. But just back to your petulance, and I share it. This is a, has been a lifelong struggle for me, as our mutual friend, my brother, would tell you.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:54Dan Harris?

  How do you manage that now, especially given that you are the leader of a pretty large organization?

• 16:00Speaker 03

  I'm really good. I mean, I don't know if I would be as good without Shoemaker as a real Seth Whisperer, and I'm very lucky to have him, but I am cognizant of it being a top-down situation where, you know, whatever the host thinks they can get away with, everybody else thinks they can get away with. And so, I'm very lucky to work in a place where, you know, we all treat each other with a lot of decency and respect. And it's the kind of place that everybody loves to come to every day, myself included. I should also say, like, it's not like I'm biting my fist 10 times a day because people make mistakes. It's like, one of the problems is people here are so good at their jobs that when something goes wrong, I'm shocked and often that's what catches even me off guard. But, uh, it's really

• 16:43Speaker 03

  nice and, uh, I will say, like, just to any parent who's listening, it's harder to have children than it is to have a talk show as far as like temper stuff.

• 16:53Dan Harris?

  So for you, the parenting stuff, which you've now done two comedy specials, which everybody should watch, and I'll put links in the show notes. You've done two comedy specials on parenting. So is that a more difficult crucible for your temper than work?

• 17:08Speaker 03

  I think, yeah, ultimately, like, because at work, you're still dealing with like adults. And so for me, like, what my wife and three children would say is like, oh, no, he definitely can't act at the show the way he acts at home because he's a lunatic.

• 17:24Dan Harris?

  What would they point to as examples of lunacy?

• 17:28Speaker 03

  I have a very, um, I don't know, it's interesting. I've been doing a bit in my standup now about how my brother and I were really scared about my dad losing his temper. Like, it was the kind of temper that was like intimidating. And I feel like I've inherited my dad's temper, but my kids, it's just like very like neutered. Well, I like lose my temper, they like all laugh at me like, this clown. Which is, of course, but it's a very healthy reaction to your dad losing his temper because it's like, hey, one, you look dumb and two, it's not working. It's just like that thing of like trying to get three kids out the door is sometimes so much harder than, um, writing and performing a talk show on network television.

• 18:12Dan Harris?

  What are their ages?

• 18:14Speaker 03

  Nine, seven, and four.

• 18:16Dan Harris?

  Okay, so you're in it.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're in it. I mean, and by the way, they're really good ones. I wouldn't trade any of them in.

• 18:23Dan Harris?

  You mentioned getting the kids out the door. Are there other aspects of parenting that are nails on a chalkboard for you where you're just on tilt?

• 18:31Speaker 03

  I'm trying to think. They'd love to come on, Dan, and do a rebuttal episode where they list them all. I just sometimes, uh, can't believe, like, I'll say my oldest son's name six times in a row, and then I'll just say, do you even, do you hear it? Just out of curiosity, do you hear it? Also, a thing you learn pretty quickly is like sarcasm isn't an effective tool. When you're trying to get your kids to do something like a withering put down doesn't have the, uh, the effect you might hope it would with an adult friend.

• 19:06Dan Harris?

  When my son was four, he's 10 now, or he'll be 11 by the time this airs. Actually, you met my son once.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:12Dan Harris?

  When he was four, we took him for one of those full-blown hearing tests.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 19:19Dan Harris?

  And his hearing was perfect.

• 19:23Dan Harris?

  But he was just ignoring us all the time.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:26Dan Harris?

  And that persists until this day. It's like my voice is a dog whistle and he's a cat.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  I have the interesting thing now, which is my kids are obsessed, especially with my father-in-law, because they see him a lot. He's a big part of their life. And I watch how his daughters react to him. I'm like, oh, it just skips a generation. My kids hear their grandparents talk, but they don't hear their dad talk. But like their kids will one day be fascinated by everything I have to say. I just have to wait for that.

• 19:56Dan Harris?

  One of the themes in your comedy, and you really, as stated, draw on parenting as a source for stand-up.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:05Dan Harris?

  And I don't know whether you're interested in meditation or anything like that, but there's, to me, it rhymes with the spirit of meditation, which is bringing a sense of humor to your inevitable foibles and frailties and imperfections.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm also like very aware that one of the risks of mining your family for content is that they will one day consume it as they are older. Alexi and I have a nice understanding, whereas, you know, my wife has veto power over anything I say about her. Whereas kids, obviously, less so. And so it's very important for me to always, more often than not, make myself the punchline of the jokes when I'm talking about being a parent as opposed to the kids. Because I would like them one day to watch and be like, oh, it's nice that he knew. It's nice that he knew his shortcomings. But uh, it is really fun to do. And you know, as far as meditation, like I will say that like Alexi and I started doing it. I don't quite know how often she does it anymore.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  I don't do it with enough regularity, but I've never done it and thought it was not positive. I just have a hard time getting in the scheduled rhythm of doing it.

• 21:12Dan Harris?

  That is super common and I don't even think it's that big of a problem per se. Like it's good at any dose.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's a little bit like exercise.

• 21:20Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  I don't think it's like, ah, the bummer was I only, I only did it once. I should have done it zero times. Like no, once is better than zero.

• 21:29Dan Harris?

  What flavor did you do when you did it?

• 21:33Speaker 03

  I don't actually know, and I think this would be one of the things my wife would point out, which is we had a full instructor sit down with us, and I still can't tell you anything about it, other than what to do during the actual 20 minutes.

• 21:45Dan Harris?

  Oh, you dropped a clue there. 20 minutes, that's probably TM, or Transcendental Meditation.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, that's what it was. Is that a good one? How do we feel about that?

• 21:56Dan Harris?

  I feel good about it. It's not what I do, but there's plenty of evidence to show that it's good for you.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Okay, great. Is yours longer or shorter?

• 22:04Dan Harris?

  Mine is super flexible. Matt and I, my brother and his wife Jess, we all do the same flavor, which is kind of derived from Buddhist meditation, or actually, in our case, like, full-on Buddhist meditation. Five minutes is great. I try to do, like, broken up over the day, an hour, but I'm a full-time meditation evangelist, and I'm not comfortable with the level of hypocrisy that would come with not doing, you know, a significant amount.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:33Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Seth talks about parenting fears, his evolving relationship with anxiety, and career longevity, and creative diversification, and how he prepares for and shoots his stand-up specials, which are excellent, by the way.

• 23:25Dan Harris?

  You said the thing that I was gonna react to about your kids watching your stuff someday. I've worried about that with, as a memoirist, I have some scenes, I'm writing a book right now, and there are some scenes where I like describe my son's flatulence. I may decide ultimately to cut that because he, when he's 30, might be justifiably pretty pissed about it.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. My fear is always like that other kids will see it, that his peers will see it. At least there's less of a chance that like a 13-year-old friend of his is gonna read your memoir.

• 24:00Dan Harris?

  That's true.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Whereas like, I'm always worried like a parent's gonna put on like my Netflix special and say to their kids, "Hey, this is Ash's dad," or "This is Axel's dad." We don't show it to my kids yet, and yet, you know, you obviously can't control other parents, and I could see them thinking it might be a novel idea to show them something. And so it's always like, never tell a joke that like another kid could use against your child.

• 24:22Dan Harris?

  Right. Even the nine-year-old hasn't seen your specials?

• 24:27Speaker 03

  No, he hasn't yet. Total lack of curiosity, Dan.

• 24:33Dan Harris?

  I am deeply familiar with that.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  He's always like, "Can we watch the new Bill Burr?"

• 24:42Dan Harris?

  Speaking of kids, I mentioned this earlier, you did write this book, I'm Not Scared, You're Scared.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:47Dan Harris?

  We talked about your experience with the inner critic, especially in those early days on SNL, but how big a part of your life is anxiety, if at all?

• 24:55Speaker 03

  I don't think I have a ton of anxiety. I mean, I think I'm more anxious about the future and the things I can't control than I am over my career, but it took me a long time to get there. You know, I like now that I've tried to diversify the things I do in my career. At the same time that I'm hosting a late-night show, you know, I'm aware that those are not lifetime appointments, and so I tried very hard to develop things like stand-up as a skill, and obviously having podcasts is something to do. And so I like that as I'm getting older, and you know, again, I'm 51, and I'm proud of myself for like coming up with a way to like control that, which I can control. But a lot of my anxiety just comes from being a parent, having kids that you put into

• 25:40Speaker 03

  the world and what the world's gonna be. And so, you know, I think, and again, the kids were younger when I wrote the book and I only had two of them at the time. But I'm not scared, you're scared was a lot more about like the way kids are and how as a parent, I think you love the idea that your kids would be fearless, except you also want them to be like, careful, you know? And so, it's sort of just a book about like that balance between ultimately, you want to raise kids who know what they should and shouldn't be afraid of. And you don't want fear to be a hurdle they have to get over when it's things you know they can do, but you also, you don't want them to be, lack any risk aversion.

• 26:20Dan Harris?

  Yeah. So it's not like you're particularly angsty or anxious. It's that having three children moving through the world.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  That's where my anxiety is from, yeah.

• 26:30Dan Harris?

  What's gonna happen to them at any given moment?

• 26:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. And like, don't get me wrong, I still have, when I do stand up, when I interview a big guest, I'm still driven by butterflies and that sort of anxiety. But I've had enough reps at this point to know that more often than not, it works out pretty well. And so I can actually put one foot in front of the other and go and do those shows.

• 26:52Dan Harris?

  What makes you more nervous, a huge guest or taping a special?

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Probably taping a special, just because it feels more permanent, you know? And ultimately, when you tape a standup special, for me, it's usually about three to four years worth of material that you've been working on. And you sort of have one chance to make the version that everybody will see for time in memoriam. And it's crazy because with jokes, you know, a special, ultimately, when you have an hour worth of jokes, like, some of those jokes you're telling for the fifth time, some of them you're telling for the 60th time, they all have their own life. You want to catch as many of them at their peak as possible, but like, that's a very hard thing to do. So it's also the anxiety of like, when are you gonna shoot your special? And do you shoot it too early? Or do you shoot it too late? Where, you know, all of a sudden, like, you are falling out of love

• 27:40Speaker 03

  with a joke, right? And once you do, you feel like the audience is as well. Even like the craziest things, which I think matter the least. Which is like what to wear and what city to shoot it in. Because when you think of every great special like you love, other than like Eddie Murphy, you can't remember what they were dressed like. And the good news is I'm not gonna, uh, nobody wants me to dress like that anyway.

• 28:02Dan Harris?

  Eddie Murphy came to mind, but also I kind of remember some of Chappelle's onesies.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. That's true. And again, not one where I saw it and was like, ah, that's what I should have done.

• 28:14Dan Harris?

  When you were shooting those specials, is it all one take or can you do two or three nights in a row and cut it all together?

• 28:20Speaker 03

  So you do two, it's fascinating. This is really interesting. You do two in the same night. You tape it twice, like a seven and a nine thirty. And both times I did it, I felt like I got it in the first show. And then my director, Neil Brennan, who directed both of them, said to me, you have it. So like, just go and have fun with the second show, like be loose, have fun, which I did both times. And in both cases, we almost used entirely the first one. So the one that internally for me was the one that felt tight and a little bit less joyful was the far better product. It just had the crispness to it because it was not observably tight. It was just my

• 29:04Speaker 03

  own, uh, I don't know. It is a reminder that it's a technical skill and as much as we watch comedy thinking it's loose, there is actually like craft to making it look loose. And when you actually make a internal choice to be loose, it just looks a little worse.

• 29:22Dan Harris?

  Interesting.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  To watch. Yeah.

• 29:24Dan Harris?

  And it's kind of the case for nerves. Properly managed nerves really can up your game.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Yes. We always used to say at SNL, like, nothing was worse than a host who would say they weren't nervous.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Because we were always like, oh, you should be. You know what I mean? Like, we do this every week. We're nervous. So like, be a little, because butterflies, I think, are, I, whenever I'm about to like, go out and do something and I don't have butterflies, that's where I feel like something's off.

• 29:55Dan Harris?

  I had a guest on the show who made this point. You may have heard this before, but it really landed for me because I still struggle with performance anxiety. Second half of my career was built on having a panic attack on national television. So it's on brand for me to be nervous every time I go on TV. The reframe was the nerves are a sign that you care.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that is true and I'm really happy to do something that I care about that much. And backstage at Late Night even, and by the way, you know, look, Late Night's different in that it feels like every night's a home game. And certainly the longer you do the show, the more you have an expectation that the audience knows what they're there for and they know who you are. You don't have to introduce yourself. So it's the smoothest version of it. But also, you know it's gonna be on television and you kind of can't trick yourself into forgetting that. And backstage, right before I walk out, there's a sign on the wall with all the guests and

• 31:00Speaker 03

  the number of episodes it is. And every night I'm like 721 and you still feel like the butterflies. And I actually always think, I'm like, that's great. The worst thing would be standing here right now and being like, I know how it's gonna go. Who cares? I feel very lucky to care and to do something that is, while there's consistency to the product, they're a little bit like snowflakes. Like every episode's a little bit different and it is fun to find out over the course of the show how this one's gonna be different than the ones before it.

• 31:30Dan Harris?

  Well said. You really have emerged in your 15, 16 years on the show as a very skilled interviewer. Do you have any tricks of the trade? Because people struggle, human beings struggle, listening to other human beings carefully.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  I was so lucky and it was the first time where it felt like, oh, this is actually what, learning this skill, I didn't realize at the time, but being an improviser, right? Like that's what I came up with. I wasn't a stand-up. I was doing improv comedy in Chicago and you're part of a troupe. And, you know, for those who don't know, right? The key skill to doing a scene with somebody where there's no script and you're coming up with it together on the spot, is you have to be a good listener because you can't build it if you don't, if you're thinking about the next funny thing you want to say and you're doing your own one-man show while another person is in a two-person scene with you, it'll be a disaster. So that's where I learned to be a good listener. And also, on my show, it is a...

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Performance of a conversation. That doesn't mean that the answers are untruthful, but you are doing a conversation for an audience. It's not the same way you would talk if it was just two of you in a secluded corner of a bar. So what makes it a better interview is if you're listening and instead of just waiting for your next question, you react in real time to things the guest is saying. You know, I've always had like a pretty good ability to like, even as an improviser, you know, the callback where you pull something from earlier in the scene. And it's rewarding for an audience that's been listening as well. And I find with my guests, I think they really like those moments where they're like, oh, you still remember something I said three minutes ago.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  So that's one thing is just being a good listener. And the other thing, which I just, so much credit to our research department who work with our segment producers, but they work so hard to make sure. And again, like in this day and age, if somebody doesn't press tour, they might get interviewed 50 times. But we try very hard not to ask things that they were asked. I think there's an appreciation for that as well.

• 33:33Dan Harris?

  So you often know what you're going to ask, but you're staying awake and alert so that you can pivot based on the answer?

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you also, with repetition, you learn there's like a thousand different kinds of talk show guests. And you can tell the ones who are like, it's really, they are almost reliant on you asking the seven things you've agreed to ahead of time. You're just prompts for them to do their thing. And then there's other people who you can ask them one question and you realize like they don't actually care about what they're going to get to. And they're having fun answering that question. And the more you interrupt, the better they are. You know, some people only look at you. Some people only look at the audience. And so that's the other thing is I think being a good interviewer is over the course of any given interview, turn into the interviewer that guest needs as opposed to forcing them to be the kind of guests you respond best to. And again, that makes it fun.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  We always say like, when somebody is a I'm trying to think of a kind word to use, but like if someone's all over the place as a guest, we love it and we want to have those people back because it's almost more fun to juggle. As a host, you get to juggle more balls. I like talking about politics on our show, but I don't really like talking to politicians because politicians,

• 34:48Speaker 03

  they never want to have the fun of like, let's see where this goes. Like they show up with five answers. They're probably going to give them no matter how, what questions you ask. And the audience could tell and they're just like, huh, this again.

• 34:59Dan Harris?

  Ironically, the exception to that rule is Donald Trump.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Yes, you could not be more accurate with that answer. And sadly, I've never had a chance to take a run at it.

• 35:08Dan Harris?

  Would you want to?

• 35:10Speaker 03

  No, I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to because I don't, I sadly don't think there's like that breakthrough interview with him that that's the one, got him. You know what I mean? So, uh, and by the way, not for a lack of trying during, uh, 2015, 2016, like we, I will own up to not having taken, uh, the early days of that campaign seriously. So we sort of thought, oh my God, we'll have him on. It'll be such a lark. And fortunately for us, it didn't happen because I, I'm sure there'd be something now that I would not reflect back on fondly because of the, how seriously I take the role of a host. I generally don't like having people on where my role is to make them feel uncomfortable. And so, right. I would have been polite. I would have been the nice boy that my parents raised.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  And I would look back at it and be like, huh, I'm not psyched. That picture's out there.

• 35:59Dan Harris?

  Yeah. Speaking of not taking it seriously, I always remember that the Huffington Post covered Donald Trump's presidency in the early days in the entertainment section of the website.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:09Dan Harris?

  And speaking of criticism, how do you handle criticism? Either of your work in public or of your work at home?

• 36:18Speaker 03

  I feel as though I love a critic who it's a little bit like being a good listener. Look, if somebody is actually paying attention to the work and has a salient point about where it failed to meet its mark, I think there's a real chance to take something from it. Now, again, we're obviously living in a time where there's a lot of bad faith criticism. And the only upside of bad faith criticism is how quickly you can just fully ignore it. If somebody writes something negative about me on social media, it's pretty easy to just look at the last three things they wrote and get a sense of of where they're coming from. I mean, again, I would say I'm again touchier about criticism at home.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  Like, I definitely, I would love to find my way to a place to be a little bit more. I wish I could receive constructive criticism better.

• 37:13Dan Harris?

  You want a hack?

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would love a hack.

• 37:16Dan Harris?

  This goes back to your reference of the callback while interviewing?

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:21Dan Harris?

  A hack that I learned a couple of years ago, which I use in interviewing, and actually you noticed it but didn't have the name for it early on in this interview. But it's also a great way to deal with criticism. It's called reflective listening. So if somebody says something to you, several paragraphs can issue forth from their face hole. And you then learn, kind of journalistically, to sum up the headlines, nonjudgmentally, in your own words, but quickly.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:47Dan Harris?

  So I use that a ton while I'm interviewing because it gives people, the interviewees, even though they probably couldn't articulate it, like an incredible dopamine hit of knowing they've been heard.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it worked with me.

• 37:57Dan Harris?

  But with my wife, and I don't get this right all the time, if she were here, she would give you her 90% still a moron speech. So like, I'm not putting myself on a pedestal, but I have learned in recent years, if she's going to come at me with a complaint, almost always accurate, if I give myself the circuit breaker before I go into defensive mode of just summing up what she's said, it calms both of us down. And when I'm on my game, it can avoid 48 hours of misery.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  That's really good. I will say, I think Alexi does that really well. I think after I say something, she always has this ability to be like, so if I could summarize, it seems like you're a dumb person.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  And I'd love for you to maybe go walk around the block and try to think of how to be smarter.

• 38:48Dan Harris?

  Not sure that's what I was talking about, but I mean, she missed. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

• 38:56Dan Harris?

  All right, a couple more questions, then I'm gonna let you go. Back to workplace culture, and I'm asking this with some selfish motivation because most of my career I was an anchor on various shows at ABC News, but I didn't really run an organization, and now I do. And it's been hard to learn how to not port over the shitty habits I acquired as a network news anchor to this organization.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:18Dan Harris?

  From what I've read, you really do, and we talked about this earlier, have a really highly functioning organization, but we didn't get to like the how of that. What have you done to set the tone for inclusion and comfort even among junior staffers?

• 39:34Speaker 03

  Well, I will say my one thing is I've never thought I was good at a single thing I'm not good at. And by that, I mean, I can write, and that's about it. And again, obviously, I'm gonna host the show, and that part's on me. But I have no visual sense. When it was time for like set design, I had no take on that. I have no take on lighting. I have no take on sound. I have no take on anything. And so I doubt everybody to do your job the best you can do it. And I will not look over your shoulder. And in return, what I would love is less meetings.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Genuinely, I'm the happiest I am, and the most value I can add to Late Night with Seth Meyers is if I'm sitting in front of my computer, writing jokes for the show. Or if I'm sitting at my computer and I'm reading the research packet about the guest. What I don't want to do is have a meeting about things that I really believe you guys could figure out on your own. And I think that's one of the things that we do really well. And with my writers... They have all the permission in the world to write what they want to write. And big swings are always encouraged. Nobody gets blamed for like big new ideas. But if you take 10 big swings in a row and like, we don't pick any of them because we don't feel

• 40:58Speaker 03

  like it's a fit for my voice or the voice of the show, then it's up to you to like decide if you wanna adjust or if you wanna continue to be somebody who does good stuff on the show. But we don't ever have like big meetings about the writing has to be more like this or the interviews have to be more like that. Like, we just are slowly all figuring it out together. Another thing, and I don't know how this was for you when you were in the news world, we decided early on, and it's a shoemaker rule, which is we do not do a postmortem after the show. And he said early on, like, the problem, and he said this just from knowing me, he's like, look, after every show, you will have been observant enough to notice seven things you wish went differently. And so if we go back to the office, we'll sit down and those seven things will take us anywhere for an hour to 90 minutes

• 41:42Speaker 03

  to get through, and then we'll all get home two hours later. Or we can wait till tomorrow and see if there are even still problems in your head. Or if you wanna like move on, and the reality is like, probably, since our staff is good, they will have noticed those six and nine things. And the longer you do the show, the less you have, and it's more valuable to just shake it off, go home, and see what you're actually mad about tomorrow morning. And the reality is, you mostly just wanna focus on the next trip to the plate. You'd learn like, don't, don't live in the failures, but rather like embrace the fact that you get to do it again tomorrow.

• 42:15Dan Harris?

  This shoemaker gentleman seems deeply wise.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I mean, he's the one you really wanna have on the podcast, if you could ever convince him to.

• 42:21Dan Harris?

  Duly noted.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  He is deeply wise. He's also like, a real classic New York character who's like from the Bronx, and like, found his way into Manhattan, and really isn't impressed by any of us.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  You know, it's not like one of those aspirational stories of like, one day I'm gonna live there. It's more like, somebody's gotta go tell these dummies how to get stuff done.

• 42:46Dan Harris?

  Okay, final question for me. I was struck by something you said to Amy Poehler recently on her show about the importance for you of friendship and loyalty. And the quote was, "I like the way that I like who I am through the eyes of my friends."

• 43:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's the thing, and maybe it's a bit of a cop out because I feel like it's probably easier to be a friend than it is to be most things. But I think I'm really good at it. And I think when you're good at being a friend, you end up with really good friends. And I have those and it's a really, I'm really glad about it. And like, you know, I have friends. I'm still really close to people from high school and really close to people from college and SNL, everywhere I've gone, I feel like I've collected more people that are dear. Friends of mine, you know, during COVID, I got to be really close with your brother and a whole new cohort of people. And yeah, it's a really nice thing to go through life with.

• 43:48Dan Harris?

  Yes, this episode is an example of you being a good friend and doing a favor to my brother and coming on the show. So thank you for doing it. I really appreciate it.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  I only cozied up to your brother in the first place in hopes that it would lead to me being on the show.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  You've got it all backwards, Dan.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  I've gotten nothing from that guy. Been a dead end until this moment.

• 44:11Dan Harris?

  That may or may not come up at our next family dinner.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  I really hope it does. I mean, if not, what was the point of me even saying it?

• 44:18Dan Harris?

  Fair enough. Just before I let you go, because this is a podcast, can you just name your podcasts so that people can go listen to them?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do one with my brother called Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers, and it is a delight. And then I do one while we're speaking about friends with The Lonely Island, which is Andy Samberg and Yorma Tegony and Akiva Schaffer. And it's called The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, and that's sort of a trip down SNL memory lane. And it's very funny, and I've said this a lot, but so much is written about how adult male friendships are withering on the vine, and I just can't say it stronger. Start a podcast. It will force you to see your friends once a week, and you'll be happy you did.

• 45:02Dan Harris?

  Seth Meyers, thank you. Really appreciate you. Thank you, Dan.

• 45:12Dan Harris?

  Thank you again to Seth Meyers. Thanks to my brother Matt for pressuring Seth into doing that. Really fun to talk to him. Don't forget to sign up over at danharris.com if you want to check out our new app, 10% with Dan Harris. There's a 14-day free trial. Every week, every Tuesday at 4 Eastern, we do live meditations and Q and A sessions. The next one is coming up on January 20. Finally, a big thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.