Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into Discomfort (Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris)

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Hey everybody, Mike here… we’re doing something a little different today…If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably recognize the name Dan Harris – he’s a friend, journalist, fellow podcaster, and was actually one of our earliest guests on Finding Mastery back in 2016. We had some fantastic conversations together and I was lucky enough to be an early guest on his incredible show – Ten Percent Happier – I’ve been a big fan and follower of his show ever since. And today… we are stoked to share one of their episodes with you on our feed!On Ten Percent Happier, Dan is on a quest to help others achieve peace and happiness. Every week, he talks to top scientists, meditation teachers, and even the occasional celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety, enlightenment, psychedelics and relationships.This episode of Ten Percent Happier is with the one-and-only, actor and comedian Bill Hader—who you may know from Saturday Night Live, countless roles in comedy films, and from starring in the Emmy award-winning Netflix series Barry. It’s an awesome episode, I think you’re really going to enjoy it… So with that, be sure to go check out Ten Percent Happier wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy this episode featuring Bill Hader!From Ten Percent Happier:The star of SNL and Barry discusses how he channels his anxiety into his work. Plus, an imitation of Joseph Goldstein.Bill Hader has made the transition from being a master of stand-out characters and impressions on eight seasons of Saturday Night Life to becoming a true multi-hyphenate by creating, directing, writing, producing and starring as a burned-out assassin trying to break into Hollywood as an actor in HBO’s award-winning and critically lauded dark comedy, Barry.‍In this episode we talk about:How Bill deals with anxietyHis panic attack on live televisionHis love of directing and the importance of having the right collaboratorsSign up for Dan Harris’ weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstore_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Hey everybody, Mike here. We're doing something a little different today. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably recognize the name Dan Harris. He's a friend, journalist, fellow podcaster, and was actually one of the earliest guests on Finding Mastery back in 2016. We had some fantastic conversations together and I was also lucky enough to be an early guest on his incredible show, 10% Happier.

I've been a big fan and follower of his show ever since. And today, we are stoked to share one of their episodes with you on our feed. On 10% Happier, Dan is on a quest to help others achieve peace and happiness. Every week, he talks to top scientists and meditation teachers and even the occasional celebrity in wide-ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity and anxiety, enlightenment,

psychedelics, and of course, relationships. This episode of 10% Happier is with the one and only actor and comedian, Bill Hader. You may know him from Saturday Night Live, countless roles in comedy films, and from starring in the Emmy award-winning Netflix series, Barry. It's an awesome episode. I think you're really going to enjoy it. So with that, be sure to check out 10% Happier wherever you get your podcasts

and enjoy this episode featuring Bill Hader. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. In the midst of an anxiety epidemic, we really need prominent people to step up and talk about their anxiety and how they're dealing with it. Bill Hader is doing exactly that, bravely and often hilariously. As many of you know, Bill burst onto the national scene through Saturday Night Live, where he was known for his incredible impressions. In fact, you're going to hear him do an impression of the meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein during this interview. Then he went on to star in movies like Superbad and Trainwreck. Most recently, he created the award-winning and excellent HBO show Barry,

where he plays a depressed hitman. And he's done all of this while dealing with anxiety. In fact, like me, he's had panic attacks on live television. In this interview, we talk about how he channels his anxiety into creativity. We also talk about all the practices he uses to manage his anxiety. This guy takes this stuff very seriously. He's not just sitting around complaining about it. Although, as you will hear him say, sometimes he does fall off the wagon. This is the second installment of our New Year's series, The Non-Negotiables, where we interview smart, prominent people about the practices and principles they cannot live without. Mostly on this show, we interview experts, meaning meditation teachers, scientists, and psychotherapists. But these days, we've also been throwing in a few celebrities because I think it's really important to have exemplars of the potential for human change and well-known, prominent people who can normalize much of the shit most of us are dealing with on a daily basis.

Like I said, Bill Hader is all of that, and he's coming right up. Bill Hader, welcome to the show. Hey, man. It's such a pleasure to, welcome to the show. Hey, man. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm a longtime fan. I'm going to admit something embarrassing up front here. I was, for reasons that remain opaque to me, I was sleeping on Barry. And once I found out you were coming on the show, I went back and binged it.

And it is your masterpiece. I mean, it is an unbelievable piece it is your masterpiece. Oh, thank you. It is an unbelievable piece of work. Yeah. Oh, thanks. You can see right when the pandemic happened where the show just gets incredibly dark. Yeah, seasons three and four, it gets pretty dark. I appreciate that.

I'm a big fan of this podcast, so I'm excited to be here. And I mean, one of the things that a friend of mine said when he watched, I feel like the end of season three of Barry was he said, I feel like you're just trying just make us all incredibly uncomfortable. And I said, yeah, that might be. Maybe, I don't know. If you're lucky enough where you get to have kind of like a personal expression, we talk about our mutual friend George Saunders, and he's the nicest, sweetest guy, you know, but he'll talk about how his stuff always just comes out dark, you know? And I don't know why that happens.

I'm like, yeah, I have a similar thing. Where you're sitting there watching a scene and the editors are always kind of, because I'm the one going like, oh my God, this is awful. And they're like, you came up with this. Yeah, so, you know so I appreciate you saying that I'm really proud of it and everybody who worked on it that's the best thing about that experience was to collaborate with so many

just amazing artists and to get to work with HBO and to do all that it was a massive learning experience. I mean, it's been now a couple months since the last episode aired. For the past nine years, I would say 80% to 90% of my brain has been filled up with that show. So I didn't have room for a lot of other stuff. Or, you know, that thing, you're there, but you're not there.

So I'm happy that now I'm getting more and more perspective post show and yeah I'm like the biggest thing I just man I was so lucky to be working with all those people what a lucky break to have all those amazing people on the show yeah I think I would argue you made your own luck in that regard in many ways but let me just go back to something you said about your friend joking about how you're trying to get everybody to be as anxious as you are. I'm just curious, like, is it the role of the artist to work with anxiety in a way that explores the issue for the consumer, for the beholder? And or is it the role of the artist to help the end user with their own anxiety? Yeah, I don't I don't know. I mean, for me, it's kind of that like, you know, now I'm going to

sound pretend, but I think it's Chekhov who said, you know, the role of an artist is not to answer questions, is to pose the question kind of thing you know what i mean so it is kind of like you say this is the issue or this is how i'm feeling and it came out of me like this you know and i feel like that show as it progressed it got more and more kind of for me instinctual where i'm like i don't even know what that means really a hundred percent it just, this is how it feels. And then certain people connect to it and some certain people didn't. And then, but the people who did connect to it, it's almost working on some kind of subconscious level. Like I have a friend who's an actor and when he finished the season, he goes, man, I really feel like the show is kind of about the

pandemic and kind of like what's happening right now in the world. But you don't just come out and say that, you know, it's about this hit man dealing with all these anxieties and am I a good person? And they read their own thing into it. But I would never, I've done it before where you kind of start out with a lesson or you start out with some sort of overarching theme or this is about how awful we are to each other. And then you start to write that and you start to do it and it just, it's awful. You know, it just stinks and it just feels, it doesn't feel right. You know, guys like George and other friends of mine are very good at articulating why it doesn't feel right. I just kind of go, you know, in the writer's room going, just make a sound like you know it's kind of and everybody goes okay all right and then when it's right you know alec berg who i co-created the show with he always

talks about it's like a he and i are standing next to a piano and we're just hitting keys going that no what about that no how about this oh yeah that's that's that's redder okay you know you know and just it's kind of like that it's about a feeling do you think about what the feeling is you want the audience to have like do you imagine people watching the show will a just be entertained b feel in the anxiety they see from your character and the other characters validated and normalized? Yeah. Yeah. I've had that happen where people have come up to me, especially I've had a couple of, you know, war veterans come up to me and say, man, that really spoke to me or, you know, I appreciate you showing that in an honest way.

And to be fair, I've had a couple people come up saying, hey, we're not all murderers, you know. And I go, no, no, I know. This is this one guy who makes a very bad decision, you know, and he's trying to live with his bad decision. And then he keeps making bad decisions. The more he tries to pull away from it, the worse it gets, you know. But it has been interesting. Also, kids, weirdly, they come up to me and they'll be like, oh, I watch Barry. And I'm like, you should not be watching that show. You know, 13-year-olds or whatever. But they'll say, oh, yeah, I get really,

it's interesting seeing anxiety portrayed that way. And sometimes the way the anxiety is portrayed in the show is out of like an obvious stimulus where he's going to get caught or something like that, especially in the character of Sally. You know, you're seeing kind of anxiety being portrayed in a way that is more kind of the way I feel it, which is, you know, did I say the right thing? Did I do the right thing? I walk away from every interaction going, oh, God, I really blew that. You know what I mean?

You always kind of just feel like that negative voice in your head. My goal is for you to not walk away from this interaction. Oh, no, I won't. I hope not. I will say, though, not to like kiss your ass or whatever, but I do love the app and I will listen. I love that you guys do that on the app.

It's funny where I'll be like, okay, we're going to do a thing about kindness or negativity towards yourself and all this stuff and putting that into meditation is like it's really helpful for me to go oh you can identify that thing yes yeah and then what i've learned and i've talked about this before is taking the narrative out of the thing which is always so helpful that's been the hardest like i'm angry because or i'm anxious because i met somebody and they think i'm a loser but then you take the narrative out of it and you go i'm'm just anxious. Oh, this is how I feel in my stomach, my head. I did that the other day, actually. I was in the car and I was late and I was beating myself up for being late. And I knew if I walked in,

I was just going to be a live wire because I was so frustrated with myself for being late. So I arrived at the place and i just took five minutes just to be like this is i'm sitting down i'm sitting i'm feeling this whatever and then yeah it's that thing where then you're able to walk in and like you guys talk about responding rather than reacting and everything like that's like so helpful if barry had that the show would be like five minutes. If Barry just learned that out of the gate, if I could just respond rather than react. If all of them just got the app and had Joseph Goldstein talking to them,

they would be just fine. Yeah, no, it's really helpful yeah not to like do an ad just so everybody at home dan did not pay me to say this i am saying not yet not yet he hasn't paid me yet but i i did not no one paid me to say that i really do love the app i appreciate that a lot immensely and that kind of brings me to what i was hoping really do love the app. I appreciate that immensely. And that kind of brings me to what I was hoping to at least start our conversation with, which is this idea of like, do you have non-negotiables practices or policies that are like a must for you? Yeah. I mean, it's funny. So I found on my laptop, an old document that I made in 2010. And it was essentially this, like, here's everything.

If you do this, you always feel better. And it is simple things like meditating, exercise, drink more water than coffee, easy on the sweets, you know, those things. But also writing every day and watching something or reading something every day for me or some sort of creative work and then seeing, hearing some piece of art, whether it's a movie or a book or going to a museum or something to see that is very inspiring. But I always know I feel better when I meditate and when I'm working out and I'm watching what I'm eating. And then I would say, so that was done now 14 years

ago. And every day I try to negotiate myself out of the negotiables. And it's like, I don't really need this. You know, every time I talk to a doctor, I'm like, but I can live on candy, right? People live on candy. You know, it's like, what's wrong with eating two pints of ice cream every day? That's not an issue, right? And he's like, that's a huge issue. You'll be very, that's not good at all. You know, during the pandemic, I got so anxious and went into such a hole that I didn't meditate. You know, I was so freaked out when I didn't really exercise. And then mentally, yeah, it made me, sent me into like a stupor, you know? And so that took a long time to kind of get out of. But I've noticed that when I do those things,

when I take the time in the morning, especially to do those things, I just become much more open. I listen, I'm present. I had a therapist say, you write really negative narratives for the future. If I see we're in traffic and I see cop cars and an ambulance and a fire truck, I immediately think, oh, my kids and their mom are just in a car accident. And he's like, well, that's a pretty dark narrative.

And I'm like, have you seen my show? He's like, I think you need to work on those better narratives, you know, more positive narratives. And I think meditation, sleep, it's easier to take it easy on myself when those things are present. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not apologizing for it. I'm from Oklahoma, you know, so it's like, I'm going to go in a room and sit and close my eyes. Like you know, so it's like, I'm going to go in a room and sit and close my eyes.

Like you don't call it meditation. You're like, I'm thinking, you know, because you don't want to be judged or something. You know what I mean? I need to stretch. If I just said that to some of my friends back home, you know, they'd be like, I just, it's one of those things that you've learned that the hippies were right. And that sucks. i'm 45 and you're like all those hippie dudes were right and that blows it's like i should eat well i should stretch i should get out play ultimate frisbee meditate be a vegetarian and like listen to jazz or whatever. I still can't get into the Grateful Dead, but jazz now I'm like, this is good music.

I'm getting old. So I don't know, man. But that sounds like the challenge for you is remembering or agreeing to actually do these no brainers that we can all agree on. Yes. I have to really make myself do it. And in the minute I'm doing it, it is an anticipatory anxiety thing. It is that negative, what you call, you know, narrative thing. Oh, if I do this, I'll be late to this or, oh no, no, I got to do this right now because if I don't take out the trash cans right now and clean my entire house right now, you know, and you're just it's like relax.

And the weird thing for me, too, but it's like coffee. I love coffee. And if you have an anxiety disorder, like you shouldn't be drinking a lot of coffee. Nope. I've had so many doctors go, well, how much coffee do you drink? And I'm like, oh, I love coffee. And they're like, you, you need to get off coffee, you know? So, and that's a tough one. So yeah, you wake up, you have coffee and then yeah, you just, it's like my mind's going a hundred miles an hour. Yeah. I don't even have chocolate because it has caffeine in it.

Really? So were you a big coffee drinker? I liked coffee, but it didn't like me back. Not only did it give me like massive heartburn, but like you, I have anxiety, panic. And if I have it, it's no bueno, man. It's just it goes pear-shaped. Yeah, I go through the roof. And then the bad problem is, is that when I'm writing, it's great if you can focus all that to one thing, suddenly it's like you're flying. You know, if you can focus it on story ideas or certain episodes of the show I wrote like in a day, because I was was like it all just came to me and it was just flowing and you're feeling great and I attribute that to the caffeine and maybe it's not the caffeine yeah yeah maybe it's not you know so I was trying to maybe wean yourself off of that stuff

George and I talked about this and he was like I'm down to like two cups a day and I was like wow you're doing it man you know wait so how many cups are you drinking well now I am down to like two cups a day. And I was like, wow, you're doing it, man. Wait, so how many cups are you drinking? Well, now I am down to three. Okay. Well, that's not bad. There was a time when I was doing Barry that I would drink probably about eight to nine cups of coffee a day. I was drinking coffee all day and not drinking any water and eating my weight in donuts. So I put like 25 pounds on last season and it's all anxiety and stress related. And if you saw me on set, you know, I'm pretty like, hey guys,

you know, everything's fine and we're moving on. But then inside it's like, you know, so when you try to meditate on top of that, it's like they're all fighting each other. So it's like cleaning that out. It's much easier. I thousand percent agree. I don't. Yeah, it's that's a tricky one because it becomes an addiction or a dependency. Caffeine is, you know, it's a drug.

So breaking that is not easy. I talked to a doctor about it and he was like, if you go cold turkey, you'll go nuts. So just just slowly get yourself off of it but he's like i and i you know me hopefully i'm like so that means what like decaf then i'll just be on decaf and he's like none no caffeine at all because i think it's really bad for you when i was like all right you know so i do see the effects of not being on it as much as i do have more energy and things like that but when i am on it i'm yeah i'm pretty really wired and super anxious that's when i got i like you i know you had a panic attack on air i had a panic attack

on air on saturday night live i was doing a sketch as Julian Assange. I was playing Julian Assange and I was exhausted and Jeff Bridges was hosting and I showed up to work that day and Seth Meyers was like, hey, Julian Assange just, they hacked. I forgot what it was. And he's like, so we're writing a cold open

and you're Julian Assange. And I just went into a complete panic because I did it twice already. And it took years off my life because, you know, to me, it's just the live television aspect of it and the countdown and five, four, three, two, one. Now the whole nation is there. The red light goes on and I'm doing an impression I'm not comfortable with and I don't feel like I have it yet and I'm like a perfectionist so I'm like freaking out that the impression's not good.

So yeah, I started to do, it was the third week in a row where I had to do it and I was exhausted. I was just drinking coffee all day and eating sugar and I went on air and suddenly it was like I started shaking I had a wine glass and I just put the wine glass in front of my face because I was like abort abort abort and my brain that word was just going abort get out get out get out and the red light came on and I was going

abort Jen our stage manager was motioning for me. She was like, put the wine glass down. Like, we can't see your face. Put the wine glass down. And I just kept it there. And then I kind of brought it down. And then it would kind of creep back up. And then I would bring it down. And then I went off stage and I just went to my knees and just in a hallway and just like trying to breathe and the whole thing.

And that's when i was like there's something wrong because before that it was just oh i worry a lot you know and that was like oh there's something very wrong here and so that was when i started to look into like doing meditation and taking care of myself but because i that live TV aspect was just too, it was too much. But now I look back at it and I'm like, oh yeah, before every show I would get tired and I would drink a huge, I would drink like three cups of coffee

because I was exhausted. And then I go out there and I'm like, just, and then I don't know how you are, but people god i can never tell you seem so fine and i'm like i was dying inside it was hard if i watch the assange clip will i be able to see that you're panicking i've never actually gone back and looked at it but i know like when it was happening i just like couldn't catch my breath and i just kept this wine glass in front of my face I just remember the whole time I was just like keep just try to focus if you can on the impression and just trying to get the voice right

but I had no idea what I was saying I was like just don't start using your own voice I was like don't slip into your own voice you can't slip into your own voice. You can't slip into your own voice. You have to just say the words on the cue cards and let's get out of here. Coming up, Bill Hader talks about his panic attack on SNL and other panic attacks he's experienced, how naming his anxiety in the moment is very helpful, and his earliest memories of anxiety.

I have so much empathy for that. I mean, as you know, I've had the exact same experience, although I was only imitating a news anchored version of myself. I watched yours and I felt that thing I could tell you like trying to catch your breath. And that's how I felt. It was like could tell you like trying to catch your breath and that's how i felt it was like yeah i can't catch my breath i'm shaking and then the terrifying thing is everybody's noticing yes yes and then it's like i can see jenna when she was like motioning like take the cup down from your face then that made the panic 10 times worse like great she notices this isn't just in my head she notices i was shit now everybody knows and that was awful yeah so yeah i watched yours and you i thought you handled that really well like how you just threw to the other people and got out of there i thought that was really commendable because yeah

you're you feel very much out of control and i i still have panic attacks they're way less but we did a scene in barry for season three where we were we did the scene like a chase that was on a freeway was the motorcycles and when i showed up and i saw that they had shut down the freeway i had a complete panic attack in my car i had to pull over and just sit there and catch my breath and just be like I can't believe they just did this and I got out and I got really dizzy and I had to sit down and I'm directing it so I just had to go over away from everybody collect myself and then go in like it's no big deal. But when I just was like, people could get really hurt today.

They've shut down an entire freeway because I had an idea. There's a lot of responsibility. And I've talked to some other directors and I've told them that and they were like, oh, yeah, yeah, I've had that happen where you have to kind of go hide for a second, take a deep breath and then go back out and pretend like everything's fine. But you, deep down, are like, oh, my God. Something goes wrong today.

Someone could get really hurt. So I was a wreck when we shot this lane splitting. And, of course, the stunt performers are having the best day of their life, you know? They're like, this is like Disneyland, you know? They're, like, getting to go and do these motorcycle stunts. And I was like, please. We did one take of everybody. And they were like, can we go again? And I was like, no. It's like, we got it. It's great. It's moving on. We're not doing that again. I was like a total parent. I was like, you guys did it once.

It's fine. Go back. You guys can have Cokes. You can have a Coke. You guys get snacks, but go away. I was like, we're going to set up for the next shot. And that's it. So anytime we did a stunt on that show, I was a wreck. I was just like a total wreck. I was like, oh, please. We had these guys go down in sand in the last season. And you're just like, please. I'm just always centering myself, meditating at the monitors, like fully doing the whole thing. On the set, like looking at the monitors.

On the set, yeah. Yeah. Looking at the monitors, just looking at the monitors and on the set. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at the monitors, just being like, all right. But that's an interesting form of panic, or at least to my ears, a little bit more commendable form of panic, because for me, the panic is really self-centered. You know, it's what you said in a public situation. And I'm worried about what other people are going to think of me. this is actually a big part of panic other people yeah you know this fear that other people are going to judge you is like

that's a primordial fear for humans and social animals who when you're cast out of the tribe you're probably going to get killed in evolutionary times so i have that and also like fear of you know getting suffocated in an airplane or in an elevator. But your panic is like, I don't want somebody else to get hurt. That seems like you're like maybe a better person than me. Yeah, I mean, I would say I have what you're talking about as well, which is more of you leave the dinner and you're just like I can't I made a fool of myself and I'm panicking or if I say something that I feel like was a faux pas and I don't know it it's amazing what anxiety can do

to your mind where it can make you very much believe that everybody's looking at you like you're crazy yeah and I can fully believe that I have said something wrong and be like, oh man, that person just looked at me and they're furious at me. And then I start to panic. And then I have called that person the next day to apologize. And they're like, what are you talking about? And then I'm like, are they gaslighting me? Is this Rosemary's baby? You know? Like, I've really blown it. But yeah, this is like someone, I guess I'm illustrating as someone who has an anxiety disorder, maybe.

And then I put myself in positions where I'm in charge of these sequences that I came up with where people could seriously get hurt. And then I'm like, why did I do this? It's the same thing as being on Saturday Night Live. And I'm like, I have an anxiety disorder and I am very bad at cold reading. Why am I on a TV show that's live where I'm having to cold read stuff, you know, in front of the nation it's like why i would sit there backstage at snl and chris kelly another one of our stage managers said he goes you sit there and you put your head down and you

mutter to yourself why did i agree to this he goes you're always because i was always a game show host and when you're a game show host you're driving the sketch so you're trying to keep it up and moving and you're the one that has to get to each of the people and if you mess up a line or you're slow or whatever the whole sketch sucks so it's like your rhythm is dictating the whole thing. And so I would just be backstage going like, why did I agree to this? I have to be good. I have to be good right now. If I'm not good, Kristen Wiig wrote this sketch. It was like secret word or something. This is her sketch and I can blow it. You know, I would be having these thoughts mere seconds before we would be on.

And Chris Kelly would always come up and be like, dude, you're fine. Like, you've been doing this for a long time. You know what you're doing. And I'm like, okay. So says you, man. Did you ever try beta blockers? No, I never tried beta blockers. And you talked about this, I think, in your book. but I had a similar thing that you had, which was, I thought I had like the flu at one point. We were moving and my wife at the time was pregnant with her second child. And I just finished my seventh season of SNL. It was a lot was happening. And I was like, I have the flu, like my arms and legs

are really tired. They're super weighted down. I can't see straight. And I thought something was really horribly wrong with me. And I went to a doctor and they're like, I think you might be depressed. I think you might just be really anxious. And I was like, no, no, no, there's something definitely wrong with me. I'm like walking through water all day, you know, I went on a Lexapro and then like a small dose of Lexapro and then like the next day it was gone. Well, then that was the placebo effect because yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah. I was like, oh, the next day it's gone. And they're like, well, it can't work that fast. Right. And I was like, oh, so it's in my, okay, so it's in my okay so it's in my head and i had a therapist say i go yeah i get really dizzy and i can't see straight and i'll like i'll stay home for weeks being like

there's something wrong with me and she said here try this just go this is anxiety just say it out loud go this is anxiety she goes every time you hit the wave just, this is anxiety. She goes, every time you hit the wave, just go, this is anxiety. And I did that and it would go away within 30 minutes. And it was crazy. And I was like, wow, I had no idea the power that this can have over you. You know what I mean? And I'm realizing this in my 40s and I've been living with it your whole life. You know, it's wild.

What are your earliest memories of being anxious or depressed or having just mental health challenges? I would say like missing the bus was a big one. I like getting on the school bus and I would have like this fear that the school bus was going to not take me to school. You know what I mean? It was stuff like that or I'm going to miss the bus or the bus driver isn't going to not take me to school. You know what I mean? It was stuff like that, or I'm going to miss the bus or the bus driver isn't going to know where to go. And I would really freak out. And then in class, I would never raise my hand if I had a question or whatever. I would always kind of go up to the teacher afterwards and be like, hey, so I don't understand this. Just the shame of being wrong or looking like a fool and being ostracized or something like that. And then everybody just is always like, you just worry a lot. And it's funny, the meditation I learned was TM was helpful for a while. And then I didn't really learn mindfulness until

like a couple months ago. When I was at the monitor and everything, I was kind of doing TM. And then with the mindfulness, it's been really helpful in terms of pinpointing how I'm feeling. And, you know, it's just different. It's been really great. So I'm like now on a whole mindfulness. I'm reading Mark Epstein and all your friends, like all those books and stuff has been really helpful. And I think a lot of people go through it. As you get older, it just becomes more and more apparent. You're like, God, I hate feeling like this. I want to try to like work on it. So it's been great. I think a lot of the people listening to the show know the difference between TM and mindfulness, but I suspect we're probably

going to have some new listeners because people want to hear from you have never heard of me before. What, what in your mind is the difference between TM and mindfulness? Well, TM, they give you a mantra and you just kind of repeat a mantra. And the whole point of TM is trying to like not think. You go back to the mantra and it kind of lulls you into this state of transcendence or a very deep relaxation. It almost the opposite in my mind at least of mindfulness and that way you're just focusing on the the mantra and nothing else mindfulness is you're very much focusing on your breath so what the mantra was and tm and mindfulness as you know is like the breath and you focus on that and then when sensations are coming up,

you are very aware of them. You go to them and you're open to them. And it's very much kind of, I'm sitting. You're very much mindful of your body in the chair, the sensations you're having. And then issues that, you know, you might be having in that moment. I'm angry, you know, or as Joseph Goldstein said, you know, a quiet note, I'm angry,

you know, or I'm upset or this. And so you're kind of pinpointing a specific thing that's very helpful for me. So at this stage, not that TM is a bad practice, but for me personally, at this stage where I'm at, the mindfulness has been very helpful in terms of going and being mindful of like, Oh yeah, I get really riled up about this and now I'm aware of it. I'm not lost in it where the TM would just kind of put me into like a, I would just relax.

And it's like, for me it was like getting to have a warm bath or something. You're like, what's up? What just happened? What was I mad about you know yeah everybody was like rick moranis and uh and space balls after he like hits his head and he gets up you know and he's like hey guys you guys uh smoke them if you got them you know it's kind of like that thing

that's how i was after after lunch i would do TM and everybody would be like, oh man, Bill's, he just did his meditation because he's like, hey, what's going on everybody? He's not like a weird quiet guy. But the mindfulness is helpful just in like I was saying earlier where it's like, okay, this is what's happening in my body right now. And you're just aware of it. Like right now, I feel like I'm talking too much. So there's like a mindful thing going.

You're talking too much. Dan might want to talk about something else and you're talking about this other stuff. Because I can do that when I get nervous, I talk a lot. So it's like, hey, when you get nervous, you talk a lot. But it's not beating yourself up over it. It's like you have a sense of humor about it. Yes, yes.

There was a great line from this guy Ram Dass, who was, he wasn't a Buddhist per se. He came more out of the Hindu tradition, but he was this Jewish guy from the Boston area who was a teacher at Harvard and got kicked out of Harvard because he was giving the students acid or something like that. I'm probably mangling this somewhat. But he, you know, Timothy Leary.

Yeah, he was he and Timothy Leary were doing the acid or stuff together with the with with the kids. And so they got both kicked out. And Richard Alpert, who went on to become Ram Dass and was in many ways very influential for the people that you refer to as my friends, like Joseph Goldstein and Mark Epstein and Sharon Salzberg. Yeah. He's an influential figure for them. But he has this thing that the reason why I'm bringing him up because it really relates to everything you just said, which is that you can do meditation for a long time and it doesn't mean you don't worry anymore. It's more like you become a connoisseur of your neuroses you you just kind of appreciate them and see them with a sense of humor yeah you kind of shrug at it and go there's that fucking asshole well it's like yeah they just kind of come

in and it's like yeah of course i'm like. Instead of me being like caught up in it, like, oh, my God, I'm so, you know, you're in the whirlpool and it's, you know, a raging river and you're being swallowed down by it. You're kind of off to the side with your arms crossed being like, oh, Jesus, there's that asshole again. That's kind of how I am. Or like, oh, Jesus, there's that asshole again. That's kind of how I am. Or like, oh, I'm worrying about this. But, you know, I did it the other day with my therapist where I was like, oh, I'm feeling sick and I'm supposed to go to this event and the event's this weekend.

And if I'm sick, then I'm going to have to do this and I might have to wear a mask. And then, I don't know, it feels impersonal and blah, blah, blah. And he went, Bill, it's Tuesday. What is wrong with you? And I went, right, I see what you're saying. And he went, yeah.

Like, stop. And I used to think that was invalidating your feelings or whatever. And it's kind of nice to have in the mindfulness and i think you've talked about this i think it's important to be doing mindfulness and therapy and whatever else you can be doing because i used to think hey i'm meditating that's great i mean i'm drinking a ton of coffee and staying up all night and not working out and I eat jack-in-the-box every night but hey I'm meditating and it's like why am I uh freaking out all the time you know I'm meditating but it's all kind of part of the thing so yeah it was funny to have him kind of say like

yeah man I'm not invalidating your feelings i'm just saying you're driving yourself crazy like stop you don't have to drive yourself crazy try it just give it a shot and um it's true it's really nice you know there's a name there's a technical term for the spinning out you were doing on tuesday with the shrink about the about the party on the weekend. It's propuncture. Propuncture. It's an ancient. Oh, wow.

Ancient word. And it means the imperialistic tendency of mind. The fact that we have a data point in the present moment, which is, okay, I feel like shit. And then we make this phantasmagoric mental movie projecting into the future, and we're imperializing the future with this negative movie making. And just the fact that there's a name for this thing.

That's ancient. That's ancient, yes. It really, it really, it takes some of the air out of it. It takes a lot of pressure off you. Yes, yes. I've read that you've said that doing the show and having it succeed was really reaffirming for you and helped you with a pre-existing imposter syndrome feeling. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've never, I i mean i think at saturday night live i was definitely like i can't believe they hired me and i think i was always very very i'm still like if i get around seth meyers or tina fey or amy poehler or my rudolph or chris parnell any of those people who were there when i came in rachel dratch i'm always You know, they're upperclassmen to me. And so I still, I think if Seth Meyers calls me, I will go, Seth's calling. I get really excited. And, but yeah, I did. I had like a real imposter syndrome. And then I always wanted to be a director. I always wanted to be a filmmaker. And I had a lot of confidence in that. And then when I got in my 20s, I had zero confidence in that because I made a short film that no one liked. And then I made a second short film that

people were like, huh, you know, and then got in my head and lost my confidence. And so then I, you know, moved to LA, was a production assistant, did all these things to try to become a filmmaker, but had very, very little confidence. And then took improv classes, got obscenely lucky. And Megan Mullally saw me in a show, recommended me to Lorne Michaels. I got SNL. And so then suddenly I'm at Saturday Night Live where I was an assistant editor four months, five months beforehand on Iron Chef America and then I was on Saturday Night Live. And then I was like, this is crazy.

So I took it as like a learning experience, but it was never like the goal. It was never, you know, the goal was to be a filmmaker. So the Lonely Island guys, the stuff those guys are doing, I was so envious, you know. I was like, man, you guys are making short films. Can I help, you know? I just wanted to be involved with that world and lauren michaels very patiently was like you should

be doing impressions on the show you know you should be working on characters that's why i hired you not to carry cable for andy and yorma andiva, you know, and act in their stuff. And so I was like, all right, but I always want to be a filmmaker. And then when I got out, was in movies and stuff. And then, of course, the way I've learned this is that the minute I go, okay, I'm going to make a movie, I'm going to make movies. And then you get out of SNL and no one was really interested in here reading a script of mine for a movie but they were interested in a tv show and that was HBO they had seen me in a movie called the skeleton twins and then they were like we like you in that kind of part why don't you do that kind of a thing but with us and it could be kind of like a dark dramedy and they teamed me up with

Alec Berg and then by doing the show and by moments, I kind of just mentioned of Alec. Liz Sarnoff was a writer on Barry. Her and Aida Rogers, a producer on the show, were my onset therapists, who would just take me over and be like, relax. You know, I learned a lot about leading with emotion. I would get really excited about machinations in the plot.

Oh my God, this will then lead to this, and then it's like a mousetrap. I got get really excited about machinations in the plot. Oh my God, this will then lead to this. And then it's like a mousetrap. I got really excited by that. And then as the show went on, it just became, I became much more comfortable and then more interested in putting these feelings I have out there. And so, yeah, it did help me get over that imposter syndrome of doing that and having the confidence of really surprising yourself of when the show aired, I was really confident, which is very rare for me. I felt really good about it. I was like, well, if people don't like it, they don't like it, but this is really good. And I had never felt, I had never been about that, about anything in my life. And so that was a very long process though.

But once that happened, that was personally the best thing that could have happened to me, you know, was to feel, oh man, I really stand by this, you know. And then when the last episode aired, I was just like so incredibly proud of it and like what we had all done. But yeah, me getting over that imposter syndrome of like, wow, I worked through some real mental, psychological obstacles to get to this thing. My sister called me and she was like, are you proud of yourself? You know, but are you patting yourself on the back? I don't know why I just

gave her a Chicago accent. She doesn't sound like that at all. I'm trying to hide her identity. Did you pat yourself on the back? My friend got back from Chicago once, and he said he heard his aunt say, did Pat get her new backpack back? coming up bill talks about the importance of having the right collaborators and his love of directing what he's learned by being in uncomfortable situations and how he's learned to come up with new narratives as a way to have a more constructive approach to dealing with his his anxiety. Let me ask you a question, because I suspect, I don't know how this question is going

to go down with you, but I suspect from the 45 minutes of knowing you, that you think of yourself when it comes to things having to do with psychology, mental health, meditation, that you think of yourself as a student or a patient, but not necessarily a teacher. And in that story that you just told about Barry, there seems to be a very important lesson, one that I'm constantly talking to my son about and constantly talking to myself about,

which is you can be fucking terrified. You can feel like an imposter. You can be scared. And you can still try the thing over and over and over again. And if you get lucky and if you find the right collaborators and if you're doing honest work and you're persistent, there's some chance that you will succeed anyway. That's true. and i think honest work and persistence and the right collaborate i mean you just said all the right things right there because i'm learning that too where if you don't have the right collaborators and that means we had hbo

alec berg hero murai maggie carey liz johnson like all these great writers directors everybody because i've i've been a part of great projects and things. And without the right collaborator, it's like it's planting a seed and then it grows sideways or it's like a, you know, it's like an ingrown hair. It grows right back into the ground and it doesn't work. And so you need to. That's very important. And then making the work honest, like I was very lucky to have written a lot of screenplays before that, that were not honest. It was like, well, this will be cool. You know,

when you're a movie geek, I am like a movie geek. You're just kind of aping what you were inspired by. I still do that. I mean, the fact that people watch Barry and they go man you like the Coen brothers and I'm like yeah it's inescapable but as long as it's making it more honest and more putting yourself out there more and then and then the persistence of it is like huge and what keeps you persistent and doing all this stuff is you're just your genuine love for it like Fred Armisen always has me in his bands, like fake bands playing the bass. And he's like, you're really good at playing the bass. Like he'll teach me what to play and I'll play the bass.

And then I feel really excited. I got to play with him and like John Worcester, who is a friend of mine who, you know, isn't super chunk and mountain guy bands. Awesome. And I'm like, it was great. And then he gave me a bass for my birthday and

was the sweetest present and i picked it up like twice you know i have no affinity for it you know what i mean it's like it's fun when i'm with him and he's showing me what to play but if i try to pick it up on my own i don't know if I'd have the persistence to continue it. But I have a genuine love. I will wake up at 3 a.m. and go out to out in the middle of nowhere in a desert so we could shoot the opening of season three just so we get the sun in the right place. And that is fun to me. It's like accepting that part of yourself and being like, that's great. And I have in the past, I could be very swayed by other people's opinions or going, oh my God, you're waking up when? And I go, well, I like it, but maybe they have a point.

Maybe that is weird that I'm waking up. That doubt. And that, as I got older, I just would, I didn't care. It like oh well that's we just have a difference of opinion you like that I like this and the love of it is what keeps you going back to it it's like a fun problem to solve as opposed to a thing that if I went out and played bass and it sucked I'd be like oh man I don't want to continue that. That was embarrassing. I don't want to do this again. I just want to watch. Can I just watch?

You know? I don't want to paper over, though. You talked about perseverance, having good collaborators, doing honest work. But I don't want to paper over the other thing that I mentioned, which is the straight up bravery here. We had a guest on recently, a couple months ago, who was really stuck in my head, Dr. David Russ Marin. He's the head of the Center for Anxiety at Harvard. And he was talking about the fact that he thinks one of the root causes of the current epidemic of anxiety is the fact that people are increasingly uncomfortable or allergic or unwilling or intolerant to be uncomfortable. That our life has become so friction free in many ways that we freak out and we have any level of discomfort.

But over and over the coursing through all of your stories today is you keep putting yourself in positions where you're really uncomfortable, are going to panic. And yes, we need to get you off of coffee and I'll probably fix a lot of this. But yeah, well, I think a lot of people could benefit from learning from you on this willingness you have to be in positions that are uncomfortable yeah i mean i think it's because i don't know you see the north star of the thing which is like you get excited by it i'm very excited about stories and i get really excited about moments or man that scene this is going to be so cool.

Once this thing cuts together with the chase on the freeway with the motorcycle, this is going to be amazing. And it's just like, that's the North Star. That's the thing you're just going towards. And then all these obstacles that you make or hit you, you have to keep going. But I will say the uncomfortableness to bring it back to this and what i'm learning every day what helps me with the uncomfortableness is these non-negotiables that you're talking about is the patient the exercise more water than coffee like it's real simple things i keep saying the hippies were right you know i'm friends with matt stone from south park and we were on a hike and we were talking about this and he's i gotta give him credit he credit. He's the one, he's like, yeah, dude,

the hippies were right. He goes, it sucks. We laughed about it, but I was like, we're hiking right now. He's like, I know. And it's great. I love it. I was like, we used to just sit around and listen to music and smoke cigarettes and drink tons of coffee and, you know, argue about like which bands were better and this and all that. And now look at us. But you need to accept that it's going to be uncomfortable. It's like I've learned very recently, especially doing the show, being uncomfortable in that moment leads to like stronger relationships.

You understand something about somebody and they understand you. And the meditation can really help with that in that terms we were talking about of being okay with your neuroses. I'm learning I can just say it like, look, I reacted. This is how it made you feel. I apologize for that. But what I need is X, Y, xyz you know what I mean and then you're able to work with each other and then I have now stronger relationships with those people than I did before when I guess what I'm saying is what I'm learning is it's all interconnected it's like when you get a massage and they're working on your shoulder and they're like this will help your ankle you know it's like I've had that happen where they're like, this will help your ankle. I've had that happen where they're doing something on my upper back and I'm like, wow, why is my hamstring all...

And they're like, well, it's all connected. So that's why we have to loosen up all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, okay. To me, it's all... I'm feeling or learning at least it's all part of one thing. And if these non-negotiables, if you start doing that, it kind of permeates out into all these other parts of your life. That's like very helpful.

You know, this, this idea of not being honest with your feelings, I've been paying for this correctly. And I, I had, I, I did learn one great hack. I don't know if you'd be interested in hearing it, but it's helped me a lot. So I would, if I, if somebody on my team or somebody in my world was pissing me off, I would probably not say something, but I would walk around with a story in my head of like, they're out. And they could of course pick that up and that would create a lot of fear. And everybody would know, oh, Dan is kind of like that. You're either in or you're out,

which is just a stupid way to be. And so now I will actually, if I got a problem, I will go to people and tell them. But I've been for years taking these communications coaching classes. And one of the tools they gave me is something called state. It sounds so obvious, but it's stating your positive intention, which, again, sounds not only obvious, but like a little boring. But I just go into the conversation by saying like, yeah, there's something I want to talk about.

But the reason is because I really care about this working relationship or this friendship. Yes. And so I want to get this out there so we can deal with it together. Are you open to that? And like it changes the whole thing. Changes the whole dynamic, the way that you approach it. Yeah. My thing is like, yeah, the anxiety of it

and then writing a really negative narrative. I'm going to go in there and say, hey, could I? And they're going to like throw something at my head. Or they're going to be angry with me or whatever. And then you start to panic. But it's also just those tools you have, like trying to have that when you're younger and just seeing how growing up, how people dealt with conflict and stuff like that and then as you get

older you just kind of and especially when you're running a thing because i i think i had that like i'm gonna run the thing but i'm gonna be everybody's best friend and it's like yeah they need a boss they need a leader yeah i was lucky enough to have Aida Rogers saying like, hey, you can't, you can't like pull practical jokes on people. And I'm like, but that's all we do. It's fun. It's like, yeah, I know. It's not nice. You're the boss. They might take it the wrong way. And I'm like, oh, Jesus. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. I'm just trying to keep the mood up and nice. You know, it's like, no, you can't do that. You talked about being incredibly hard on yourself. And I think a lot of people listening will hear themselves in that. You know, what are the upsides of self-criticism? What are the downsides? And how do you access the positive parts of it without getting too far into the negative parts? Well, I think it is like for me, it's

through meditation, therapy, these other things, you try to find a way to separate it out and get some space between you and the thing so you're not caught up in it. And you kind of go, okay, I do X amount of things. I got to a place recently, which might sound strange by the way I talk on this, but really recently where you go, okay, what's constructive and what's not constructive? What's something I can put into action and what's something I can't put into action? So my therapist going, Bill, it's Tuesday. That's something I could put into action. You know what I mean? That's like, oh, just like, let's stop doing that. Let's stop writing the bad narratives.

Because you end up just going through the thing twice when it actually happens. You know, when the pandemic happened, I was like, wow, this could get really bad. And then they go into all the bad things will happen. And then pretty much everything I worried about happened. And then I just went through it twice. It didn't make it easier. I think there is this like trick I think I'll have where I'm like, if I think the worst thing will happen, then it doesn't happen.

It's like magical thinking that it won't happen. And then I'll be so relieved. And if it does happen, I'll be prepared for it. But in my case, that never happens. I just am sad twice. I'm like insanely bummed out twice. So that's constructive. Once it gets into the voices in your head

that might not be you or might be people in your life or your projection of people in your life or other things telling you, yeah, you do that because, you know, you're just a bad person or whatever. Like, well, that's not very constructive. And I don't really agree with that. I'm like everybody. I'm complicated and I'm working through it. I just try to like work it out that way. It's like, what's something, can I do something about that? Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And it kind of leads to the other thing I was going to talk about with you, which is, this is a while ago, you were talking about Joseph Goldstein, the meditation teacher, and how he talks about making a little mental note when you're doing mindfulness meditation, or actually you can just do this in your life. And you were imitating yourself, putting a note on a sensation you're feeling. And you use the words, I'm anxious. Yeah. And I think it's possible to just make the note anxiety. Yeah.

Take the eye out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And it gets back to what you said at the top, the very top of this interview, which is that when you take the story out of a situation, it takes the air out of it. And so labeling something in your mind, anxiety, or even if you want to go deeper, buzzing chest or ears turning red or whatever, just the sensations of anxiety, you're taking this what feels like a monolith, like some big fucking thing, and really pixelating it in a way that it loses a lot of its power, especially when you take the eye out of it. That's true, yeah. It's saying anxiety, anxiety, and then to your point, it reduces itself to where it just is like melting in your hand. You know, it just kind of like just starts to shrink and melt as you kind of just stare at it.

And you just become kind of like aware of it, you know. I love Joseph Goldstein's voice. He sounds like the guy who started Gertie's Folk City. Wait, the guy who what? The guy in the Bob Dylan documentary that's like, I was one of the few guys who listened to all the lyrics. No one else back in those days listened to all the lyrics. I listened to all the lyrics. That's how Joseph Goldstein sounds.

Soften the belly. Soften the eyes. Open your eyes. I'm going to play that for him. I cannot wait to see his reaction. He sounds just like that guy. If you watch Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary, there's a guy who talks like that. He sounds just like Joseph Goldstein through funny.

What's surreal is that I will, you know, I interact with him in person a lot. So that same voice that guides me in meditation is sometimes like absolutely mocking me. And that's a fun, that's a fun tension. Dan, I need you out of the room. I was at a party with him once and I was talking to somebody and I, there was somebody asking me a question and I said yeah i don't know i don't know and uh joseph gets my attention with across the room and mouths the words you don't know shit this is the guy who is like this amazing teacher wrote this that mindfulness book everything and he's telling you you You don't know anything.

But that's what I kind of like about those people I refer to as your friends or whatever. Because I did have a thing that you had as well, which was I was always like, I don't know about the, you know, just the mystical quality of the thing. And I always liked hearing them how they were just kind of regular, just so chill, you know, and just regular cool people. I'm like, oh, I want to hang with all these people but also they kind of have like this thing about their personality that i admire and want which is this kind of it's a thing you said before i kind of acknowledge everything that's kind of fucked up about me and i'm kind of like dealing with it but how are you doing yeah you know yeah and i'm like oh oh, man, I want that. Instead of being this ball of anxiety.

You know, artists sometimes feel like if you delve into that and try to break that apart, then the thing that makes you interesting, you wouldn't be able to produce stuff the same way. And I just disagree with that. I think it'll actually make it better because you're able to really understand it. You're not caught up in it. It's like, oh, I understand it'll actually make it better because you're able to really understand it. You're not caught up in it. It's like, oh, I understand it now. I feel like I've said a lot of things that has been said on this podcast a lot before.

But it's been really fun to be able to be on it. But I'm always like, oh, man, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here. But now you guys, I don't know. This has been, I rarely get nervous before I do a podcast because usually I'm like, oh, I know what I'm going to talk about. This, this, and this. But I'm like, I'm like a fan of you guys. So I was nervous. Looks like super nervous.

First of all, I'm a fan of yours. And second, I think this was phenomenal. And finally, just to say the reason why I can probably be employed the rest of my life is you referenced saying the same shit other people have said. People need to hear it over and over and. Yeah, I'm always, but that's what I mean. It's like you got to see it in real time. That voice comes in and what I'm learning is you just kind of go, okay, I'm going to just say it out there. And then you say it and you're like, okay, I released it instead of holding it in or whatever. It's like you just say the thing like, I'm nervous. That's helpful just to like acknowledge it and then go, oh, all right, I'm kind of nervous

right now. Which makes me think you're closer to the thing you say you want than you think you are. Yeah. I think you are closer. Yeah. Oh, thanks, man. This has been, this is like straight up therapy. My therapist is going to love this.

He's going to listen to this and be like, yeah, you're getting it. You go, kid. you're getting it you go kid all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations

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