Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Seth Meyers On: Handling Performance Anxiety, Managing the Inner Critic, Hacks for Better Conversation, and Staying Joyful in Dark Times

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Plus, much more from the famed late-night TV show host. Seth Meyers 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 has released two standup specials: Lobby Baby, on Netflix and Dad Man Walking, on HBO. He 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. 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 Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] 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.  Wix:  Ready to create your website? Go to wix.com.  Cozy Earth:  Head to cozyearth.com and use code Harris for up to 20% off.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan 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 firehose 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 Myers, 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 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 Myers. 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 Myers Brothers and the Lonely Island and Seth Myers podcast. Before we dive in, a quick plug for my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up over at Dan Harris.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 of 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 20th. every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. I'll be joined by our Teacher of the Month, Bart Van Mellick. Sign up, Dan Harris.com.

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Refresh your routines with comfort that makes every day feel like a new year. Seth Myers, welcome to the show. So happy to be here, Dan. Pleasure to have you. Okay, I have a million questions for you. I've got time for nine. Okay, I have... Do you, hit me with your best nine.

Yeah, I'll whittle it down. Okay, good. 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, are like in the news cycle deeply. That's a little strange. 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? Well, one of the loveliest things is an honest answer to where to I get my news is I get it from late night with Seth Myers 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. Yeah, no, I'm glad we're talking about this, you know. Meaning you have not encountered these items in the news before you've walked into 30 Rock. 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 news over the course of the weekend so I could be ready for Monday show. And now it's sort of like late Sunday. You can sort of tune back in late Sunday. And that's ultimately what you can talk about on Monday. But 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 when I'm out of the office, I try to focus on being a part of a operational family. And you're pretty good at the, like, digital hygiene when you're with your family? 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 news. So I can have wild swings, wild mood swings, but they're thankfully not due to anything that's happening in D.C. Right. It's pegged to your fortunes on Fandul. 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 bet the entirety of my heart on a few sports teams that have not come through with me. Which are those teams? Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah. Live and die with 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 going to allow myself to have freedom from that. 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 you are a vector of information at this point, which late night TV shows have become. And 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? Well, it's interesting because 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, 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, we're not like,

hey, the show's not going to be about bad things anymore. That's how we're going to be joyful. We're like, no, we're going to talk about bad things, but we're going to 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 going to 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. 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. I'm going to 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 want to say. No, no, no, I'm very excited. It's like I like that you're now my legal counsel. What Seth meant to say was there is a great quote from, I'm going to mingle the quote, and I can't even remember who said it. Great. But it's something like, engage joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

Oh, it's really good. And as you said, if you take away the joy, you are depleting our resources to engage effectively. Yeah. 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. Well, you know, it's always interesting because, like, you don't want to get, I've been doing this for a long time.

And people since weekend up day 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 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 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 going to 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 going to throw our hands up and say, this is how it is now. Yeah. I completely agree. It's like a kind of sustenance. Like, we're in it together. We can laugh at this thing. Yeah. So let's reengage from that standpoint. 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. Well, I suspect that might be the pattern throughout the rest of this interview. So let's see how it goes. Okay, good.

I'll do it. I'll do it really long. And then you just boil it down for it. Okay. So let me ask, you'll brush me off if I'd 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 all. 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? It's better. Look, I think the hardest time I ever went through was getting your dream job of S&L and then showing up and realizing everybody there was also like the best person in the last place they were and that your bag of tricks is now, seems very meager compared to the,

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 Lorne 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. 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. Those were rough years too, but nothing, nothing ever compared to the first five years at Essendell. 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. So it's hard to say like I was treated unfairly.

We all get, you know, are 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 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 to people there who were 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 were like, Will Forte, Andy Sandberg, Bill Hader, Jason Sedacas, Fred Armisen, Keenan Thompson. And, you know, I was writing sketches, and I remember I would be like, 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. Is it true? I read that there was an incident where you punched a very small hole in the wall. I opened a door so fast that the handle on the other side. side went through the wall. So it was like a handle shape, hole. Yeah. Okay. That's a little less aggressive. 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. What was the proximate cause of the door incident? 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 S&D all the time, I remember he said, I'm not going to have that hole fixed because I want to. you to have to look at it every time you're in your dressing room and remember what a baby you are. And then, by the way, this is just to make it clear that I haven't, I'm not fixed. The self-same Shoemaker, who's now a producer in 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. Remember those old cartoons where like people would

like yell into a bottle and then the bottle would have the screams and 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 and you'd hear him. That's like what Shoemaker does. He's like the bottle I yell into and then he brings it to the top of mountains and nobody else that I work with. Here's the yells. He's my release valve. He missed two weeks for 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 and I didn't have Schumerick's office to go to and I threw a pen and against the wall and it exploded and left like a Rorschach inkblot 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 shoemakers

away. So I'm coming up on like 25 years in the building. Basically every room I've ever been in has some mark of me being petulant. 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. Oh, wow. Which I always thought was hilariously ridiculous. That does seem like something a very forward-thinking couple therapists would make two people do, like just give him whistles and be like, without words.

No, he was doing this with pursed lips. Oh, wow. This wasn't on an actual whistle. No. Oh, wow. Well, it's a shame he didn't hit it bigger. This seems like a real talent. We'll leave that to the history books.

But just back to your petulence. and I share it. This has been a lifelong struggle for me, as our mutual friend, my brother would tell you. Yeah. How do you manage that now, especially given that you are the leader of a pretty large organization?

I'm really good. I mean, I don't know if I would be as good without Shoemaker is a real Seth Whisper, 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,

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 a kind of place that everybody loves to come to every day, myself included. I should also say, like, it's not like I'm fighting 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 it's really nice. And 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. So for you, the parenting stuff, which you've now done two comedy specials, which everybody

should watch and I will 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? 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, I'm, Oh, no, he definitely can't act at the show the way he acts at home because he's a lunatic. What would they point to as examples of lunacy? I have a very, I don't know, it's interesting. I mean, doing a bit in my stand-up 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. I, like, lose my temper and 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 writing and performing a talk show on network television. What are their ages? Nine, seven, and four. Okay, so you're in it.

Yeah, we're in it. I mean, and by the way, they're really good ones. I wouldn't trade any of them in. 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? 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 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 is an effective tool. When you're trying to get your kids to do something like a withering put down doesn't have the effect you might hope it would with an adult friend. 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. Yeah. When he was four, we took him for one of those full-blown hearing tests.

Uh-huh. And his hearing was perfect. But he was just ignoring us all the time. And that persists until this day. It's like my voice is a dog whistle and he's a cat. 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. One of the themes in your comedy, and you really, as stated, draw on parenting as a source for stand-up. Yeah. 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. Yeah, I'm also 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 your kids, obviously, less so. And so it's very important for me to always, more often than not, make myself the punchline to 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 it is really fun to do. And, you know, as far as meditation, like, I will say that, like, Alexia and I started doing it. I don't quite know how often she does it anymore. 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. 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. Yeah, and it's a little bit like exercise.

Yes. 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. What flavor did you do when you did it? 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. Oh, you dropped a clue there. 20 minutes. That's probably TM or Transcendental Meditation. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, that's what it was.

Is that a good one? How do we feel about that? 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. Okay, great. Is yours longer or shorter? 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. Right.

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. You know when you're spitballing ideas for your website or you're in some sort of creative flow and then you think, okay, how do I actually make this happen? If that's where you get stuck in the web design process, look no further. Wix has you covered. Even with zero design experience, you can make a great-looking site.

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And she's got a whole series running right now that I think will be very useful for anybody interested in using the beginning of this year to start healthy habits or end unhealthy ones. Many of us feel stuck right now, caught in routines, habits and thought patterns that are just not working on the latest. season of the Happiness Lab, they're diving into the science of getting unstuck, improving your energy, embracing change, sparking creativity, and finding more meaning in everyday life. Each week features a different expert, Dr. Diana Hill on using your energy wisely, Maya Shunker on navigating change, David Brooks on The Power of Connection, George Newman on creative breakthroughs, and Bill Burnett and Dave Evans on designing a more purposeful year. If you want 2026 to feel different, listen to the Happiness Lab and start the new

year with a fresh mindset. You said the thing that I was going to 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. 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 going to read your memoir. That's true.

Whereas like I'm always worried like a parent's going to 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. Right. Even the nine-year-old hasn't seen your specials? No. He hasn't yet. Total lack of curiosity, Dan. I am deeply familiar with that. He's always like, can we watch the new Bill Burr? I'm like, gone. Speaking of kids, I mentioned this earlier. You did write this book. I'm not scared. You're scared.

Yeah. 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? 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 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 as 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 the world and what the world's going to 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 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 shouldn't 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. Yeah. So it's not like you're particularly angsty or anxious, it's that having three children moving through the world, that's where my anxiety is from, yeah. What's going to happen to them

at any given moment? 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, have 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. What makes you more nervous, a huge guest or taping a special?

Probably taping a special, just because it feels more permanent. And ultimately, when you tape a stand-up 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, especially 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 going to 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 with a joke, right? And once you do, you feel like the audiences as well. And 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 going to,

nobody wants me to dress like that anyway. Eddie Murphy came to mind, but also I kind of remember some of Chappelle's onesies. 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. 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? 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 use 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 own, 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 less a little worse to watch. Yeah. And it's kind of the case for nerves. Properly managed, nerves really can up your game. Yes. We always used to say at SNL like nothing was worse than a host who would say they weren't nervous. 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, 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. 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 the. 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 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 so 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 going to 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 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 going to 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. It is fun to find out over the course of the show how this one's going to be different than the ones before it.

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. 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 in the time,

but being an improviser, right? Like, that's why I came up with. I wasn't a stand-up. I was doing improv comedy in Chicago, and you're part of a troop. 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 isn't 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 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. 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.

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 door, they might an interview 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. 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? 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. And, 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 guest you respond best to. And again, that makes it fun. 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, 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. just like, this again. Ironically, the exception to that rule is Donald Trump. Yes.

You could not be more accurate with that answer. And sadly, I've never had a chance to take a run of it. Would you want to? No,

I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to because I don't, I sadly don't think there's like the breakthrough interview with him that that's the one.

Got him. You know what I mean? So, and by the way, not for a lack of trying during 2015, 2016. Like we,

I will own up to not having taken the early days of that campaign seriously. So we sort of thought, oh, my God, we'll have them on. It'll be such a lark. And fortunately, for us, it didn't happen because I'm sure there'd be something now that I would not reflect back on fondly. Because of the, how seriously I'd 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 I would have been polite. I would have been the nice boy that my parents raised, and I would look back at it and be like, huh, I'm not. like that picture's out there. 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. Yeah. And speaking of criticism, how do you handle criticism, either of your work in public or of your work at home? 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 where they're coming from. I mean, again, I would say, again, touchier about criticism at home. 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. You want a hack? Yeah. I would love a hack. This goes back to your reference of the callback while interviewing. Yeah. 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, non-judgmentally, in your own words, but quickly. Yeah. 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. Yeah, it works with me. 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. 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. And I'd love for you to maybe go walk around the block and try to think of how to be smarter. I'm not sure.

That's what I was talking about, but I mean, she missed. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, fair enough, fair enough. All right, a couple more questions. I'm going to 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 pour it over the shitty habits I acquired as a network news anchor

to this organization. Yeah. 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? 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 going to host a show and that part's on me. But I have no vision. 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 genuinely I'm the happiest I am and the most value I can add to late night with Seth Myers is if I'm sitting in front of my computer writing jokes for the show or

or if I'm sitting on 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 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 want to adjust or if you want to 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're in the news world, we decided early on, and it's a shoemaker rule, which is we do not do a post-mortem 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 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 want to 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 want to focus on the next trip to the plate. You learn like don't live in the failures, but rather like embrace the fact that you get to do it

again tomorrow. This shoemaker gentleman seems deeply wise. I mean, he's the one you really want to have on the podcast, if you could ever convince him to. Duly noted. 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. You know, it's not like one of those aspirational stories of like, one day I'm going to live there. It's more like, well, somebody's got to go Tell these dummies how to get stuffed out. 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. 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 S&L. 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. 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. I only cozyed up to your brother in the first place in hopes that it would lead to me being on the show. You've got it all backwards, Dan. I've got nothing from that guy.

But a dead end until this moment. That may or may not come up at our next family dinner. I really hope it does. I mean, if not, what was the point of me even saying it? Fair enough. Before I let you go, because this is a podcast, can you just name your podcast so that people can go listen to them? Yeah, I do one with my brother called Family Trips with the Myers Brothers, and it is a delight. And then I do one while we're speaking about friends with the Lonely Island, which is Andy Sandberg and Yoramit Kovina and Akiva Schaffer, and it's called the Lonely Island and South. Seth Myers 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. Seth Myers. Thank you. Really appreciate you. Thank you, Dan.

Thank you again, Seth Myers. 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 Dan Harris.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&A sessions. The next one is coming up on January 20th.

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 Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.