Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into Discomfort (Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris)

Michael Gervais (0:00)

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.

Dan Harris (1:25)

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 gonna 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 the 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.

It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm a long time 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 of work.

Yeah.

Bill Hader (3:35)

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 to make everyone as anxious as you are.

SPEAKER_4 (4:05)

I think you're trying to just make us all incredibly uncomfortable.

Bill Hader (4:16)

And I said, yeah, that might be, maybe, I don't know. If you're lucky enough or 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. Or 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.