Comedian Josh Johnson On: Handling News Cycle Anxiety, His Insane Work Ethic, and Why AI is BS
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What is Josh Johnson’s background and why is he on The Daily Show?
Hey everybody, welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. Today we have a fascinating, rangy, and super interesting conversation with the comedian Josh Johnson. We talk about uh how uh wild the mind is. We talk about uh dealing with uh the anxiety of uh the news cycle, the difference between acceptance and resignation, his extreme Extraordinary work ethic and uh the kind of healthy obsession he has with comedy. And um stay tuned because after I say thank you, we actually have a long and really interesting discussion about AI and his uh very powerful uh negative feelings uh about AI. Just a little bit more on Josh before we dive in here. He is uh one of uh the uh hosts and correspondents.
On The Daily Show, on Comedy Central. He's got a comedy special, an excellent one, on HBO Max called Symphony. And on his YouTube channel, he, and this gets to his work ethic, he has for three years posted a new hour of comedy every week. Take that in. A new hour of comedy every week for three years. Josh Johnson, uh a rising star on the first time. the comedy world. Really interesting, really smart. Josh Johnson, welcome to the show.
How's it going?
Going great.
Nice to see you. Nice to see you.
I'm a fan. Thanks, man.
Nice nice to meet you.
I wanna play you a little clip just to get us started. This is a clip of you. Oh. What uh
One of the main things they talk about in meditation is that You should not, you cannot beat yourself up when you get distracted from your meditation and your mind starts to wander. You just notice your mind wandering, bring yourself back to the point of not wandering, and then hold on to that moment for as long as you can.
Right.
And then you'll start to think about stuff, but just come back. It'll be fine. And eventually you'll get so good at not wandering. that you'll really
have like a calm mind. And it won't be every day and it won't be all the time. But when you put your intention to it, you'll have a calm mind. So I sat down. I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna okay. I tried to like crisscross applesauce my legs and I was realizing I was like, mm, my right gon fall asleep. I don't know why I'm not as flexible as I should be. Um so I was just sitting. Put my feet together and I was like, okay. Just breathe. Just breathe.
Just think about your breath. Hold on to the ideas of your breath. Just think about how you're breathing. That's how you stay present. Every breath is important.
Being present is important. Don't think about anything else. Don't think about How we left the gold standard and so now there's really nothing but
But fear and anxiety backing up the dollar and the sort of like weighted debt system that we live in because it really is the only thing holding us together is like the expectation that it can't possibly fall apart. Because if it ever fell apart, it would fall apart for everyone. It's basically like our economy, our government is holding a gun to the heads of us and every other nation at the same time. And if we and if we at all stop this thing. If we ever stop this machine from running, maybe we could like release ourselves from the idea of this like economic, like if we're being honest, like an economic enslavement to the dollar and to the ideas behind the dollar. And we could end up in a better world, a world where like maybe you could actually work with some sort of meritocracy for your both your efforts and for your work.
And and if if we got there, if we if we were able to do that, I
I wandered. I wandered and it made a wander. Okay. All right. All right. And so I went ahead and I stopped meditating. I stopped meditating. Maybe I'll start again one day. But I I stopped meditating because uh uh it was bad for my mental health.
At least the way I was doing it, because I was doing it wrong. It was basically just me crashing out with my eyes closed. In a quiet room with a drippy
faucet. So I I play that because I'm just curious. Is that your actual experience with meditation? Have you ever gone back to it since uh your uh gold standard uh r uh jag?
Yeah, no, I I try to go back to it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Josh Johnson’s background and why is he on The Daily Show?
0:03–8:27
2
How does Josh differentiate acceptance of a problem from resignation?
8:27–18:39
3
What strategies does Josh use to manage news‑cycle anxiety while reporting?
18:39–27:52
4
How did Josh develop the habit of creating an hour of comedy every week for three years?
27:52–39:53
5
How has Josh’s faith and upbringing shaped his views on kindness and purpose?
39:53–50:26
6
Why does Josh believe the promised breakthroughs of AI haven’t materialized?
50:26–59:16
7
What role does comedy play in helping people face hard realities and combat loneliness?
59:16–1:05:57
8
What final advice does Josh give listeners about finishing work and staying authentic?
1:05:57–1:15:30
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from 10% Happier with Dan Harris
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