George Saunders On: Getting Un-Stuck, Calming the Inner Critic, and Building Empathy Without Becoming a Chump
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A conversation with celebrated author George Saunders about his new novel, Vigil, and what fiction can teach us about empathy, self-awareness, and mortality.
George Saunders is the bestselling, award-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, Tenth of December, and many other books. His new novel, Vigil, tells the story of a woman who died in 1976 and has spent the decades since comforting the dying—until she encounters a former oil executive responsible for early climate change denial.
In this conversation, Dan and George talk about:
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Why George keeps writing about ghosts and the afterlife (hint: it's not just about mortality dread)
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The lavish empathy at the heart of Vigil—and whether we should extend that empathy even to people doing civilizational damage
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What George calls "warm metacognition"—the practice of dropping back out of your thought loops to examine what kind of goggles you're wearing
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How fiction can turn your mind into a "reconsideration machine" (and why that matters in real life)
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The difference between kindness and niceness
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George's relationship with death anxiety, which he's had since childhood and which has only intensified with age
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What George has learned about listening from teaching and hosting his Substack, Story Club
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Why the older he gets, the more important it is to stretch himself creatively
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His advice for dealing with stuckness (in writing and in life): curiosity over self-accusation
George's new novel Vigil is out January 27th from Random House. Check out his Substack, Story Club, where he discusses classic short stories with an incredibly thoughtful community.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:18.9 | Hello, my fellow suffering beings, how we doing today? Today I'm going to talk to one of the greatest |
| 0:25.0 | living novelists about how to get out of stuckness and self-criticism, how to be less judgmental |
| 0:32.2 | of yourself and other people, how to be empathic without being a chump, how empathy properly understood, actually |
| 0:39.0 | enhances your edge rather than eroding it, and how thinking and talking about the afterlife |
| 0:44.8 | can improve your life right now. I always love talking to George Saunders. This is his third |
| 0:51.9 | tour of duty on this show. Many of you are familiar with George, |
| 0:55.4 | but real quick, he won the Man Booker Prize for his excellent novel, Lincoln and the Bardo, |
| 1:01.0 | and he's back with a new novel called Vigil, which I have read, and it's excellent. George also |
| 1:07.2 | teaches creative writing at Syracuse University and hosts Story Club, which is a popular |
| 1:12.6 | substack where he analyzes classic short stories. Real quick, before we dive in here, |
| 1:18.3 | don't forget to check out my new app. It's called 10% with Dan Harris, and you can sign up at |
| 1:23.3 | danharris.com, the most egotistical web address in the world. There's a free 14-day trial if you |
| 1:29.1 | want to check out the app before you buy it. Let me just tell you, though, we've got an amazing |
| 1:33.6 | and growing library of guided meditations from amazing teachers, including people like Joseph |
| 1:39.4 | Goldstein. We also do weekly live video meditation and Q&A sessions so you can get your questions answered. |
| 1:46.0 | And we've set it up so that you can connect with your fellow meditators and create relationships |
| 1:51.0 | so you don't feel so alone in this weird thing called meditation. |
| 1:56.0 | Okay, we'll get started with George Saunders right after this. |
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