How To Stay Calm Under Stress | Dan Harris
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What changes when anxiety shows up—and you stop trying to outrun it, and start learning how to work with it?
Dan Harris—journalist, bestselling author, and host of 10% Happier—returns to Finding Mastery to explore practical ways to work with anxiety. Dan unpacks how meditation, compassionate self-talk, and exposure built his capacity after a panic attack on live TV—and why curiosity is a powerful antidote to fear.
Dan and Dr. Mike go beyond optimization into the human side: rebuilding from collapse, confronting panic (on planes, elevators, and big stages), and the daily reps that make composure more accessible. This is a grounded look at attention, identity, and training your inner life—without hacks or magical thinking.
What you’ll learn
- How to use meditation as “bicep curls for the brain”
- Why self-talk (especially in third person) regulates panic in real time
- The key to working at your edge without traumatizing yourself
- How to turn exposure into confidence and capacity
- Why curiosity beats cynicism for mental performance
At its heart, this episode is a reminder: mastery isn’t a shortcut; it’s alignment between awareness, training, and what matters most.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. |
| 0:03.0 | One of the core ideas we come back to again and again here is alignment, bringing the right |
| 0:08.5 | people into the right roles at the right time so your culture can grow with clarity. |
| 0:13.3 | And if you've ever hired for your business, you know how challenging it is to find someone |
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| 0:26.5 | confidence. Surfacing strong candidates, you might not find anywhere else. And the best part, |
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| 0:39.1 | one year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every |
| 0:44.2 | hire matters. And we can speak from experience here at Finding Mastery. LinkedIn Jobs has helped us |
| 0:50.3 | hire several incredible teammates, including our project managers, Janelle and Taylor, |
| 0:59.5 | and of course, our lead producer, Emma. Hiring the right people has shaped our culture and helped our business grow with intention. What we appreciate most is LinkedIn's AI assistant. |
| 1:05.1 | It takes the complexity out of hiring. It filters through applicants based on what you're looking |
| 1:09.6 | for and then brings forward the best matches so that you're not spending hours sorting through endless resumes. |
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| 1:34.8 | Terms and conditions apply. |
| 1:37.5 | Probably the thing I'm best known for in my 21 years at ABC News was having a panic attack on |
| 1:43.3 | Good Morning America. |
| 1:44.5 | But it's too early to prescribe statins slowly for cancer production. |
... |
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