How Not To Let the News Paralyze You | Tom Llamas
Episode
54 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Productivity, Health & Wellness, Relationships
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Active Listening Technique: Focus completely on what others say to formulate better follow-up questions, both professionally and personally. This skill prevents interviewing mode in personal relationships while deepening connections and improving journalistic responses during live broadcasts.
- ✓Annual Growth System: Set specific written goals across life categories—personal, professional, health, relationships—after New Year's, then review progress annually. Push beyond previous limits incrementally, like running two miles instead of one, to ensure continuous development.
- ✓Morning Mental Health Routine: Complete ten minutes of meditation followed by ten minutes of visualization and positive affirmations, then prayer, totaling twenty-five to thirty minutes. This combination functions like a mental workout, providing clarity even when sessions feel difficult.
- ✓News Consumption Management: Reduce news alert subscriptions to one or two trusted organizations instead of four or five to prevent phone overload. Distinguish between fact-based reporting and opinion journalism, and verify information from social media through multiple sources before sharing.
What It Covers
NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas shares techniques for managing news-related stress, including meditation practices, exercise routines, maintaining curiosity through goal-setting, and balancing professional intensity with presence while covering traumatic events daily.
Key Questions Answered
- •Active Listening Technique: Focus completely on what others say to formulate better follow-up questions, both professionally and personally. This skill prevents interviewing mode in personal relationships while deepening connections and improving journalistic responses during live broadcasts.
- •Annual Growth System: Set specific written goals across life categories—personal, professional, health, relationships—after New Year's, then review progress annually. Push beyond previous limits incrementally, like running two miles instead of one, to ensure continuous development.
- •Morning Mental Health Routine: Complete ten minutes of meditation followed by ten minutes of visualization and positive affirmations, then prayer, totaling twenty-five to thirty minutes. This combination functions like a mental workout, providing clarity even when sessions feel difficult.
- •News Consumption Management: Reduce news alert subscriptions to one or two trusted organizations instead of four or five to prevent phone overload. Distinguish between fact-based reporting and opinion journalism, and verify information from social media through multiple sources before sharing.
Notable Moment
Llamas broke down on live television while covering Fidel Castro's death, sharing his family's experience sending hidden food and medicine to Cuba in greeting cards because the government would steal packages, demonstrating the personal cost of dictatorship.
Episode Transcript
Hearing a voice can change everything. So AT and T wants everyone to gift their voice to loved ones this holiday season because that conversation is a chance to say something they'll hear forever. AT and T, connecting changes everything. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey. Hey. How we doing, everybody? Today, we've got some insider tips on how not to let the news paralyze you. My guest is an old friend who recently became the anchor and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News. I knew him when he was a correspondent over at ABC News where we worked together. He's always been a very thoughtful dude. He also happens to be a power listener to this show, which is proof of something. I wanted to have Tom Yamas on to discuss the techniques he personally uses to survive our current national and global tumult. This is a guy who really is in the belly of the beast. So what does he know that the rest of us should? We talk about how to be a better listener, practices for continued growth and curiosity as you get older, the role of both faith and meditation in Tom's life, the role of exercise, the role of friendship, his family's dramatic history, and how that impacts him becoming the first Latino anchor of a weekday evening news broadcast, and much more. Before we dive in, a very quick plug. Don't forget to check out what we're doing over on danharris.com. Subscribers get to come to our weekly live meditation and q and a sessions every Tuesday at four. The next one is coming up on December 16. It's gonna look a little different. We're gonna be joined by some special guests with details on an exciting new project that we are launching in the, 10% happier world. I'm very excited for you to hear about this. We'll get started with Tom Yamas right after this. The holiday season is upon us. Many of us are traveling. My family is not traveling, actually. We're gonna be chilling during the holidays, which I'm excited about. We've got some trips coming up early in 2026. One of the things I love when I'm traveling is staying in a really comfortable home. We do this a lot, especially when we're traveling with other families. Get a home on Airbnb. We all stay together, and it really boosts that sense of togetherness. One of the biggest problems in the world right now is isolation driven often by technology, the sense of loneliness that makes us really unhappy. And so doing it with other families, with other people, can be a great way to cut through that. It makes a vacation even more meaningful because you're seeing a new place and you're doing it while deeply connected. Anyway, if you've got some travel coming up, there's a really cool opportunity for you, which is you could, while you're away, host your own home …
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