Tom Bergeron on Comedy + Meditation

Tom Bergeron hosted America’s Funniest Videos and Dancing With the Stars for 15 years a piece— and 10 years juggling both. 🤯

A couple years back, on a dare from my kids, I wrote a song about him. For research, I read Tom’s book “I’m Hosting as Fast as I Can”. Tom is so present while taping live TV, he seemed to me like a serious meditator.Wow, Welcome! To our first official episode of Hell Yeah, You Will — our brand new podcast about making cool stuff, what stops us from putting it out there, and most importantly— perseverance. Like so many of us, I look around the craziness of our world, and think— pushing through the Long Middle and delivering our medicine (whether that’s our next book, our new business, 10 minutes of stand-up, our solution to any of our pressing needs)… Perseverance is more important than ever before.

Not merely surviving these times, but living some of our big, honkin’ dreams along the way. Is that so wrong?

Today we kick off the first of many deep conversations with people who’ve built amazing things— despite so much of the fear and doubt we all learn to work with.

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I asked Tom what made it all possible— 50+ years in broadcasting, hosting multiple iconic TV shows including Hollywood Squares, and staying married to his wife Lois 44 years and counting. But he didn’t talk about agents or auditions.

We talked about daily meditation. 🧘🏻‍♂️

Tom shares how meditation became the foundation for his career, and his life.

In this conversation we explore the balance between earnestness— taking your job seriously, and comedy— taking your shenanigans seriously. Then it hit me, what me made me feel a connection with Tom Bergeron as a viewer at home. One of his early heroes taught him to broadcast directly to a single person on the other end of the signal. This was something I intuitively learned from him during the pandemic, as my kids and I binged on America’s Funniest Videos. When I released the song, I somehow knew we’d have this conversation.

:90 Sec on Scabies, Anger, and Meditation

Hosts with The Mosts

Everyone has hosts who define eras of our lives. In my song I asked, “Well who do you love, and who do you tolerate?” I was a Bob Barker guy as a kid, then Bob Saget. By the time Tom showed up, he was somehow unique, and familiar. It reminds me of an excellent Indigo Girls song Emily Sailers wrote for Virginia Woolf. In all of the static, across rivers of time and space, broadcast signals are received, and they connect us. A two-way transmission.

Falco’s 1986 banger Rock Me Amadeus, taught me more about composer Wolfgang Mozart than any book or film. Falco’s breakdown of Mozart’s biography inspired my song for Tom Bergeron.Be sure to listen for Tom correcting me on one important biographical point.Hell Yeah You Will welcomes Tom Bergeron.---

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Tom Bergeron on Cameo: 100% of Cameo proceeds support MPTF, The Motion Picture & Television FundLast appearance as host of AFV— With original host Bob Saget.I’m Hosting as Fast as I Can: Zen and the Art of Staying Sane in Hollywood (2009) by Tom Bergeron

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