Speaker 1: It takes thirty days to form a habit, in ninety
Speaker 1: days to make it stick. Lucky for you, Audible and
Speaker 1: I have teamed up to bring you the Sound Reset Challenge,
Speaker 1: a four week series designed to help you unlock your
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six goals, projects and resolutions, all brought to
Speaker 1: you by Audible. Audible's wellbeing collection has everything to inspire
Speaker 1: and support you in every step of your well being journey.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brown, co host on The Bobby Bone Show,
Speaker 1: and today I'm joined by Dan Harris, who is an
Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning journalist, former ABC News anchor, and now
Speaker 1: a practicing teacher of meditation and mindfulness. Nearly twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, Dan released his book Ten Percent Happier,
Speaker 1: an autobiographical tale of the spiritual, scientific, and skeptical odyssey
Speaker 1: that led him through many portals of the self help
Speaker 1: world to his own mindfulness practice. The book was a
Speaker 1: bestseller and did a lot to bring mindfulness to the mainstream. Today,
Speaker 1: Dan is here to share their pertinent insights from his journey,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to challenge you, the listeners, to
Speaker 1: a four week course for getting out of your own
Speaker 1: way and on your way to reaching your goals. Listen
Speaker 1: as we challenge you to turn your resolutions into reality.
Speaker 1: All right, So Dan, I listened to ten percent Happier
Speaker 1: on Audible, and I got to say one of my
Speaker 1: favorite little perks of that was the meditations at the end.
Speaker 1: And I did the walking meditation yesterday.
Speaker 2: Great good on you, how to go?
Speaker 3: It went really well.
Speaker 1: I hadn't done a walking meditation in several months, but
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is here at the end,
Speaker 1: I might as well do it. And I got to say,
Speaker 1: walking meditations are my favorite kind. But there is something
Speaker 1: you talk about in the book that was really interesting
Speaker 1: to me with the brain scans. It was maybe an
Speaker 1: update that you did towards the end, so I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was in the original book, but I thought, shoot,
Speaker 1: now I want a scan of my brain to see
Speaker 1: if I'm even meditating correctly.
Speaker 2: I would strongly recommend against that because one of the well,
Speaker 2: first of all, I did it, and it was a disaster,
Speaker 2: and I walked away totally confused about whether I was
Speaker 2: meditating correctly. And then I actually had dinner that night
Speaker 2: with my longtime meditation teacher and he told me that
Speaker 2: he did it too, and he was confused, and so
Speaker 2: I don't recommend it. My worry for all meditators, including myself,
Speaker 2: is that you get hung up on this question of
Speaker 2: my doing it right. And here's the simple answer. If
Speaker 2: you find yourself focused for a few nanoseconds at a
Speaker 2: time on whatever you're trying to focus on, like your
Speaker 2: breath or the sensations of your body as you're walking,
Speaker 2: and then you get distracted a million times and then
Speaker 2: start over a million times, then you're doing it correctly.
Speaker 1: Well that's the encouragement I need to hear. Dan, So
Speaker 1: thank you, and I know it's been years for you now.
Speaker 1: But for those who don't know what inspired your mindfulness
Speaker 1: journey and led you to writing this.
Speaker 2: Book Cocaine, I guess that would be the one word answer,
Speaker 2: But the slightly longer answer is that I used to be,
Speaker 2: in a former life, a globe trotting war correspondent for
Speaker 2: ABC News. In the years after nine to eleven, I
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, the
Speaker 2: West Bank, Gaza, and then a ton of time in Iraq,
Speaker 2: probably a year total in a rock over the course
Speaker 2: of six or seven trips and I came home in
Speaker 2: the middle of this period of time and I got depressed,
Speaker 2: although I didn't know I was depressed, and then I
Speaker 2: did this incredibly stupid thing of self medicating with recreational drugs,
Speaker 2: including cocaine, and that led to a panic attack on
Speaker 2: national television on Good Morning America back in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four. Actually had two panic attacks, one in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four, one two thousand and five. The better
Speaker 2: one to watch is the one from two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: And if you google panic attack on television, mine is
Speaker 2: the number one result, which makes my mother so proud.
Speaker 2: And after I had that panic attack, I realized I
Speaker 2: needed to sort my stuff out, and so I started
Speaker 2: seeing a psychiatrist and that ultimately led me to meditation.
Speaker 2: So that's the reef answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your short answer being the cocaine. That's something that
Speaker 1: I found to be so interesting about this book is
Speaker 1: how vulnerable you got, especially the type of work that
Speaker 1: you do. I know that's something that you wrestled with, like,
Speaker 1: am I going to share this very vulnerable detail about
Speaker 1: my life?
Speaker 3: But for me, I found it well.
Speaker 1: First of all, I was really shocked because I've watched
Speaker 1: you on TV for years, and I thought, oh, no, way,
Speaker 1: he was, you know, doing drugs like that heart and ecstasy.
Speaker 1: Like I just couldn't separate you out on the town
Speaker 1: with you being the news guy. My brain struggled with
Speaker 1: that a little bit. And then I also was thankful
Speaker 1: because it humanized you, like and it also helped me
Speaker 1: relate to you more. Not that I I have that
Speaker 1: exact you know, the exact story that you have by
Speaker 1: any means, but I just was like, oh, wow, he's
Speaker 1: just not this guy on the news. He has a
Speaker 1: real story, and it made me just find everything you
Speaker 1: were saying just a little bit more believable. I guess
Speaker 1: that's how I would summarize it, because sometimes you read
Speaker 1: like self help stuff and you're like, okay, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't really know that I could apply.
Speaker 3: This to my life.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, if he did this and
Speaker 1: it completely changed his life, and you it's something that
Speaker 1: you had to do. And now I want to circle
Speaker 1: back to the title of the book, ten percent happier.
Speaker 1: Is that a phrase you still use to this day
Speaker 1: because you came up with that title a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I do use it. Look, I I'll just tell the
Speaker 2: story for the people listening who may not be familiar
Speaker 2: with any of this. That I got interested in meditation
Speaker 2: at a time when it wasn't really socially acceptable to
Speaker 2: talk about it, and so this is probably like two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, twenty ten. And
Speaker 2: occasionally people at work would say, you know what, what
Speaker 2: has gotten into you? Or what's the matter with you?
Speaker 2: You used to be semi cool. And I remember a
Speaker 2: conversation where I was talking to my friend Chris and
Speaker 2: she was asking this question, and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: I do it because it makes me ten percent happier,
Speaker 2: and I could see the look on her face transform
Speaker 2: from scorn to mild interest, and I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: this is my shtick. This is this is how I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about it. Because there's so much overpromising
Speaker 2: in the self help world that I think is quite
Speaker 2: reckless and greety, frankly, and so I wanted to have
Speaker 2: a way to talk about it that made sense. And
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, you know, I've been meditating for I
Speaker 2: don't know, sixteen seventeen years, and I'm way more than
Speaker 2: ten percent happier. So now my little tweak is that
Speaker 2: it's like a good investment. You know, if you're consistently
Speaker 2: investing in the stock market, you'll get ten percent annual
Speaker 2: returns probably, but they will compound over time if you
Speaker 2: keep investing. And so my level of happiness now. I
Speaker 2: continue to make mistakes, and you know, life happens to me,
Speaker 2: Illness happens. You know, people in my life pass away.
Speaker 2: All of the things that happened to the rest of
Speaker 2: us happened to me. But my ability to handle it
Speaker 2: with some sophistication just continues to get better.
Speaker 1: I love that the compounding How difficult was it for
Speaker 1: you to decide to write this and reveal things about
Speaker 1: your own journey that you did. I know in the
Speaker 1: book you mentioned your mom called you the night before
Speaker 1: it was going to release or something, and she was like,
Speaker 1: don't do it, don't do it, don't put it out there,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, I have books in the warehouse,
Speaker 1: so it's happening.
Speaker 2: It was really hard. I mean, it feels like another
Speaker 2: life because the book came out in twenty fourteen, so nearly,
Speaker 2: you know, twelve years ago. But yes, I was super nervous.
Speaker 2: And my mom's email to me shortly before the book
Speaker 2: came out in which she begged me not to publish
Speaker 2: the book was not helpful. Although I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: criticize my mom, she was just being a protective mother. Honestly,
Speaker 2: when you ask that question, I start thinking about the
Speaker 2: fact that one year from now, actually less than one
Speaker 2: year from now, at the beginning of January next year,
Speaker 2: I have a sequel coming out that is frankly more embarrassing,
Speaker 2: and I'm in the middle of the rewrites for it
Speaker 2: today as a matter of fact, and I'm having very
Speaker 2: similar feelings of like, am I really going to do this?
Speaker 2: And what are people going to think? And ultimately what
Speaker 2: I come back to always is I guess this is
Speaker 2: just how I teach, and I think my mo or
Speaker 2: my way of being a public figure now is to
Speaker 2: admit the stuff that most people won't admit but is
Speaker 2: actually true for them anyway. And so one of the
Speaker 2: ways I describe this is that some people teach from
Speaker 2: the mountaintop and I teach from the fetal position.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you also, it's got to be a
Speaker 1: little comforting to have the data from the first book
Speaker 1: because you were nervous. Similarly, I understand those nerves coming
Speaker 1: back again. But then you've got data of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've done this before, I've been here, and what the
Speaker 1: data is telling me is this is what people appreciate
Speaker 1: and respect from me, and this should do well too.
Speaker 2: That's true to a certain extent, and I definitely I know,
Speaker 2: and there's a research to show that if you share,
Speaker 2: if you self disclose, if you're vulnerable, to use the
Speaker 2: term of art, people tend to like you. But there
Speaker 2: is there's fear, nonetheless for all of us, if we're
Speaker 2: even for somebody who's done it very publicly as I have,
Speaker 2: And I guess part of me is scared that people
Speaker 2: will say, well, wait a minute, how can you continue
Speaker 2: to make mistakes. You're supposed to be some sort of
Speaker 2: meditation guy. And I know my answer to that, which
Speaker 2: is that you know, there is no such thing as perfection.
Speaker 2: I'm mister ten percent, and I'm going to continue to
Speaker 2: make mistakes, and I'm going to continue to self disclose
Speaker 2: because I think it's helpful for other people, because it
Speaker 2: normalizes all of our weird stuff. But it is it's
Speaker 2: you know, there's no situation in which it's the fear
Speaker 2: will go away.
Speaker 1: I think, well, let's talk about the monkey mind. How
Speaker 1: do you think that shows up in our world today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the monkey mind is a term that is
Speaker 2: kind of taken from the Buddha, who was a dude
Speaker 2: who lived twenty six hundred years ago on the in
Speaker 2: India and Nepal, and he was really a You can
Speaker 2: think of him as just an amazing genius level meditation teacher.
Speaker 2: That's just one way to think of him. And he
Speaker 2: had this he compared our minds to monkeys in that
Speaker 2: we're just jumping all over the place. We were just
Speaker 2: constantly thinking about the past or the future. We're instead
Speaker 2: of focusing on what's happening right now. We're judging people,
Speaker 2: we're judging ourselves. We're wanting stuff, we're not wanting stuff.
Speaker 2: And when you're unaware of this NonStop conversation which you
Speaker 2: are having with yourself, when you're unaware of it, it
Speaker 2: owns you. Every little thought that flits through your mind
Speaker 2: is like and this is the way my meditation teacher
Speaker 2: describes it, Every little thought becomes a tiny dictator. You
Speaker 2: just act it out. You have a thought of like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe I should say something right now that will ruin
Speaker 2: the next forty eight hours of my marriage, and then
Speaker 2: you just do it. And what meditation does is help
Speaker 2: you not be so owned by this stream of consciousness
Speaker 2: that's happening all the time, and that were and that
Speaker 2: if we broadcast allowed, we'd be locked up. But most
Speaker 2: of us are only kind of vaguely aware of the
Speaker 2: thinking process, and if we can become a little bit
Speaker 2: more aware, aka a little bit more mindful, then we
Speaker 2: have more choice and freedom.
Speaker 3: Seeing of being locked up.
Speaker 1: I was just taken back to a part in the
Speaker 1: book where you, as a journalist, you did solitary confinement
Speaker 1: for well, was it forty eight hours? First of all,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that a prison agreed to block you
Speaker 1: up that way, So just side note there. It's like
Speaker 1: you were dedicated to that story.
Speaker 2: You know. I find that people are generally willing to
Speaker 2: lock up somebody from the mainstream media. You know, we're
Speaker 2: pretty unpopular. So that part wasn't the hard part. The
Speaker 2: hard bar was actually doing it, And honestly, it really
Speaker 2: did land me on the conclusion that solitary confinement, while
Speaker 2: it may be necessary in some extreme cases, is kind
Speaker 2: of torture. We are social animals, you know, if you
Speaker 2: think about the history of humans.
Speaker 1: We never.
Speaker 2: We never had claws or talons or wings or massive size.
Speaker 2: In fact, in our early days as a species, we
Speaker 2: were prey animals. We only got to the top of
Speaker 2: the food chain because of our ability to cooperate, communicate, collaborate, care,
Speaker 2: and everything about modern life now militates against that. Everything
Speaker 2: about modern life, if it is hyper individualistic, isolated in
Speaker 2: our own tech bubbles. We're being pitted against one another
Speaker 2: on social media because the versions of the humans that
Speaker 2: we disagree with, the version we see of them is
Speaker 2: like a cartoon version often, So there's no I don't
Speaker 2: think it's a coincidence that in this isolated, individualistic, lonely
Speaker 2: era that we're seeing unprecedented me never before seen levels
Speaker 2: of anxiety, depression, suicide, addiction, and loneliness. And so actually
Speaker 2: that is kind of what I'm writing about in my
Speaker 2: next book, for lack of a less cheesy term, it's
Speaker 2: about love. You know, if you were to forget whether
Speaker 2: you want to meditate or not, and I'm totally fine,
Speaker 2: people should make their own minds up. I think you
Speaker 2: can live a very happy life if you don't meditate,
Speaker 2: but you cannot live a happy life if you don't
Speaker 2: have high quality relationships in your life. And you know,
Speaker 2: one of the other things that's happening these days is
Speaker 2: that people are really into optimization. We're trying to live forever.
Speaker 2: We're buying books on longevity and then tracking our sleep
Speaker 2: and counting our steps and all that stuff. And that's
Speaker 2: fine as far as it goes. But honestly, what the
Speaker 2: science shows is that if you care about living along, happy,
Speaker 2: and by the way, professionally successful life, the thing to
Speaker 2: optimize for is the quality of your relationships. And so actually,
Speaker 2: if I could leave you or anybody with anything today,
Speaker 2: it's it's that.
Speaker 1: Well with the which thank you for that. Relationships are
Speaker 1: so important in your meditation journey. Once you started that,
Speaker 1: how did it impact your your work life and your
Speaker 1: personal life?
Speaker 3: What are some changes? You saw?
Speaker 2: Huge changes in my personal life. It just made me
Speaker 2: more patient. I made that joke before about Hussein. Has
Speaker 2: you have this thought of like, let me just say
Speaker 2: something because I want to discharge this anger I'm feeling
Speaker 2: in my body, So let me just say something and
Speaker 2: then and then you regret it and you hurt somebody's feelings.
Speaker 2: And so I still do that, but I'm much much better.
Speaker 2: I notice when I'm feeling angry and I let it
Speaker 2: come and go, and I'm much better at just waiting
Speaker 2: to act until the anger has passed. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: anger never has any uses. It does, of course, but
Speaker 2: rarely have I made a good decision in a state
Speaker 2: of anger. And so one way to talk about this
Speaker 2: is you learn how to respond wisely to things in
Speaker 2: your life instead of reacting blindly. And I used to
Speaker 2: be very reactive and I had quite a temper, and
Speaker 2: it showed up at work, and it showed up in
Speaker 2: my marriage. And again I'm not saying I'm perfect, but
Speaker 2: I do much less of that, and it's had a
Speaker 2: huge effect, honestly.
Speaker 1: That's another thing I appreciated in the book with talking
Speaker 1: about kind of like year before and after your behavior,
Speaker 1: how you would fire off females, like if you weren't
Speaker 1: chosen for something. And that's something that we as viewers
Speaker 1: we don't really think about when we're watching all the news,
Speaker 1: is that like, oh, you know, they were chosen for
Speaker 1: this story or this segment, and there's you know, ten
Speaker 1: other people that were maybe fighting for that segment or
Speaker 1: being sent off to this particular location to cover this
Speaker 1: particular event, and that ever since I listened to the book,
Speaker 1: now I've watched different things. I'm like, hmm, I wonder
Speaker 1: who really wanted this segment of this spot, but that
Speaker 1: I guess we'll call you your premeditation days. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: admitted to firing off eemails and kind of making a scene,
Speaker 1: probably behaved in a way that you.
Speaker 3: Weren't really proud of.
Speaker 1: And what I thought was cool though and probably could
Speaker 1: offer a lot of people some hope is that there's
Speaker 1: room for change and that people can accept the change.
Speaker 1: Because suddenly you said you had coworkers. You know, i'm
Speaker 1: pair phrase here, but how I recall it, like just
Speaker 1: thinking that you're this kind person and that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: how they saw your behavior before, but they were noticing
Speaker 1: it after meetings and how you would carry yourself. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's awesome because if people know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: just because I've shown up this way for the last
Speaker 1: decade doesn't mean I have to continue. Like I can
Speaker 1: change and people will accept me for it.
Speaker 2: I want to revise or maybe refine what I said
Speaker 2: before about the one thing I would leave you with.
Speaker 2: I'm going to make it too, and maybe this is
Speaker 2: what I'm about to say is even more important because
Speaker 2: you and I'm just picking up on what you said.
Speaker 2: We can change.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 2: Think many of us might not believe that in our bodies,
Speaker 2: in our bones. We might think that we are x
Speaker 2: amount patient or x amount of loving or friendly or
Speaker 2: calm or whatever like, and that's just our unalterable factory setting.
Speaker 2: And that's just not true. And I'm not You don't
Speaker 2: have to take my word for it. What the science
Speaker 2: is showing us is that the brain and the mind
Speaker 2: are trainable. You can, through meditation and many other practices,
Speaker 2: literally change your brain. Meditation, for example, rewires the part
Speaker 2: of the brain associated with focus. Who are also distracted
Speaker 2: these days, you can you can remedy that stress. The
Speaker 2: part of the brain associated with stress has been shown
Speaker 2: to literally shrink among meditators. So change is possible happiness,
Speaker 2: which is what all of us want. It's it's a skill,
Speaker 2: I mean, And that's just such a liberating idea. And
Speaker 2: you know, in some ways, like my old job as
Speaker 2: an anchorman and reporter was to travel around the world
Speaker 2: covering bad news, and now my job is to travel
Speaker 2: around the world and deliver good news, which which is
Speaker 2: that you can change. It's perfection is not on offer,
Speaker 2: but messy marginal change is absolutely available to everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the more that we can remind ourselves that, yeah,
Speaker 1: the brain is multiple neuroplasticity. I think when you have
Speaker 1: that information and you know that it's actually true, then
Speaker 1: there's this hope because some people are just so well,
Speaker 1: this is how I'm wired, or this is how I
Speaker 1: was raised, or this is what my parents did, and
Speaker 1: that's the story they can tell themselves, but the facts
Speaker 1: are telling us something different. So thank you for that
Speaker 1: reminder as well. So you got hopefully you throw some
Speaker 1: more takeaways, important takeaways in because both of those that
Speaker 1: you've shared are very, very, very important. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: boredom because you do mention that the mindfulness changed your
Speaker 1: relationship with boredom, and I think we could all benefit
Speaker 1: from that. So share more about your journey with boredom
Speaker 1: and mindfulness.
Speaker 2: I want to make a case for boredom. Much of
Speaker 2: our lives these days revolve, whether we know it or not,
Speaker 2: around fending it off. I have a visceral memory, can't
Speaker 2: I just remember exactly where I was when I got
Speaker 2: my first iPhone in I think two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: That was the year.
Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, that was the year.
Speaker 1: We had a trivia game the other day and it
Speaker 1: was what year did the iPhone come out? And I said,
Speaker 1: I think it was two thousand and six or two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, I'm not sure, and then I ended
Speaker 1: up going with two thousand and eight, and then sure
Speaker 1: enough it was the year in between those two.
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. Yeah, so yeah, I remember
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven. I'm dating myself now because
Speaker 2: I was a grown ass man in two thousand and
Speaker 2: seven already I got an iPhone, and I remember having
Speaker 2: the thought, I will never be bored again. That's not good.
Speaker 2: The interesting and important things happen when we're bored. New
Speaker 2: ideas can be made. We are I think, and this
Speaker 2: is also very important. We're allowing ourselves to sit with
Speaker 2: a certain amount of discomfort because boredom is uncomfortable. What
Speaker 2: has happened, And I'm not anti technology, but it, you know,
Speaker 2: the iPhone or smartphones generally, and then on top of that,
Speaker 2: five or ten years later, the proliferation of social media
Speaker 2: apps that live on the phone. They have had some
Speaker 2: negative effects, and one of them is that our lives
Speaker 2: are so filled and cluttered, filled with and cluttered by stimulation,
Speaker 2: that we are unable or unwilling in many cases to
Speaker 2: just be. In fact, there have been some studies that
Speaker 2: have asked people what would you rather do. They put
Speaker 2: people in a room and say you can sit here
Speaker 2: and just be alone with your thoughts, or you can
Speaker 2: administer self administer electric shocks. The vast majority, especially of men,
Speaker 2: will take the shocks because they don't want to sit
Speaker 2: and just be there. You know, they don't want to
Speaker 2: do the thing that we as a species did for
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of years before two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: And so what I want to make the case for
Speaker 2: is just to run the experiment in your life. The
Speaker 2: next time you notice your zombie arm reaching for your
Speaker 2: phone because you're standing online. And by the way, I
Speaker 2: no judgment here, I do this stuff too. But the
Speaker 2: next time you notice, like, okay, I'm standing online, or
Speaker 2: I'm sitting on a plane waiting for the door to
Speaker 2: open so we can deplane, or all those little in
Speaker 2: between moments during your day when you just reflexively reach
Speaker 2: for the phone, try not to check out like what
Speaker 2: it's like if you don't do it, and can you
Speaker 2: sit with that? You know, there's this trend of again
Speaker 2: mostly men online raw dogging reality where you'll see them
Speaker 2: on eighteen hour flights and they don't check any their
Speaker 2: phone at all, although they are using their phone to
Speaker 2: film themselves while they do it. And so, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of ridiculous, but also pointing to
Speaker 2: something important, like can you just be in your life?
Speaker 2: This one incredibly precious life we got that's we don't
Speaker 2: know how long it's going to last, but we know
Speaker 2: it's going to end. Can you just be here for it?
Speaker 2: And that will help you to be there for all
Speaker 2: the beautiful moments during which many of us are actually
Speaker 2: like rushing to the next thing or thinking about what
Speaker 2: kind of notifications we might have on our phone, instead
Speaker 2: of actually being awake and alive for this amazing, mysterious, painful,
Speaker 2: confusing thing called life. And so I actually it's just
Speaker 2: as being okay with boredom is like a rich, non
Speaker 2: trivial endeavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I've seen some were all dogging
Speaker 1: stuff online too, and just for people, like if you're
Speaker 1: seeing people on flights, yeah, doing it for multiple hours
Speaker 1: at a time, Like if you want to try it
Speaker 1: out at home. I've also seen people just doing like,
Speaker 1: you know, setting a timer for ten minutes and then
Speaker 1: sitting up against the wall with nothing else around them,
Speaker 1: and there they just rawll dog for ten minutes. And
Speaker 1: you can start with small chunks. And I would say
Speaker 1: you would probably say the same thing about meditation too,
Speaker 1: you know, you could start with smaller and then grow
Speaker 1: from there, because I think when I first started meditating
Speaker 1: a few years ago, I did some meditation challenge with
Speaker 1: my sister for like the first thirty day, like a
Speaker 1: thirty day challenge, like at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 1: and I had.
Speaker 3: No clue, but I felt I felt like if.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sitting down and doing it for thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: then I wasn't there was no point, Or if my
Speaker 1: brain drifted off to something else, there was no point
Speaker 1: because I had failed. But thankful to a lot of
Speaker 1: other people out there. And then your story, even when
Speaker 1: I was listening to it, I'm like, Okay, yes, he's
Speaker 1: reminding me, like you're gonna have thoughts, just let those
Speaker 1: thoughts come and then send them away and come back.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to set out and do a
Speaker 1: thirty minute one, and like thinking of exercising or and
Speaker 1: how we know exercise is important, right, We've already that's
Speaker 1: already been drilled into us. We know conditioning, but meditation
Speaker 1: hasn't been around quite as long. But you would probably
Speaker 1: put that in the same categories, like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: just as important. So I'd imagine, who knows, ten twenty
Speaker 1: years from now, it might just be like a normal
Speaker 1: thing that we know that like food, sleep, water, working out, meditation,
Speaker 1: like it'll just be one of the things that we do.
Speaker 2: You are asking such good questions and that one. There
Speaker 2: are so many things I just want to double click
Speaker 2: on or expand upon. I'll to see if I can
Speaker 2: remember them all first on the raw dogging thing, rather
Speaker 2: than setting a timer and just sitting there and doing nothing.
Speaker 2: The reason why I think it's kind of ridiculous is
Speaker 2: I think you can use those moments to meditate, which
Speaker 2: will actually help you be okay with being awake in
Speaker 2: those in between moments and frankly every moment. The other
Speaker 2: thing I want to say is, and you hinted at this,
Speaker 2: like with the challenge you did, the meditation challenges you've done,
Speaker 2: and this sense that you felt like it's not I'm
Speaker 2: not really doing it unless I do thirty minutes. I
Speaker 2: just want to relieve you of any pressure you're undue
Speaker 2: pressure you're putting on yourself. All of the research around
Speaker 2: habit formation indicates that it's very hard to do to
Speaker 2: start a new habit, and so we don't need to
Speaker 2: beat ourselves up if we struggle with it, or if
Speaker 2: we have to try it again and again and again
Speaker 2: to like really boot up a habit. So first, just
Speaker 2: it's okay to struggle with this. And the second thing
Speaker 2: is the probably the most reliable route to success is
Speaker 2: to start small. So I often tell people, you know,
Speaker 2: start with one minute daily ish, So you want to
Speaker 2: you want to lower the stakes and make this as
Speaker 2: easefull as possible. The other thing I just want to
Speaker 2: make sure I bless for you again is that if
Speaker 2: you're getting distracted and starting again, and getting distracted and
Speaker 2: starting again, that's totally fine. Clearing your mind is impossible
Speaker 2: unless you're enlightened or you've died, so you know, it's
Speaker 2: such a deeply unhelpful misconception about meditation that you have
Speaker 2: to clear your mind in order to do it correctly. Really,
Speaker 2: all we're trying to do is try to pay attention
Speaker 2: to one thing. Often it's the feeling of your breath
Speaker 2: coming in and going out, and then you get distracted
Speaker 2: and start again, get distracted, and start again. A lot
Speaker 2: of people think that the getting distracted is a failure,
Speaker 2: but actually it's success because the whole point of this
Speaker 2: exercise is to get familiar with the chaos and cacophony
Speaker 2: of your mind so that it doesn't own you as much,
Speaker 2: so you're not doing as many stupid things. And that's immensely,
Speaker 2: immensely valuable. So I think I answered all the things
Speaker 2: I wanted to say based on your great question. Did
Speaker 2: I miss anything?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: That was great?
Speaker 1: I want to talk about meta meditation next, the integration
Speaker 1: of compassion.
Speaker 3: Can you expand on that for people?
Speaker 2: Yes. To be clear, Meta m E T t A
Speaker 2: not to be confused with Meta me E t A,
Speaker 2: the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. So, and I'm
Speaker 2: not correcting you. I think you already knew that. I'm
Speaker 2: just making sure the listeners understand that this is not
Speaker 2: a commercial for Instagram. M E T t A is
Speaker 2: an ancient form of meditation, also said to be invented
Speaker 2: by the Buddha, although the versions of it that are
Speaker 2: available now are total and everything I'm talking about now
Speaker 2: is totally secular and scientifically researched, and it can be
Speaker 2: These practices can be done by Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever
Speaker 2: your religious belief or if you have no religious beliefs
Speaker 2: at all, you can do this stuff. This is it's
Speaker 2: not it's not religion is You can think of it
Speaker 2: as exercise for your brain. Oh, that was the other
Speaker 2: thing you said earlier that I wanted to just make
Speaker 2: sure I double clicked on or amplified, which is I
Speaker 2: do think we're now thinking about fitness in broader ways.
Speaker 2: So I'm all for physical fitness. I work out daily,
Speaker 2: but there's also mental fitness, which meditation falls into. You know,
Speaker 2: therapy would fall into that too, like making sure that
Speaker 2: your brain and mind are as sharp as they can be.
Speaker 2: And then now increasingly we're talking about social fitness or
Speaker 2: relational fitness, like how are your relationships doing, because that
Speaker 2: actually is the greatest predictor of lifespan, the quality of
Speaker 2: your relationships. Anyway back to Meta, and this is actually
Speaker 2: not unrelated. This is another form of meditation that has
Speaker 2: been studied quite a bit in the labs and has
Speaker 2: been shown to have psychological, physiological and even behave your
Speaker 2: old benefits. Preschoolers taught this form of meditation have been
Speaker 2: shown to be more likely to give stickers away to
Speaker 2: kids in their class they do not like, so it
Speaker 2: can have a real impact. So what is it? Before
Speaker 2: I describe it in detail, let me just say that
Speaker 2: it's when I first heard about this, it seemed incredibly
Speaker 2: annoying to me, so just brace yourself. But basically, the
Speaker 2: practice is you envision a series of people, or it
Speaker 2: can be pets in at least one of the categories.
Speaker 2: You start with an easy person or this is where
Speaker 2: you can use your pet, somebody who's really uncomplicated and
Speaker 2: easy to love, and you imagine them in your mind,
Speaker 2: and then you send a bunch of phrases like maybe
Speaker 2: be happy, maybe healthy, may you live with ease, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, And then you work your way through a
Speaker 2: sequence from an easy person to yourself, to a mentor
Speaker 2: to a neutral person somebody you see all the time
Speaker 2: but don't have many feelings about that difficult person, and
Speaker 2: then everybody everywhere, And it can feel a little bit
Speaker 2: like Valentine's Day with a gun to your head. But
Speaker 2: it has it has deep, deep impacts on your brain
Speaker 2: and on the rest of your body. And for me
Speaker 2: as somebody who's kind of for me, as somebody who's
Speaker 2: really wired, as a frosty New Englander, it has helped
Speaker 2: me immensely in having a friendlier attitude towards my own mind,
Speaker 2: and that then has implications for how I am out
Speaker 2: in the world, and then how I am out in
Speaker 2: the world makes me even happier, and then I'm even
Speaker 2: more friendly out in the world, and then I get
Speaker 2: even happier, and it's a really beneficial upward spiral. Does
Speaker 2: that make sense what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm already just sitting here thinking, like, can
Speaker 1: all the world leaders if be required to do meta meditation?
Speaker 1: I mean, because obviously as a leader, you have to
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of edge.
Speaker 3: But you address this in the book as well.
Speaker 1: That, like, I do understand how complicated that might seem,
Speaker 1: especially for you if you're trying to practice one thing
Speaker 1: and then you have to show up another way. And
Speaker 1: you know, people should listen to the book to know
Speaker 1: more of what we're talking about there, because I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed that part about how to show up one way
Speaker 1: and then showing up at work another way. And then
Speaker 1: your wife even had to get involved and you know,
Speaker 1: nudge you along a little bit, like come on, you
Speaker 1: got to get yourself in the game. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: like as a leader, you can't.
Speaker 3: You have to. There's certain ways you have to be.
Speaker 3: I get that.
Speaker 1: But also they could all just share their stickers a
Speaker 1: little more, you know.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I mean this is so important because I am.
Speaker 2: I am a businessman and a content creator and a
Speaker 2: father and a husband. Like I'm I'm an active person
Speaker 2: in the world, and I Am not suggesting that we
Speaker 2: become doormats or pelukas or punching bags at all. What
Speaker 2: I'm saying is that you can take all of the
Speaker 2: same actions. You can be as strategic, as competitive on
Speaker 2: the athletic field, in the boardroom, in every context. You
Speaker 2: just don't need to be motivated by hatred and anger.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a clean burning fuel. I think love,
Speaker 2: And I'm being cheesy and I get it, but properly understood,
Speaker 2: love is a better motivator. So you may be thinking, well,
Speaker 2: I'm a marine, I can't be motivated by that. Why not?
Speaker 2: Why can't you be motivated by love of your country
Speaker 2: and love of your fellow marines. Why can't that move
Speaker 2: you forward instead of hatred? What we know about hatred
Speaker 2: and anger? While they have their uses. For sure, anger
Speaker 2: can get us off the couch. It can help us
Speaker 2: spot a program, a problem and get more motivated. But
Speaker 2: in terms of a long an abiding source of energy
Speaker 2: and fuel, it constricts your literally constricts your vision, It
Speaker 2: reduces your peripheral vision. It doesn't help you be maximally
Speaker 2: creative and flexible. And again, I know it's a provocative
Speaker 2: word to use, using it in a very broad way.
Speaker 2: So love for yourself, for your family, for your country
Speaker 2: is a Your brain is in a state where you
Speaker 2: can handle problems in a much more creative way that
Speaker 2: doesn't lead to inner toxicity and burnout. It's a better
Speaker 2: route to helping you reach your goals.
Speaker 1: I think I just keep thinking of the saying, probably
Speaker 1: because I've made it my mantra the last couple of
Speaker 1: weeks for some stuff going on. It's just clear as kind,
Speaker 1: unclear as unkind, and I feel like when my emotions
Speaker 1: are in the driver's seat, I get really unclear and
Speaker 1: things are messy, and then it's not kind and the
Speaker 1: kindest thing I can do, even I'm being firm as
Speaker 1: a parent or at work, and I have to have boundaries.
Speaker 1: If I'm operating from a clear, kind space, then i
Speaker 1: can deliver it. So that's over and over, clear as kind,
Speaker 1: unclear as unkind, and yeah, through with my FAI, through meditation, prayer,
Speaker 1: different things I know that I do that help ground me.
Speaker 1: I know I can get to that space a lot
Speaker 1: quicker and I can know, Okay, emotions are here right now,
Speaker 1: I need to wait till they're in the passenger seat
Speaker 1: and then I can proceed.
Speaker 3: And I'm just.
Speaker 1: Thankful getting back in this book has helped me get
Speaker 1: back into meditation, because I told you I did that
Speaker 1: challenge a couple of years ago and got really into
Speaker 1: it and then it kind of, you know, life takes
Speaker 1: a turn and you're just I was thinking when I
Speaker 1: was doing one of the meditations recently, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: why did I ever drop this habit? Like how did
Speaker 1: I ever drop it? But I didn't let that keep
Speaker 1: me from moving forward with it, and so now I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm starting back on this journey.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
Speaker 1: For ten percent happier because it's brought it back in
Speaker 1: to my life. And I've read the Power of Now
Speaker 1: and something in the book and you talk about Eckartilla.
Speaker 3: I was like, I never.
Speaker 1: Thought the things that you think. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: he's just really going hard on some people. Not that
Speaker 1: you were in a bad, bad way, but did you
Speaker 1: have do you you're laughing?
Speaker 3: Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I would have step back one thing. Just
Speaker 2: what you described about what you've been going through. You
Speaker 2: didn't say you didn't overshare, but you know, you just
Speaker 2: mentioned that you've been going through some stuff and coming
Speaker 2: back to clear his kind and coming back to a
Speaker 2: meditation practice. This is a weird thing to say because
Speaker 2: we don't know each other, but I just felt proud
Speaker 2: of you. It just sounds like you're handling this beautifully.
Speaker 2: So oh just want to give you something.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, And I may want to I am
Speaker 1: this is going to give meditation shout out too, because
Speaker 1: I had like a zoom call yesterday of someone that
Speaker 1: I've worked with that's been involved with like our family
Speaker 1: for a few years, and she said on the call,
Speaker 1: she said, you it's probably been about five years now.
Speaker 1: I guess she said you are not the same person
Speaker 1: that I met five years ago, and so thank you
Speaker 1: for saying that. And I shared that not as like,
Speaker 1: oh look at me. It's just we were talking earlier
Speaker 1: about how change is possible and that our brains can change.
Speaker 1: It absolutely can happen, and I could have stayed stuck
Speaker 1: in old patterns and continued that behavior. But meditation is
Speaker 1: a piece to that puzzle that helped me change. And
Speaker 1: that's why I think it was so shocking to me
Speaker 1: that for the last year or so I had dropped
Speaker 1: that habit, and so now I'm thankful that it is back.
Speaker 3: So thank you.
Speaker 2: Just to respond to that, the falling off a wagon,
Speaker 2: so to speak, on meditation or any other habit is
Speaker 2: totally normal and nothing's been lost. You can always start again,
Speaker 2: and so I just for you and for anybody listening,
Speaker 2: and whether it's meditation or exercise or healthy eating, whatever
Speaker 2: it is, it's completely normal to struggle it in that way,
Speaker 2: and you can always start again. But to answer the
Speaker 2: question you were actually asking, which is you know in
Speaker 2: the book, I totally make fun of people, including best
Speaker 2: selling authors like et Caartoli and Deepak Chopra, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I tried to do it in a loving, fun way,
Speaker 2: but I definitely made fun of them, and I think,
Speaker 2: speaking of change, it's probably not the way I would
Speaker 2: write about people now many years later, and you know,
Speaker 2: in the book I'm working on now, like I do
Speaker 2: kind of make fun of a few people, but it's
Speaker 2: a little different in my current state.
Speaker 1: Okay, I just had it and I was like, oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: he went after them, but not You're right, it was
Speaker 1: kind of it was handled well for sure. I just
Speaker 1: was Maybe it was another thing I found that I appreciated,
Speaker 1: Like you're just a normal person and you even anybody
Speaker 1: that's thought about it or thinks like, oh that's too
Speaker 1: boo boo or whatever, like you come from a perspective
Speaker 1: of like you were that, Like you even on your
Speaker 1: ten day silent retreat, you're like, this is stupid, I'm leaving,
Speaker 1: like you know, and that's me fair phrasing. You didn't
Speaker 1: say those exact words, but you that's the vibe I felt,
Speaker 1: and I appreciated that. So because you're not coming from this,
Speaker 1: you know, place of oh I've a I've always been
Speaker 1: this way and this is going to be amazing. Like
Speaker 1: you're like, this is ridiculous, and then you sort of
Speaker 1: through your own research realized like, oh no, actually this
Speaker 1: is not red ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It's life changing.
Speaker 2: So well said, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you ten percent happier And like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: very thankful for the meditation practice at the end of
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 3: That was a nice touch.
Speaker 1: All right, Dan, I hear you have a new audible
Speaker 1: original coming out on March fifth. It's called even You
Speaker 1: Can Meditate. Find the time, the motivation and the right
Speaker 1: practice for you. What can we look forward to in
Speaker 1: this new book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did a little audible book with my friend
Speaker 2: seven A Selassie. She's a highly trained meditation teacher, and
Speaker 2: we recorded this had a lot of fun and it's
Speaker 2: really kind of a meditation book for people who think
Speaker 2: they can't meditate.
Speaker 1: Well perfect, I'm probably going to check that out because
Speaker 1: I still am thinking I cannot, but I'm still going
Speaker 1: to keep trying.
Speaker 3: Well, Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Sure, that's just another just to say that thinking you
Speaker 2: can't is just another thought. And if you just notice,
Speaker 2: oh that's a thought, it's a thought, then you can
Speaker 2: go back to your breath.
Speaker 1: It's already gone, Dan, Yeah, it's already gone. And I like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I love to visualize. And I don't
Speaker 1: know what meditation gave this to me. I can't remember
Speaker 1: at some point, but I love to visualize when I
Speaker 1: breathe in, all this ray of light is coming towards
Speaker 1: me and coming into my hands and I hold them
Speaker 1: up and I breathe in, and I breathe in the
Speaker 1: light and then it goes through my body on the
Speaker 1: exhale and outside my toes.
Speaker 3: Is that Dan approved?
Speaker 2: I'm I am. I really believe that people should do
Speaker 2: whatever works for them. I want people to feel better
Speaker 2: and feel okay with themselves. And I think that's going
Speaker 2: to make a you know, to be cheesy again, like
Speaker 2: that'll improve the world. And so yeah, whatever gets you there,
Speaker 2: as long as it's not harmful to you or anybody else.
Speaker 2: I bless it well.
Speaker 1: Dan, Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today.
Speaker 1: If you are ready to take action on your goals
Speaker 1: and you want even more strategies to make it happen,
Speaker 1: check out ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris or the
Speaker 1: Upcoming Even You can meditate on March fifth, All available
Speaker 1: on Audible. Let's make twenty twenty six your most productive
Speaker 1: year yet.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on and the
Speaker 2: great questions. I really appreciate it.