WEBVTT - BONUS EP: Amy Brown Talks 10% Happier With Dan Harris 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.360 It takes thirty days to form a habit, in ninety 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.480 days to make it stick. Lucky for you, Audible and 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.959 I have teamed up to bring you the Sound Reset Challenge, 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:12.559 a four week series designed to help you unlock your 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.840 twenty twenty six goals, projects and resolutions, all brought to 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.320 you by Audible. Audible's wellbeing collection has everything to inspire 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.759 and support you in every step of your well being journey. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.400 I'm Amy Brown, co host on The Bobby Bone Show, 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.200 and today I'm joined by Dan Harris, who is an 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.960 Emmy Award winning journalist, former ABC News anchor, and now 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:39.040 a practicing teacher of meditation and mindfulness. Nearly twelve years ago, 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.879 in twenty fourteen, Dan released his book Ten Percent Happier, 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.639 an autobiographical tale of the spiritual, scientific, and skeptical odyssey 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.640 that led him through many portals of the self help 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.160 world to his own mindfulness practice. The book was a 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.800 bestseller and did a lot to bring mindfulness to the mainstream. Today, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.440 Dan is here to share their pertinent insights from his journey, 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.840 and then we're going to challenge you, the listeners, to 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.640 a four week course for getting out of your own 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.839 way and on your way to reaching your goals. Listen 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.400 as we challenge you to turn your resolutions into reality. 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.480 All right, So Dan, I listened to ten percent Happier 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:21.160 on Audible, and I got to say one of my 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.039 favorite little perks of that was the meditations at the end. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.280 And I did the walking meditation yesterday. 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:28.039 Great good on you, how to go? 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:29.280 It went really well. 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:33.280 I hadn't done a walking meditation in several months, but 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.520 I was like, oh, this is here at the end, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:37.880 I might as well do it. And I got to say, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.640 walking meditations are my favorite kind. But there is something 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.120 you talk about in the book that was really interesting 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.360 to me with the brain scans. It was maybe an 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.520 update that you did towards the end, so I don't 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.200 know if it was in the original book, but I thought, shoot, 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.760 now I want a scan of my brain to see 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:57.400 if I'm even meditating correctly. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:06.240 I would strongly recommend against that because one of the well, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.520 first of all, I did it, and it was a disaster, 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.640 and I walked away totally confused about whether I was 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.760 meditating correctly. And then I actually had dinner that night 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.320 with my longtime meditation teacher and he told me that 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.520 he did it too, and he was confused, and so 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:28.480 I don't recommend it. My worry for all meditators, including myself, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.720 is that you get hung up on this question of 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.760 my doing it right. And here's the simple answer. If 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.560 you find yourself focused for a few nanoseconds at a 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.600 time on whatever you're trying to focus on, like your 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.160 breath or the sensations of your body as you're walking, 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.400 and then you get distracted a million times and then 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.320 start over a million times, then you're doing it correctly. 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.480 Well that's the encouragement I need to hear. Dan, So 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.240 thank you, and I know it's been years for you now. 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.079 But for those who don't know what inspired your mindfulness 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.280 journey and led you to writing this. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.600 Book Cocaine, I guess that would be the one word answer, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.880 But the slightly longer answer is that I used to be, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:16.720 in a former life, a globe trotting war correspondent for 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.520 ABC News. In the years after nine to eleven, I 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.760 spent a lot of time in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, the 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.880 West Bank, Gaza, and then a ton of time in Iraq, 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.160 probably a year total in a rock over the course 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.919 of six or seven trips and I came home in 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.040 the middle of this period of time and I got depressed, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.279 although I didn't know I was depressed, and then I 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:42.240 did this incredibly stupid thing of self medicating with recreational drugs, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.240 including cocaine, and that led to a panic attack on 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.800 national television on Good Morning America back in two thousand 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.320 and four. Actually had two panic attacks, one in two 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.400 thousand and four, one two thousand and five. The better 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.000 one to watch is the one from two thousand and four, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.720 And if you google panic attack on television, mine is 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.600 the number one result, which makes my mother so proud. 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.640 And after I had that panic attack, I realized I 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.360 needed to sort my stuff out, and so I started 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.640 seeing a psychiatrist and that ultimately led me to meditation. 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:15.800 So that's the reef answer. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.120 Yeah, your short answer being the cocaine. That's something that 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.200 I found to be so interesting about this book is 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.919 how vulnerable you got, especially the type of work that 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.039 you do. I know that's something that you wrestled with, like, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.480 am I going to share this very vulnerable detail about 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:30.880 my life? 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.080 But for me, I found it well. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.359 First of all, I was really shocked because I've watched 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.840 you on TV for years, and I thought, oh, no, way, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:43.400 he was, you know, doing drugs like that heart and ecstasy. 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.840 Like I just couldn't separate you out on the town 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.719 with you being the news guy. My brain struggled with 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.040 that a little bit. And then I also was thankful 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.440 because it humanized you, like and it also helped me 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.720 relate to you more. Not that I I have that 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.120 exact you know, the exact story that you have by 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.640 any means, but I just was like, oh, wow, he's 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.359 just not this guy on the news. He has a 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.200 real story, and it made me just find everything you 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.719 were saying just a little bit more believable. I guess 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:16.720 that's how I would summarize it, because sometimes you read 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:18.440 like self help stuff and you're like, okay, yeah, right, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.520 Like I don't really know that I could apply. 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:21.039 This to my life. 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.120 And I was like, no, if he did this and 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.000 it completely changed his life, and you it's something that 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.320 you had to do. And now I want to circle 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.359 back to the title of the book, ten percent happier. 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.120 Is that a phrase you still use to this day 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.479 because you came up with that title a long time ago. 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.760 I do use it. Look, I I'll just tell the 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:44.320 story for the people listening who may not be familiar 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.520 with any of this. That I got interested in meditation 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.520 at a time when it wasn't really socially acceptable to 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:52.600 talk about it, and so this is probably like two 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.760 thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, twenty ten. And 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.040 occasionally people at work would say, you know what, what 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.599 has gotten into you? Or what's the matter with you? 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:07.159 You used to be semi cool. And I remember a 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.440 conversation where I was talking to my friend Chris and 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.960 she was asking this question, and I said, you know, 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.960 I do it because it makes me ten percent happier, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.680 and I could see the look on her face transform 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:22.320 from scorn to mild interest, and I thought, Okay, well, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:23.960 this is my shtick. This is this is how I'm 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.760 going to talk about it. Because there's so much overpromising 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.559 in the self help world that I think is quite 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.720 reckless and greety, frankly, and so I wanted to have 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.640 a way to talk about it that made sense. And 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.760 I'll be honest, you know, I've been meditating for I 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.640 don't know, sixteen seventeen years, and I'm way more than 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.280 ten percent happier. So now my little tweak is that 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.720 it's like a good investment. You know, if you're consistently 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.120 investing in the stock market, you'll get ten percent annual 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.599 returns probably, but they will compound over time if you 0:06:55.680 --> 0:07:00.359 keep investing. And so my level of happiness now. I 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.240 continue to make mistakes, and you know, life happens to me, 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.760 Illness happens. You know, people in my life pass away. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:09.840 All of the things that happened to the rest of 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.840 us happened to me. But my ability to handle it 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.760 with some sophistication just continues to get better. 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.080 I love that the compounding How difficult was it for 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.800 you to decide to write this and reveal things about 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:25.680 your own journey that you did. I know in the 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.160 book you mentioned your mom called you the night before 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.920 it was going to release or something, and she was like, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.040 don't do it, don't do it, don't put it out there, 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.000 and you're like, well, I have books in the warehouse, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:36.280 so it's happening. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:38.280 It was really hard. I mean, it feels like another 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:43.040 life because the book came out in twenty fourteen, so nearly, 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.720 you know, twelve years ago. But yes, I was super nervous. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.640 And my mom's email to me shortly before the book 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.200 came out in which she begged me not to publish 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.200 the book was not helpful. Although I'm not trying to 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:00.560 criticize my mom, she was just being a protective mother. Honestly, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.120 when you ask that question, I start thinking about the 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.440 fact that one year from now, actually less than one 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.760 year from now, at the beginning of January next year, 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.960 I have a sequel coming out that is frankly more embarrassing, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:19.720 and I'm in the middle of the rewrites for it 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.600 today as a matter of fact, and I'm having very 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.360 similar feelings of like, am I really going to do this? 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.960 And what are people going to think? And ultimately what 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.920 I come back to always is I guess this is 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.000 just how I teach, and I think my mo or 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.120 my way of being a public figure now is to 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.800 admit the stuff that most people won't admit but is 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.640 actually true for them anyway. And so one of the 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.000 ways I describe this is that some people teach from 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.280 the mountaintop and I teach from the fetal position. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.760 Well, I think you also, it's got to be a 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.520 little comforting to have the data from the first book 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.920 because you were nervous. Similarly, I understand those nerves coming 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:04.800 back again. But then you've got data of like, oh, 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.520 I've done this before, I've been here, and what the 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.400 data is telling me is this is what people appreciate 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.560 and respect from me, and this should do well too. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.400 That's true to a certain extent, and I definitely I know, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.840 and there's a research to show that if you share, 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.320 if you self disclose, if you're vulnerable, to use the 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.800 term of art, people tend to like you. But there 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.080 is there's fear, nonetheless for all of us, if we're 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.520 even for somebody who's done it very publicly as I have, 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.160 And I guess part of me is scared that people 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.800 will say, well, wait a minute, how can you continue 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.640 to make mistakes. You're supposed to be some sort of 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.400 meditation guy. And I know my answer to that, which 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.040 is that you know, there is no such thing as perfection. 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.719 I'm mister ten percent, and I'm going to continue to 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.079 make mistakes, and I'm going to continue to self disclose 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.480 because I think it's helpful for other people, because it 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:05.199 normalizes all of our weird stuff. But it is it's 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.280 you know, there's no situation in which it's the fear 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:08.959 will go away. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.800 I think, well, let's talk about the monkey mind. How 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.280 do you think that shows up in our world today? 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.079 Yeah, so the monkey mind is a term that is 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.520 kind of taken from the Buddha, who was a dude 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.959 who lived twenty six hundred years ago on the in 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:30.120 India and Nepal, and he was really a You can 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.760 think of him as just an amazing genius level meditation teacher. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:36.640 That's just one way to think of him. And he 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.640 had this he compared our minds to monkeys in that 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.360 we're just jumping all over the place. We were just 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.840 constantly thinking about the past or the future. We're instead 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.400 of focusing on what's happening right now. We're judging people, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.200 we're judging ourselves. We're wanting stuff, we're not wanting stuff. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.160 And when you're unaware of this NonStop conversation which you 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.640 are having with yourself, when you're unaware of it, it 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.040 owns you. Every little thought that flits through your mind 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.520 is like and this is the way my meditation teacher 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.080 describes it, Every little thought becomes a tiny dictator. You 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.080 just act it out. You have a thought of like, oh, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.600 maybe I should say something right now that will ruin 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.800 the next forty eight hours of my marriage, and then 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.319 you just do it. And what meditation does is help 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:28.240 you not be so owned by this stream of consciousness 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.040 that's happening all the time, and that were and that 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.920 if we broadcast allowed, we'd be locked up. But most 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.600 of us are only kind of vaguely aware of the 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.520 thinking process, and if we can become a little bit 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.240 more aware, aka a little bit more mindful, then we 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.199 have more choice and freedom. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:46.920 Seeing of being locked up. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.160 I was just taken back to a part in the 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:53.679 book where you, as a journalist, you did solitary confinement 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.240 for well, was it forty eight hours? First of all, 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.480 I couldn't believe that a prison agreed to block you 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.320 up that way, So just side note there. It's like 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.079 you were dedicated to that story. 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.680 You know. I find that people are generally willing to 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.600 lock up somebody from the mainstream media. You know, we're 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.560 pretty unpopular. So that part wasn't the hard part. The 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.839 hard bar was actually doing it, And honestly, it really 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.600 did land me on the conclusion that solitary confinement, while 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.440 it may be necessary in some extreme cases, is kind 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.640 of torture. We are social animals, you know, if you 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.400 think about the history of humans. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:34.760 We never. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:42.280 We never had claws or talons or wings or massive size. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.040 In fact, in our early days as a species, we 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.120 were prey animals. We only got to the top of 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.559 the food chain because of our ability to cooperate, communicate, collaborate, care, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:59.280 and everything about modern life now militates against that. Everything 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.280 about modern life, if it is hyper individualistic, isolated in 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.920 our own tech bubbles. We're being pitted against one another 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.480 on social media because the versions of the humans that 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.079 we disagree with, the version we see of them is 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.440 like a cartoon version often, So there's no I don't 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:26.080 think it's a coincidence that in this isolated, individualistic, lonely 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.720 era that we're seeing unprecedented me never before seen levels 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:36.560 of anxiety, depression, suicide, addiction, and loneliness. And so actually 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.480 that is kind of what I'm writing about in my 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.839 next book, for lack of a less cheesy term, it's 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:46.160 about love. You know, if you were to forget whether 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.280 you want to meditate or not, and I'm totally fine, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.760 people should make their own minds up. I think you 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.439 can live a very happy life if you don't meditate, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.920 but you cannot live a happy life if you don't 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.360 have high quality relationships in your life. And you know, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.320 one of the other things that's happening these days is 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.280 that people are really into optimization. We're trying to live forever. 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.360 We're buying books on longevity and then tracking our sleep 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.439 and counting our steps and all that stuff. And that's 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.760 fine as far as it goes. But honestly, what the 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.760 science shows is that if you care about living along, happy, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.280 and by the way, professionally successful life, the thing to 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.480 optimize for is the quality of your relationships. And so actually, 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.200 if I could leave you or anybody with anything today, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:29.080 it's it's that. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.440 Well with the which thank you for that. Relationships are 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:39.640 so important in your meditation journey. Once you started that, 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.000 how did it impact your your work life and your 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:44.800 personal life? 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:46.280 What are some changes? You saw? 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.400 Huge changes in my personal life. It just made me 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.280 more patient. I made that joke before about Hussein. Has 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:53.880 you have this thought of like, let me just say 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.960 something because I want to discharge this anger I'm feeling 0:14:58.000 --> 0:14:59.760 in my body, So let me just say something and 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.280 then and then you regret it and you hurt somebody's feelings. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.560 And so I still do that, but I'm much much better. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:14.320 I notice when I'm feeling angry and I let it 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:18.080 come and go, and I'm much better at just waiting 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.920 to act until the anger has passed. I'm not saying 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.040 anger never has any uses. It does, of course, but 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.680 rarely have I made a good decision in a state 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.600 of anger. And so one way to talk about this 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.280 is you learn how to respond wisely to things in 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.200 your life instead of reacting blindly. And I used to 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.760 be very reactive and I had quite a temper, and 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.600 it showed up at work, and it showed up in 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.200 my marriage. And again I'm not saying I'm perfect, but 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.040 I do much less of that, and it's had a 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:56.120 huge effect, honestly. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.600 That's another thing I appreciated in the book with talking 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.160 about kind of like year before and after your behavior, 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.440 how you would fire off females, like if you weren't 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.160 chosen for something. And that's something that we as viewers 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.720 we don't really think about when we're watching all the news, 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.200 is that like, oh, you know, they were chosen for 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.920 this story or this segment, and there's you know, ten 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.880 other people that were maybe fighting for that segment or 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.720 being sent off to this particular location to cover this 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.680 particular event, and that ever since I listened to the book, 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.640 now I've watched different things. I'm like, hmm, I wonder 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.720 who really wanted this segment of this spot, but that 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.920 I guess we'll call you your premeditation days. Yeah, you 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.960 admitted to firing off eemails and kind of making a scene, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.120 probably behaved in a way that you. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:45.880 Weren't really proud of. 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.280 And what I thought was cool though and probably could 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.480 offer a lot of people some hope is that there's 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.000 room for change and that people can accept the change. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.200 Because suddenly you said you had coworkers. You know, i'm 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.280 pair phrase here, but how I recall it, like just 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.000 thinking that you're this kind person and that's not necessarily 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.680 how they saw your behavior before, but they were noticing 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.439 it after meetings and how you would carry yourself. And 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.760 I was like, oh, that's awesome because if people know that, Okay, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.520 just because I've shown up this way for the last 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.760 decade doesn't mean I have to continue. Like I can 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.400 change and people will accept me for it. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.000 I want to revise or maybe refine what I said 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.120 before about the one thing I would leave you with. 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.440 I'm going to make it too, and maybe this is 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.919 what I'm about to say is even more important because 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.480 you and I'm just picking up on what you said. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.520 We can change. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:39.080 And I. 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.320 Think many of us might not believe that in our bodies, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:49.679 in our bones. We might think that we are x 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:54.440 amount patient or x amount of loving or friendly or 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.480 calm or whatever like, and that's just our unalterable factory setting. 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.520 And that's just not true. And I'm not You don't 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:04.920 have to take my word for it. What the science 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.040 is showing us is that the brain and the mind 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.840 are trainable. You can, through meditation and many other practices, 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:20.480 literally change your brain. Meditation, for example, rewires the part 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.600 of the brain associated with focus. Who are also distracted 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.919 these days, you can you can remedy that stress. The 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.080 part of the brain associated with stress has been shown 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:38.160 to literally shrink among meditators. So change is possible happiness, 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.879 which is what all of us want. It's it's a skill, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.879 I mean, And that's just such a liberating idea. And 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.040 you know, in some ways, like my old job as 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.280 an anchorman and reporter was to travel around the world 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.159 covering bad news, and now my job is to travel 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.399 around the world and deliver good news, which which is 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.200 that you can change. It's perfection is not on offer, 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:09.360 but messy marginal change is absolutely available to everyone. 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.600 Yeah, I think the more that we can remind ourselves that, yeah, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:17.280 the brain is multiple neuroplasticity. I think when you have 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.119 that information and you know that it's actually true, then 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.680 there's this hope because some people are just so well, 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.119 this is how I'm wired, or this is how I 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.080 was raised, or this is what my parents did, and 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.560 that's the story they can tell themselves, but the facts 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.080 are telling us something different. So thank you for that 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.080 reminder as well. So you got hopefully you throw some 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.920 more takeaways, important takeaways in because both of those that 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:44.480 you've shared are very, very, very important. Let's talk about 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:48.720 boredom because you do mention that the mindfulness changed your 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.960 relationship with boredom, and I think we could all benefit 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.280 from that. So share more about your journey with boredom 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:57.440 and mindfulness. 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.719 I want to make a case for boredom. Much of 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.320 our lives these days revolve, whether we know it or not, 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:11.520 around fending it off. I have a visceral memory, can't 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.640 I just remember exactly where I was when I got 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.359 my first iPhone in I think two thousand and seven. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:18.760 That was the year. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:20.760 But yeah, okay, that was the year. 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.040 We had a trivia game the other day and it 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.480 was what year did the iPhone come out? And I said, 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.400 I think it was two thousand and six or two 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.720 thousand and eight, I'm not sure, and then I ended 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.160 up going with two thousand and eight, and then sure 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.640 enough it was the year in between those two. 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.960 So thank you for that. Yeah, so yeah, I remember 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.320 in two thousand and seven. I'm dating myself now because 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.080 I was a grown ass man in two thousand and 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.840 seven already I got an iPhone, and I remember having 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.520 the thought, I will never be bored again. That's not good. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:58.240 The interesting and important things happen when we're bored. New 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:03.560 ideas can be made. We are I think, and this 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:08.199 is also very important. We're allowing ourselves to sit with 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:14.119 a certain amount of discomfort because boredom is uncomfortable. What 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.159 has happened, And I'm not anti technology, but it, you know, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:23.000 the iPhone or smartphones generally, and then on top of that, 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.320 five or ten years later, the proliferation of social media 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.679 apps that live on the phone. They have had some 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.720 negative effects, and one of them is that our lives 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:43.840 are so filled and cluttered, filled with and cluttered by stimulation, 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.919 that we are unable or unwilling in many cases to 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:53.439 just be. In fact, there have been some studies that 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.680 have asked people what would you rather do. They put 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.480 people in a room and say you can sit here 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.480 and just be alone with your thoughts, or you can 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:08.080 administer self administer electric shocks. The vast majority, especially of men, 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.840 will take the shocks because they don't want to sit 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.840 and just be there. You know, they don't want to 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.800