0
SPEAKER_00
Coming up next on Passion Struck.
0
SPEAKER_01
I picked this concept up from the Dalai Lama, who I ve had the great privilege to interview a few times.
0
SPEAKER_01
He has this idea of wise selfishness, which I really like because I don t love admitting this, but it s true.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m wired, I find to be selfish.
0
SPEAKER_01
And that is one of the biggest flaws that I ve worked on inside of myself.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I just naturally go in that direction.
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t think this is totally uncommon, but it s a part of my mind that I ve wrestled with a little bit.
0
SPEAKER_01
And
0
SPEAKER_01
The Dalai Lama s argument is that we re all selfish, but there s a way to do it correctly.
0
SPEAKER_01
There s a wise or enlightened self-interest.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I think what you re describing fits that bill, because if you can focus on what you re doing that s valuable to other people, in my experience, it makes you less anxious and it improves the quality of your work and will likely, I m not guaranteeing this, but it s certainly what I ve experienced personally, make you more successful.
0
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to Passion Struck.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hi, I m your host, Jon R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
0
SPEAKER_00
We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, let s go out there and become Passion Struck.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode 424, Passion Struck, consistently ranked as the number one alternative health podcast.
0
SPEAKER_00
A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn and discover new ways to live better, be better and make a meaningful impact in the world.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here.
0
SPEAKER_00
Or you simply want to introduce this to your friends or family.
0
SPEAKER_00
And we so appreciate it when you do that.
0
SPEAKER_00
We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we put into convenient playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
0
SPEAKER_00
Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
0
SPEAKER_00
Are you curious to find out where you stand on the path to becoming Passionstruck?
0
SPEAKER_00
Dive into our engaging Passionstruck quiz crafted to reflect the core principles shared in my latest book.
0
SPEAKER_00
This quiz offers you a dynamic way to gauge your progress on the Passionstruck continuum.
0
SPEAKER_00
Head over to passionstruck.com to embark on this insightful journey.
0
SPEAKER_00
With just 20 questions and roughly 10 minutes of your time, you re on your way to uncovering where you fit in the grand scheme of creating a passion struck life.
0
SPEAKER_00
Don t miss this chance to gain valuable insights into your passion driven journey.
0
SPEAKER_00
Take the quiz today.
0
SPEAKER_00
In case you missed it last week, I had two fantastic interviews.
0
SPEAKER_00
The first was with Cass Sunstein, the nation s most cited legal scholar, a prolific author, Harvard law professor, who is renowned for his co-authorship of the groundbreaking book, Nudge.
0
SPEAKER_00
Alongside no other than Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler, we explore his new masterpiece, Look Again, the power of noticing what was always there, which offers an enlightening journey into the concept of habituation, our psychological tendency to get used to our surroundings, and how it shapes our thoughts, actions, and ultimately our lives.
0
SPEAKER_00
I also interviewed neuropsychologist Dr. Julia DeGangi, who takes us from the depths of the brain s neuroelectrical energy to the pinnacle of personal and professional fulfillment.
0
SPEAKER_00
After groundbreaking work at Harvard and with leaders worldwide, she unveils transformative insights on harnessing our inner power.
0
SPEAKER_00
I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews.
0
SPEAKER_00
And if you love today s episode or any of those others, we would appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today, we re diving deep into the world of mindfulness, personal transformation and the pursuit of happiness with none other than Dan Harris.
0
SPEAKER_00
Dan, a familiar face from ABC News and the driving force behind the transformative platform 10% Happier, joins me to unravel the intricacies of living a more mindful and fulfilling life.
0
SPEAKER_00
In this intimate conversation, we explore the remarkable parallels between our journeys, each of us propelled by pivotal moments that demanded that we re-evaluate our paths in the essence of true satisfaction and fulfillment.
0
SPEAKER_00
Dan shares his compelling story from the dizzying heights of global journalism to the groundbreaking practice of meditation following an on-air panic attack on Good Morning America.
0
SPEAKER_00
His candid reflections offer a beacon of hope and a roadmap for anyone standing at the crossroads of personal and professional life seeking clarity and purpose.
0
SPEAKER_00
We delve into how Buddha s teachings have sculpted his approach to leadership, the continuous need for self-reinvention, and the profound realization of what it means to truly matter to ourselves and to the world.
0
SPEAKER_00
Our conversation spans the spectrum of human experience, from the quest for originality to setting healthy boundaries to the art of empowering others and leading with intention.
0
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely an episode you do not want to miss.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, let that journey begin.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today, I am absolutely thrilled to have one of my favorite podcasters on this show and someone that our community has asked for repeatedly.
0
SPEAKER_00
I am so excited to welcome Dan Harris to PassionStruck.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thanks so much for having me.
0
SPEAKER_00
Dan, I think it s such a small world to tell you the truth because when I started PassionStruck over three and a half years ago, 10% Happier was one of the podcasts that I ended up studying because I thought it was one of the best ones out there.
0
SPEAKER_00
I thought it set the benchmark and also the professionalism that you showed really shined a light.
0
SPEAKER_00
You ve been doing this now for such a long time and you ve cultivated a large audience.
0
SPEAKER_00
What do you think are some of the keys to that success?
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, first of all, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_01
I really appreciate that.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s very nice to hear.
0
SPEAKER_01
I would say maybe two things are coming to mind.
0
SPEAKER_01
One is very much in line with your work, which is that this is an area where I have a lot of passion.
0
SPEAKER_01
I am very interested in the subject of how to train your mind.
0
SPEAKER_01
And not just from an academic standpoint, but as somebody who s
0
SPEAKER_01
mind has mutinied in many, that s probably a tricky word with a Navy guy, but a guy whose mind has worked against him in many ways in terms of panic attacks and substance abuse and depression and anxiety.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, I have real skin in the game and I think that s been helpful in terms of helping me do these interviews in a way that land with people.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I would say the second thing that s been really helpful for me that I ve learned
0
SPEAKER_01
somewhat recently in the last few years.
0
SPEAKER_01
And actually, if you go back and listen to the early episodes of the podcast, because we ve been around for eight or nine years now, I think I was a much worse interviewer in those days.
0
SPEAKER_01
What s really helped me over time is to learn, I almost never interrupt.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I have this little hack that was given to me by some communication coaches that I ve worked with for a long time.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it s called reflective listening.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so when
0
SPEAKER_01
Somebody says something to me, especially in an interview setting where somebody is trying to explain an esoteric or tricky subject, I will repeat it back to them in my own words very briefly.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I find that people really respond to that both as listeners who appreciate the recap and my interlocutor, the person I m interviewing, it always feels so good to be heard.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so this is a great skill that anybody can use in any context.
0
SPEAKER_00
No, I think that is such great advice.
0
SPEAKER_00
And one of the things that drives me crazy is I listened to so many podcasts when the interviewer talks over the guest on the show.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I personally have always gone with the approach of trying to serve my community.
0
SPEAKER_00
And the best way that I can serve my community is by honoring what the guest is there to talk about and to making them be the person who shines during the interview, because I always am trying to add value to the audience.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that s something that I think you strive to do as well.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Podcasting, it s such an intimate medium.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re in people s ears, often with earbuds.
0
SPEAKER_01
Occasionally, if there s some crosstalk, that s fine.
0
SPEAKER_01
If the interviewer gets excited and jumps in or something once in a while, that s fine.
0
SPEAKER_01
But if there s too much of that, it s really jarring.
0
SPEAKER_01
It can come off as really rude.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m just picking up on something you said there, John.
0
SPEAKER_01
Your listeners couldn t hear the conversation we had before we started recording, but I m just struck in knowing you for all of five minutes now, how you do return to this idea of serving your audience.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I just find that for myself, to the extent that I can remember, that is my goal.
0
SPEAKER_01
Everything gets easier, clearer, better, and smoother.
0
SPEAKER_01
I find, unfortunately, that I get knocked off my center sometimes, usually because of fear, anxiety of some flavor.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I can forget that, oh, well, my job on the planet is to help my audience.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I just hear you coming back to that in a way that I think actually is, it s actually just a good reminder for me personally.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for that and I m not sure if you re familiar with Christina Mon-Lakiani.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was interviewing her not too long ago.
0
SPEAKER_00
She s the co-founder of Mindvalley and something she said really hit the spot for me.
0
SPEAKER_00
She was getting prepared to do this huge keynote and she was following some larger-than-life keynote speaker.
0
SPEAKER_00
The way she described this person, I think it might have been Tony Robbins, but she didn t give out who they
1
SPEAKER_00
were and she said that she was petrified to have to follow in the footsteps of this person.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I remember back in the day you and I are about the same age and I went to go see the tour that Guns N  Roses and Metallica was a warm-up act so if you re Guns N  Roses you re thinking I have got a lot to prove if I m following Metallica.
1
SPEAKER_00
But getting back to Christina, she told me that when she looked in the crowd and she started examining the faces of the people in it, she realized that she wasn t here for herself.
1
SPEAKER_00
She was here to serve the audience and people paid money to come in here, speak.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when I hear that perspective, it s the same thing I try to do with my audience, because this podcast, it s not about me.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s about serving the audience and giving them content that can change their lives.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s one of the most important things as podcasters that we can do.
1
SPEAKER_01
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you just said.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think a lot about this concept that I picked up from, and now I m going to do the most obnoxious name drop in the history of name drops, but I picked this concept up from the Dalai Lama, who I ve had the great privilege to interview a few times.
1
SPEAKER_01
He has this idea of wise selfishness, which I really like because I don t love admitting this, but it s true.
1
SPEAKER_01
I find to be selfish.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that is one of the biggest flaws that I ve worked on inside of myself.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I just naturally go in that direction.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t think this is totally uncommon, but it s a part of my
1
SPEAKER_01
mind that I ve wrestled with a little bit.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the Dalai Lama s argument is that we re all selfish, but there s a way to do it correctly.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s a wise or enlightened self-interest.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think what you re describing fits that bill because if you can focus on
1
SPEAKER_01
what you re doing that s valuable to other people, in my experience, it makes you less anxious and it improves the quality of your work and will likely, I m not guaranteeing this, but it s certainly what I ve experienced personally, make you more successful.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, what you re describing is a kind of
1
SPEAKER_01
interesting form of altruism.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s altruistic for sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it can redound to your own benefit.
1
SPEAKER_00
Does any of that make sense?
1
SPEAKER_00
Dan, that makes perfect sense.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m glad that you brought up His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve had two or three other people on the show who have met him personally.
1
SPEAKER_00
And one of the people I was talking to was David Vago.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m not sure if you know him.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I do.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the other person was David Yadin.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they were both telling me about the audiences that they had with him.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it was very interesting because their perspective was when they were in his audience, they were the most important thing in the earth that was happening at that period of time to the Dalai Lama and his full attention was centered just on them.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting because I have another friend, Andreas Widmer, who runs the business school at the Catholic University in DC.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I ve talked about him before on the podcast, but if you re not familiar with him, Andreas earlier in his life was lost, and his parents encouraged him to become a Swiss Guard.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he didn t think he would ever become one, but it in fact happened.
1
SPEAKER_00
And before long, he was the Swiss Guard for Pope John Paul II.
1
SPEAKER_00
And similar to the Dalai Lama, he said that when he was in the presence of the Pope, he felt the same way.
1
SPEAKER_00
Here s a person who s leading a flock of over a million followers.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yet when you were around them, you felt like the whole world melted except for the two of you.
1
SPEAKER_00
And what he told Andreas when he saw that Andreas was suffering himself from an identity crisis and not knowing what he was supposed to do with his life.
1
SPEAKER_00
He said that the reason God put any of us here is to exploit our uniqueness, to solve a problem that only we can solve for the benefit of the rest of humanity.
1
SPEAKER_00
And to me, that s a real cornerstone of how we should approach our lives, because going after that uniqueness to serve others brings us the most contentment and happiness in anything that we can do.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and there s a way in which, at least for me, that I ve thought of self-interest and altruism or other interests or being interested in other people s issues as diametrically opposed.
1
SPEAKER_01
But in fact, it s a mutually reinforcing double helix.
1
SPEAKER_01
I call it the cheesy upward spiral.
1
SPEAKER_01
When you have good relationships with other people, you re going to be happier because we re social animals.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the happier you are,
1
SPEAKER_01
the better your relationships will be and then you ll get even happier and the relationships will improve and up you go.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can tell you from experience, I m not perpetually on the upward spiral.
1
SPEAKER_01
The opposite, what I call the toilet vortex of being mean to myself and then being mean to others, that is perpetually available to me as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
But just understanding this conversation between what s good for the world and what s good for you, I think that can be very valuable.
1
SPEAKER_00
Dan, thank you for highlighting that, and I wanted to jump back into your career at ABC.
1
SPEAKER_00
As I was researching you and your life, I found that although we lived very different lives, we had a lot in common.
1
SPEAKER_00
We both have observed combat situations, and it s such a hard thing to experience and not be changed coming out on the other side of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I know for me, it caused me to go down a rabbit hole, or as you call it, this toilet plunge of creating addictions to keep me from the demons that are occurring inside of myself.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me, the two biggest culprits were my focus on career and alcohol.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I use those two examples because they kept me stuck where I was.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I wasn t able to really explore the self-awareness that I needed to do to get over the stuck points that were holding me back.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in the end, it caught up with me in a big way.
1
SPEAKER_00
When I was at the pinnacle of everything that I wanted to achieve, here I was a C-level in a fortune 50 company, and I should have been on cloud nine.
1
SPEAKER_00
And instead inside, I felt like I was numb and empty.
1
SPEAKER_00
And at that point, I realized that I d been hearing this inner voice for a very long time, and I was ignoring it because I wasn t keeping an open mind to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I know in your case, you also went through something very similar.
1
SPEAKER_00
It happened to be on a much larger stage than the one I was on because yours happened on Good Morning America, but I was hoping that you could talk about it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we could have partied together back in the day.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was really into work and instead of alcohol, cocaine.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have nothing but empathy.
1
SPEAKER_01
I spent much of my young adult years, my 20s and 30s, trying to climb the ladder of network news.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in the early aughts, the early 2000s, I spent a lot of time in combat zones.
1
SPEAKER_01
After 9-11, I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Israel and the West Bank during the second intifada there and Gaza as well, actually.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then I spent a lot of time in Iraq.
1
SPEAKER_01
And during this time, I got depressed, although I didn t actually know, I wasn t self-aware enough to know that I was depressed.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I started to do something incredibly dumb, which was self-medicate with recreational drugs, including cocaine.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that occasioned a panic attack on live television on a little
1
SPEAKER_01
broadcast called Good Morning America.
1
SPEAKER_01
I sometimes joke that I m such a masochist that I actually asked the research department to find out how many people were watching and they gave me the number of 5.019 million.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and actually the audience is much bigger now because if you Google panic attack on television, I m the first result.
1
SPEAKER_01
So my mom is so proud.
1
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, that sucked.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in the aftermath, I knew I needed to make some changes.
1
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things I did was go to see a shrink.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was trying to figure out why I had this panic attack.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, I wasn t high on the air.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I didn t know that there was any connection.
1
SPEAKER_01
But he pointed out that of course, was what was
1
SPEAKER_01
causing it and so that started a big long chain of self-improvement.
1
SPEAKER_01
First I stopped doing drugs, I went pretty deep into therapy for many years and then through therapy stumbled upon meditation.
1
SPEAKER_01
I sometimes joke it was the first time in my life I ve ever been ahead of a trend because I started getting interested in meditation 2008-2009 before it got cool in the culture although it had been cool in the 60s and then dropped off and then started to get cool again in the early 2010s.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I was a little bit ahead of that trend.
1
SPEAKER_01
I started doing it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I found I had a lot of benefits.
1
SPEAKER_01
We can talk about that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ll just say finally that I had this idea as I was getting interested in meditation that there were a lot of really good books about it, but they were to me just a little bit annoying.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I wanted to write a book
1
SPEAKER_01
that would be aimed at skeptics and use the F word a lot and tell embarrassing stories.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, I wrote a book called 10% Happier.
1
SPEAKER_01
It came out 10 years ago, actually, that we just put out a revised edition or there s a revised edition coming out like a 10th anniversary edition with a new preface and blah, blah, blah.
1
SPEAKER_01
It happened in 2014 and then after that I started the podcast and I thought all of this was going to be mildly embarrassing and then go, you know, I was like a C-level network news anchor talking about a pretty niche concern meditation.
1
SPEAKER_01
It all ended up becoming, you know, as a result of following my passion really, ended up becoming pretty successful and it s really changed my life.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I was originally exposed to mindfulness practice through yoga when I was in my mid-20s.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it was ironic because of all places I was assigned to Naval Special Warfare Unit 10.
1
SPEAKER_00
And a couple of the people who were stationed there had learned mindfulness practices during their time as they were coming up in the SEALs.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they learned the importance of breath control, positive imagery, self-awareness, etc.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I got exposed to it in my 20s, but then I let it go by the wayside.
1
SPEAKER_00
And similar to you, I ended up picking it up later on in life.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think I was exposed to it again through my sister who became a Buddhist and she was discussing with me how important she found her mindfulness practice to be in bringing her contentment and happiness.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I talked earlier about the fact that I had this inner voice and I m
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not talking about the crazy schizophrenic inner voice.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m talking about this inner voice that s present there for most of us.
2
SPEAKER_00
However, we re too distracted by the world around us to hear it because we re not listening for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you find that same thing happened to you when you started to practice?
2
SPEAKER_00
Were you able to start hearing that inner voice and its impact that it could have on your life?
2
SPEAKER_01
A thousand percent.
2
SPEAKER_01
To me, there s so much to learn through Buddhism, and I would call myself a Buddhist, and we can talk about what that does and doesn t mean if you want, but there s so much to learn in this space of meditation, Buddhist or otherwise.
2
SPEAKER_01
But for me, the number one initial learning
2
SPEAKER_01
was that we all have a voice in our heads, as you ve been describing it.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I talk about this, I, like you, try to make clear that I m not talking about schizophrenia or hearing voices.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m talking about the inner narrator.
2
SPEAKER_01
who chases you out of bed in the morning and is yammering away all day at you right between your ears or behind your eyes.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s this voice that has you wanting stuff or not wanting stuff, judging people, judging yourself, comparing yourself to other people, thinking about the past or the future instead of focusing on what s happening right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when you are unaware of this nonstop conversation, which if we broadcast aloud, you would be locked up,
2
SPEAKER_01
When you re unaware of this inner cacophony, which is a human universal, the cacophony that is, when you don t see it, it owns you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like a malevolent puppeteer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every thought, every neurotic impulse that goes marching through your consciousness, you just act it out like it s a tiny dictator.
2
SPEAKER_01
When in fact, there is this technology that s many millennia old that is designed to help you see
2
SPEAKER_01
the contents of your consciousness to help you see how wild your mind is so that it doesn t own you as much.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s called meditation.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that to me was absolutely the number one, that was the gateway for me for all of this.
2
SPEAKER_01
I actually call the first line of my book, the now 10-year-old book, is something to the effect of, I wanted to call this book
2
SPEAKER_01
The voice in my head is an a** because it s a little harsh, but and sometimes the mind does offer up good ideas.
2
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of the time, the mind is just spinning on what s for lunch.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do I need a haircut?
2
SPEAKER_01
Where do gerbils run wild?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or you re planning a homicide or you re thinking about eating a sleeve of Oreos, whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you don t have any visibility into the machinations of your mind, then you re cooked.
2
SPEAKER_00
Dan, I love the endorsement that Gretchen Rubin gave you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Specifically, she writes, in 10% Happier, Dan Harris s argument for the power of mindfulness, which he bases both on cutting edge science and his own hard-won experience, will convince even the most skeptical reader of meditation s potential.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what I found when I read your book and I was reading her quote is that you were one of the biggest skeptics of meditation and mindfulness of anyone I have possibly ever heard of before.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s how a lot of people probably feel before they start getting into the habit of practicing it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I know for me, I felt the same way.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I remember buying this little book that was basically meditation or mindfulness for beginners, because I needed to find the easiest blueprint that I could to get myself back into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Dan, what would be your thoughts for someone who s listening today who might think this whole meditation thing that we ve been talking about is a load of baloney, and they re as skeptical as you and I were?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I have a lot of thoughts for that person.
2
SPEAKER_01
First of all, respect.
2
SPEAKER_01
I get it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s absolutely the way I felt.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thought this was hippie nonsense right in the same bucket with crystals and aura readings and hacky sack.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was raised by hippies, and so I had an even higher level of hostility toward all of this.
2
SPEAKER_01
What changed my mind is the science.
2
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned a prior guest of yours, David Vago, who s also been on my podcast, who is a fantastic human being.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s a neuroscientist based out of Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt University.
2
SPEAKER_01
He is one of many neuroscientists who have been looking into what meditation does
2
SPEAKER_01
to the human brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m not talking about live in a cave level meditation, I m talking about short daily doses of meditation.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s been shown to rewire key parts of the brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like when you meditate, this is a little glib, but when you re meditating, it s like you re performing neurosurgery on yourself.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, the area of the brain associated with self-awareness or attention regulation, focus, the area of the brain associated with compassion.
2
SPEAKER_01
These all have been shown to grow
2
SPEAKER_01
And the area of the brain associated with stress has been shown to literally shrink as you practice for a few minutes a day meditations.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think there s pretty strong evidence and the science is in its early stages.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think we need to be humble about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s still plenty of open questions.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not a scientist, but I m married to one and both of my parents were scientists.
2
SPEAKER_01
From what I can tell from looking at the data and living with it for 15 years now,
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a very strong case to be made that short daily doses of meditation can confer a long list of health benefits, not only changes to the brain, but also it s been shown to help with anxiety and depression, both of which I ve struggled since I was quite young, actually.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s also been shown to help with ADHD and age-related cognitive decline.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot to recommend it, and I think the science is why we re now seeing it take off in so many interesting quarters of our society.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve spent a decent amount of time with folks in the military,
2
SPEAKER_01
who, like you, practice mindfulness because it s been shown to make troops who are less reactive in the field and more resilient when they come home in the face of what was a scourge of PTSD.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the idea that it s bull**** is, I think there s quite a bit of evidence to argue against that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know for me, and it s probably the same for many people, they don t think that they re doing meditation correctly because you re doing it and a minute and a half later, you feel completely distracted.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think what they don t realize is that is completely normal.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what you want to do is catch yourself when you re drifting and to bring yourself back into focus.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the more you do it, the better you get at it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you ll be able to extend into longer periods of deep thought, et cetera.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m wondering, did you find something similar when you started your practice?
2
SPEAKER_00
gold star.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s exactly right.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I actually think in the 10 years since I wrote the book, at the beginning back in 2014, when that my book first came out, I was really aiming all of my fire at folks who thought meditation was completely ridiculous and would never consider it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the culture has changed quite a bit.
2
SPEAKER_01
There are still plenty of people who think it s ridiculous.
2
SPEAKER_01
But in many
2
SPEAKER_01
parts of our culture, it s not embarrassing anymore to admit that you meditate.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the bigger problem now is just what you articulated, which is that people know meditation is good for you, and yet they tell themselves a story that they somehow
2
SPEAKER_01
are the one person who can t do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I call this the fallacy of uniqueness.
2
SPEAKER_01
The good news and the bad news is if you have a wild mind, you re not special.
2
SPEAKER_01
We evolved to have these racing minds because it kept us safe.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that s probably why we evolved to have these wild minds that are super distractible and always casting forth or casting back to the past because it really kept us safe during evolutionary times.
2
SPEAKER_01
It kept us on the hunt for food and mates and it kept us vigilant for
2
SPEAKER_01
predators and things like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
However, the evolutionary mindset doesn t always serve us in our current environment.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so to get to the point you were making about folks who think they can t meditate, I have very good news on this score, which is meditation does not require you to clear your mind.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s impossible unless you re enlightened or you have died.
2
SPEAKER_01
The goal of meditation is to focus your mind for a few nanoseconds at a time, usually on the feeling of your breath coming in and going out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then every time you get distracted, you start again and again.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this is like a bicep curl for your brain, literally exercise for your brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this is what shows up on the brain scans.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is one of the mechanisms by which your brain changes.
2
SPEAKER_01
I want to say, actually, it might be worth describing beginning mindfulness meditation.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really, it s not complicated.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sit in a chair, lie on the ground, fold yourself into a pretzel.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can t do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m 52 years old and insufficiently limber, but if you can sit cross-legged, great, whatever.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, find a dignified, comfortable position or not an undignified one, just throw yourself on the ground and try to pick one thing to focus on.
2
SPEAKER_01
Often, we start with the breath.
2
SPEAKER_01
For some people, the breath doesn t work, so you can just feel your full body in whatever position it s in, or pick one part of the body and focus on that, focus on sounds and the environment.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re just going to pick something to focus on, and then you ll notice that you get distracted over and over again.
2
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of people, what happens in that moment is the voice in their head swoops in and tells them a whole story about how they re failed meditators.
2
SPEAKER_01
But actually, the correct and accurate story is noticing you ve gotten distracted is proof that you re meditating.
2
SPEAKER_01
the right way.
2
SPEAKER_01
The whole goal is just to see how wild the mind is.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s what happens when you wake up from distraction.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re seeing what your life is actually about, which is these random thoughts and plans and emotions and urges.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then you re starting again and again.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there are many benefits.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ll just name two.
2
SPEAKER_01
One is you learn how to focus, which is we live in an era that s been described as the info blitzkrieg.
2
SPEAKER_01
So our ability to
3
SPEAKER_00
to focus is under assault, so this is a great way to boost your ability to focus.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the second thing is you develop mindfulness, which is this self-awareness.
3
SPEAKER_00
How does that happen?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because the more you watch your mind and see how crazy it often is,
3
SPEAKER_00
the less it owns you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that is an incredibly important skill.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s just great news that we have this capacity to understand our inner landscape so that it doesn t own us, so that we can respond wisely to the things in our lives instead of reacting blindly, instead of just being like puppets on the string.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a really powerful skill.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I just wanted to tell the audience the way that I practice my meditation is I get up really early in the morning at 5am because I find that to be the most tranquil part of the day.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s not a lot going on outside.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it allows me to really be fully in presence.
3
SPEAKER_01
of the nature that s around me.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can see the stars, the moon.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can hear the birds just waking up.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I hear a rooster, etc.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m able to use that to start tuning in to my inner thoughts, which then allows me to really get inside my mind.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what I like to do is start my day with a gratitude practice.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I think about setting intentions for the day and how I want to live it.
3
SPEAKER_01
But to your point, I still get disrupted.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are things that cause me to lose my focus.
3
SPEAKER_01
and I have to catch myself and bring myself back to being present in the moment.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when that happens, I have to be really intentional about making sure I m thinking about how I want to live that day, how I want to live that moment.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s had such a profound difference in how I live my life.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can t imagine not doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, not that you need my approval, but that sounds great.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are some differences between what I described and what you described, but at its core, you are attempting on those walks with your dog.
3
SPEAKER_00
to drop below the level of random reflexive thinking and into your senses, the raw data of your senses, what you re seeing through your eyes, what you re hearing through your ears, and then quite naturally, you re getting distracted many times, and you re just starting again and again.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s meditation.
3
SPEAKER_00
It can take many forms, but that is the essence of at least mindfulness meditation.
3
SPEAKER_01
Dan, I wanted to talk a little bit about Buddhism because I ve seen the dramatic positive effect that it s had on my sister.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we all grew up in a fairly strict Roman Catholic family.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I consider myself now to be the moderate because my brother is an evangelical Christian.
3
SPEAKER_01
My sister is a Buddhist, as I just mentioned, and I m in the middle of both of them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And unfortunately, over the past four years, my sister s been fighting pancreatic cancer.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she credits her meditation, her Buddhist practice, and her diet for helping her fight the fight that she s doing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I have Sharon Salzberg coming on the show.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember telling my sister that Sharon was going to join me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she goes to me, John, you don t understand who you re interviewing and how important they are to the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
She said, if you can t get the Dalai Lama on your show, Sharon is about the next closest thing that you could possibly get to him.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she said, that would be a dream come true for me to get to interact with her.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I said to her, would you like me to introduce you to her?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was able to connect the two of them and Sharon
3
SPEAKER_01
actually spent time talking to my sister and discussing life with her, which was just profound to my sister to see how giving Sharon was.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the two of them talked about life and mortality and the power of introspection, especially during periods where you re ill.
3
SPEAKER_01
But her conversation with Sharon opened up her mind to see her own mortality in a way that I don t think I could have myself ever helped her to see.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want to ask you, why are these teachings so grounding like that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, first thing to say is back to my habit of name dropping.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sharon Salzberg is, as your sister has said, an extraordinary human being.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is the name dropping part.
3
SPEAKER_00
She s a very good friend.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m actually having dinner with her tonight, and I highly recommend her work.
3
SPEAKER_00
She s written many books, and she is one of the pioneers who helped to bring meditation from Asia, where it was invented and pioneered and taught for millennia, to the United States.
3
SPEAKER_00
She didn t do this alone.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are many others, including Asian Americans, who ve helped in this process, but Sharon was right there at the forefront and is just a towering figure.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for me, I find it personally endlessly surprising that I am somebody who would self-describe as a Buddhist because I
3
SPEAKER_00
have traditionally and continue actually to be agnostic.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was raised by atheist scientists in the People s Republic of Massachusetts.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I said earlier, I married to a scientist.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not generally a person of faith.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sometimes joke that I had a bar mitzvah, but only for the money.
3
SPEAKER_00
This was not something that I saw coming in any way.
3
SPEAKER_00
However, Buddhism, and I learned this rather late in life, while it is practiced as a religion by many millions of people, and I think that s beautiful,
3
SPEAKER_00
At its core is a series of practices and life principles that could be practiced by anybody, whether you are like me an agnostic or like you, a person with a pre-existing faith life.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of my favorite expressions about Buddhism is it s not something to believe in, it s something to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so there s meditation, there are ethical concepts, and they re not like wag your finger kind of ethical precepts.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re really like guidelines.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they all fall firmly under the idea of wise selfishness.
3
SPEAKER_00
That if you can comport yourself in a way that will lead to a life of less guilt and remorse, then you re likely to be happier.
3
SPEAKER_00
And as your relationships improve, you re likely to be happier.
3
SPEAKER_00
Another big aspect of Buddhism that I find really interesting that might be something that your sister s spending time thinking about is this notion of impermanence.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s obvious to anybody that everything s changing all the time, but we don t live our lives that way, most of us.
3
SPEAKER_00
We live as if we re going to have this body forever, or we re struggling or suffering because we don t have the body we used to have, or we don t have the body that one of our friends has, or then people we love get older and we struggle with these changes because we don t take into our molecules that everything really is changing all the time, including you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And everything that comes into being will go out of being.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Buddhism, one of the main thrusts of the practice is to get you very familiar with this non-negotiable truth.
3
SPEAKER_00
So there are many deep and profound aspects to Buddhism.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just don t want to take up too much airspace right now.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are the aspects of the practice that have really spoken to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you for sharing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can t believe you re having dinner with Sharon.
3
SPEAKER_01
Please tell her I m looking so forward to our interview that s coming up and this episode will come out just shortly after your episode, Dan.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I thought I would do something a little bit interesting on the show because I have been spending a lot of time listening to many of your episodes, trying to learn more and more about you so I could make this episode unique.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I found so many principles that you actually talk about that align to things that I talk about in my book, Passion Struck.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I just wanted to cover a couple of them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the first concept that I explore is something that I call the mission angler.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this is really about life crafting the ideal self that you want to become.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you had this profound change in your life after you experienced the panic attack.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you share with the audience how mindfulness helped you to think about your life and craft it in a way that you wanted to become your own best self and led you to what you re doing now?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t think I would have been able to crystallize what my life s mission was before.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I was a bad actor or anything like that on the scene.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was practicing journalism.
3
SPEAKER_00
I believed deeply in journalism, but I don t know that I would have been able to crystallize or articulate what it is that my goal in life was.
3
SPEAKER_00
What I do know is that I had a lot of stress and anxiety, both related to work and related to just being alive.
3
SPEAKER_00
And meditation really helped me with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then writing the book and hosting the podcast and taking my career in that direction.
3
SPEAKER_00
I actually just retired from ABC News two years ago, and I m now doing all things 10% happier full time.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was only through really two things that the impact of the practice on my mind and then the impact of the practice on my career that I ve been able to in any way think about, and I think it s a very healthy exercise and I applaud you for pushing people to do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
that I ve been able to think about, okay, what is my job on the planet?
3
SPEAKER_00
What is my mission?
3
SPEAKER_00
What is my goal?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I can roughly describe it as, again, maybe a little glib, I think of my job as making awesome that helps people do their lives better.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I make books, I make podcasts, I make social media posts.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the goal of it all when I can remember when I can wake back up to my highest aspiration is to be useful in or to be like I sometimes say a node,
3
SPEAKER_00
of sanity in an insane world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think of this as wise selfishness, that hopefully it s useful to other people.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if it works and it does do well, then I can make a living and I can get some of the positive feedback that actually, you know, sometimes I worry that in the past, maybe I liked it too much, but now I really just think about it as fuel.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it s nice when somebody likes my book or likes my work, I try not to take it
4
SPEAKER_00
too personally, but it s, I think of it as like a mutually reinforcing cycle.
4
SPEAKER_00
You could use a grandiose term like love.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, there s a lot of love that goes into my work.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if I can get the love back in terms of people liking it or buying it, then that helps me keep to continue doing more.
4
SPEAKER_01
Dan, I wanted to double down on just one more question.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of the things that I talk about on the show pretty commonly is the concept of anti-mattering or un-mattering, because I think it s absolutely one of the biggest epidemics that we re dealing with on the planet.
4
SPEAKER_01
what s linked to things like the chronic hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness, and this widespread increase of mental health that we re seeing worldwide.
4
SPEAKER_01
How have you come to see this concept of mattering and its importance in life?
4
SPEAKER_01
And can you share your perspective on the importance of feeling like one matters both to themselves and to others?
4
SPEAKER_00
I guess I think about it through evolution.
4
SPEAKER_00
We are intensely relational animals.
4
SPEAKER_00
Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, which I don t understand because I m not good at math, but a new way to think about the theory of relativity is that we live in relationship to other people and everything else in the universe, but we feel separate.
4
SPEAKER_00
We feel inside like we are, many of us do, isolated egos peering fretfully out at the world that is separate from us.
4
SPEAKER_00
But of course that is not true.
4
SPEAKER_00
Every atom in your body comes from the first exploding stars.
4
SPEAKER_00
Every thought in your head comes from other people.
4
SPEAKER_00
You are utterly composed of non-John component parts.
4
SPEAKER_00
And yet somehow John and Dan feel like we are isolated meatbags moving through a hostile universe, but that s just not true.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just understanding how we were designed, we became the apex predator for better or worse on planet Earth, not because we were the strongest, but because we had this capacity to work together.
4
SPEAKER_00
understand that s our nature, that s your nature, can open your eyes to the right kind of selfishness.
4
SPEAKER_00
We live in a culture that pushes us and deeper and deeper into our phones and our curated social media and our individual achievement.
4
SPEAKER_00
But that is not what makes the human animal happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s important.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s important to do well in life, et cetera, et cetera.
4
SPEAKER_00
But
4
SPEAKER_00
These individualistic things are not the things you re going to be thinking and talking about when you re dying.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I ve volunteered in a hospice for many years.
4
SPEAKER_00
Nobody was talking about that on their deathbed.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, you want to be thinking about how you can build a career and a personal life that goes, in my opinion, right into what you, John, are talking about.
4
SPEAKER_00
How can you matter to yourself and others?
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you are one of the many people who suffered trauma or had an abusive childhood, I hesitate a little to say too much because I m not one of those people, so I don t have that experience, but have spent a lot of time interviewing experts in this space.
4
SPEAKER_00
Doing good for other people can help you regain some of that inner nobility that is your birthright.
4
SPEAKER_00
And yes, that s what comes to mind when you ask about matter.
4
SPEAKER_00
Does that all land for you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, that makes sense to me and I wanted to hear your perspective on it because I don t think we re giving this enough airtime and I want to talk a lot more about it because I think it s extremely important.
4
SPEAKER_01
So another one of the concepts that I talk about in the book is something called a fear confronter.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this is really about how do you deal with your self-doubt?
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you deal with that inner voice that keeps telling you
4
SPEAKER_01
that you can t do the things that you dream of accomplishing in your life.
4
SPEAKER_01
And at its core, it s really how do you put yourself into radical self-inquiry?
4
SPEAKER_01
And this whole idea about coming home to ourself is so powerful.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I wanted to ask you, as you re interacting with guests on your show or people that you run into, how do you recommend exploring one s past to know the truth of their origins and how they can overcome that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because I think that lies at the core of self-doubt.
4
SPEAKER_00
So just to be clear so I can answer your question in a way that s useful, are you talking about the importance of facing our fears or the importance of looking at our past, which can be scary or both?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s both because I think they re both interrelated because I think our past causes us to feel a lot of the fears that we face in life.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re making a good point.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, for me, this idea of facing your fears is central.
4
SPEAKER_00
You talked before about this anti-mattering as being a part of why we re in the middle of an unprecedented mental health crisis in this culture.
4
SPEAKER_00
I actually think another massive contributor specifically to the anxiety epidemic, which is gigantic, is that we have developed, and this is not an original observation on my part, just to be clear,
4
SPEAKER_00
We ve developed a real intolerance for discomfort.
4
SPEAKER_00
We ve created a world, especially for young people.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t blame young people for this.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is the world we ve created for them where life on some level is pretty seamless.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can get your groceries and your food and your dates and your whatever obscure product you need via Amazon on your phone very quickly.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can get an Uber.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, life is a swipe away in many instances.
4
SPEAKER_00
But that s not the way the world is.
4
SPEAKER_00
Human existence has always been challenging, and it s still challenging.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if we cannot be okay with a certain amount of anxiety and stress, we are going to suffer.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think the answer here, or at least one of the answers, is to deliberately
4
SPEAKER_00
bring yourself into contact with the things that scare you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have a nine-year-old son.
4
SPEAKER_00
He and I talk about this a lot.
4
SPEAKER_00
I try not to lecture him because I know that doesn t work, but I ve just kind of picked one thing to come back to in my discussions with him gently and over time is this idea of facing your fears.
4
SPEAKER_00
Instead of talking about it, I actually just try to get him to see me doing it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, I have
4
SPEAKER_00
panic disorder.
4
SPEAKER_00
Usually it s under control, but I had a big resurgence about a year ago where I was having trouble getting on planes because of claustrophobia and getting in elevators too, airplanes and elevators.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, both two big trigger points for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, instead of not flying anymore, and I travel a lot with my son because I give a lot of speeches and my son comes with me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I pull him out of school a lot.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we travel around the country a lot and we re on airplanes and elevators.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he watched me, my shrink and I would go to the mall and spend an hour riding the elevator so that I could just, it s called exposure therapy, so I could get more comfortable with discomfort.
4
SPEAKER_00
And showing that to my first, I was embarrassed to talk about this with my kid, but now I realize that letting him see me do that,
4
SPEAKER_00
is I hope going to be very meaningful to him over time because he too has anxiety.
4
SPEAKER_00
What does that have to do with your past?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s worth looking at the roots of, for me, it s been helpful.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s been helpful to look at the roots of my stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I come from a long lineage of alcoholics, depressive, and anxious.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t come from a
4
SPEAKER_00
One likes to think one is descended from royalty, but that is not the case in my family.
4
SPEAKER_00
On both sides of my family, there are amazing people in there and then also a lot of crooks and people who took their own lives and a lot of troubled people.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I actually find that to be a relief because then I can take my own dysfunction less personally.
4
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, just making a pitch here for doing whatever you can do in your life to gently
4
SPEAKER_00
and gently is the key here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Get more comfortable with the things that scare you.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t want to dive in too quickly or recklessly, but if you can, over time, expose yourself in a systematic, careful way to the stuff that scares you, I think your life will grow.
4
SPEAKER_01
Dan, and the last thing I wanted to go over with you is something that I call conscious engagement.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m not sure if you know who Dandapani is, but he happens to be a former monk and Hindu priest.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he had a great book that came out last year called Unwavering Focus.
4
SPEAKER_01
But to explore this a little bit more, we were just talking about an airplane.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you use that analogy, you hear people talking all the time about someone living on autopilot.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when I look at that analogy of autopilot, I think it s the wrong one because when we re on autopilot, we re still flying the plane in a positive direction.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re still living our life in a positive way, going in a positive direction.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I think the better analogy that we should be using is that we re living our life more like we re a pinball in the game of pinball.
4
SPEAKER_01
We constantly act unintentionally, just bouncing off the things that impact us during our days, weeks, months.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think our goal in life should be learning how to play the game so that we re controlling that pinball instead of the pinball controlling us.
4
SPEAKER_01
And with that as a backdrop, I wanted you to give your biggest piece of advice for how a listener could be more consciously engaging in their life.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, unsurprisingly, I will go back to meditation.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was actually groping toward this analogy earlier.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was trying to come up with a good analogy earlier in the conversation about how when you re unaware of your inner narrative, it just yanks you around.
4
SPEAKER_00
That is the essence of being the pinball.
4
SPEAKER_00
You are helpless.
4
SPEAKER_00
You are in thrall to your ego.
4
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, your ego is not some isolated entity.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s very much influenced by the larger culture.
4
SPEAKER_00
So all of the noxious messages
5
SPEAKER_00
messages that the culture is implanting into your head about how you need to be perfect.
5
SPEAKER_00
You need to look the way X or Y influencer on Instagram looks.
5
SPEAKER_00
You need to achieve X or Y thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
You need to have those abs.
5
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it is, you need to have that product.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m a capitalist, but there are some drawbacks to capitalism and it does inculcate in us a sense of insufficiency.
5
SPEAKER_00
We won t be happy until we make that next purchase.
5
SPEAKER_00
That is unhealthy and that is the kind of patterning you re likely to act out unconsciously, blindly, reflexively, habitually, until you can wake up to what s happening in your mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
I find meditation to be a great technology for going at what I believe you re possibly pointing to about living consciously.
5
SPEAKER_02
And Dan, the last question I wanted to ask you is a little birdie told me that there might be another book that you re contemplating that s on its way.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I wanted to ask if you might be able to share a little bit about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have spent six years working on the sequel to 10% Happier.
5
SPEAKER_00
So 10% Happier came out, totally changed my life and in many positive ways, but in some negative ways, honestly, I was not prepared for that level of success.
5
SPEAKER_00
There were ways in which I did not handle it well.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I had a very humbling, maybe you might call it humiliating experience where several years into being this quasi happiness guru, I got what s called a 360 review.
5
SPEAKER_00
I actually gave a TED talk about this recently that you can look at.
5
SPEAKER_00
A 360 review, if you ve never heard of it, it s an anonymous survey of, usually it s done in a corporate setting, so it s like your boss.
5
SPEAKER_00
your peers and then your people who work for you.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s the idea is to get a panoramic sense of your strengths and weaknesses.
5
SPEAKER_00
I added in my wife, my brother, and a few of my friends, including some meditation teachers, 16 people.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the results were really, I mean, there were a lot of nice things in there too.
5
SPEAKER_00
People talked about how I changed and blah, blah, blah.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then there were a lot of, it s designed to really draw out your weaknesses.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was a 39 page report.
5
SPEAKER_00
11 of the pages were on the positive stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
The rest of it was blind quotes about areas where I retained the capacity to be a schmuck.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was really hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had the instinct initially, this was in 2018, I had the initial instinct to burn it and go back to cocaine.
5
SPEAKER_00
For whatever reason, I ended up actually just redesigning my life around it, trying to address the issues that were, the deficiencies that were identified in this report.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I would say right below
5
SPEAKER_00
getting married and having a kid, it is the most impactful thing that s ever happened to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would say that the TLDR of the whole thing is love.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, the book is really designed to take a concept, a loaded
5
SPEAKER_00
kind of vague and gauzy concept like love and talk about it in very practical science-based ways.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because what I landed on was the thing that we talked about earlier, the cheesy upward spiral, that as you can improve your inner weather, your relationships will improve and that will make your weather even bombier and then up you go.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so my goal is to really try to put that message out whenever I can finish this book.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Dan, I went through a 360 evaluation when I was at Dell, and I think I m still recovering from it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Dan, at the end of my shows, I like to give the guests the opportunity to do some self-promotion.
5
SPEAKER_02
How can our listeners learn more about you and the incredible work that you re doing?
5
SPEAKER_02
Well, thank you.
5
SPEAKER_02
I appreciate that.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ve just put up a website, danharris.com, and you can find all of my stuff there, links to the podcast, links to the books, as I said, the 10th anniversary of the book.
5
SPEAKER_00
is in March of 2024, and we re doing a bunch of special episodes over on the podcast, on the 10% Happier podcast.
5
SPEAKER_00
To celebrate that, doing some live events in New York City and maybe even around the country to celebrate it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And speaking of the podcast, I m having a guy named John R. Miles on the show, and you should come over and listen to me interrogate him.
5
SPEAKER_02
Dan, thank you so much for joining me on today s show.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was such an amazing honor to have you on the show today.
5
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much for being here.
5
SPEAKER_00
Super fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re a great interviewer.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s nice to meet you and I look forward to continuing the conversation over on my feed.
5
SPEAKER_02
What a phenomenal interview that was with Dan Harris.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m so thankful that he joined us here on today s program.
5
SPEAKER_02
Someone this community has been asking for for such a long time, links to all things, Dan can be found in the show notes at passion struck.com.
5
SPEAKER_02
Please use our website links.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at John R miles and our clips channel at passion struck clips.
5
SPEAKER_02
Please check both those out and subscribe advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place.
5
SPEAKER_02
passionstruck.com slash deals.
5
SPEAKER_02
Please consider supporting those who support the show.
5
SPEAKER_02
You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles, and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, which now goes out to over 30,000 subscribers in it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Each week, I provide you with a weekly challenge.
5
SPEAKER_02
In addition to weekly advice, both help guide you on your journey to becoming passion struck.
5
SPEAKER_02
Just go to passionstruck.com to sign up.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you want to know how I book amazing guests like Dan Harris on the show, it s because of my network.
5
SPEAKER_02
Go out there and build yours before you need it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Get ready for a sneak peek for the phenomenal passion struck podcast interview that I did with Matt Abrahams, a renowned organizational behavioral lecturer at Stanford university, graduate school of business and the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter.
5
SPEAKER_02
We delve into a session that is all about improving your communication skills.
5
SPEAKER_02
and to improve your ability to handle those conversational situations that we all dread.
5
SPEAKER_02
Join us as we explore the art of impactful dialogue with a true master of communication.
5
SPEAKER_01
I view mistakes differently.
5
SPEAKER_01
Mistakes aren t something that s bad or a failure.
5
SPEAKER_01
In fact, we learn from them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Many know that, but I call them missed takes.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you know anything about television and movies, you know that when they film them, they do multiple takes of the same scene.
5
SPEAKER_01
In fact, they have that clapboard, take one, take two.
5
SPEAKER_01
No take is wrong, they re just looking and exploring for different ways of doing it.
5
SPEAKER_01
So when you do something and you don t feel good about it, just say take two, we re gonna do it again differently next time.
5
SPEAKER_01
That wasn t bad or wrong, it s now we re gonna try it differently.
5
SPEAKER_02
The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you know someone who could learn more details into meditation and mindfulness, definitely share today s episode with them.
5
SPEAKER_02
Greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about.
5
SPEAKER_02
In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
5
SPEAKER_02
Until next time, go out there and become passion struck.