10% Happier With Dan Harris

One of the more surprising lessons I’ve learned as an ambitious person is that perhaps the best recipe for success is... keeping your ego in check. For a long time, I subconsciously believed that you needed to be unremittingly selfish to “make it.” But after life delivered me repeated beat-downs, I finally got the message: sometimes what’s best for me is to focus on greater good -- on the team. It’s enlightened self-interest. (For the record, I am not perfect at this.) My guest today has also learned this lesson the hard way.  Chris Bosh is an 11-time NBA All-Star, an Olympic gold medalist, and he was just recently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He says his proudest moments as a player came from defeating his own ego, and you’ll hear him explain how he learned to do this. You’ll also hear him talk about something that anyone who’s ever been born needs to learn how to do (given that we live in a universe where impermanence is a nonnegotiable fact): letting go. In 2016, Chris nearly died from a bloo

In this episode from the excellent podcast Meditative Story, recorded a couple of years ago, Dan shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip.    Meditative Story combines human stories with meditation prompts embedded into the storylines — all surrounded by breathtaking music. You can learn more about it here: https://meditativestory.com/, and listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1472106563.

Covid appears to have brought on a spike in burnout, especially among women, millions of whom have exited the workplace since the pandemic began. So what is burnout, exactly? How do you know if you qualify? How do you fix it? And can meditation help? That’s what we’re tackling today with Leah Weiss, who despite being a longtime meditator herself, has experienced burnout firsthand.  Leah is a researcher and author. She was a founding faculty member of the Compassion Institute at Stanford University, and she’s the co-founder of Skylyte - a company that specializes in using the latest science to help organizations prevent burnout. She’s written two books. The most relevant for our purposes is called: How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind. In this conversation, we cover: the differences between anxiety, depression, and burnout; how to detect burnout; how burnout runs along a spectrum, and is a “full body experience;” why meditation can help but also make some people more

These are not hospitable times for the mental skill of patience. Instant gratification has never been more thoroughly scaled. You can order food, taxis, and shampoo from your phone. Streaming services autoplay the next episode of whatever show you’re binging. You can ask Siri or Alexa for the weather, the latest sports scores, or the dating history of Paul Rudd. And on a deeper level, of course, global tumult is trying our patience -- with the pandemic, political polarization, climate disruption, and cultural divides over race, gender, and more.  My guest today comes armed with great tools we can all use to exercise a muscle that, for many, is badly atrophied. As you’ll hear him explain, the Buddhist approach to patience goes way beyond grin and bear it; instead it’s about developing a mind that can work positively with whatever is bothering us. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche grew up in a monastic environment in Northern India. His father was said to be the third incarnation of a great Tibetan master. His mother wa

Many of us know that meditation can confer benefits such as self-awareness, calm, and compassion, but what about courage? My guest today says, yes. Meditation can boost your courage quotient. And she will talk about exactly how. Her name is Stacy McClendon. She is a teacher at the Common Ground Meditation Center in Minneapolis. She also has a background in social work. This is the second episode in our weeklong series marking the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Stacy has been organizing and hosting weekly Truth and Justice Vigils online, available to anyone, during and after the trials of the men charged with murdering George Floyd. In this conversation, we talk about: a Buddhist list called the Ten Paramis, and how those qualities can support courage; how white people can step up and be courageous; how compassion is not a weakness; and how to be what she calls a “compassionate agitator.” One technical note, you might hear a little background noise, including church bells, birds, and Stacy

There’s a meditation pitfall that’s pretty easy to fall into. In fact, I’ve fallen into it many times. It’s this idea, which we can hold consciously or subconsciously, that meditation is a solo endeavor. “I’m doing it to reduce my stress, or boost my focus, or... make myself ten percent happier.” All of that is fine. It’s actually great. But in my experience, the deeper you go into this thing, the more you see that the self is less stable and more porous than you previously imagined. And you also see that it’s really impossible to be happy in a vacuum; your happiness depends on the well-being of the people around you. We’re going to explore this notion of meditation as a team sport today with Pamela Ayo Yetunde. She’s the co-editor of Black & Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation & Freedom, which just won the Nautilus book award. She’s got a law degree from Indiana University and a theology degree from Columbia Theological Seminary. She also founded something call

Living as we do in an era that has been called the info blitzkrieg, staying focused can be extremely difficult for many of us. This can be true when we’re working and trying to stay on task. It can also be true in meditation, when we might find our minds flitting all over the place. My guest today is an Olympic-level concentrator and she has tons of tips for staying focused. We also talk about one of my favorite meditation subjects: the altered states of consciousness called “the jhanas” that are apparently available to advanced meditators who can attain super-deep states of concentration. (I say “apparently” because I clearly have never been in these altered states.) Shaila Catherine is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation group in Silicon Valley. She has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She’s the author of Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. In this conversation, we

We’ve got a provocative but deeply practical episode today. All of us have people in our lives — whether it be our personal lives, our professional lives, or even just people we see on TV — with whom we disagree. So how can we coexist, or even reach a state of mutual understanding, with these people? It’s not an overstatement to say that your personal happiness, as well as the future of the planet, may rest in part in our collective ability to hone these skills.  My guest today has done this work in some of the most extreme ways imaginable. She is a reformed neo-Nazi by the name of Shannon Foley Martinez who now works to deradicalize extremists. She’s also a consultant at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. In this conversation, we talk about how she got into the white power movement, how she got out of it, her methods for de-radicalizing people who are still in the movement, how she applies those methods to more mundane conversations across the many lines of differen

Often on the show, we bring on incredibly accomplished meditation practitioners or influential researchers who have deep things to teach us, based on their personal experience or professional pursuits. And while many of these people talk openly about their personal deficiencies, they are nonetheless speaking to us from the mountaintop, as it were. Today we are doing something entirely different. Over the years, we’ve had many requests to bring on “normal people.” That’s what you’re getting today. Normal people who survived something extreme, with the help of meditation and other modalities, and are here to talk about it in extraordinarily raw and honest terms. Miguel Sancho is the author of a new book called More Than You Can Handle: A Rare Disease, A Family in Crisis, and the Cutting Edge Medicine That Cured the Incurable. We’ve all heard stories about parents of children with serious, and possibly fatal, illness. Often in those stories, the parents come off as saintly. Miguel takes a very different route. H

To state the blazingly obvious, creating healthy habits can be infernally difficult. But why? And what are the best strategies for getting around this? My guest today has spent nearly two decades researching these questions. Her name is Katy Milkman. She is a behavioral scientist and professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She hosts a podcast called Choiceology and has written a new book called, How to Change. In this conversation, we talk about why willpower is such an unreliable inner resource, why making habit change fun is such a powerful technique, and key strategies such as “the fresh start effect,” “temptation bundling,” “commitment devices,” “piggybacking,” and giving yourself a Mulligan. We also talk about the potentially sensitive subject of getting other people to change.  Are you interested in teaching mindfulness to teens? Looking to carve your own path and share this practice in a way that feels real, authentic, and relevant in today’s world? Our friends at iBme are ac

When somebody wrongs you, what is the wise way to handle your anger? Is forgiveness possible? What about friendliness? My guest today has a lot of thoughts about how to handle anger and how to respond to people who mean you harm. It might surprise you to hear from a Buddhist teacher who actually isn’t utterly disparaging of anger. In fact, she is proud (somewhat facetiously) of having been called “the original Angry Asian Buddhist.” Her name is Mushim Patricia Ikeda, and she is my kind of Buddhist. She self-describes as “snarky,” and, as you will hear, she loves to laugh. She has doable, down-to-earth strategies, and she makes a compelling, if counterintuitive, case for the pragmatism of sending goodwill to people who want to harm you.  Mushim is a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center. She is a writer, activist, and diversity consultant. She has trained for decades as both a lay and monastic Buddhist. Aside from anger, we also discuss how to handle uncertainty, and what Mushim calls a “pandemic of s

If you meditate (or do yoga, for that matter), you may have been taught by a Westerner, but you owe a gigantic debt of gratitude to the giants and geniuses in Asia who developed these practices. This fact can be overlooked or downplayed -- intentionally or otherwise -- by Western practitioners, including, sometimes, me. However, in the midst of a spike of anti-Asian violence, now seems like a very good time to learn more about where these practices came from, and why many Asian-American Buddhists sometimes feel erased. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it can also add depth and perspective and freshness to your practice. In this episode, we have two fascinating guests who will talk about what it’s been like for them to be Asian American Buddhists in the midst of this spate of hate crimes, and walk us through the long and ugly history of anti-Buddhist violence in America. We also talk about: how all meditators (not just people in vulnerable communities) can learn resiliency through meditation; the co

The idea of networking can be fraught. For some people, it might, at times, seem either icky or pathetic to deliberately try to make friends, either in a personal or professional context -- especially since so many of us may be feeling a bit socially awkward anyway, after months of Covid restrictions. However, my guest today will argue that there are profound health benefits to building positive relationships, and she has advice about how to actually do it, based on neuroscience and psychology. Marissa King is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management, where she studies social networks, social influence, and team dynamics. She is also the author of a recently-released book, called Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection. In this conversation, we talk about: how your social networks impact your mental health; how, when it comes to social networks, quality and structure are more important than quantity; why you’re not as bad at being social as you may think; the

One of our primary missions on this show is to rescue vital ideas that have lapsed into cliches. There are so many important concepts out there that many of us might be tempted to dismiss because they are encrusted with cultural baggage or have been reduced to potentially annoying or sappy slogans. So, for example, we’ve talked a lot on this podcast about things like: hope, gratitude, and “listening to your body.” All of which can sound like the type of empty bromide that your spin instructor yells at you while encouraging you to pedal faster. But, in fact, these are all incredibly important operating principles for a healthy life. And, not for nothing, they are all backed up by hard science. So today we’re going to tackle what may be the oldest and gooieset cliche of them all: love. The word has been ruined, in many ways, by Hollywood and pop songs. For many of us, the mere mention of the word conjures images of Tom Cruise, with tears in his eyes, while the string music swells, declaring, “You complete me.” 

Today we’re talking to a renowned psychologist who has come up with five strategies for cultivating hope. Dr. Jacqueline Mattis is a clinical psychologist from Rutgers University, where she is also a Dean of Faculty. As you will hear, she did not start her career wanting to study hope. She started out studying spirituality and religiosity, specifically doing lots of field work and interviews in African American and AfriCaribbean urban communities. She wanted to know why people living under high-stress conditions so often choose to be good and compassionate. That research eventually led her to hope.  This the final interview in our two-week series on hope. The three previous guests approached the topic from a Buddhist perspective. Today, Dr. Mattis will talk about hope from a scientific perspective. How does hope work? And what are the benefits? What she does have in common with our previous guests is that she sees hope as a skill, not as a complacent state of unfounded optimism.  If, after this interview, you

Buddhism can get a bad rap as being hopelessly pessimistic -- in no small measure because one of the Buddha’s first principal pronouncements was, “Life is suffering.” But if you listen to the rest of his spiel, you will hear that the Buddha acknowledges that life can be hard, but then goes on to say that we can make it better. He then spells out a bunch of practical techniques for doing so, which makes Buddhism essentially hopeful. We’re now in week two of our two-week series on hope, where we’ve been positing that hope isn’t just some vague, rosy state of mind -- it is, in fact, a skill.  Today’s guest is Oren Jay Sofer, a Buddhist teacher who has been meditating for nearly a quarter century. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. Oren’s view of hope starts with the Buddhist notion of impermanence. Everything is changing all the time. That doesn’t necessarily mean things are always guaranteed t

As you may know, we are in the midst of a two-week series on hope – a concept we are trying to rescue from the realm of rote cliche and empty bromides. Our belief is that hope, when properly understood and practiced, is not baseless optimism or naivete, but a powerful skill.  Today’s guest, Sebene Selassie, has earned her capacity to hope the hard way, surviving multiple rounds of advanced cancer. She is also the author of an excellent book called You Belong, and is one of the most popular teachers on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app. And as part of the work we are doing to train people in the skill of hope right now, she has recorded some brand new meditations for the app. If you’re a subscriber, tap on the “Singles” tab in the app to check those out, or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/HopeIsASkill. You’ll also find a variety of other new meditations and talks – all of which revolve around the theme of hope as a skill. In this interview, Seb talks about: hope as it relates to Buddhist con

Spring is here. Vaccines are entering arms. But for many of us, hope can feel slippery and fleeting. Even with the pandemic seeming to abate, there's still a lot of uncertainty and suffering. That’s why, starting today, we’re launching a special two-week series on hope: what it is, what it isn’t, and how and why to cultivate it. The word “hope” might feel vague, or gauzy–or even, given the current state of the world, misguided. And if you’re using the commonly understood definition of hope, that might be true.  Many of us think about hope as wishing for some specific outcome or result: a raise, a promotion, a romantic entanglement, or a return to an exact replica of pre-pandemic living. We can get attached to these outcomes–and then get disappointed when they (inevitably) don’t work out exactly as we’d hoped. But there is a way to hope wisely. And over the next two weeks, both here on the podcast and in the Ten Percent Happier app, we’re going to teach you how. We’ve enlisted an all-star slate of Buddhist tea

To inject a little sunshine, perspective, and wisdom, we thought it might make sense to repost one of our favorite conversations of the last year. This is a straight up meat-and-potatoes meditation talk from the one and only Joseph Goldstein. In this chat, we explore three profoundly useful meditation strategies: mindfulness of thinking, awareness of rushing (a deeply ingrained habit for many of us), and the genuine insight that can emerge from everyday activities. For the uninitiated, Joseph is one of the founding teachers on the Ten Percent Happier app. He's a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and is the author of several books, including the recently reissued The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation.  Also: Next Monday, April 12, we're launching a two-week series about hope. As we head into spring and vaccines go into arms, we’re going to argue that hope is a skill – one you can get better at. And not only are we exploring hope on the podcast, we will also hav

Today’s guest is at the forefront of understanding human emotions: what they are, why humans evolved to have them, how they’re different from feelings, and what science says about how to manage them (rather than get yanked around by them all the time). Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barrett is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She’s written several books, including How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain and Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain. In this conversation, we talk about how we can “deconstruct” our own emotions, and the overlap between her research findings and Buddhism. And one more order of business: Next Monday, April 12, we're launching a two-week series about hope. Hope was perhaps one of the cruelest casualties of the coronavirus pandemic. As we start to inch our way into a vaccinated world, there are ways we can skillfully engage with hope without setting ourselves u