HACK YOUR BRAIN'S Default Mode For HAPPINESS With Mindfulness & Meditation |Dan Harris & Lewis Howes

We're all selfish by design, but if you want to be wisely selfish, you will spend most of your energy worrying and taking care of other people.

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We have the iconic and inspirational Dan Harris in the house. My man, good to see you.

Great to see you.

I'm excited about this. We've got, I've been on your show, you've been on my show before, you've got an amazing book, 10% Happier, an app and a whole ecosystem and community. You're a number one New York Times bestselling author, you're on GMA, you're doing so many different things. And for those that don't know about you, you know, the thing that you became famous for was having a nervous breakdown on on live TV, a panic attack, anxiety attack, whatever you want to talk about and say. And you were the most skeptical person on the idea of meditation and mindfulness and going into your inner world and being spiritual. You were essentially against it. Is that right?

I just didn't even think of it. It was not on my radar at all. I don't know that I was against therapy because after I had the the panic attack on Good Morning America back in 2004, I went to see a therapist and I wasn't, you know, I'm a child of physicians. I eventually married a physician, so I'm not against basic scientifically validated stuff, but I... So it wasn't that I was anti-introspection per se, it's just that I thought meditation was ridiculous because I didn't know anything about it. I just pictured what most people who don't know anything about meditation picture, which is somebody in a loincloth on a mountain top or, or, you know, you live in a yard or whatever. And, and then what I learned ultimately was that there actually is a lot of science that suggests meditation is really good for you. You can lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system. It's been shown to affect key parts of the brain. So we have an area back here called the amygdala, which is the fear and stress center, and meditation has been shown to literally shrink the gray matter in that part of the brain. And it's been shown to help with the prefrontal cortex, the area that regulates our attention and our ability to think rationally and be self-aware. And so that got me interested in doing it.

Gotcha. So would you say that unless there is science or research backing the benefits of something, you will always be skeptical?

I think the old me for sure, no way I was gonna do it unless there was a lot of evidence. Now, I like to have evidence, but I'm a little bit more open-minded and I would like people I trust and respect to be guiding me towards something. I'm trying to think if there's any example of something for which there is no scientific evidence that I am- I.

Mean, maybe something like a psychedelic, which now is coming out with more research in science, I guess, but For me, I've never done drugs. I've never been high. I've never been drunk. I don't drink alcohol. I've never thought about taking drugs. And so, it's never piqued my interest even though I have lots of friends who do psychedelics and go to the Amazon and retreats in Sedona and Burning Man and talk about the power of healing through psychedelics. I just still have no desire. Personally, even if there is science, I don't want to tamper with that part of my brain or body with something personally that I don't have control over, you know? Whereas breathing, I feel like you can manage the release of it. You can go into a place and control letting go as opposed to needing something else to make you let go.

Right, right.

That's my point of view.

Yeah, just my opinion. Having never done any of this stuff myself, is. But having looked at it and talked to a lot of people I respect and trust who are, and including scientists, is that I'm deeply intrigued, but I'm very scared. And, and I wouldn't look at it as drugs. I would look at it as medicine. Yeah. So I, I really think there's something very powerful here, and I apologize for the background noise.

Good.

Who's making a little snacky snack for our five-year-old son, Alexandra, who's in the other room over there with my wife, Bianca. Having said that, I wouldn't look at this as drugs. I think it's really a medicine and it's gonna emerge truly as medicine now that there's this scientific backing. And still, I'm really scared to do it. I suspect at some point in my life, I will though.

Do you think you would try something like that? only if you felt a deep level of anxiety and stress that you couldn't figure out how to manage on your own through meditation or other natural practices? Or is it something you would actually try as a researcher, journalist to say, you know what? I'm fine right now. I feel pretty good. My life is amazing and I still want to explore and see what this can do.

Both. I think curiosity is a huge driver for me and I've heard so many anecdotal reports from people I really trust that this is an incredibly powerful intervention technology that I'm very curious to try it. And I think, you know, I've heard it described by people who come from, you know, the meditation world where I, I come from now. I can't believe I'm even saying that.

But I do now.

And, and who talk about it as an accelerator of this practice, which I, you know, have so much faith in. And so I really do see it as connected. And so I would be curious. And, you know, I'm an anxious, I, I've done not insignificant amount of meditation, you know, maybe 11-ish years of meditating. I'm still an anxious person. It, you know, there's a reason why I called the book and everything else I've done 10 happier.

It's a little bit happier.

Yes. Yes, I am very skeptical of miracle cures. I don't think there is such a thing. So I do think meditation is also an incredibly powerful intervention, but it's not going to magically solve all of your problems. And the idea, the evidence around reduction of anxiety and fear among terminal cancer patients, to me, is incredibly compelling. And we're all going to be, you know, being born is a terminal condition. You know, we are all headed in one direction. And so death, which is probably not the subject you want to explore on your show today, but is something that I'm very interested in, is scary. And, you know, and there are, we, we talk about it a lot in the meditation world, in the Buddhist world.

And.

I, I think the idea that you can have an experience that's so powerful that reduces, makes you more accepting of this non-negotiable fact, I find that very compelling.

Is the country Bhutan, is that the country Bhutan, I think that's what it is, that practices and focuses on their death five times a day? I'm not sure if that's even the name of the country, but there's a country that does this. There's an app called WeCroak. I don't know if you've seen this app.

Yes, I have.

Yeah, and it reminds you five times a day, that you are going to die. And there's a reason behind this reminder and this country that focuses on this five times a day on how it actually brings you more peace and happiness knowing you're gonna die and focusing your attention on it. And I don't know the full understanding of it, but I just know that when we do that, as opposed to resisting it, as when we resist, that thing will persist. You know, when we accept it, We start to live more for and peaceful lives in the moment. Is that correct?

That's 100% my view. The WeCroak app, the founder of that app, came on my podcast.

Really?

Yes. So I think that app is excellent. You're reminding me that somehow I haven't checked it in a while. I must have disabled notifications or something like that. But it notifies you five times a day that you're going to die. And here's an inspirational quote associated with the finitude of human life. Isn't that crazy? You know, and this is not just a Buddhist tradition. Bhutan is a Buddhist company, a country. It's, they have Tibetan, they're, it's a Tibetan Buddhist country. It's near Tibet. So Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, they all practice Tibetan Buddhism. And so in Tibetan Buddhism, and as with in all forms of Buddhism, the Buddha himself talked a lot about impermanence as like the fundamental non-negotiable fact of life applying to everything, including you. And so death is a very important thing to contemplate and healing thing to contemplate. It's not morbid. It is, it can add vibrancy and electricity to the only time it ever is, which is right now. And it jars you out of ruminating about the past, Planning for the future and wakes you up to right now. And that's a really useful thing. It also can put things in perspective. I spend an enormous amount of time worrying about bullshit and being worried.

What do you worry about the most?

You know, I had an experience.

Early.

On in the pandemic where I was seeing a pattern of I was seeing a regression to sort of pre-meditation level.

Really?

Anxiety.

You were, personally.

I was.

More anxiety than 11 years ago when you started the meditation practice?

Yeah, I was really worried about a number of things. And this is embarrassing, but it's true. I was really worried and they were selfish things. They were like, how's my company gonna do? I work at ABC News, but I'm on a contract which is gonna expire in not too distant future. What's gonna happen there? My parents are elderly. Any number of things I was worried about. And I was just looping on it. and here's the problem with we are not wired as a species for uncertainty. We don't handle it well. We need to be able to forecast in the future with some level of confidence. And in a pandemic, you cannot do that. We don't know when this is going to end. We don't know how it's going to end. We don't know what changes will be sorry about the microwave in the background. We don't know what changes will be wrought across our culture, across our economy, across our political scene. And I kept finding myself trying to project into the future and then just running into a wall of fog and looping in this and then feeling a lot of shame about the fact that so much of my anxiety was so self-centered. And I called my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who's this incredible figure. And I told him, I told him what was going on. And he said two things were incredibly helpful. One was, welcome to being a human being. Anybody who's under threat is gonna have some, the organism is gonna try to protect itself. And so anxiety, self-centered anxiety is a completely normal reaction to this situation. And it wasn't all, not that all of my anxiety was self-centered. I was worried about my parents, I'm worried about my family, I'm worried about we have an elderly neighbor, I'm worried about other people, of course. But first, but just to know that some selfish stuff is gonna come up when the organism is under threat. The other thing he said was, there's a kind of meditation that we can talk about if you want, which is designed to boost your compassion, in which you focus on the suffering of other people and actively, repetitively wish for them to be free from that suffering. Just the way you would work on your bicep in the gym, which I know you do because you're so buff, We repetitively lift something heavy, which would look ridiculous if you landed from Mars here and walked into a gym, not that you can go into a gym right now. But if you landed from Mars and went into a pre-pandemic gym and looked around at people systematically putting down and picking up heavy things, you'd say, why are they doing this? But the same thing can happen in your mind. Compassion, or you might even say, if you want to be grandiose, love is a muscle, is a skill that you can train. And so, Joseph had me start doing this kind of meditation more systematically and I found that really helped jar me out of the black hole of self-obsession and put me more in touch with the suffering. I'm in New York City. The suffering is all around me and us here.

Yeah, a meditation teacher of mine once said, Suffering is the root of obsessive self-centric thinking. And when you get out of yourself and put energy towards mission, love, purpose, source, people, you don't suffer. And it's hard though when you feel like everything's coming at you and you are dealing with this stress and you are dealing with this frustration, it's really challenging to stop obsessing over you. But that's part of it, right?

Self-cherishing, there's a guy named the Dalai Lama who's talked about the self-cherishing being a natural and a certain amount of that you need to, to, to, you know, make dentist appointments, put your pants on and, you know, achieve goals.

And, yeah, achieve goals.

Those are all totally legit. But the, the more time you spend in the rut of navel gazing, of worrying about yourself, counter-intuitively the less happy you will be. So if you want to be happy, the more time you are externally focused, the better off you will be. And so I've, I, this is something I spend and I'm actually writing a book on this subject, on the subject of kindness, compassion, love, and I'm trying to make it less syrupy, more science based and self-interest based, and also to kind of take love and knock it off its pedestal a little bit. I think love has been pulverized into meaningless by rote repetition, by Hollywood, by Bon Jovi, by the Care Bears. And so the idea of compassion or kindness and love either comes off as like an after school special or you gotta have the string music come in. But actually it's just about the fact that we are evolutionarily wired to care. Otherwise we would never have survived. We don't have big teeth. We don't have speed like the cheetah. We survived as a species because we could work together to take down the mastodon. And so our capacity to care about one another and ourselves, because care is a sort of an omnidirectional force, is what has a it's wired deeply in us. So there's nothing shmoopy or woo-woo about talking about this capacity. And I think it's largely talked about the wrong way.

Now you recently interviewed Dalai Lama, didn't you?

I've interviewed a couple times and he has a phrase that for me has been incredibly useful, which is wise selfishness. We're all selfish by design.

But if.

You want to be wisely selfish, you will spend most of your energy worrying and taking care of other people.

Really?

Yes.

That's why selfishness was his definition is putting attention towards other people.

Yes. Helping, helping out.

Yeah, serving.

Exactly. And I can see in my own mind the difference between the flavor of my mind when I'm obsessing about how many likes I did or didn't get on my recent tweet, versus when I'm running errands for my 85 year old neighbor. And that insight is scalable at Infinitum. And that I think is really useful.

What was the greatest, I think you interviewed him in the last year, because I heard an episode of yours with him. I don't know if it was recent or I just went back to the back catalog. I think his translator was there, or no, was you on a stage somewhere? You've done an interview with him on stage. and you put it on your podcast, I believe. Really cool. What's been your biggest lesson about being in his presence? Not about what he said, but the way he was.

To me, the thing about the Dalai Lama, and I won't claim to know him super well, I've interviewed him a couple of times, but to me, it's that people act around him like he has some supernatural power. But he does not claim to be anything other than just a normal guy. And the first thing he ever said to me when he walked into the room was that he needed to go to the bathroom.

I saw him at a speech one time at an intimate event and that was the first thing he said is like, oh, I have some constipation right now. I need to poop or something. It was like super funny. And I think he does that intentionally to kind of like bring it down from this.

Yes.

Holier than thou. I am the spiritual guru. Because everyone is like in awe around him, but he's a human being.

And I don't think that kind of pretending he's trailing pixie dust is that useful. I think he's another human being who just like me and you needs to use the bathroom. I was gonna say put your pants on, but I don't think he wears pants.

I know, just a robe, but just free-balling.

Yeah, he's going commando. The point is that here's the common denominator for me of all of the great spiritual teachers I've met over the years doing the podcast or writing the books, the great ones do not take themselves that seriously. And that to me flows inexorably out of the practice of meditation because what's happening in meditation, you are continually thrust up against your own insanity, right? You're just seeing how ridiculous you are all the time. And if you don't develop a sense of humor in the face of your own inner onslaught, you are going to suffer. And in an even deeper level, the point of Buddhist meditation is to see that this self that you take so seriously, you know, this little dan in between my ears or right behind my nose, this little Lewis that you might think lives like a homunculus pulling the.

Strings of your brain.

Yes, squeezing your brain or pulling levers in your skull somewhere doesn't exist. If you close your eyes and look for Lewis or look for Dan, you won't find it. All that there is is just this continual dance of whatever's coming in through your senses: hearing, thinking, smelling. So in the Buddhist concept, they're Kemether are not five senses, but sixth. And the sixth is the mind. And so what's happening all the time is just this continuous flow. And so you get to see this the deeper you go into meditation. And you see there is no core self. Of course then, the people who've really seen that are a little bit more rubbery in their presentation. They're not so wrapped up in their own bullshit. To me, I just see that over and over again, the Dalai Lama definitely is there.

Now, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know why, if it's just the pandemic or the types of questions that I've been getting, a lot of people want to learn how to start a side hustle, grow their business, and they're coming to me for a lot of that in my community at least. And the question I continue to get by people to me is how do they overcome this fear if they're nervous or afraid to put themselves out there. Now, over my life, I've seen a theme where I had many fears as a kid. One, speaking in front of five people was a fear of mine, let alone thousands was terrifying. Dancing in public was a fear of mine. Singing, right? Launching a business was a fear. Starting a podcast, writing a book when I almost flunked out of English in high school. All these things were fear, but when I decided to lean into my fears as a teenager, I decided I'm never going to be afraid of something, I'm going to go all in on it until the fear disappears. The more I leaned into my fears, the more that thing I thought I could never do became a superpower of mine over the years. Now I speak on stage, I salsa dance around the world, I'm at the best places. I can interview anyone now type of feeling, I have the feeling of confidence in the things that I do because I actually practiced and went all in. Now, do you feel like going back to the meditation side of things, it's not something you were even interested in, you weren't even thinking about it, and you focus more on practicality, focus more on research and science than trying certain things like that. Do you feel like all of our fears can become superpowers? of ours. Now you're this meditation facilitating, curating master.

Do you feel like-- that's my wife, by the way. That's Bianca.

Good to see you, Bianca.

That's Lewis.

Do you feel like any fear that we have as human beings can become superpowers if we choose to go all in on them?

Let me tell you a story. First of all, I want to, I'm so glad I'm talking to you because you always ask questions that get me thinking about a million things. I want to answer that question directly. There's going to be a church bell. You're going to hear a church bell. We live right next to a church. So it's the top of the hour. Apologies for that. No worries. I'm going to answer the question you just asked me, but there was a comment you made before that I would love to swing back to, which is that people are coming back to you, coming to you and talking about their side hustle. Let's just put a pin in that because I want to say something that may be controversial for you, but I want to say it. Go ahead. But on the fear thing, just a recent story is coming to mind. First of all, let me just say, I am still in awe of what you did in Mask of Masculinity and talking about what happened to you as a kid, which you came on my show and talked about, which I just think was just the most baller of moves. Talk about leaning into the, you know, into the worst thing that could happen to you. and just owning it, retaking it was a masterclass, I think, in what you're talking about.

Thank you.

Thank you. The story that's coming to mind based on what you just said is, you mentioned had a panic attack in Good Morning America, but I also have horrible claustrophobia.

We were about to do this in the closet.

Yes, yeah, we were, Louis is right about that. We were gonna do this podcast from my wife's closet, Bianca's closet, because it has the best acoustics in the house. But I didn't realize we're actually gonna be videotaping it, so I came out here to the living room, hence some of the audio interruptions. The closet has been, I've been able to survive that. But I've had some trouble, real trouble recently in elevators.

Really?

About nine months ago, I was in a, I was doing a shoot in downtown Manhattan. We're at a loft in Soho and I got in the elevator, pressed the sixth floor and all of a sudden realized I was in a tiny elevator and it was moving like, just like very slowly. And I got out of the elevator and my hands were shaking. I was trying to have a conversation with my producer, but I was looking down at my hand, it was just shaking. And it set off this thing where I would be at a part, I would go to show up in an apartment. Barry's building here in New York City and go to see our friends on the 25th floor, I'd look at the.

Elevator and say, I gotta walk.

No way. 25 floors? 25 floors up and down. And I read this book by Barry McDonough. Do you know who that is? No. Okay, so he wrote you might want to have him on. I actually never met him. I've been thinking about putting him on the podcast, but I've never met him. I've never had him on the show. So if Barry's watching this, shout out to Barry because he really had a positive impact on me. And the book is called the DARE Response and D-A-R-E is an acronym and I've totally forgotten what it stands for. But essentially, it's all about how to handle anxiety and panic. And his advice, which tracks with what you would hear in cognitive behavioral therapy and other well-established forms of therapy, to lean into the skid. And so he says when you're feeling the panic come on to say, bring it on and turn it around from being the hunted to the hunter. Ooh. It's beautiful. And so when I get in the elevator now, I'll send it to myself. All right, give me a panic attack. Wow. His point is this is just a set of physical sensations that you know Beyond a shadow of a doubt, you will survive because you survived it before. And so get curious about it, ask for it. And that has been really helpful to me. I don't know if that's the answer you wanted, but that's the answer.

I think it's not it is because I think we can't think our way out of a, you know, nerves from being on stage. If we don't go back on stage and practice feeling it again, we can't think our way out of like, I'm going to only meditate and pray that I'm not going to have a panic attack in the elevator. No, you're going to have it again until you face it over and over again and accept it and let it go. For me, I was terrified. I spent three months, literally, I would go once a week to a salsa club for three months and would not step one foot on the dance floor. I'd sit in the corner and be mesmerized watching everyone dance, terrified of what people think about me as this tall white boy, a foot taller than everyone else in the club. all Latinos and just me fully out of place. And I was like, what am I doing here? But I was just like, this is amazing. I want to be able to do this, but I'm so terrified. And it took me three months until finally some girl dragged me on the floor of me pushing her, kicking her off of me like, no, I don't want to embarrass you. I don't want to embarrass anyone. And finally went out there. And I remember for like 20 minutes, She was walking me through the basic steps and I looked down at my feet and I was terrible stepping on her, bumping into people. I felt so humiliated. And then I finally looked up and realized, oh, no one's actually looking at me. Everyone's doing their own thing, dancing, having fun. No one cares. Maybe they looked at me for a second and thought, oh, that's good. He's trying. And that's it. And so I said, okay, like, I'm going to come here every week and practice until I'm no longer afraid. And I did that for six months until I was like, man, I am a salsa dancer. You know, I own this. And you are an elevator rider. You own it.

I mean, I don't want to overstate it because there are times where I look at an elevator, it's too small and I'm like, I don't know if I can push myself right now. But I've made a ton of progress. And I think your model, the way you intuitively as a young person, with no, you just came to it on your own of like, no, I'm not, I'm gonna be the hunted here. I'm not gonna let fear limit my life.

I think I was just so sick and tired of being scared, sick and tired of being feeling alone, sick and tired of feeling insecure, sick and tired of just not being believing in myself and what I was capable of. I was in some areas like sports, but not in other areas like connecting with new people, speaking in front of an audience, dancing, like these other areas with human dynamics, I didn't have those skills. I was very insecure. And I just said, I'm sick and tired of feeling this way. And the only way to do it is to create a game in my mind where, okay, here's a challenge and I'm going to set this out for three months, for 30 days, for one year, whatever it takes. And each week, I'm going to get a coach, I'm going to have a game plan, I'm going to take action and I'm going to have homework and repeat the cycle. And that's pretty much what I do in my life. It's just like, how do I make.

A sport out of my fear?

Until it becomes fun.

It's a really good example to be setting, I think. It's very powerful. I think I love that you share.

That you're scared of elevators still because, I mean, people are afraid of playing, my girlfriend's afraid of planes. It's a real thing. I mean, the fear of it shaking, it's not fun being an elevator when it's shaking and small and it is not fun. But I think I've come to just say, okay, well, this is the choice I made and there's nothing I can do in this elevator. I'm either gonna get out or I'm not. And it's just like, but me having anxiety around it is not gonna support me in the next five minutes of my life. So that's what I try to do. Even if I get nauseous or scared, but for what that's worth. Can you be happier without meditation?

Yes. Yes. I am not a meditation fundamentalist. I think they're, you know, I've spent a lot of time on my show. I talk to people, you know, you, including you, who are talking about human flourishing to get a little grandiose on you, but talking about human well-being, human flourishing from so many different angles. And it's very humbling to see that there are a lot of ways to, I say this reluctantly as a cat owner and a vegan, but to skin this cat. And, you know, by the way, I became a vegan in part because of going on your show and having a vegan dinner at your apartment afterwards. Really? No, you did not. Yes, true story. True story.

That's right, we did that dinner at my place with like 25 people.

Yep.

And, had Chef Dave come out and do this dinner? Why was that partly...

It was, you know, I will answer your question eventually about meditation, but I just crossed my mind. It was a delicious meal and I realized, wow, you can really eat well as a vegan. And then it also, it wasn't Chef Dave, I met Chef Dave, but I also met the guy who was his investor who was talking about his reasons for being a vegan and I realized that I had no argument, no rebuttal. And by the way, this is not to say that I have any judgment of people who are not vegans. My wife and my son and our nanny eat cheeseburgers here all the time and I have no, it's not like I, I'm not a judgmental vegan. Just for me, I'm out of the killing game. I'm not doing that. So, it just became like a seed was planted that night and about a year later, I gave it up. And so it's been a couple of years.

How's your life been different? And do you notice actual mental changes, physical changes because being a vegan or do you just feel more compassionate since you're not slaughtering helpless animals like I do.

I can't sit here and say it's been some magical change. First of all, I gained weight because of more carbs. Second, it's not like I had to learn how to eat in order to have enough protein. I think the whole protein thing is a bit of a myth, but you need some protein. And so I had to hire a nutritionist to really I worked with for a solid year to learn how to eat well and, you know, it's a gigantic pain in the ass and the animals don't say thank you. So it's not like some, I'm walking on, you know, I'm walking on air because I'm a vegan. But I tell you, it's just, it's just like there was a background static of it doesn't feel good to be gnawing on this bone from a bird that was using it to fly. Like, I didn't like that. It wasn't good, didn't feel good for me. And I know it doesn't feel good.

For you because you got your job. It doesn't feel good, man. It doesn't feel good. I've been more and more conscious over the last few years. I hang out with vegans all the time. I'm an investor in a vegan company. I go to vegan places with my friends. You know, I try to be, you know, I watched this documentary. It wasn't a documentary. It was a movie called Okja. Have you ever watched this? I watched this and I was like, I'm the worst human being in the world. That one almost got me to convert. It was so close. to making me feel like the most horrible human being in the world that I was like, I need to change.

But here's the thing, I just want to be clear. I actually look at it not as a binary, you're like either a vegan or you're not. On some technical level, that's true, but I think it's much more helpful to think of it as a spectrum. And are you eating less animals or are you just constantly gnawing on bones? And you're on the right end of that spectrum. I don't think, so I think that's perfectly super defensible. You can make a huge reduction in suffering and a huge contribution to the environment by cutting cheeseburger consumption down to once a week or twice a week or whatever. And so I really don't, and I don't think it's helpful for vegans to be lecturing. I met a vegan, it's horrible for.

A vegan to judge a meat eater because The thing you're judged for, you don't want to change. It's when someone has compassion and it's like, listen, you know, do you and I want to educate you on this when it makes sense and I support you and love you no matter what.

That's what I saw at your house that night.

Yeah. Keep living your life. Like, I'm going to live my life and show you this example and model and show you how amazing my life is because of it. And if you ever want to come over, cool.

Right. That's exactly that's my view about meditation as well. you know, to get back to the question you asked me, do I think you can be happy without meditation? It's not a dissimilar question to can you be a good human being without being a vegan? The answer is yes, 1000% yes. You can be a good person, but just by cutting back and being mindful of the fact that animal suffering is not something you were super psyched about. and environmental degradation is something you want to help with. All good. So, have a delicious cheeseburger once in a while. Who cares? The other thing I would say about meditation is that there's, you know, the most important variable I've seen by talking to scientists around human happiness appears to be what you and I are doing right now, which is human connection.

Connection, yeah.

The quality of your relationships usually says the most about the quality of your life. Now, I believe that meditation, first of all, on its own, is a great way to enhance happiness, just as I would put exercise, sleep, diet, exposure to nature, and social connections. Those are the big six for me. I think that was six. I would also say that meditation enhances your ability to have positive relationships. and by meditation, I'm referring to not only the traditional mindfulness meditation where you sit, feel your breath, and then when you get distracted, start again, which has the benefit of boosting your self-awareness so that you might feel the urge to say something that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage and you don't do it. But the other thing is this compassion meditation, which I'm really a big Evangelist for.

What does that look like?

It's super, super sappy. I'm going to describe it to you, but just bear in mind my gym analogy from before, before you. Although I actually think that you're the kind of person who's pretty sensitive and open-minded. So I don't know.

I'm very sensitive. My sisters would call me the sensitive jock growing up.

Yes, and I mean, we've only hung out a few times, but that tracks with what I picked up for you. I'm more judgmental. and I don't say that as a proud, I'm not proud of that. I've been really working on that. So when I heard what I'm about to describe to you, my reaction was, I'm going to run into a wall head first. The move is you sit, just like you would in any meditation, you sit or lie down in a comfortable position, close your eyes, or if you don't want to close your eyes, you can kind of gaze softly somewhere neutral. And then you envision a series of beings, so people or animals. Usually we start with ourselves, bring to mind an image of yourself or a felt sense of yourself and you silently repeat phrases like, may you be happy, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease. And then you move on to traditionally the flow is from yourself to an easy person or a good friend so that can be like a really close friend of yours or maybe your dog, then you move to a mentor, then you move to a neutral person, particularly poignant now because the neutral people, food delivery folks, people manning the cashiers at your supermarket, the people we often overlook are saving our lives right now. Then you move to a difficult person, and then finally, everybody, all beings everywhere. So, I heard this and it sounded like Valentine's Day with a knife to your throat. And I was super not into it. But there's a lot of science that suggests this form of practice has psychological, physiological, and behavioral benefits. And we know that people who are compassionate are happier, healthier, more popular, more successful, and that as we just discussed, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life as the great Esther Perel, the great couples counselor often says. And so to me, the case is rock solid for this form of meditation. And it's why I think meditation can be incredibly important, but I don't think if you don't do it somehow you're consigned to a life of misery. Right.

What do you think is the... I had Dr. Lori Santos on, I'm not sure if you've interviewed her yet, and she said, based on all the research and the science, I was like, what are the, the key four or five things that if you do these things, you'll be happier based on so much research and science. And the top two things were gratitude.

And.

Being of service to others, helping others. You know, I think those were top two of the four. I'm not sure how it ranked specifically, but she backs on gratitude was the main thing. And I was like, this is what I've been talking about and all these woo-woo people have been talking about for years. But you're saying now it's based on science and research. He goes, that's what it comes down to as a researcher at Yale. This is what it comes down to, having appreciation and gratitude. And I think it's when we can get to a place of gratitude and like you said, compassion. And this is one of the hardest things for me that I've had to overcome over the years, or to have compassion for people that I didn't like or I felt like abused me. you know, I talked about in your show and in my book about being sexually abused as a kid. How do you have compassion for someone who takes advantage of you sexually, who rapes you, who steals from you, who kills a relative of yours? How do you have compassion for people like that? And this is where, you know, it took me 25 years to forgive a lot of things that happened in my life, 25 years of suffering and pain and agony, one, because I didn't have the tools. I didn't understand the power of compassion for people that had done things that you didn't appreciate. But when I started to forgive all these things, and then I started to have compassion for people, that's like another level of consciousness and getting out of your own ego. I brought so much peace to my life. And I'm not saying what people have done or what I've done in the past to people is okay and is right or wrong, but what it's saying is, and it shouldn't be done again, but it's It's just having an understanding of letting go because holding on to that continues to hurt you and the people around you if you hold on to the suffering and the pain of the past.

There's some expression night. I don't know who said it. Holding a grudge is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, there is you're not doing you're not finding compassion and forgiveness for somebody who did something horrible to you. for them. You're doing it for you. And because you can just stop carrying it around as much. And that's incredibly helpful. It's not easy to do. 25 years sounds pretty quick.

It's only a lifetime for me.

I know, but I'm saying that as out of respect for you. I don't want to minimize what you went through and. And anger and rage and. All of that is how can anybody take your right to feel those things away from you? You can't. But that you came to it finally, I can only imagine is a source of relief.

It's been amazing because my whole life was based on competition, winning and being the best and being right at pretty much everything that I could put my hands around in terms of owning, no, I'm the best at this, I'm the best at that, I'm right at this. and defending myself in all costs that became an intention of mine without even knowing it. I was unconscious at it. When I started to forgive, let go and have compassion for anything that happened to me and to the things that I did to other people, because I think we hold a lot of shame and guilt for things we've done and we beat ourselves up as well. When I started to let go of all that, I stopped being as competitive and defensive I'm still competitive in defenses at some points, but I started to just be like, you know what? When I'm collaborative as opposed to competitive, things seem to do better. And I'm not in pain and I don't hurt other people. And, you know, I'm friends with everyone as opposed to a closer circle. And I want everyone to be right and I want everyone to be successful. And when I started celebrating other people as opposed to saying, only look at me, when I started lifting others up, it's one of the reasons I started the podcast was like, I want to put the light on everyone else as opposed to I need to be number one. Everything started to shift. Everything came my way when I celebrated other people and said, how can we do this together and both get what we want? And I think that's where I learned to be compassionate in that practice as well. This is beautiful how you explained it, but I think just having compassion for people and supporting people is a powerful thing. But it was really hard for me to learn how to do this. especially people that I did not like or people that were hurting people I didn't know. That's really hard to do.

Yeah, it is. It is. And in this practice, the loving kindness practice, that's the name of the meditation. I was just sure it's sometimes called compassion practice or loving kindness. The traditional Pali word, that's the ancient language, Indian language of Pali is metta, M-E-T-T-A. In this practice, one of the buckets, one of the categories of beings to whom you're sending these good vibes is a difficult person. And you can go, it's really challenging.

How do you do that?

But it's as you said, it's you, you answered that question. It's, you're not saying, I want to have you over for dinner. You're not saying, I want to, I condone your behavior. You're saying, I, you know, I recognize that you're a human being, something happened to you that made you do this kind of thing. May you be free from that suffering. And as a consequence, and ultimately it's you are the one who's free from the suffering. You don't need to wish this person endless wealth and power.

Sure, sure.

You can wish them the peace of mind that because if you have peace of mind, you're not going to be doing venal things.

It's true.

And so it's, it's, it's, if you.

Feel loved, if you feel supported, if you feel people care about you, you're not going to try to put anger into the world and, and hurt people who you don't feel like are supporting you.

This is wise selfishness. This is enlightened self-interest it's all, to me, as a, as a kind of, again, I'm not proud of this, but congenitally kind of selfish, ambitious person. To me, as soon as I started, as soon as I met the Dalai Lama, he's kind of reframed compassion, kindness, love in a more selfish way. It's a great Jedi mind trick for people like me to frame in as wise selfishness and then dump in all this science to show that it's that actually you'll be happier if you can reorient in the ways that you've described so eloquently, then it really made it helped me make that shift.

I'm curious. I feel like you're in a really tough position. I'll tell you why. Imagine, and I'm sure you'll have a great answer for this, but imagine you are outside by a train track. And you see a train hitting a family of people every five minutes over and over again. And you can't stop watching it. You have to watch it. Imagine the amount of anxiety and stress that will come up every time you watch something horrible like this happening with your eyes. Maybe it's a bad analogy. I'm not laughing at that. I'm just laughing at the setup here. you're on the news. You are the news. You are showing people or your station, maybe not you personally, but the news stations are showing people all of the bad, the fear, the stress, the anxiety, the worry. How do you as a host, and you guys are sharing good stories too and showing, you know, all the powerful stuff that's happening as well. But how do you as a host handle the anxiety of watching it? and knowing that it's being fed to the eyes of people watching it around the world of negative stuff or the fear-based stuff or the stress emotion side of things as opposed to how do you handle that? You know, you've got this meditation app, books and courses, but here are our networks feeding, you know, I don't know how to position this question, but no.

I think it's getting me thinking about a lot of things.

Like I tell people, don't watch the news. Like if you don't want to be stressed, Don't watch it. You can get an update from an article or to a day. You can. But the emotional side of watching something visually and the pain and the suffering and here's the death tolls and here's the scares tactics. I'm like, and I'm not saying GMA does this, but news in general tends to highlight more negative than here's how to be happier.

Yeah, there's an expression. There's nothing more. The expression is we don't, we don't, we don't report on the plane that lands safely because it's not news. Right. So, I mean, that's obviously somewhat problematic and also somewhat not true because, as you said, we do, especially now, we're.

Doing tons of great stuff. I'm just saying, and not GMA in general, but news stations in general.

And to be clear, I am, I don't feel defensive one bit. I feel I feel reflective and I'm thinking about like, I'm trying to think really honestly about my own experiences. And again, I'm going to say some things that I'm not proud of, but, you know, I've, I think there's a hardening that can happen. Did you ever watch that show MASH where the, it's about a field hospital in the Korean War? The show lasted longer than the Korean War, actually. It's about these doctors and they're treating the wounded, but they're telling jokes. And it's a way to kind of steel yourself against the reality of the horror. And I think that for me, as I used to be a war correspondent after 9/11, I spent a lot of time in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think there was a mixture of things going on there. I think some of it was driven by ambition. I think some of it was driven by curiosity. I think some of it was driven by an idealism that this is a really important function in society to report from the tip of the spear and tell people back home what's being done in their name and on their dime. So I had a range of motivations and I like to think about motivation as a range because we are human beings and we're gonna have crass motivations but also idealistic high-minded motivations. And I think in there a little bit you get and, yeah, I see, you know, I was, as I said, I was raised by physicians and my wife's a physician. You, there's a way in which you, you do steal yourself against the train hitting the people.

And you have to, otherwise you'll be sobbing all day long.

That's right.

Crying on the news. You'll be like, I can't take this. I need to walk off. Right.

Exactly right. But I think what, I think that's why this, this compassion or loving kindness meditation has become so interesting to me because I think in part because of my job, in part because of my own wiring as a frosty New England guy, and in part because of issues around masculinity that you've talked about very eloquently. I was thinking about a story recently about how I was a very sensitive kid, cried a lot, had to go to see a shrink, because I was so worried about nuclear war. And then I remember going into junior high in high school, we were in like the meat grinder of masculinity. And... You're not a man unless you.

Kiss this girl, unless you beat this kid up unless you do this. Yeah. Yes.

And I remember one night I was with my boys, Larry, Gavin and Eddie. And we were like, for a minute, like the four of us, we used to call ourselves the Gruesome Foursome and we were hanging out in Gavin's basement. And somehow I got hit in the head with a lacrosse ball.

Wow.

And I cried. And they made so much fun of me that I think I semi-consciously vowed, I'm never gonna let this happen again. And I think I can count on one or two hands the times I have cried as a grown man. Wow. And yeah, really that few. And so I think all of that combined to a kind of hardening and turning off that is not uncommon among men and also women just to survive out here. And yeah, so I think, but I actually think there's a power in the softness. And I think I've been kind of using this phrase, this like, I think there's a vast power to our gooey center. And it goes right back to evolution. We are wired for this. And it's enfeebling and not a strong state. to be stuck in your own selfish concerns, that you're more vulnerable to attack when you're just gazing at your navel and thinking about how many likes you've got on your Twitter feed, than when you are looking around at the full view, which will encompass other people. And so for I've become very interested in this subject. Wow.

Do you think you would be a more effective human being in your personal life and more effective in your career with GMA and your personal 10% happier career if you cried more. If you were able to tap into the gooey center-ness of emotion on that side of the spectrum?

I don't know. The reason why I say I don't know is that I think you can be in touch with the gooey center without crying, per se. I don't know that it has to be dramatic. I think it goes back to what I was saying before about kind of knocking love off of its pedestal.

And not just like Hollywood emotional tearfests, but interesting.

But it may also be true that my emotional range is stunted as because of everything I just described and that the work I'm continuing to do may get me to the point where I'm crying more often and. And that's cool.

Do you remember the last time you did cry?

Yes. It wasn't that long ago. It was. well, maybe a year and a half ago, my father's had some health problems and there was a moment with him where he was, things were not going well and I cried. But I remember I was on the phone with my brother and who called me in the middle, I was dealing with my dad and then my brother called me and I stepped away and it was only in talking to him that I just couldn't speak anymore. I had to kind of let the phone down and I remember feeling really, embarrassed. Not that my brother was judging me at all. He's a really kind person. But the conditioning kicked in. Wow. I mean, you know what it's like.

I know what it's like, man.

I.

Never used to show any of those emotions because I was just so humiliated and embarrassed by having them and being made fun of or picked on or whatever or feeling less than, feeling less of a man than I can be or whatever it may be. I'm curious, what was it about your father that made you that emotional towards that moment? Is it something he taught you? Is it something that he did for you growing up? Was it the fear that he might be gone or what was that emotion?

It was actually an acute situation in which his health has declined and we were together on this day and he was having just a bad morning. and was just struggling. And I was dealing with it in the moment, but when I stepped away to talk to my brother, it was thinking about how, I think I said something to Matt, that's my brother, that in my mind he lives as a very vibrant guy who used to run the Boston Marathon and would go right past our house and we would hand him cups of water as he was running by. And, you know, he was a big, very successful doctor, pioneer in the area of radiation oncology for breast cancer. And, you know, I just remember him being a jocular, vibrant, successful, compassionate guy. And to see his decline was very painful for me. And he's a huge figure in my life. And there was an expression that I heard once, like so-and-so is the theater for my actions. In other words, it didn't feel real. Nothing in my life has ever felt real until I told my parents. And to see my parents get older and struggle has been very difficult for me.

Yeah, man, that's tough. I see that in my father. My father had a car accident about 15 years ago where he was in a coma for many months and then He's alive still today, but he's never fully emotionally, mentally recovered. So I witnessed that. He's here physically and you can talk to him pretty good, but he asks you what you did when you grew up again, where you went to school, he has to, you know, ask you all the same questions over and over. And so it's the same type of feeling where it's like, he's not this larger than life human being that was my dad and coach and mentor and, you know, throwing baseball in the backyard, it's more of a shell of a human that you can't do everything with. And that's really challenging. Is he okay right now? Is he healthy? Is he doing all right?

I mean, he's doing okay. But, you know, he's a different guy. And this, you know, in some ways goes back to what we were talking about before about impermanence. which obviously culminates in death. And, you know, this is a central tenet in Buddhism that, you know, we suffer because we're clinging to things that won't last. And so we're always changing. You're not the same guy you were 10 years ago. You're certainly not the same guy you were 30 years ago. And, or what's that cliched expression? You can't step in the same river twice because it's all just flowing and changing all the time. And we don't like that, especially when we have a collision with impermanence because our dads change or our bodies change or our energies and interests change in ways that are discombobulating or we realize, you know, I look at, I've been doing Zoom calls with all my high school buddies recently and I look at these guys and I'm like, what? How did we become middle-aged, like Jewish guys? What happened? So, the clinging is where the suffering comes and some of these things, it's just hard not to cling when it's your dad.

That's it. This has been powerful. I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation and thanks for sharing everything that you've been opening up with. If people want more, they should go check out your podcast, 10% Happier, which is a exceptional podcast. where Dan's got a great sense of research science and bringing on all the experts to talk about both things. So, make sure you guys check out 10% Happier and your book is incredible. If you guys want to increase a little bit in every area of your life of happiness, check that out. You've got an app that's amazing. 10% Happier app, which is all about meditation. You've got some of the top meditation teachers that come on and teach, right? Indeed.

Thank you so much for saying that. I appreciate it.

Of course, yeah. And you guys, I mean, it's a full curriculum of so many different types of courses and meditation in there, isn't that right? Is it just an app or are there courses as well?

So it's an app where you can... So most meditation apps, they just give you audio to teach you how to meditate, which is a great thing to do. But we do a lot of video, so we run these courses where you could take it at your own pace, but every session you get a little bit of video, often told with some humor. that teaches you a basic tenet of meditation and then it rolls directly into a guided audio meditation. We hear from people over and over again that they finally get what it is this whole thing is about because we're explaining it simply and it really because I have 30, almost 30 years of being a TV news guy that I'm bringing video storytelling in and my team and I are doing that together. Combine that with like the greatest scientists and meditation teachers and really just trying to make it a masterclass for your mind.

It's amazing. I'm on the site right now, 350 plus guided meditations, daily dose meditation of the day, sleep meditations, world-class teacher, personalized coaching, bite-sized inspiration. And, we've actually got a code for people if they go to 10%.com/greatness. I think you get a discount on the app if people check that out there. But, it's powerful stuff, man. What are you most grateful for in your life right now as we finish things up.

I have a five-year-old son. We worked really hard to get him. I've described him as the most expensive baby on the Upper West side of Manhattan because we had to do IVF a couple times to get him. And just the fact that he's running around here calling me dummy is just endlessly delightful to me. And so I, I am super grateful for that.

Well, Dad, I, I appreciate you for always showing up with a big heart and. and backing it with great stories and examples. I acknowledge you for constantly leaning into it, man, and sharing that you're, even though you're embarrassed to say you're afraid of the elevator at times, I acknowledge you for talking about it and opening up about it because there's a lot of people that are embarrassed about claustrophobia or speaking in public or whatever it may be. And so for someone at your level who is, you know, looked at as the authority on TV, as the leader, the person that is trustworthy, who's got it all figured out, to the viewers, for you to open up and talk about this stuff is really inspiring and powerful and it shows a lot of compassion you have for all of us. I appreciate you, man. I'll finish with the final question. It's what's your definition of greatness?

I'll be interested to look back at how I answered this question. Hopefully I don't... I think there are a lot of ways to define greatness, obviously. But here's the one that's coming to mind right now. which is the capacity to give a shit about yourself and other people and to lean into that in a way that actually makes a difference and not in a way that's so self-sacrificing that you're a martyr because again, giving a shit or caring is omnidirectional and it includes you. But that capacity is the undergirding power of us as a species. and of your own capacity to be happy.

Dan Harris, thank you so much.

It had to make a difference, you know, like this is how we get great things done.

That's it. Dan, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on, sharing your wisdom.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for watching this video. And if you're looking for more greatness in your life, then check out this next video right here. Because it removes this belief that things are finite and limited and then not. If you want to be happy and successful, no matter that there are 700,000 podcasts, if that is your dharma, if that's your calling, if that's your purpose.