On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Reduce Stress in 7 Minutes a Day: The Surprising Way the Founder of the Biggest Meditation Company Meditates and How We Can Easily Apply This Tip

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Do you want to reduce your stress in just 7 minutes a day?  Do you want to learn how to make meditation easy and accessible for you? Today, I welcome my good friend Michael Acton Smith. Michael is the co-founder and co-Executive Chairman of Calm, the leading mental wellness brand with the #1 App for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation. Calm has grown to over 100 million downloads, was the Apple 2017 app of the year, and is the world's first mental health unicorn. Long fascinated by neuroscience, flow states and mental fitness, Michael is passionate about spreading meditation as a simple but valuable skill around the world.  Michael discusses the interesting twist of putting an entertainment voice in meditation, challenging myths, and misconceptions surrounding this powerful practice. We tap into the future of mental health, exploring why sometimes we need to step back to find the answers. Patience has always been the secret to success. As the conversation progressed, we stirred into the potential of AI and its role in the next evolution of Calm and potentially address the question: How can technology be harnessed to serve humanity better? There is a future in AI and how it immensely helps spread mental health awareness and promote mindfulness practice.  In this interview, you will learn: The many benefits of meditation How to practice mindfulness How to sit in silence and calm your mind How to leverage your creativity The connection between AI and mental health It's an episode packed with insights, laughter, and a sprinkle of mindfulness. Together, let's explore the boundless possibilities of a calm and balanced life together!  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:18 How Did the Calm Partnership Come About? 05:26 Making Meditation and Mindfulness More Accessible 09:06 The Impact of Daily Calm and Sleep Story on People 11:53 Putting an Entertainment Voice in Meditation 15:27 Myths and Misconceptions About Meditation 18:27 What is the Future of Mental Health? 22:01 Why You Need to Step Back to Find Answers 26:29 Why Patience is the Secret to Success 29:46 How Do You Combine Business and Creativity? 32:19 How Can AI Help Humanity? 39:37 The Potential of AI and The Next Evolution of Calm 42:03 How to Find Balance Between Digital and Physical Activities 47:02 The Benefits of Reacting Instead of Responding to Triggers 51:41 How to Positively Introduce Meditation to Children 55:52 How to Develop the Practice of Sitting in Silence Episode Resources: Michael Acton Smith | LinkedIn Michael Acton Smith | Instagram Calm Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, this is Leverand Cox. I'm an actress, producer and host of the Leverand Cox show. Do you like your tea with lemon or honey? History making Broadway performer Alex Newell. When I sing the Holy Ghost shows up, that's my ministry and I know that well about me. That's the tea honey. Whoever it is, you can bet we get into it. My guest and I, we go there every single time. I can't help it. Listen to the LeVernCog Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The street stoic podcast is back! We are combining hip-hop lyrics and quotes from some of the greatest to ever-grace a microphone. It's a line for Lauren Hill and she says, don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem.

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podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which is fantastic. I mean, we all want to be more present and self-aware, more patient, less judgmental. We discuss all these themes on the podcast, but it's hard to actually be mindful in your day-to-day life. That's where calm comes in. I've been working with calm for a few years now with the goal of making mindfulness fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to help you build positive habits, shift yourself to

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Do you remember how stigmatized it was? No one talked about it. Could you imagine telling your boss you were struggling with your mental health? People did have so many misconceptions about meditation. They thought it was either religious or connected to the counter culture or sit for hours and hours in an uncomfortable position. And we just wanted to let people know that that is not true. You can literally start with one mindful.

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The best selling author in the post. The number one health and wellness podcast. The purpose of Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Thank you so much for tuning in. It means the world to me that our community is growing every single day.

It's amazing so many of you're listening to multiple episodes a week, even more than the new ones that come out. And it honestly, honestly means the world to me. Thank you so much. Today's guest is a very special friend, someone that I've known for five years now, maybe even a bit longer. We've been in each other's orbit for longer than that for sure.

And I can't believe we haven't had this conversation on the podcast before. So please join me in welcoming Michael, Acton Smith, the co-founder and co-executive chairman of COM, the leading mental wellness brand with the number onefounder and co-executive chairman of Karm, the leading mental wellness brand with the number one app for sleep, meditation and relaxation. Karm has grown to over 150 million downloads and was Apple's 2017 app of the year and is the world's first mental health unicorn. Michael is fascinated by neuroscience,

flow states and mental fitness and is passionate about spreading meditation as a simple but valuable skill around the world. Please welcome to the show, my friend, an incredible human, Michael, Acton Smith. Michael, thank you so much for being here. So happy to be here. Thank you, Jay. I know, I can't believe it's taken this long,

and we were both remembering. I think it was probably like seven years ago, six, seven years ago, where you had a lot of your friends and people in your community saying you had to meet me and I had everyone in my community saying I had to meet you and then we had a lunch at my first apartment in L.A. in 2018 and we were just talking about that and it's so wonderful that I'm so grateful to be the Chief Purpose Officer at COM and that came from the relationship we built up. And I always say that to people when people see partnerships like this, I always say to

people it actually came from just a partnership and a friendship behind the scenes with one person. And it's evolved into this incredible thing. I love the COM family and I'm so grateful to be a part of it. Oh, well, the feeling is very mutual. You know, I think building a partnership that has foundations and friendship and years of getting to know each other, I think makes it much, much stronger.

So your impact at Calm has been phenomenal. The Daily J is just brilliant. I would honestly say it's the content I'm most proud of that I create because the team that I work with in order to curate and research and build what we do, we have so much fun. I want to give Big Shout out to Ben, Big Shout to Chris.

We have just, you've developed such a phenomenal team who's so conscious and thoughtful and innovative and creative and not scared to push the boundaries too. And it's an amazing balance to have that where everyone's so thoughtful yet so innovative. And I think that that's, it's been amazing. I was just talking about last year I went to the Convertree. I didn't, I missed this years, but I went last year. And what I was really moved by is everyone who's part of your team has a calm story. So if everyone who doesn't know

what I'm talking about, I was doing a Q&A with David DeCio on stage. And we were doing this Q&A and people would stand up and ask me questions, but they would share their calm story. And we were doing this Q&A and people would stand up and ask me questions, but they would share their calm story. And everyone who worked there had this really emotional, really powerful personal story of how calm has helped their family or their friends or them. And I was nearly in tears like a couple of times because some of those stories were really emotional. It's so meaningful to be in a company where, as you say, everyone has a story, a reason, a purpose for being emotional. It's so meaningful to be in a company where, as you say, everyone has a story, a reason, a purpose for being there.

It's so much more than a nine to five job, and you can feel that, and obviously you felt that when you came and when you're surrounded by hundreds of the calm team. It's very, very special. You were such a big hit, you know, a year on, people still talk about it. You were doing selfies and chatting long

long into the night meeting every single person and listening to those stories. So thank you for that. No, of course. And Michael, I want to dive in now with you because, you know, what I think, what you've done for the world through calm is truly remarkable. Like, I think it's historic. It truly is. You know, I think it's really interesting because today technology has become the way to serve humanity and therefore we don't often think about cultural shifts in the same way because they're through technology almost feels a bit robotic or a bit more kind of organized and so we don't realize just how powerful these things are because we see numbers but we don't see the deep transformation. But calm has helped and transformed so many people's lives.

When you set out to popularize meditation, did you ever imagine that it would have the impact it has today? No, no, it's been an extraordinary journey. Alex, too, and I set the company up a little over a decade ago, and we were living in Soho, you know Soho London. Love so. Obviously, it's not the most calm place in the world. It's full of all the best restaurants and bars, incredible energy and passion. And we lived in a house and we play video games at night talking about business and ideas.

And I remember Alex saying to me, he'd heard about this domain name that was available, calm.com. And we press pause and I was like, wow, say that again, calm.com. And I got goose bumps and just thought, what an incredible word, what an incredible brand we could potentially build. We felt that the world could have been because we lived in so-how, but we felt the world needed more calm and it was just getting more anxious, more stress. And so that was the starting point. And as I say, it's been one extraordinary journey. How was that available?

Well, it wasn't available at GoDaddy for $10, sadly. It was owned by a chap in Sheffield in England. And it was offered to us for about a million pounds, I think, and both of us were like, no, that's ludicrous amount of money. We could never afford that. And about a year later, he came back to us and we were able to get it for a much lower amount. Still quite expensive. I was going to use the money to put a deposit down

on a house. And we decided to buy a domain name with it instead, which my parents thought was a rather strange move. But we just thought there was magic in that word. And we felt Alex had been meditating for many, many years. He was a teenager who was very interested in consciousness and meditation and breath work. And so he was a little more into this than I was and he brought me along. But I felt that we could build almost like the Nike of the mind. Could we take mental health? Could we take meditation and mindfulness and simplify it? Make it more accessible, sprinkle in a little bit of magic and enjoy and bring it to

billions of people because these practices have been around for thousands of years. Pretty much every culture and religion has something similar, but it wasn't clicking, it wasn't resonating with society and there was so much unnecessary suffering, there was so many issues and we felt this could be a very, very powerful area to explore. So that was the little acorn that Carm blossomed into. Yeah, have you meditated today, Michael? Did you meditated this morning? I know what, I take some days I'm not able to do the daily calm for 10 minutes, and instead I take three mindful breaths before I leave the door.

So that was what I did this morning. Yeah, that's beautiful. No, and I think that's what's really interesting about the way calm's approach meditation. And I saw this, obviously, from an outside point of view until we joined forces. But when I was observing what calm was doing, I was really, really admiring it

because I felt it took such a broad-minded view to meditation, which I actually think meditation is as a practice. So even though you're saying you've simplified it and made it more accessible, which I agree calm as, I actually think that is how meditation should be and is in reality when you even look thousands of years ago, it was far more easy and accessible.

It wasn't this mystical thing. And it's almost like as things come into the modern world, when they're older, we just kind of put this tag on them as being vintage or mystical or unknown. But the truth is that it was a part of society. It was a part of the way kids were raised and what they were taught at school. And so what even gave you the perspective to say we feel that we're going to take this broad-minded view to meditation. Like you started with like sleep tales and stories.

And when I saw that, I was like, this is genius because so much meditation, especially of the past in my tradition too, from my monk time, is storytelling. Like so many meditations are based on stories. And I think that the modern day became about like being still and being silent. And but you had this really broad-minded view. How did that evolve and where did that come from?

Yes, so there were two big step changes in the early days where we saw a big, big increase in usage and audience. The first was when we introduced the daily calm. You know, Tamara was our first teacher. She was just phenomenal. She is so good. But before that, we just were encouraging people to meditate, listen to the same content every single day. That's hard. People are busy sitting down and it just wasn't connecting with people and the beauty of the daily calm

is that it's different every day and humans like variety. And they like storytelling, as you say. And Tamara would leave everyone with a beautiful quote. It would be memorable. People actually started instead of thinking of it as a chore every morning, people would look forward to it.

They'd talk about what they learnt in the daily calm, and they'd share it in the daily calm community. And so these ripples started to grow. So that was a big early shift. And secondly, the sleep stories. You know, we were looking at the data and we realised that a lot of people were using to marry as beautiful voice to fall asleep at night. And we were like, no, no, no, that's not what you're supposed to do.

So we thought, what if we could create stories? We could take the bedtime story that's been around forever, sprinkle a little magic on it and create the sleep story. And so people think, oh, they're boring tales, they're bored you to sleep, but it's not like that at all. There's a lovely curve of interest where you start in an engaging way. Your mind is probably worrying away with a lot of other things, and you're intrigued about this story. And then we mix in music and sound effects, and the voice gently gets softer, the pacing between the words get longer. Until before you know it, you're fast asleep. And Sleep has been such a big issue. So many people knock themselves out with alcohol or sleeping

pills and this is just a delightful, joyful, simple way of drifting off every night and it's now actually the biggest part of the app because meditation again is not straightforward. Everyone goes to sleep every night, 8 billion people. That's a pretty big market to look after. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's such an important part of our life to solve. Like, I think you know the importance of sleep. When was it? When did you find that not only, of course,

8 billion people are going to sleep, but when did you find that, like, you looked at the studies on how important sleep is for our health and wellbeing? Like, how early did you kind of realize that was an issue you wanted to solve? So Matthew Walker's book, Why We Sleep, came out a few years ago, and I think society had a big awakening, excuse the pardon, at that point around sleep, because before then there was this view in society that, you know, well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. The lack of sleep you got was almost

a badge of honor in the workplace And I think very importantly that has changed people get it now It's not just part of your health and wellness. It's a foundation So we were a little bit before Matthew Walker's book came out We just felt a sense that there was something really really key here and And then one of the big elevations there was bringing in here and then one of the big elevations there was bringing in talent and celebrities for years we'd been trying to get Hollywood interested in recording some content within calm. We were knocking on doors and no one would

answer and eventually I'm a guy and an Ashton from Sound Ventures they were one of early investors. They introduced us to Matty McConaug. And he used calm for one of his charities in Texas. And we said, Matthew, would you record a sleep story for us? And he said, sure thing. And uh... Ray voice. Oh, he's got such a good voice, very, very popular. Yeah.

So some of the earliest talent we had on the app was Anna Acton, my sister, Stephen Fry, Jerome Flynn, from Game of Thrones. So the talent coming onto calm suddenly made this practice and talking about your mental health and meditating and mindfulness, it popularized it. It made it almost cool. And so that really helped the growth accelerate dramatically. No, it's fantastic.

Again, I was watching all of that from the sidelines at the time, and just thinking how genius it was because to me as well, it was making meditation accessible and relevant, as we've already said, but it was putting it into a language and a voice that people could understand, could relate to, could connect to, could see as entertainment almost. Entertainment is a really good example. It seems strange to talk about this beautiful ancient practice as entertainment and mental health is a very serious subject. But as we know, if you want to connect with people, if you want to get their attention, make something joyful,

make something entertaining, the fastest way to connect with another human being is through a smile. And so we thought, could we not take ourselves too seriously? Could we have a little bit of fun with this? And we did. And so several examples over the last few years, we have a brilliant person working with our PR team, Peter, who came up with the idea of creating Barbara land around the time of Lala land, the film.

And he said, what if we created a movie eight hours long of sheep grazing in a field? And it was very calming and peaceful. We did our premier with red carpet in London and had sheep walk down. And we got so much publicity and attention for it. People loved it. Then when GDPR came out, do you remember the legislation? Very, very serious and very say a little bit boring. We got someone to read it as a sleep story. And we got loads of PR for it, falling asleep to GDPR. So we did a lot of these kind of quirky, unusual little ideas.

And that PR, again, made people go, wow, maybe I'll check this out. Maybe this isn't so weird and woo-woo. And this could be for me. Yeah, I mean, I love it and it's so genius. But at the same time, like you said, there can be the view, and I've definitely talked about this before, like there can be the view that it's like, well, this is such an ancient sacred practice. And like, how can you make it so, you know, how can you make it so silly or so one would say silly or clever or genius or or how can you make it so frivolous.

And it's really interesting because that perspective I think has of course validity and there's great thought behind that. But I think what I've gained or learned over time is that people starting their journey of meditation, meeting people where they're at, meeting people where they're starting with their struggle, with their challenge, is so much more compassionate and loving and kind than it is to force someone to adopt a practice that they may never adopt or may think is so alien to them that they'd never have a chance. And I've always said that to people like, real, it's not a technique,

it's actually compassion and empathy, where it's like, I understand where you are, I understand that. And I think about myself in that way, where as a young kid growing up in London, the amount of times I laughed or was making fun of someone trying to get me to meditate when I was younger, because it was just bizarre,

it's like, I just wanna and drink and have a good time. I don't want to think about meditation, but maybe if Carmen had been around when I was younger, then it would have been an easy place to start for me, and that would have been the beginning of my journey. And of course, Carmen's evolved so much since, but yeah, how have you tackled that opinion because I'm sure you've faced that so much?

Very much so. In the early days, when we'd go to parties and tell people we were building a meditation act, we'd get one of two reactions. One is that they'd back away from us and make any excuse to go and talk to someone else. The second was that they'd be like, oh, I've heard of that. I've tried it, but I can't do it. My mind is far too busy.

It has been extraordinary how that has shifted over the last decade again. This is connected to mental health. Do you remember how stigmatized it was? No one talked about it. Could you imagine telling your boss you were struggling with your mental health years ago? It wouldn't have been a good move. And for most organizations now that has changed dramatically. I think it was because people did have so many misconceptions about meditation, there were so many myths associated with it, I think they thought it was either religious or connected to the counter culture.

They thought they might have to dress up in robes or go to a different country or sit for hours and hours in an uncomfortable position. And we just wanted to let people know that that is not true. You can literally start with one mindful breath. If you don't have time to meditate for a minute or ten or longer, literally start with one conscious mindful breath and then build your practice from there. Yeah, no, and I think that I'm hoping that, and I mean we know it from the fact of the amount of people that have taken up to it, and it's been the beginning of their meditation practice and just where it's gone from them as well

But for you, what's it been like building the business of it because that's You know, obviously it's been over 10 years now, and I'm guessing that it's really interesting when you're building a meditation business It doesn't mean you're not immune to burnout and stress and pressure. And that includes the team, includes you, includes, there's so many things that come up in business that don't help you be mindful. Or on the country where mindfulness can really help as well. So talk to us about that balance. Yes, so Alex and I love business.

We love startups taking crazy ideas and putting them out into the world. So this has been such a joy to work on. But even though we practice what we preach and we've learned a huge amount from Carmen this journey, we're not immune and during the pandemic we both really struggled. We were running the company over Zoom. We were on Zoom for 10, 12 hours, sometimes more, every single day. And we were based in Europe, the team was over in the US, so there was time zone challenges as well. And we just started to feel it. We felt it in our bodies, you know, we weren't moving around as much.

We felt it in our minds. We were just tired and stressed and exhausted. So that was a very, very challenging time. And we're both in a much sharper, more energized place now, but that was a very tricky part of the journey. And it was one of the reasons why we both decided to take a new role and bring David in as the CEO, who was absolutely brilliant. We bought his company, Ripple. One of the reasons was we wanted to move more into healthcare, you know, healthcare in the US It's a four trillion dollar industry and a very small proportion of that is spent on mental health and that is changing rapidly And so Ripple was a healthcare company, so that helped but we also just wanted to get back both of us to to what we love most

Which is the zero to one phase, that messy, chaotic, creative, wonderful part where you're building something that has never existed in the world before. And we weren't able to do that when we were on Zoom for 12 hours a day. We were doing, you know, 2026 financial planning and feedback with team members. And it was not lighting us up. We could do it, we can run hundreds of people company, but I think in life you have to focus deeply on what you are really, really good at. So a few sleepless nights before handing over the reins to David as CEO, but I can honestly say it's been one of the best things I've ever done and I think Alex feels the same. So we are both now co-chairmen, so we're still

involved very deeply in a new way, but because we love business and creativity so much, we're now running Calm Studios in London, which is fully connected to Calm, but it's where we can dream up the future. Where is the part going? What is the future of mental health? And what is the future products and services of Calm? So that's what we're deeply involved in at the moment. Listen to comeback stories. I'm Darren Waller. You may know me best as a tie-in for the New York Giants. You may also know me for my story of overcoming addiction and alcoholism. You may have heard a few of my tracks as an artist or a producer. You may have seen the work that I've done through my foundation.

And you may know my friend and co-host Donnie Starkens as well. He's a mindfulness teacher, a yoga instructor, a life coach, a man fully invested in seeing people reach their fullest potential. And we've come to form this platform of comeback stories to really highlight not only our own adversity but adversity in the lives of well-known guests with amazing stories. Catch us every week on comeback stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Craig Ferguson, the grandmaster and the architect of wisdom. Maharishi of Murth goes in search of joy.

I'm here to help. He'll be speaking with actors, doctors, comedians, and scientists. Artists and athletes and people of faith in search of extreme happiness. United States of America, our cram champions of the world. At last, a podcast on a mission. A podcast that wonders what is joy.

Is it love, religion, drugs, success, money, revenge? Is it a surge of chemicals or a deeper awakening? Can it be nurtured, cultivated and refined? Find out, as Craig Ferguson explores the countless ways people find joy, the celebrations that dances the science, poetry, laughter, and music of joy. Don't miss it. Joy with Craig Ferguson.

Here it now, on the IHART Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, that's so exciting. And it's such a beautiful example as well of just how detachment works, even in business and knowing when it's okay to let go of something, to create more space for something else. And it's interesting because you can talk about that, but to do it in a practical sense when you're building, you know, the first mental health unicorn and building one of the biggest mental health and sleep apps in the world.

To then go actually, we don't want to work on this part anymore. We have, we believe in it, we care about it, but we actually want to focus on the future again. And that, you know, you've made it sound seamless, but I can imagine that's very challenging because, you know, I think we get attached to roles, we get attached to titles, we get attached to journeys. And we talked a lot about this when I was coming on with you. And it was the same for me where I had a lot of people in my business and my world saying to me, like, J, you should start up your own app. And why would you partner with a calm? And why would you partner with anyone? And you know, we had other apps that were reaching out to us.

And I saw all of that. I think we talked about this very openly. And I said, I saw that if I went down that path, it would have been ego-tistic. I would have done it for my ego, not for what I actually want for the world. And what I saw you doing was so aligned with what I'd want to do for the world. I was like, well, wouldn't I join forces? Like, isn't that what my meditation practice would want me to do, where collaboration would be better than competition if you're trying to achieve the same goal for society. And so it's really interesting how, for me at least, I'm always looking for how am I still

acting out of the same old mindset, even though I've been meditating for years. Am I still pulled by that? Or am I able to be self-aware and say, okay, and that was one of the biggest reasons why I came on at Calm because I was like, this is a mission I believe in. Obviously I'm friends with the team. Loved getting to know David now, he's fantastic. And I'm like, okay, I wanna work for the world

with people that I love and care about. For people that I wanna serve and help. As opposed to live from my ego, and I'm guessing there's a bit of that and when you go yeah I'm not going to be CEO anymore even that built this thing from scratch but I'm going to start again I'm guessing there's a bit of detachment there would you is that accurate or how would you put then your words very very very accurate and I think what you're saying is is about focus as well we can't do everything in life you know you like

us get asked to do a lot of different things and you have to get good at saying no and no, what is the elements that really light you up? What are the areas where you can have the biggest impact and I think focus is so important for anyone listening wanting to build something new, figure out what that is. And don't be worried if you're not quite sure what that is, take your time to find it. You know, I use this phrase, when you want to create something new, take a step back. Often if you have the chance, not everyone has the luxury, but if you have the chance, go away on your own for a few days. Clear your head, get into a new space, a new environment, and then marinate yourself in the areas that you're intrigued about. And what starts to

happen is you start connecting dots that you might not have seen before. You know, watch documentaries related to what you're thinking about. Read books and autobiographies, chat to people who are expert in this area. And suddenly, the light starts to become brighter and it becomes clearer what you need to do. Now, that often doesn't happen, you know, over a few days. It can take weeks, sometimes years. Every time I've started up a new company or a business, there's been a huge amount of work before day one, just thinking and planning.

And then you just have this very strong foundation that you can build your skyscraper on top of. Calm was that case. From the very early days, we did a lot of research and a lot of thinking, but our mission was to make the world happier and healthier. And it stayed exactly the same over this last decade. You know, I love hearing that because, and I love your advice on stepping back, you know,

to kind of really understand what you're trying to do, and I love the idea of you saying that it could take years. I think the challenge has become that today, because we're living in a world where there's so many successes, and there's so many more success stories in our generation that People are scared to start because they're scared if it won't be big enough or it won't be like when I started creating content I wasn't even aware that it could get a million views like I didn't think about that I was happy with a hundred views or a thousand views at one point because I didn't have a or a thousand views at one point, because I didn't have a false marker

in the same way with business. So I don't think most companies that today have a billion dollar valuation or even billion in revenue, like they didn't start with knowing that that would be the case. It may be at one point, it became a strategic plan or a focus to get there,

but that's not how they felt on day one. And it's almost like not having that pressure was better because then you were able to pivot and shift and change and not stayed so tied. And I think today where, I mean, calm was always meant to be a meditation app, I guess. And now it's so much more, it's a sleep app. It's got, you know, like you were just saying now,

like there's now the daily move, right? There's so much more happening on the app that's not meditation. And that comes from being open and curious. So how do you encourage people? I think there's so many people listening right now and they may be like, Michael, I want to start the next app or Jay, I want to start the next podcast or I want to build this. Like you've given some really great insight, but I personally feel there's too much pressure for what you build to be big. And that's actually what ruins it. Yes, very, very good point. So we live in this culture where it just looks

like there's overnight successes everywhere. We're surrounded by people who are smashing it. And the reality is, every one of those people have been on a journey and they've spent a long time getting to that point. So first of all, the deep work as I just mentioned do your research there's no shortcuts and then patience is incredibly important except and understand that you're going on a journey and you're not going to crack it and be on front of magazines you know in the first week or year maybe not even in the first decade but if you believe deeply in what you're doing if it you know is deeply ingrained and you've done that that foundation work, then you'll put one foot in front of the other and you'll

get there eventually. And it's often said that compounding is the eighth wonder of the world in financial terms. It's true in self-development and building a business and growing ourselves. it doesn't happen overnight. And so being aware of that and being ready for that long journey, I think is very, very important. Yeah, and I think that time that it takes to master something, so that it becomes world worthy almost to speak. It's almost like a law of the universe

that when you've put in that much time and energy and effort and diligence It's likely to succeed But it's just that the patience that it takes to put in that Ten years of mastery or whatever it may be for a different skill like you just kept saying it There's no shortcuts. There's no easy way through that and I think one of the other challenges is people will see success around them and hear about a story or a type of business and then go and build it. Like a good example is there are now thousands and thousands of meditation and mindfulness

and sleep apps and headspace and calm and a handful of others were there first. The problem is if you're building something because you're seeing it everywhere in society, you're going to be too late. You know, I often talk about the analogy of surfing when you're trying to catch that wave. If you're hearing about something in society, the wave is already broken and those surfers are far off into the sunset. That's why you've got to do that work up front and figure out which wave is building in the distance, what's coming closer and closer.

You also don't want to be too early because you'll freeze to death before the sun comes up and all that wave ever gets to you. So timing is so crucial. But when you catch that wave, when you're ready, it's an extraordinary thing. And then as I say, the compounding takes place. And we were very fortunate with our timing. And it was tricky in the early days because as I say, no one was really talking about mental health or mindfulness. It took about half a decade before we were able to raise our series A investment. But again, we had that very deep conviction that this was eventually going to happen. We just needed that patience. And we were building day by day, step by step.

And then, whoosh, it's been holding on to the rocket ship ever since. So would you say that that process because I love what you're saying then I think it reminds me of something that Rick Rubin was saying when he was here and you know he was he was talking about from a music point of view but creating art and and even with you you are you're a great business person and you know that's such a you've you've built companies before this as well. Like, you have a successful track record, but at the same time, whenever I talk to you, and this is, I think, why we get along as well, is because you're an artist at heart, and you're a creative at heart, I feel, at least. And what I'm hearing is that there's, it's almost like you have to be so,

like, when you talk about surfing, I'm terrible at surfing, I've only tried it once. Me too, by the way. Yeah, I was, I was gonna ask you, I was like, you sound like a pro right now. But when you think about surfing, I'm terrible at surfing. I've only tried it once. Me too, by the way. Yeah, I was gonna ask you. I was like, you sound like a pro right now. But when you think about surfing and you think about it, it's being so aligned with nature

and being so aware and you're so present and conscious about the air and the wind and the wave. And as you're describing it, it's almost like you've got to be so in tune to really know when to catch that wave. You're almost talking about it as if it's an intuitive art. Like, can you expand on that for us? Because that's really beautiful. And I think we almost talk about it through all the externals. Like, where's the industry going? And where's this? And that does work for sure. But I think what you're saying is actually far

more of an artist conversation. And so surfing is a very mindful activity. You know, you're saying is actually far more of an artist conversation. Yes, so surfing is a very mindful activity. You know, you're out there in nature and balance is important. So so many different connections with meditation and mindfulness. And I feel that analog works with business as well. You can analyze stuff until you're blue in the face and look at every chart and projection and sometimes you just have to step back and feel into it. What's the intuition? What is your God instinct telling you about this opportunity? I listen very carefully to my mind and my body at 4 a.m. in the morning. That's a great signal

when I'm waking up and it alerts me to opportunity and trouble as well. I've built many businesses that haven't worked and even though I may have been winning awards and being written about positively in the press, I'll wake up every night at 4am and my body will be saying, uh-uh, this isn't working. Listen to me and you can ignore that voice for only so long. So I think business is just just beautiful mix of data and analysis is

very, very important, but when you combine it with magic and creativity and intuition, the center of that Venn diagram I think is where the biggest, most exciting opportunities are built. What are some of the learnings that are coming out of COM studios? I'm fascinated now. As soon as you mentioned that, I was like, oh, that's amazing. I want to know what's happening there. Like, yeah, what are some of the key learnings or the key kind of curiosities that have already stemmed from that work? Well, next time you're in Soho, you must come and visit. I have to. Yeah, I have to. And it's a tiny space. You wouldn't think this is, you know, calm.

Yes, the best though. It's very scrappy. We're a, barely a one pizza team, the Sam and Ennis and Steve and me and Alex. And we're just having an absolute blast. So we've been thinking very carefully, as I say, about this marinating process and thinking deeply, we've been exploring a lot of different ideas. Psychedelics is such a fascinating area. And I think we could talk about that for hours and hours, I won't. No, we don't. But you know, that could hold a huge amount of

promise for how we treat and support people with mental health. There's still a lot of research and science that needs to take place, but there's very early positive signs. So we explored the idea could calm, step in and work here. And I think that may be something for the future. We've looked at going offline. Calm has 100 million downloads, but not that much presence in the physical world. And there's nothing quite like looking in someone's eyes or being in the same space with them.

So how can calm shot there? Could it be physical products? Could it be events and parties and creating communities around the world in different cities? Could it be a resort one day, you know, the most relaxing calm resort in the world? So we've explored that a little bit, but where we've kind of settled and where we're going deep at the moment is an area that has really caught the attention over the last year, which is artificial intelligence. Now obviously AI has been around for decades, you know, we've had the deep learning revolution over a decade ago. Chat GPD caught

the attention last December. So everyone's buzzing about it now, but we've been thinking about this for quite a bit longer. And asking the question, how can these incredibly powerful silicon brains support our beautiful and fragile human brains? How can AI help humanity? So many, many different ways, we're tackling that. Could AI be an amplifier and augment mental health professionals? Could it help on board patients? Could it provide support 24-7 when you're not with a human therapist? The average time it takes to

see a therapist in the US is about six or seven weeks. When you need support, that's way too long. So could there be an intermediate step? And if you think of mental health, there's falling on a spectrum, apps like Karma, fantastic at the the healthier end. But as you move into the sort of amber and orange and middle end, therapy becomes more valuable, but there's a big gap between an app like Karma, which is very proactive and seeing a human therapist. Could AI play a role in that center point? So there's many different parts we're exploring there. I'm very curious to know what your thoughts are of AI,

because I imagine you've had many conversations on this. I think we have a similar approach to things where I try not to get lost in the kind of negative news that stems around any new discovery, because I think we kind of do it constantly, and sometimes I find we make it harder to find usefulness and solutions through new technology that's happening anyway, as opposed to we get so distracted by like, well, these are the issues and this is what's

going wrong and this is where it's going to destroy humanity, et cetera. And I think that those kind of headlines kind of steal the show and they distract us from saying, well, actually, this is happening anyway, whether you like it or not. It already exists. How can we now make sure that as humans, we are benefited by it and that it helps us and supports us by analyzing the potential challenges and coming up with solutions rather than going, oh God, it's the same thing we did with the internet. I'm sure it was the same thing that was done with TVs back in the day. It was the same thing we did with social media and it's kind of tiring because we kind

of still having those same conversations. And I'm like, look, no one's going to stop using social media. No one's going to stop using their phones. Let's stop talking about that as the ultimate solution to helping people with this in the same with AI. People are using chat GPD already. And like you said, AI has been around. Let's stop talking about that as the ultimate solution to helping people with this and the same with AI. People are using chat GPD already and like you said, AI has been around. So I think when I think about AI, I personally think about it in a similar way to you're saying, so I've always wanted the idea of people to have a coach in their pocket. So if people were able to get not only

reminders, which is what our phones do already, but they're reminders that you have to put in. But I've always had this feeling of like, if your body could notify your coach of what you need without you knowing it, and then your coach could then prescribe you with the risk content, food recommendations, diet recommendations, supplement recommendations, it would make it so much more seamless and easy because I think for so many of us, we don't actually know how we feel.

And unless you're looking at data and unless you're looking at what's actually happening in the body, so to give you an example, for me, a couple of years ago, I was feeling fatigue and low energy and I couldn't figure it out because I thought I was sleeping well, I thought I was eating well and I thought I was working out. So I was doing all the right stuff and it was only when I got my vitamin D levels checked where I realized that my vitamin D level was at a 10.

Supposedly healthy is around 60 and like great is like 100 and I'm at 10 and I'm living my current level of lifestyle just two, three years ago. And without that piece of data, I wouldn't have known what the problem was. And I would have diagnosed the problem as, well, maybe there's something going wrong up here. Maybe I'm not working out enough. Maybe I'm not eating enough greens and you just make stuff up.

And so I think a data level approach that AI could help measure, but then AI could help find solutions for, to me is very exciting because I think when humans are left to diagnose their own issues, I think we cause more issues and cause more stress. And stressing about stress is, we both know, it's not healthy. So I love the gaps that AI can fill. So I've been testing a Neutrousense glucose monitor just because I've been fascinated by

glucose levels and how keeping steady glucose levels is healthier for us. And so I had the monitor in me for a couple of weeks, I'm gonna put the new one in soon. And while I was testing it, I could see where, if I ate, like, and I was eating, I was back in London, so I was back from my sister's wedding in London. I literally got back two days ago. And when I'm back in London, I'm eating much unhealthier than when I'm in LA.

And I still went out and found a no sugar cereal, gluten free, whatever, I was trying to be really healthy. And I had it and it still spiked my glucose into the bad levels. And I was thinking I would never have known that because eating it I felt fine. And so I think if AI could help us monitor measure and then navigate solutions, which includes meditations,

which includes sleep monitors, whatever it may be. I think it's incredible what could happen, especially to make it affordable. And that's what I get excited about, is making it affordable, which calm has always been at the forefront of that, like making things affordable and accessible. Well, I love what you're saying, because it's very similar to what we're thinking at calm studios. You know, one of the questions we've asked ourselves is, could we build the world's greatest health coach?

What would that be? And as you say, you know, having a human coach is could we build the world's greatest health coach? What would that be? And as you say, you know, having a human coach is the best, the goal standard, but that is not cheap and not widely distributed. So having a coach in your pocket 24, seven that you can chat to whenever you want, nudging you, motivating you, inspiring you. And here's the interesting thing, the AI will get to know you better than yourself.

It will see your health kit data. it will ask how you're feeling every day and then start making fascinating inferences and connections and surprising you on a day-to-day basis. So I think it was Socrates that said many years ago, no, thyself, an AI can help you really know yourself. But that's only one part of the puzzle, and I think one of the problems with AI at the moment is it's very logic-driven. One of the foundation models we've been so impressed with

is what inflection have built, pi. I don't know if you've had a chance to check out pi. It's beautiful. If GPT-4 is IQ, pi is more EQ. It's like chatting to a really thoughtful friend. It asks you questions, it keeps the conversation flowing. It's very compassionate and empathetic, and that's the essence that we want to capture with what we're doing. And the other thing to say here is that interface is so crucial.

You know, GPT-3 was released, I think, in about 2020, but it didn't capture the imagination. It was only when the wrapper of chat came about that people suddenly were able to connect with it and talk about it and make it more accessible and simple, kind of like we did with meditation back in the day. So we're asking ourselves, having a great AI health coach is one step, but what do we build around it? Could we create something that is set in a universe with a vast array of characters? Could there be storytelling? Could there be music and magic? Could we add a gamified element?

Look at Jura Lingo and what they've done to make learning a language fun and joyful. And as we said at the beginning, if you can make anything fun and entertaining, that's how you cut through the noise and get people to pay attention. So I think that's one of the big shifts we're thinking about at Calm Studios

and we think for this next evolution of Calm because 100 million downloads is great but there are 8 billion people in the world. There's a lot more people we wanna connect with and reach. These are the kind of conversations that I love too because it's so exciting trying to figure out. And by the way, I wanna remind everyone that look, Michael said it earlier too. If you can get a physical coach, if you can get out in nature, if you can

get out there and, you know, play pickleball, which I'm doing a lot of right now, like whatever it is, like those things are never, ever not going to help, right? Being outdoors in nature, like listening to nature sounds for real, but like calm, you know, I use nature sounds on calm all the time. I'm not always in a space where I can access nature sounds for real, but like calm, I use nature sounds on calm all the time, I'm not always in a space where I can access nature sounds, like I can't always be in a rain forest or ever, and being able to have it digitally is helpful. And I think that's what we're saying here, where it's like, if you can do things physically,

of course, do them, don't stop doing them. It's important to talk to a real friend, it's important to talk to a real friend. It's important to talk to a real human, but for everyone who's struggling or those things are not immediately accessible, that's where I think why we've seen such a rise in the digital world, because we are looking for alternatives and we are looking for support. And I've definitely found that the collective approach of data and human has been really powerful for me personally.

Like, I've found in my own personal mental health journey, I still need to talk to my best friend three times a week, which I don't stop doing. But at the same time, I do need to measure the quality of my sleep, my glucose, my vitamin D levels, whatever it may be, because they're equally affecting how I feel on a daily basis. Yeah, no, that's well put. I think the key is awareness and understanding. And this is what developing mindfulness practice does. Attention is the most valuable resource in the 21st century, but our attention is dragged in so many different directions. It's so easy to go through life like a marionette on the strings of the puppet master not being consciously aware of what's

going on. But if you can catch yourself, if you can build a practice and no way your attention is going, you can put it where you want. So you can spend time in the digital world and on social media and watching Netflix and all these things that that do bring value to our life, but you catch yourself and don't over do them and suddenly find yourself three hours later after using TikTok. And so I think having that sense of control, knowing what's going on in your mind, knowing where you're consciously putting your attention and how you're feeling and striking that right balance is a superpower in our modern society. Yeah, and I think what we're trying to do here,

which I think is key is trying to create alternatives for viewers or listeners on the platform that we're on anyway. Yes. Like people who are often asked me, would you, you're making social media content? And I'm saying yes, because we're gonna be on social media anyway, so why not give people

another option to have something that hopefully is educational, entertaining, and insightful. That can benefit their life. And so same way as you're saying, I love the idea of looking at, you know, I mean, AI is already able to, but especially with the EQ version, you're saying they would pile like, AI is able to write movie scripts and TV show scripts and conversation scripts and it's going to be able to it is already able to but going to be able to do so many things in an entertaining way to find a way that people can almost go on a unique journey that was tailored made for them. Like I always get asked when I coach clients, everyone's like, so what's your

program? And I'm like, the program's unique for every client because you can't take everyone on the same program. The fact that you can have a tailor-made unique program for you and visuals and universes and experiences could be created is quite crazy and phenomenal to think about. Right now we're just used to suggested for you, but imagine suggested for you in the metaverse and suggested for you landscapes, places to visit, people to know, it's quite remarkable to think how how personalized it could get. Yeah, we think it's going to be very, very exciting, combining all these things together.

So, yeah, we're having a lot of fun at Com Studios. And I just want to jump back to what you said on social media media because social media gets a really bad rap in our society and there's a lot of people that are very stressed about it and it does cause a lot of anxiety and polarization in society but there's a lot of joy in social media as well. Again, when you take to it consciously, you know, I've met some wonderful friends through social media, incredible business opportunities have flowed from it. It can be really joyful and entertaining, but again, it's about using it for you instead of against you, being very aware of how you're using it, dipping in and out. If you're on social media mindlessly scrolling late at night before you go

to bed, that's not ideal. If you dip in and out every now and then that I think is a much more powerful way of doing it and you can apply this to most things in life, you know Stop pause take a deep breath and think is this helping me is this serving me and That fraction of a second can completely transform and change your life. I guess that's it though Michael Like you just hid the nail on the head there and that is the ultimate human skill of being conscious. It's almost like being selective about where you are, why you're there and how you want to interact

with this person, app, technology, space. But being conscious seems to be the ultimate lesson. Because like you just said, that doesn't just apply to social media, applies to everything. How do we help people develop that? Because that's, that's why I feel like I, you know, I often talk about it with people as well, this idea that envy has always existed. Social media is just amplified it. Ego has always existed. Social media has just put a magnifying glass on it. The desire for competition and status and all of these pursuits that we have. They've always been there. Like I remember at school it was what trainer you wore to school or sneaker you wore to school made you the cool kid. Now you just post your latest sneakers on Instagram.

It's the same thing. And so it's just amplified it and it's exposed you to far more people's trainers, right? Like the idea that back in the day, if there were 20 kids in the class, in this 20 kids in the playground, you know, I had high techs on because my parents didn't buy me nikes. And then so it was like, I had high techs. That person had added ass buy me Nike's and then so it was like I had high techs that person had added ass or adidas that person had Nike or Nike's and and that was the competition whereas now

you can see three million kids shoes and now you feel two million and 1997 on the list as opposed to 23rd and so The exposure is gone high the scale increased, but the problem is still remain the same, that we don't know who we are. We don't know where our self worth and our confidence comes from. And we're not conscious about our choices. Like that is the root, at least in my opinion. How have you thought about answering that question for people? Because that is the real problem. It's the fundamental question, isn't it?

It's what we're trying to achieve through calm. It's what you're doing with your work. Sam Harris talks about it as waking up. It is becoming more aware and more conscious. So developing a mindfulness practice helps. One of the things that I think has been very useful from doing it is this idea in life of responding instead of reacting to stimulus. Stuff happens constantly throughout the day. And if you instead of from the amygdala reacting, someone cuts you up in traffic and you honk your

horn and suddenly you're miserable and angry all day, if you pause for a fraction of a second and think more thoughtfully and respond, it changes everything. You can still get angry and honk your horn, but you're more aware you're doing it. I think this is really important in interpersonal relationships as well. So many triggers and little things that can cause arguments and stress with our partner, but I think pausing and thinking before responding is so, so valuable. So that's one step. But there isn't an easy answer. Human beings are complex things and even though we know what we should do, even though everyone loves the idea of being more mindful and meditating, one of the challenges

very few people sit down and do it and build it into a healthy habit every single day. And so this is why what we're doing at CARM is a lifelong journey, you know, decades of work ahead of us. I agree with you. And I think it's also just, I really would love for everyone to step back and look at their decisions and choices thus far in life and ask themselves why they chose those things and what was their value behind that choice and almost kind of go backwards as far as you can and figure out what made you do something and

most people will track it back to parents society or hopefully some of the things will be things that they really value. And it's almost like, how can you edit everything to be living your life based on what you really value so that there's as little noise and as little distraction from the outside world or force as you're saying, responding to something's happening as opposed to this is who I want to be. And this is how I want to live my life. And that's not an easy practice. And I'm not saying that that will solve everyone's problems. But I know that we've talked about climate in healthcare, which I fully agree with,

and I love that direction. I was really passionate about that happening. How hard has it been to talk about calm in schools or calm for kids, or where's that conversation because I know that's something we've talked about before and I think we'd both be passionate about it. How hard is that to make happen? Well, again, that's a long journey, but it's shifted a lot in the last decade.

I remember some of the early conversations we had where we wanted to bring calm into schools. We got quite a bit of push back, I think, again. People thought this was a bit weird and religious and teachers have been opening up to it and it is now in thousands of schools around the world start their day with silence or short meditations, which is so valuable. I use this quite a lot, but if you want to change the world as we do it, come, start with the youngest generation. And the Dalai Lama said,

if we could teach meditation to every seven-year-old in the world, we could eradicate violence in a generation. Pretty profound and not easy to do. So that is shifting. The problem is kids are not particularly excited about meditation. And mindfulness, they've got a lot of other exciting things going on. So you have to, as you were saying earlier, bring it to them and shape it in a way that resonates with them and often entertainment can do that. So we just did a wonderful partnership with Disney. And so Disney

princesses helping kids fall asleep and learn about meditation. We've worked with Peppa Pig and Moshe Monsters and a whole bunch of others. So that's been a very powerful step in the right direction. And sleep has been very valuable for kids. So rather than trying to get them to sit down and still for a minute, which is hard enough for adults, almost impossible for kids, when they're going to bed, sleep stories is a very mindful way, a very gentle way for them to learn about this practice. Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad that you're talking about it that way because I agree, you know, you know, anyone who's listening is going right now. They're going, I can't get my kid to sit still.

Good job. Yeah. And so I think, you know, I love the idea of the Disney collaborations. Fantastic. And I think more of that is so needed. There's innovative ideas of how meditation and mindfulness can be presented to kids because that's literally all it is. And I just, you know, this is a really great conversation to make that point that please understand that when you're

trying to make things more accessible, more entertaining, more practical for people, that's the only way it's going to work. Because if we keep forcing people to do things in what we assume is the purest way, it may never ever be like you're saying, like a kid, when are a kid. How many kids are actually going to sit down and just breathe? Meet people where they are, understand what's going on in their world, and then try and create and frame something that works for them. For anyone listening who is thinking about their big idea, what their purpose in life is going to be one thing that I found

very helpful, is take something that is already successful, whether it's today or in decades past, and then put a twist on it, a tweak. And if you look at some of the biggest successes of all time, that kind of is what's going on. It's a pattern that human beings have done again and again and again, but with a little tweak, so it's familiar, but it's got that newness and uniqueness. And if you can find that, that no one else has done before, as I say, lean into it,

do your research, be patient, and you can have a phenomenal success. I love it, Michael. Thank you so much for today. This has been so, this has gone in so many different directions than what we planned, but it's been so fun talking to you.

Oh, love it. And I'm so glad that we've, I'm hoping that anyone who's listening and watching, you've gained a bit more insight into how you can kind of tune into that voice that we've, I'm hoping that anyone who's listening and watching you've gained a bit more insight into how you can kind of tune into that voice that you've got within you to be creative, to be reflective, to be introspective and you've found that, you've found just a bit of clarity on the direction that you need to take internally towards creating something that can help the world and you can hear how it can be a business, it can be

an app, it can be a product, it can be a business, it can be an app, it can be a product, it can be a service, it can be anything you want it to be. But you've got to be just that timing piece. I want you to go back and listen to that because I thought that was so powerful of, if you're really aware of the problem and you're aware of the people you want to serve, then you'll find the potential solution.

But that requires stillness, it requires sitting with that community and that problem. I think just to jump in here, I think you said something so important, listening to that inner voice and what we're very good at human beings at doing is distracting ourselves, as we said earlier, there's so many distractions and we mask what we really need to hear with alcohol and drugs and Netflix and a ton of other things. How often are we really truly in solitude and alone and listening to ourselves?

And I would encourage anyone listening to do to try and carve out time to do that. If you can, as we said earlier, go away for a few days on your own fantastic. If you can't do that, a really valuable practice is first thing in the morning. Before you turn your phone on, sit with a blank sheet of paper. Do the artist's way and just scribble and think. It's amazing when you have that stillness, what starts to bubble up and the things you really need to hear only emerge in that silence.

That's beautiful. Michael, is there anything you want to add? Anything I haven't asked you? That's on your heart or mind or anything you want to share. Oh my goodness, we could talk for hours, Jay. But I think this was a pretty good conversation. I love this. So do I. I loved it too because we totally got lost in a real conversation. That's always the best ones. But everyone who doesn't already make sure that you follow Michael, Michael, where should people find you? If they wanna follow you and follow your work,

where would you like them to go? I'm acting on Twitter, I'm Michael acting on Instagram. I'm not as active on social media as I used to be, but I dip in and out every now and then. And yeah, just come and check out Carmen and join our community. Absolutely. Thank you, everyone, who's been listening and watching.

I hope that you're gonna share share on social media your takeaways, your insights, something that you're playing or practicing with as well. Share them with us, tag both me and Michael. Let us know because I'd love to see what ideas come from this. I'd love to know that this sparked some creativity for you or brought out some genius from within you. Or maybe just even made you take some time for yourself. And of course, you can go and listen to the Daily J on calm,

or the Daily Calm on calm, or any of the incredible programs that we have on the platform come and join us and find an easy, accessible, and fun and playful way of practicing mindfulness and meditation in your life every single day. Thanks everyone, and thank you so much, Michael. This was wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions

and how to embrace difficult feelings. You've just got to be motivated every day and if you're not, then what are you doing? And actually, humans don't work that way. Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion. Some days it will be there, some days it won't. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the Hit Podcast Family Secrets. What happens when the person you idolize turns out to be someone else entirely? And what if you were kidnapped by your own grandparents and left with an endless well of mysteries about yourself and those around you? These are just a few extraordinary puzzles will be exploring in our ninth season of Family Secrets. I hope you'll join me and my astonishing guests for this new season of Family Secrets. On the iHeart Radio app, religion, drugs, money? Where do you find it?

Craig Ferguson in search of joy, the celebrations, the dances, science, poetry, laughter, and music of joy. Don't miss it. Joy with Craig Ferguson. Here it now. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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