Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 102: Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor

Episode Date: October 4, 2017

Anderson Cooper, a 23-year news veteran, is the anchor of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" and a contributor to CBS News' "60 Minutes." His reporting for a "60 Minutes" piece on mindfulness led him to start his own meditation practice, and he talks at length in our interview about how it has brought him some peace and perspective after dealing with the deaths of his father and brother, being "incredibly introverted" and being a good journalist in the age of Twitter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad where the memes come from. And where's Tom from my space? Listen to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcast. I'm not sure this, this guest needs much of an introduction. Everybody, I think everybody knows who Anderson Cooper is, but just in case you don't. He owes two hours a night on, on CNN. He's written a bunch of books, including a memoir and also a book about his relationship with his mother, Glory Vanderbilt.

You may also have heard of, I'm more to talk about their relationship a lot in this interview because she's fascinating. And he does incredible stories on 60 minutes. Speaking of which, several years ago, he was assigned to do a story on 60 minutes about meditation. It was a great story. I was so excited to see that 60 minutes was covering meditation. Anderson ended up embracing the practice for himself and getting pretty into it. In fact, he's going to be co-hosting an event in New York City called Mindfulness in America, put on by the folks who do Wisdom 2.0, which is a, in fact, the guy organizes Wisdom 2.0, soren Gordhamer is a previous guest on this podcast. You can go back and check him out, but basically he basically does these events all in San Francisco,

New York and elsewhere elsewhere talking about the overlap between meditation traditions and technology slash business. So Anderson, that's a long way of saying, got pretty into meditation and he's a really, really fascinating guy. Somebody who I've admired for a long time, I, in fact, write about him a little bit in 10% happier because when I was hired to, as a 28 year old whipper snapper to come here to ABC News, I was hired to take his job. He was at that time the anchor of an overnight broadcast we do.

And then I arrived in New York to take his job and he decided he didn't want to leave. And that's what ultimately allowed me to go on to be a correspondent for Peter Jennings. So Anderson has played a role in my story. And his story is really fascinating in terms of him being in the front line of the news, but also quite wrenching his personal story. So here we go. Here's Anderson Goober. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris. Really cool to see you, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. So, to see you, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. So, how did you get... I was expecting it to be a little more zen in here. No, no, no, we're shimes or something.

Well, thank you for pointing out that I'm a huge hypocrite. How did you get into meditation? I did a, I had in some, in for 60 minutes, for minutes to do a piece on mindfulness and You know it's hard to do a story about people meditating because it's people meditating Yeah, so we ended up going to a treat that John Capazin was giving in in Northern California and I would decided that I would participate in the treat. It was like a three-day retreat

So this wasn't your idea to do the story? No, they had a producer six minutes that approached me, but it was interesting because I had started I had just started reading about mindfulness because I've always been interested in meditation and I just never I did it was like yoga. I'd like to try it, but I just don't really know how to start so with mindfulness It was the same thing. I didn't really know how to start and I remember buying a DVD once years ago, like a meditation DVD and never watching it. And yeah, so I was eager to do the piece. And I actually only lasted a day and a half at this retreat because all phones were, you know, they take away your phones. we didn't want to have the crews

upset the actual retreat. It was a real retreat for people. And it was a lot of people from Silicon Valley because John does a thing out there every year for some group. And my producer got a call that the guy who used to own the Clippers. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. That story. He had agreed to talk to me.

Yeah. So I had to leave this mindfulness thing to go to the house of somebody who was not very mindful. Right. The guy who said nasty things about Magic Johnson. Yes. Because it's real. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. But it was interesting to go from this, you know, very, really interesting retreat, which I was really getting into and then suddenly be thrust into this very completely different thing. So I decided to go back, then I just started

getting books by John Capitz-San. I'm gonna just start from one side. I'm gonna explain to people. I feel like I explained this on every podcast because his name is always being dropped, but he is a former MIT microbiologist who were molecular biologists, one of the two who basically invented

modern secular mindfulness. He doesn't like the word secular, but that's what it is. Yeah, and he was doing it, I think, initially for patients in the hospital who were suffering from chronic pain, he's been doing it for, I think at least since the 70s. And I really liked him when I was doing this

great thing and so I went back to for a retreat by myself for a few days. How many days? It was only three or four days, I think it was just three days and it's hard for me to take you know chunks of time off and then I'd signed up for a week-long retreat last June and I had to I had to pull out. So I can't even remember what story was happening. So have you kept up a daily practice? Yeah, I tried to. I mean, I wouldn't say I'm, you know, I would cop to not doing it every day.

I, to me, the biggest effect it's had is not so much, I mean, there's the sitting part of it, the practice of it, ideally every day, sometimes twice a day. But for the most part, that I get a lot out of, but what I get the most out of is the change it is made in my day-to-day life, in my hour-to-hour life. And I feel like the reason I was interested in mindfulness in the first place is like, I've been reporting for 20- something years, 23 years, I started in 92 and I don't know where the last 23 years have gone. I mean, I've had incredible experiences

but I often am not appreciating them until I'm looking back at them in retrospect. Like, oh, that was a really good trip and I'm always, as in the news business, always thinking about what is coming next and never being really present in the moment. And that really started to get to me. And this, something that John actually said at the first retreat, which was, I'm not quoting him right, but, you know, that everybody wants to live longer. But this is actually a way to feel like you have lived longer.

If it doesn't extend your life, which is very well made, you know, with health effects, you are present for more moments of your life, and thereby you are living longer. You are living richer and you are living, you're experiencing your life in a way that you might not otherwise. I think I fully agree with that. So for me, the meditative thing is I try to make a lot of activities' meditations. So if I, for instance, if I'm in a car driving from,

or riding in a car, I will not be on my phone. I will not be checking my emails. I will be, I'm riding in the car. So like instead of multitasking, I know mono task. I only do one thing at a time. So if I'm walking down the street, I'm walking down the street. I'm not walking down the street looking at my phone.

If I'm eating dinner, I'm eating dinner, and I am, that's what I'm doing, and I'm not eating dinner well. I used to, literally, in a hotel room, you know, after a day of shooting, I'd be in my hotel room, be watching, moving on television, I would eat in room service, and I'd be checking my blackberry, and then, you know, maybe talking on the phone, and it's just ridiculous. And so it doesn't lead to any happiness. It doesn't lead to the bombardment of information. It doesn't lead, at least for me, it's not leading to a betterment or an enrichment.

I fully agree. I'm going to say a bunch of stuff leading up to a question. I will have said this when I record the intro, which I do afterwards, that I'm just a huge fan of your work. I watch the sheer volume of stuff you do. The two-hour show, Nightland, CNN, all these amazing pieces you do for 60 minutes, you do stuff with Andy Cohen. Yes, some weekends.

You had this incredible documentary with your mom, which was called, what was it called again? Nothing left unsaid. Nothing left unsaid was, it was incredible, it's available on HBO and everybody should watch it because it's really moving. How do you do all of that without just being a chicken window head? How do you do all that and can you feel meditation making all that volume of work doable?

It makes it, it certainly helps. It doesn't make it doable, but it definitely helps because at least I, if I'm, you know, I wrote this book with my mom, so I would figure hours in that day that I was writing, that's what I was doing. I mean, obviously look sometimes, you know, work intercedes and you have to look at your phone, you have to read your messages and stuff.

But by trying to focus on what I'm actually doing when I'm doing it, I just find I'm able to actually do more and do more effectively. I do a better job at what I'm doing each time, but I also, I just, I enjoy it more, or I remember it more. I mean, it's like, you know, that effect that I can't remember the name of the guy, the Clippers guy, who I interviewed, you know, that's telling to me. I mean, yes, I've interviewed lots and lots of people, but, you know, I want to be present in any conversation

I'm having, in any interview I'm having, I think that's especially important to be present. And it's very easy to end that, you know, when you're doing tons of interviews, and you know, it's very easy to sometimes just, you know, sleep walk through whatever your activity is. Absolutely. Automatic pilot is always there for you.

Right. And that's why they call, one translation of the word mindfulness is remembering. It's like remembering to wake up and do what you're actually doing right now. Yeah. I mean, I think it's John, you know, who alluded to the, you know, when you're driving in a car and it's an experience everyone's had and you're going for one place to another and you're, you get to the place and you have no memory of how you actually got out like you don't really remember the

two-hour drive and I just feel like that's what I have spent a lot done a lot in the last 20 years. You've had I mean this in the in the documentary that I mentioned which was also a book I failed to point out you talk about some really heavy stuff that happened in your family, including the death of your older brother. Right. Yeah, he was two years older. Yeah, who had to he took his own life. Yeah, yeah, and died by his suicide. And you were were you there? No, my mom was there. I was actually on DC. It was in it was July 22, 1988. And he was two years older. He had graduated from Princeton, and he was

working in American Heritage History Magazine, and was doing writing for commentary. And yeah, he came to my mom's house, and in the last month or two he had had some issues, and he clearly was depressed, he had started to see a therapist, and we thought things were fine, and he'd sort of pretended that things were fine. And he came to my mom's house and took a nap and woke up in a disoriented state. And my mom, he ran upstairs, we had a duplex apartment, and he ran up through my room out of the balcony and while my mom tried to talk him off and then he He just turned around he didn't jump he actually my mom describes as like a gymnast. He sort of Flung himself around so that he was holding on to the balcony with his hands and and

You know, he was his legs were dangly. His whole body was over the balcony, and then he just like... Has having a practice, do you find that you confront some of this stuff when you're on the cushion? I don't think so. I mean, obviously ideas come in your head, and when you've experienced a loss,

particularly my dad, when I was 10 years old, all that stuff it never leaves you. I mean, people in TV use the horrible word closure, which is just, I think, should just be banned that word. It's just, for anyone who's experienced loss, particularly early loss, there is no such thing as closure. I mean, wounds heal, but the scars remain, whether or not people can see them.

But I don't fund, with the practice, you know, when if I'm sitting, I actually try to, when I find myself starting to think, I try to just return to my breath and, you know, and sort of just gently come back to the breath and not get sucked into those thoughts. Not because I'm trying to avoid it, but I mean, I spent, you know, I think about my brother, I think about his death every single day. It's like the violence of it is so antithetical to who he was. I mean, it's just so, to this day, it's so shocking to me.

It's still like a, their day is just like a punch in the gut. Still. Yeah, absolutely. Almost, what, not great at math, 30 years later? Yeah, in July 1988. So Yeah, this will be almost 30 years. It's incredible to me that it's been that long that he's that I've lived longer without him Then I lived with him in my life is it's so bizarre to me Same thing with my dad. I mean that my dad died in 1978 is crazy to myself

Sounds like both of his both of those deaths are still pretty fresh with you. I think they are absolutely. I mean, they radically changed, my dad's death radically changed who I was and became. I think the person I was before I was 10 was much more extroverted and outgoing and funny and I was probably going to to have more interesting person than the person after he died. I became much more introverted. I became very concerned about survival. I became very concerned about finances, like how I was going to make a living, who was going to support people in my family, everything. Like, who was there weren't, you know, my mom had didn't have a real experience of being a parent, and so my dad had been very much the parent.

So suddenly I was in a very different circumstance at home, and it was me and my brother and my mom, and my mom has talked about it now, she drank, and it was a huge issue when I was a kid and I became very self-reliant. I became very, I start working you know when I was 11 as a child model which is really cheesy. But I could build $75 an hour and I saved money and I was obsessed with- But why did you need money? I was obsessed with how people made a living and I was- You know-

I treat your mother's last. Yeah, my mom has her own. Yeah, I mean, my mom obviously came from a very wealthy family and it made a lot of money on her own, made more money than she had inherited. But she and my dad both made clear to me, my dad came for a very poor background. And they both, as a kid, made clear to me that,

I would be, you know, through college, would be paid for after and then after that I'd be on my own. There was no trust or anything like that, or, you know, no trust fund and all that, and I'm glad I grew up knowing that, and because it, I think most of the people who sort of inherit money in that way don't really, I think it sucks the initiative out of a lot of people. And you know people, yeah, and I think it sucks the initiative out of a lot of people. And you know people, yeah, and I think it confuses people more than anything. And so I like the clarity of knowing I need to take care of myself from a very, very young age.

So in many ways you've kind of been a journalist, like a role model for me, from a distance. I mean, when I a very concrete way. I took your entire take your job back in the year 2000. World news now. World news now, the overnight news broadcast that's still going on ABC. But also because you're really one of the first anchors to really speak publicly about your stuff. I remember for a while, they were calling you the emo anchor

because after Katrina, you gotten gotten emotional on the air Katrina, but it was also the word of books subsequently. What's called again? It's called dispatches from the edge dispatches But what you talked about your personal life and you're talking very candidly and frankly and movingly now is had you has that How have you gotten comfortable doing that and if you felt that in any way, it's been a risk? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't really a conscious thing to start doing it. I actually hadn't done.

I'm pretty the mode, I'm kind of the mode, I'm incredibly introverted, and I rarely share things about myself with even people I've known for a long period of time. But for me, the experience of being, period of time. But for me, the experience of being, you know, I started to realize when I was in my mid-twenties, I started to think back after my brother died. I mean, I started to really think, okay, whatever the strategy he and I have been using to get through to being adults, that strategy did not work for him. And so I need to come up with a strategy That is

Different than the strategy we were using and the strategy we were using was not talking about anything with each other or anybody else But what was going on and so I made a conscious choice to you know start talking to to a few people who I trusted and could rely on and I Started in my 20s starting to look back at the path I had taken thus far in realizing that there was a certain continuity to it, that there was a reason after college, you know, I took a year off, didn't really know what to do. And then I got a job, I tried to get a job at ABC,

tried to get a job at CBS as a desk assistant couldn't get it. And a kid I went to high school with, named Colonial was a fact checker, this thing called Channel One, which was a news program seen about half the schools in America. He was leaving that job, I think, to become a producer. I got the job.

And after six months of that, I realized I want to be in the field, I want to go to combat zones, I want to go where real things are happening. And that's what I did. A colleague at Channel One made a fake press pass for me. I borrowed a camera and I snuck into Burma, hooked up with some students finding the Burmese government, shot a story, which was going to be non-for-while, then ended up in Somalian the early days of the famine there, and like August of the thing was 92.

And I realized this is what I want to do. So I became like there are some channel ones foreign correspondent. But I realized a lot of that was about not being sure I could survive and wanting to be around other people who were life and death was very much an issue. Where people weren't just having like happy talk at a dinner party about facial moisturizers. They were dealing every second with life and death, and that the molecules of the air were charged with, were charged, and that conversations were real, and people shook your hand hard, and they looked you in the eye, and, you know,

when you're in a combat zone, or even just any place where there's been a disaster or all the stripped away, everything is gutted, it's raw, it's real. And I like that. I needed that, I wanted that, and that's why I became a reporter because I just was I just wanted to go to those places and I would come back home and for you know a week or two and then all I wanted to do was go back out somewhere far away kind of it wasn't a big wasn't like the biggest story of the day I wanted to go to someplace obscure where people was voices weren't being heard and it was as much about sort of trying to survive myself as anything else. Same over about that. You're interested in survival and you weren't sure if you could survive. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, I think

at any time you have a memory for family who has died by suicide. You raises questions about your own stability and your own grasp on, I mean, in many ways I was like my brother and he was smarter than I and more well-read. And clearly, it made me very scared. And I think you look at statistics of people who have a loved one who committed suicide, or there's a higher chance They will also died by suicide and so Yeah, so I you know, I became very conscious of that and you know much more thoughtful and And also just compelled to I Don't know I think what I was grieving and compelled to be around others who were who were grieving from one thing or another and I and I was grieving and compelled to be around others who were grieving from one thing or another.

And I felt, I didn't say, I mean, I certainly didn't enjoy being in Somalia or seeing people suffering like this, but I felt the ability to communicate and talk to people in the midst of their grief and found it powerful and and you know at its best it helps them whether it's getting it supplies in or getting world attention but often people even in the midst of grief people want you to know about the loved one who who has passed or who got murdered or who got killed in a disaster they want you to know to know that this person is more than how their life ended. It's interesting to me here, you say that before we were talking about your meditation practice, and you said the real benefit for you is that you feel like you're living your life more fully as opposed to being on autopilot, but that it hasn't had much bearing on this grief with which

you still live today. So there are other modalities that you used to deal with that. I don't know. I don't know that I deal with it. It is very close to the surface still and I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I'm able to function and... High function. Well, yeah, I guess.

At least on television. At least on television. Right. It's the rest of the day that's the problem. There's other 22 hours of the day. I'm recovering. But you know, it's funny. Actually, you mentioned the show I do with Andy Cohen.

And we've been doing it for like two years. And it's an occasional show. We'll book a theater. Like, I don't know, we have like Wallingford, Connecticut coming up and Tampa and Dallas and Houston. So we'll book like a 3,000 seed theater and we'll just keep it on stage. It's really funny and people really like it and it does really well. And it's incredibly enjoyable for me.

You're in front of this audience of 3,000 people and you get an immediate reaction. It's just a fun night out for people. But it is exhausting for me. For Andy, it's like oxygen. I mean, it's like how he spends every hour of his day because he's the most extroverted person I've ever met. He's the, you know, he walks into a room and he's the everybody, you know, he makes the party and when he leaves, everyone's like, all right, I guess the party's over. Me, I like, after being on stage for two hours and then shaking hands with like 200 people after we're and taking photographs, I literally need to be quiet in a room for quite some time.

Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time, you're on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short, with Justin Long.

If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions, like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers.

We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondering app. So what, talk about this difference, because I don't think people who watch you on television would understand or even listen to this interview would understand that you're actually seriously

introverted. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. So I don't think that's that uncommon in the world of TV. I mean, I have met a lot of people you know look That that you know first of all when you're in a television studio, which you know unfortunately I always spend a bulk of my time anchoring from the studio You're looking to a it's a dark room. It's cold There's kind of a couple people milling around behind cameras But you don't really see them and that camera is a little tiny piece of glass and it's a very thin piece of glass and it transmits truth camera is a little tiny piece of glass and it's a very thin piece of glass and it transmits truth. The audience can see through their television, through that camera lens, whether you're real or not, whether you're being authentic or not, whether you're foolish or not. And I love that, but it's me, it's very intimate and it's very much like here, like sitting just talking to you. It has what it has, it has no reality that, you know,

however many people are watching and, you know, they're gonna tweet about what I say. It has no reality for me. But when you're on a stage in front of thousands of people, that suddenly, you know, it's a different kind of reality. I'm not sure if that would answer your question, but yeah, so I'm, yeah. So to me being introverted

it's not at odds with looking to a camera. It was the same thing in the field when you're in the middle of a place, you know, it's so real. I mean, say you're in, I mean, I'll use the example of Somalia in 92, the first time I was there. I'm in this town called Baidoa and I mean, just it's unbelievable what's happening or Haiti after the earthquake. It's unfathomable what you are seeing around you. And to turn and just talk to a camera, it just feels like the most natural thing to me.

And it doesn't feel as enough that being introverted, there's an intimacy to it. David Bourman, who created World News news now, as a great TV producer, I think one of the things he once said was, you know, you're not looking at the camera lens, you're looking through the camera, you're looking to the back of the camera. And I totally understand what he means by that. And I think that it's a connection without their needing to shake hands with 50 people. It's a very intimate connection and that appeals to me.

So do you think you would be different in terms of your comportment and chattiness if I was sitting across from you at a dinner party as opposed to sitting across from you now with all these mics and doing an interview? I would not go to a dinner party. I'm not. No. I mean, I have to at some point. I mean, yeah, sometimes I have to, but like I drive home at night after work and I see

all these people sitting in like outdoor cafes and during the summer and the thought of doing that is such a drain on me. I actually did go out with Andy to dinner with three friends recently and we had to sit in an outdoor cafe because for some reason he thinks sitting in an outside cafe in New York is nice at night. I think it's awful. I don't get why people do it. I mean, it's people honking and, you know, anyway.

But that's not the problem for you. The problem is the social. It's the social thing, yeah. Because what I don't know what to talk about. Like, yeah, I can do it. I mean, I can put my face on. You know, the weird thing about being on TV is walking down the street.

People say hi to me all day long. And I say hi back. And I'm engaged and I enjoy talking to people, but it is not, it does not come naturally to me. You know, I think that you get the sense with like President Clinton that he loves, you know, shaking hands. He'll spend hours with people he doesn't know. For me, it's, it's work. And so when, if I don't have to do it, like, if I don't have to go to a dinner party, I will be at home, I'll watch the binge watching, you know, Narcos or whatever it is, season three, and, you know, just existing.

I just started watching it, didn't I, good? Narcos? I've seen season one and two, but it's very good. Yeah, three is good. It's not as good as the first two because, you know, Eskibar and the actor that was such a belly character, but it's definitely worth a while. Ozark is good too. I saw that in my wife and I married, so like, it's not good. So let me ask him about your mom because she's, I mean, I've never met her, but she's an amazing character in this documentary. Could you ever mention her meditating? Yeah, I could.

Yeah, actually, I mean, I think she does in her own way. I know it's not a painting, any kind of formal thing. But she spends, and I've always known this about her, she lives in her head. I mean, she is, she for the, her entire life has been replaying the events of her childhood. And in her artwork, in her painting, she has been repainting and restaging moments from her, from her past, mostly from her childhood, in order to try to make sense of them.

She had, as screwed up a childhood as you could have, I mean, she at, you know, for a very wealthy family, they were the most screwed up. You can imagine, and she was, you know, her dad died of when, they were the most screwed up. You can imagine. And she was, you know, her dad died of when she was an infant. Her mother took her overseas and never saw her. She was raised by a governess. At the age of 10, she was brought back and she had the high of the depression. There was a mammoth court case, a custody battle between her aunt and her mother to have

her removed from the care of her mother, even though her mother never even saw her, so she wasn't really caring for her. It was called the trial of the century at the time. And, you know, I mean, she's had one, you know, she had an epic love affairs and huge losses and deaths and, you know, she lived through the death of my brother in front of her, which, you know, is a hard thing for anybody

to live through and be able to move forward with. And so she's very much in her head. But she's extraordinary. So I could see her. In a way, she meditates, but not in a formal sit-down sort of sense. I think she is constantly... I don't know how present she is always

in conversations and things, but she's certainly you can see the the dialogue going on in her head. She also seems open to new ideas. Oh completely. Yeah. I mean she's the most you've full person I've ever met. She's 93 now and I feel older than her. I mean, she is friends who are way younger and like- She would go nowhere now to her cafe, I think. Yeah, she'd be fine with it. Yeah, she would go anywhere really. I mean, she's up for pretty much anything. And she is friends like from all walks of life

who are really fascinating people. And, and you know, she's just a really compelling, she just joined Instagram, because in 93, you started to get isolated. A lot of her older friends have died. She's got a bunch of younger friends, but I think she was feeling isolated. So I thought, you know what,

I'll get her on Instagram. And she took a long time to explain it to her and sort of show her, but once she got into it, she's now obsessed. So she actually has an Instagram account at Gloria Vanderbilt. She also has an Instagram account for her studio, which she posts like two paintings a week that she sells.

And she just loves seeing, you know, the fact that, you know, I got her to join and within two weeks or three weeks, she had 130,000 followers. She cannot believe that that many people would be at all interested in anything she does. And the fact that she puts a workup for sale on this, you know, Gloriventable Studio account, and it sells right away, she cannot believe it. Like, it's just like magic to her. That's great. Yeah. A couple more questions then I'll let you go. Wisdom 2.0, that's the, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on, because you're going

to be, I guess, co-hosting? What's it with? I guess. I mean, I just agreed to do whatever they wanted me to do. And because the guys behind it were involved in the retreats that I've gone to. And so they approached me about it. And I was like, yeah, sure. I mean, I'm not making any money off or anything. I'm just there. I'm going to do an interview

with John Capazin, I think an interview with the, I think I'm interviewing the guy who created a headspace, the app, another sort of tech guy who has some thoughts. I'm also really interested in how technology is destroying us., destroying us and I just did a piece on 60 minutes about how, you know, some people in the tech world are concerned about how technology is manipulating us and manipulating, you know, our brains basically. So, to point out, I should say a little bit

about this kind of this annual, you went to, I've never been to one. I thought you went to the one, or your cruise went to the one in San Francisco right there was for the 60 minutes Right, it was part of the 60 minutes piece I do I couldn't make it that day. I remember watching that piece. I was in the hospital My son had been born and it was on TV and I was so excited Meditation was on on 60 minutes

So wisdom to point out is this kind of annual actually soren gourd hammer, who is the founder of it, has been on this podcast before. It's this annual meditation slash technology confab. The big one is in Texas go in, I think February or March, but they do a New York version now and it's coming up soon. Yeah, I think October 8th, I think. Yeah. So it's over the course of two days, I think downtown and I think. Yeah. And yeah, so it's over the course of two days that I think, downtown, I think, around NYU.

And, you know, I mean, the store one is really organized and there's a lot of you're. I've been doing something. Yeah, you're doing something. I don't know. Right. And it's, you know, I think it's just for anybody who's interested in mindfulness, interested in meditation,

or whether they have experience with it or not. And it's just some really fascinating people. I mean, John Cabin's in to hear him talk I you know, I just I learned so much his book We go there. You are which is you know hugely popular. I don't love the title, but But the book itself I've like I reread it all the time it's one of those books Yeah, and it just it's such an easy introduction to meditation You know, I've got his app on the, you know, his meditation app. I listen to, so I'm very

happy to be interviewing him. I would be remiss if I didn't ask about this. How much more stressful is your job in the age of Trump? And does meditation help with that at all? It does. It's, yes, because again, I I mean this last two years have felt like just a whirlwind. And it's a whirlwind where, you know, the things that got me interested in news were frankly being overseas and being out in the field. And then as you want to get older and, you know, you anchor more. and certainly now, the politics takes up the bulk of the two-hour newscasts I do every single night. And it's fascinating.

I'm glad people are engaged, and I think it's fascinating and compelling and a difficult time for this country. And there's a lot of things that all of us as a society are wrestling with. And it's, you know, to have a front row seated, that is an extraordinary thing. The amount of heat you guys take, especially as men, we all take heat in the media. Right. I think actually some of that is healthy and gives us on our toes. Sure.

When CNN is really taking them. Yeah, I mean, to, you know, have the president leading chance with, you know, entire stadiums full of people and, you know, it seems, I mean, I get his strategy on it. I mean, I don't think he actually believes that. I think it's part of his strategy and I get it. And I don't worry too much about it. I think all of us, it's seen Andrew, which keep our heads down and keep doing our job.

And to me, the answer to that is journalism. Just, and then there's more criticism, and the answer to that is journalism. And then there's more criticism and the answer to that is just more journalism and just doing the best you can, being as honest and as fair as possible and moving forward and just keep at it. And I've never had more people come up to me and it's not just me, I'm sure it happens to you, but I know to everybody that's seen in if somebody on the street recognized them and say, like, you know, keep at it. Just thank you for what you're doing.

You know, just keep moving, keep doing it. And it's not like they're saying that to me or anything, but I think it's just the, I think there's a increasing understanding of the role of journalism. And I think we saw that on the way to Katrina. And I think it's, I think there is an increasing appreciation for the importance of reporting and accurate you know having places where there is accurate information coming from. I like to at the end of a podcast give people a chance to promote anything I know no you you're promoting anything specifically if people want to learn more about you work and

they do that I'm on TV 12 hours a night so there's you do have anything specifically if people want to learn more about you work and they do that I don't know I'm gonna wonder I'm on TV Two hours a night so there's you do have a Twitter. I'm gonna wonder I'm trying to stay away from Twitter Oh, you are I mean, I yeah, I have like eight million people following me on Twitter And I feel bad because I'm really not that engaged with it I've consciously step back from it because you were getting snippy with folks or I just find it It doesn't lead to certainly if you're interested in mindfulness It's it's another stream coming at you. Yeah, that you get so wrapped up in I mean if you start to like I you know I obviously I look at Twitter for the people I follow because I get a lot of news and information there and it's great to get different viewpoints

But if you're reading the comments You know for every If you get 40 comments that are great, and you get one person who says you are the antichrist or communist or whatever it is, or a lot of worse stuff is thrown, you start to, you harp on that one thing, and you sort of get caught up in this feeling like, oh, I have to, it's like, you know,

John Kepp is in, one of the things images he talks about is when you're meditating, you know, that there's a waterfall and there's this stream of ideas and in this case it's information acts sort of, you know, you view this Twitter stream and that with room meditation you're kind of stepping through through the waterfall into like a cave behind it and turning around and you're looking back at through it and you're looking at the stream and sort of you're observing it come and you're letting it go Like I don't need to add another stream. I already got enough going on I don't need another like a second waterfall behind the first one. So I'm much happier. I mean, talking about being 10% happier, I'm like 40% happier. Just from kind of back on Twitter alone.

Just from coming back on Twitter. Coming back on on all social media. I mean, I really, I've come back on Facebook hugely. I'm gonna have a public Facebook page, which I do post to, but I don't use Facebook with my friends. I don't need more social media. If anything, it's about whittling things away, I think. And once you start to realize the manipulation

behind these things, I mean, there's a reason, that everything scrolls, like Instagram scrolls, email scrolls, because they know that if you, if it was only like 10 Instagram pictures for a page, you had to click to go to the next page of 10. You were much more likely to be like, I don't want to click again. But if you're scrolling, you're just like a zombie and you can lose an hour of your life, just scrolling.

The scroll never stops. And also, there's nothing worse than like first thing in the morning. You reach for your phone and they have consciously, you know, figure out what things are going to pop up. I mean, you can control it, but what's going to pop up in your screen first and what, and you know, the sketch, Tristan Harris is the one appointing this out to me. That sort of sets the tone for your whole day. And if you can avoid that first thing in the morning and actually have the first thing you do be, you know, some meditation or just go to the shower and sort of meditate in the

shower while you're showering, that's a much better start to your day than allowing some company, which is trying to sell you some product to define your day by what information they're going to get. So that's your move. When you wake up in the morning, you're not checking your email of the news ticker or whatever. I in, in, when I'm on weekends, I absolutely don't. I mean, there are some days where like, I know I got to look at my schedule or I do not look at Twitter. I'll look at some websites, news aggregates sites, just

to kind of get a sense. But for the most part, I'm off the earth 10, I'm conscious until 12 or so or one. So if anything's happened, I probably already know about it by the time it wakes up, so I don't really have to check in that early in the morning. Anything I should have asked you, but then? Not really. I mean, I'm not here to promote anything here or so.

But, you know, I just, I mean, I loved your book and I think I love what you're doing. So, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. pleasure. okay that does it for another edition of the 10% happier podcast if you liked it please take a minute to subscribe, rate us also if you want to suggest topics you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in hit me up on Twitter

at Dan B Harris importantly I want to thank the people who produced this podcast Lauren Efron Josh Cohan and the rest of the folks here at ABC who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

at Wondery.com slash Survey.