Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 293: A Star, Utterly Unguarded | Brett Eldredge

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

We’ve backed away from celebrity interviews on the show of late, because we got a lot of feedback from listeners saying they had trouble relating to some of our more famous interviewees. I am confident that is not going to be the case with today’s guest. Brett Eldredge may be a big country star -- with six #1 hits -- but he is no dilettante when it comes to tackling mental health challenges. You are about to listen to someone who is truly digging in and doing the work. By way of background, I have never personally been a country fan, but I first met Brett when he came on this show a few years ago to talk about his on-stage panic attacks and general anxiety, and after that we struck up a friendship. I have been so impressed by the rigor with which he has committed to his mental wellbeing. In this interview he really goes there -- speaking in utterly unguarded ways about how ambition and perfectionism have fueled his anxiety (as well as some of his romantic challenges); describing a special kind of therapy designed to address his panic attacks. Best of all, he told me enthusiastically that meditation and loosening up in general has greatly impacted his creativity, as evidenced by his new album Sunday Drive. Enjoy. Where to find Brett Eldredge online:  Website: https://www.bretteldredge.com/  Social Media: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/bretteldredge  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bretteldredge  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bretteldredge/  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BrettEldredge  Other Resources Mentioned: • Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport: https://bookshop.org/books/digital-minimalism-choosing-a-focused-life-in-a-noisy-world/9780525536512  • Ten Percent Happier episode with Cal Newport on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-minimalism-cal-newport/id1087147821?i=1000468718411   • Ten Percent Happier episode with Cal Newport on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tfnjUGrszzqwR713hBGU2?si=OWWuDnizRrOmKvJPwQ2Xjg  • Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties by Ajahn Brahm: https://bookshop.org/books/who-ordered-this-truckload-of-dung-inspiring-stories-for-welcoming-life-s-difficulties/9780861712786  Additional Resources: • Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live • Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide • Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/brett-eldredge-293 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. We've backed away from celebrity interviews on this show of late because we got a lot of feedback from listeners saying they were having trouble relating to some of our more famous interviewees.

I am confident that this is not gonna be the case with today's guest. Brett Eldridge may be a big country star, six number one hits, but he is no dilatant when it comes to tackling mental health challenges. You're about to listen to somebody who is truly digging in and doing the work. By way of background, I had never personally been

a big country fan, but I met Brett when he came on the show a few years ago to talk about his onstage panic attacks and general anxiety. And after that, we struck up a friendship. And I also really started to like his music. I've been so impressed by the rigor with which he has attacked his mental well-being. And in this interview, he really goes there, speaking in utterly unguarded ways about how ambition and perfectionism have fueled his anxiety, as well as some of his romantic challenges, describing a special kind of therapy designed to address his panic attacks, and holding forth on the impact that meditation and just loosening up in general,

have had on his creativity as evidenced by his new album, which is called Sunday Drive. Before we get to Brett Quick Reminder, our free election sanity meditation challenge starts inside the 10% happier app next week on Tuesday, October 27th. Download the 10% happier app today and join us for the challenge. We're really excited about this thing. We really put a lot of work into it

and by we, I mean, pretty much everybody else, but me and we designed this specifically to help you face the commotion of the current election without getting burned out. So download the app today. We'll see you in the challenge. Okay. Now, here we go with my friend Brett Eldridge. Very nice to see you again. Thanks for making time. Good to see you, man. Big country star on the show. I love it. I told you this. I was texting with you a couple of weeks ago, and I told you that our nanny,

my son, who you know, his nanny, Eleanor, who you've met, I walk into the kitchen in our house all the time and who's coming out of Alexa, bread eldrige. Yes. Well, you know, I really appreciate it. I got to meet her and was just really impressed. And she's just such a sweetheart. So I appreciate her still holding strong as a fan, too. That's a nice. She's number one. She's gonna be so mad at me when I go downstairs after this for dinner and tell her that I talked to you without including her. I will. I will.

Eleanor and my son and wife and I went to see Brett's Christmas show last year pre-COVID and it was awesome. And we got to say hello. So the last time you were on the show, you were really candid about some of the panic and anxiety issues that you've struggled with as you know, I've struggled with them too. And you and I have spoken about them both publicly and privately.

So I'm just curious to checking with you now, what's new on that front, how are things going? Yeah, it's trying to think of how long were that was, we did our first podcast together, maybe a couple of years ago. Yeah, yes. So yeah, my did our first podcast together, maybe a couple of years ago. Yeah. Yes. So, yeah, my lot has happened since then.

I was at that point, starting to become aware of the things that were causing me to be some of the ways of, you know, with my anxieties. Because I mean, I was, I had to figure it out, but I was starting to at least get some good awareness of what would put me in these situations in the patterns. You know, and I, because, and our last, I've kind of talked about how I dealt with anxieties and kind of just worst case scenario of mine kind of guy through the years. And I really have a lot of it came from the pressures of having to deliver every single time and be perfect. Like I was chasing perfection, you know?

And that started to eat me alive. I would wake up in the mornings, I was sleeping maybe an hour or two a night, not because I wasn't getting to bed at a good time, I just wasn't, I was just tossing and turning and I was riding on a bus down the highway at times and that was tough. So I'll have to gather and then I would sit

in the back of the bus and I would sit in the closet on the back of the bus, like this little closet, like almost just kind of waiting for the day, waiting for the moment where I was going to take the stage and it was just real time. Then I got the point where I would almost pass out before I walk on stage and then I'll be putting so much pressure on myself and my voice. And by the way, nobody knew this, which was crazy. No one even knew, hardly anybody knew.

And then I would get ready to go and stay at a jazz star, seeing stars, lose my breath, I couldn't find my breath, just a bad place. And then I got tired of that. And kind of decided to start my journey to try to figure out how to deal with that. And since then, since two years ago, I, uh, and I was already on that path since two years when we were talking, I started to really get in a, in a better place. But then I decided to take the pressures so far back,

to, I wanted to make a really special record. I want to change several things in my professional life. So I changed a lot of things and I, I got off social media, I got a flip phone. Um, you meaning no more smartphone. It's just a flip phone. social media, I got a flip phone. You mean no more smartphone, it's just a flip phone. Yeah, it was just a flip phone. I had an iPad for like email and stuff a little bit, but it's not like I was walking down the street with my iPad, like trying to figure out.

So I hardly would ever use that because I just found it easier to use the phone. So I, yeah, I was off the grid in a major way and I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go off the grid for however long it. And I said, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go off the grid for however long it takes me to figure out kind of the heart and soul of who I am. I was telling you earlier, like a 2009 as time I record deal and I've never stopped since then. I've had an incredible career up to this point,

but I felt like, man, I've left out a lot of myself through this whole journey. I have left out, I've not allowed myself to feel a lot of things. I've not dealt with a lot of things that I could have because I was just going. I was just, you know, okay, here's the next stage or I just got a number one song. What's the next one? I could figure out a way to just focus on that and not focus on the other stuff. And that started to give me a life.

So I stepped away and said, what do I really want? And this would allow me to do it to get off the grid. And it was really surprising. And I actually heard one of your podcasts and Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism, which was something I was getting up on some of the literature about, you know, really, how to, because I was on social media all the time.

Like they were calling me the Snapchat King and like, I was like the guy, you know, for country music and everything. I was the guy that was, I would wake up and do bedhead jams. When my hair was all messed up and I'd sing to my phone every morning, then I had all this pressure from doing that and then I was checking all the time, make sure everybody was liking it. And then if somebody was really mad if I didn't do it one day,

then it would eat me alive that I wasn't doing that. And I started to realize I got to just step away from social media for a while. That's not what I want. I had my dog on my social media all the time And then I became a thing where my dog was on there all the time if you will get mad if I didn't bring him on stage And it was just this endless cycle of things where I was like I'm putting all these pressure on myself. I Don't want a dog that's a influencer on Instagram. I don't want to be my dog You know dogs that's supposed to be famous, you know

I mean it was a great ride with that, but it was like, I wanted to have a dog to be able to come home and just, that's the dog that loves me unconditionally. And that's for me, that moment's for me. And so I just took all those things out of the picture and took all those pressures. And I started feeling a lot of things. I was going to therapy during this.

I'm just really working on myself in that process of turning down the volume, turning down the kind of going for a long walk in the woods, you know. I found, not only was I starting to feel things and starting to feel kind of connected with myself all more, I was starting to get all these melodies and these lyrics and these emotions pouring out in that way.

It was like my true self of the music that I wanna create was really starting to show up. And not to just, you know, have this music be something that I had to run it by a bunch of people to say, is this cool? Because the moment you start getting a bunch of opinions on it, then you might get yourself away from what you're going after.

And so I was just me and my manager going through music. I was working on myself and I would just keep sending them songs. I recorded on my phone and I was just getting this family different sound. I truly feel what is fully coming out of my heart and the person that I am because I was really digging deep on those emotions and letting them show up. And so I think that was kind of where I've been since then. And now, you know, I'm in a much better place. I've, you know, been, of course, a pandemic came along

and all sorts of other things in our world to wear. It's brought up tough times through all of that. But I feel like I've had the tools a lot better and awareness to at least feel to take a better step forward and kind of deal things a little better. I have my bad day still, but I'm in a much better place. And I'm optimistic that we'll get to play music again. And I put out an album in the middle of a

pandemic, which was really something I never thought I would do. But you know, all these things, aside, you know, I'm grateful to be here and to be able to still do it. And hopefully to get some music out there that gives people hope and lets them put some things in life into perspective and that's what I want to do with my music. So that's where I'm at. I have a million questions about the music and the new record and the different approach you took to it, the new records Sunday Drive. But let me just stay on the, if you don't mind, and you can bat this away if you do mind.

But on the panic slash anxiety tip, you said you have some bad days still. What does that look like? And how do you deal with it now as opposed to like the sitting in the closet method you were using years ago? There's a couple of things that I deal with. Like I have a learned fear that I found and I've told you about before, probably,

but I'm not afraid to talk about it at all. Long story short, I was in an interview in Scotland before I've kind of really taken this whole journey. It was a year and a half ago or two. I was in an interview up on stage. I think there was an artist before me interviewing. I was jet lagged as much as I possibly could have been. I was drinking a lot of coffee.

I was wearing a really heavy jacket because I just got an Amsterdam and I thought it was cool. So I was wearing that. And but it would look cool and I thought it wasn't that hot so I'd go in there. So anyways, I was going to go into this interview in front of a bunch of people and I'm pretty good at interviewing and like I always felt pretty comfortable

in that. I'm kind of a shy guy but I feel pretty good um and interviews like I can turn that part of myself on and turn it off when I got off stage and be kind of an introverted person but I can kind of get let up and go in front of people and kind of entertain and I enjoy it. Well I got up on stage um in the middle of interview there's a small crowd in front of me and I the guys asking me a question in all of a sudden I just get a massive panic attack on stage in front of all these people meaning maybe 100 people. For me it was something I've had panic attacks which usually like in the middle of the night or in different situations but never in front of people like that.

I was having that jacket so of course I of people like that. And so I was having that jacket, so of course, I'm sweating like crazy. My heart's racing like crazy. I get nauseous, I think I'm gonna throw up in front of all these people. And then the guy asked me a question, like when you wrote, wanna be that song, how long was it between the moment you got the idea

and when you actually wrote it and I had a whole story about it? And he asked me that and I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna throw up, I'm gonna throw up. Which was like a blatant massive nightmare in my head. I thought I was gonna throw up in all these people. I somehow like kind of just answer something

and no one realizes, no one knows, I had probably the worst moment of my life or one of them in front of all these people. I stumbled through it and I walk off stage and then I, you know, I'm out of it, but then I kind of have it living on, you know, and the next couple shows I have for that and it kind of goes into my shows and so fast forward, all this stuff goes on. I've had to learn now because when I get even in interviews like you and me right now, I'm fine right now, but I'll still feel it a little bit. I've had some very popular TV shows where I had a couple of these because my brain learned

that I'm supposed to be afraid of that. Like, you know, and all of a sudden the anchors, you scary anchors start walking towards me, even though I knew these people very well and their friends, all of a sudden the pressure was on me all of a sudden, and then it would, my mind remembered that. And so for me, that's, you know, the one thing that I'm working on now, is because I still get it even like if it's an interview

that maybe no one's ever gonna hear or something, when all of a sudden the pressure was on me all of a sudden, I would, that learn fear would come up. And so I've had to really have exposure. I've started to have try to learn things where I had to show up and do interviews and like set up lights and have somebody ask me questions and all that stuff. You mean like fake interviews like exposure therapy? Yes. That's like cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, yeah. So that's the main thing I've had to struggle with from then and I'm

not afraid to say that even if I still have it, I don't care if people know that I had one on TV, it's such a frightening thing to you in your mind, but you also, I had to, my therapist told me to watch it, because he's like, I watch it, I wouldn't never even know. It's like, but in your mind, it was like you feel all this shame and guilt that you had that scary thing happened to you,

and then you watching, like, oh, that wasn't that big of a deal at all. And even it was, it'd be a good story. I mean, you know, it's like, it was the worst thing. So, you know, I've dealt with that. And so that's one of the main things I work on now and I've gotten better with it. I'm not perfect out of yet, but I know I'll get to the point where it's, you know, back to where I was.

It's just taking a work with that. And then, you know, on my bad days during all this, I've found I'll get some pretty down-loles during this time, which I think a lot of us can relate to that, anxious moments, moments for I search for connection a lot, you know, through devices, through, you know, other things, which I try to put my phone on a time limit, but I still have it, where I'm like, I wish I still had that flip phone. And so I find myself searching for a connection because there's such a feeling of loneliness with what's going on this world at times

where you feel at loss and helpless at times. And so I've felt some of those heavy down moments. And what's helped me really is forcing myself out of the comfort zone of seeing what's on my own. And I have to get active. I have to get out. I have to, usually, if I get on the phone with a friend, or if I go on a hike or something like that, that's helped me. But yeah, those are the kind of things on my heavy down days. I have to, as I've heard before, get out of my head and into my life and kind of, you know, get out there and not stewing it and not vascular, let it be what it is.

But not let it overrun me. And it's easier said than done sometimes. I'd just sit in it all day and I feel like I'm not going to get out of it. But I have learned the thing where I know I am going to get out of it. That's one of the biggest things that's probably taking me a lot of years is that it's going to pass.

And I used to just be something that I heard people say in podcasts and different meditations or whatever. I went over and started and the reason why I got into it. But now, being on the side of it and had enough of those times where I told myself, I'm never going to get out of this. It always ends up getting to a place where I have some moments of freedom to where I know. And so that's where I'll try to put my focus on is just

allow me to be what that is, sometimes better at it than others and ride through it and be an active and connecting with others. And a different time where it's harder to connect with others in the same way as you're normally used to being able to. That's helped me. So interesting over the course of doing this show for years, sitting with all of these experts on happiness and meditation teachers and just over and over and over again, what

you hear shining through the data and the research on happiness is perhaps the most important variable is the quality of your relationships. And you're just obviously when you are in one of what you called the lulls, it sounds like your instinct is to, well, sometimes your instinct is to reach out to somebody else, take a hike, get on the phone, and that that is useful. Mm-hmm, it is. My instinct that I've been taught, I'm gonna just do my own thing and like I'll just go out and just do a BMI on

I'm about I know because I've been used to for so long That's just what I've been used to doing. I got I go to a hotel I do that then I'm in front of people and then I just go and I recluse and then I I go back out and and now So now I'm really good at that to the point where yeah, I'm very introverted, but also I get too introverted where I just stay inward and I stay in my comfort zone and then even I'm going on a hike and just going by myself where I could just, you know, get a friend and go walk out on a hike

and do that or whatever. And so I have to force myself to be like, I know that's gonna be better for me. It doesn't mean that the times where myself aren't good because that does help me just being on my own, but I gotta remind myself that this isn't always good to just go out of my own all the time. The other thing you mentioned was this exposure therapy thing for the panic, setting up real lights and doing a fake interview.

I've done a little bit of that around claustrophobia, never around stage fright. I mean, and because you're in good company or maybe bad company, but as you know, I too have had pretty famous episodes of state. I've been dining out on it for years now. Does that exposure therapy with setting up a fake interview? Has that worked for you? It's worked a little bit. You know, I think the exposure therapy almost has been better for me to just do the interview,

whether I think I'm going to throw up or not, which is still exposure therapy, but I really do have this, I have a big thing where nausea really kicks in for me. So then I think, and then I focus on that. I had a radio interview with a really close friend of mine recently, it's a big interview, but I have very close friends of them. And I was sitting in front of them and in the studio, and I was good, it was good, and all of a sudden they did the countdown, you know, with the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 thing and we're about to go live. Whatever, nailed me, you know what I mean. But I didn't die. I didn't die from it. Never have died from it. I'm not going to die from it. You know what I mean? So it was not fun, necessarily, but then I got on the other side.

I was like, I did it. I didn't call my manager to say I can't do that. I'm canceling. And so, you know, that's the learning experience. I'm learning from it. It's going head on. And every morning I get up, I ride on the window or the shower or whatever. I ride B-Bulled and I put my handprint, like I'm making a promise on myself to be bold and show up through all that, you know, through those kind of moments.

And just having those kind of intentions when I wake up, it's been legit for me. That's been a good thing for me. But being bold is scary as hell. But it's also, it's also a super power if you can give yourself a do it. I was just going to say that I, when I was teaching my son, who you've met, my little boy Alexandria five, I was teaching him to swim a couple of months ago and I kept saying, well, what's the definition of bravery? And I got him to be able to internalize and repeat being scared and doing it anyway. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I've always been since I was a kid, I was always a little

bit of a warrior. I mean, I think, you know, if you start like that, you know, always have to end like that, but it might be programming to you a little bit of a warrior. I mean, I think, you know, if you start like that, you know, always have to end like that, but it might be programmed into you a little bit to where you can get it catch yourself in the middle of that. And I think that when I started doing the thing to scare me more, like I think I've talked about this maybe a little bit in the last one, like I went skydiving when I was really scared of heights. I was really scared of heights, so I'm going to jump out of a plane, still hated it.

I really hated it. Like, to the point where I would definitely never do it again, but I am God, I did it. And so, you know, the more I've learned that you're right with that, is being brave, just showing up and being scared. Because if you're not scared, you know, if you're not scared in yourself at decent amount of the time, you're probably just not really doing a whole lot of exciting things, I guess. Not meaning like I want to go be a X Games guy that's going to go try to do all the craziest stunts, but I mean, I feel like I'm trying to get myself to that place.

And I try, I don't get myself in a credit for doing it because I try to do a decent amount, but I'm trying to push myself to really make sure it's the same as going to be, but also if it's like, I'm most likely going to be fine from this and I'm going to go for it. I love it. I don't mean this in a patronizing way, but I kind of feel just proud of you

when I hear you talk about it because you really are not shirking the work here. There was a word you used early on in this conversation as it pertained to your anxiety and panic that really resonated with me. And if I'm going to play armchair psychologist right now, it kind of set off my antenna a little bit and wondering whether this could be sort of a cause or a root to some of what you've experienced, the word you use was perfection. Oh, yeah. And so I just wonder whether you think I'm onto something there

in terms of that being linked to your anxiety and panic because it's for me. And where you are at with that now after having done a significant amount of work on it. Yeah, I mean, if you nail on the head there, I mean, perfection for me is my worst in me. And also it's got me, I mean, it's made me if it's successful in some ways too.

You know what I mean? It's like I'm never reached perfection, but I have pushed myself to try to reach it at times where, you know, it made me work hard to try to get to that point, but it also warmed me up at the point where once I finally realized you can never reach it, I was completely burned. And I think perfection and every single thing I do in my

life from, you know, recording songs to being on stage. I mean, I was a point where I was on stage and the biggest reason I was worried about going on stage is because I feel like I'm gifted in a way where I can sing live, like I can sound in my records a lot of time. And I've been told that a lot to wear now. I think, oh, I got it. It's got to sound like the records are not better on stage or I'm not doing it right, you know? And so you start putting that pressure on myself. Next thing I know, I'm in the doctor's office, getting this death scope, looking down my throat, I have what's wrong with my cords, and because they're're worn out because I'm putting so much stress in everything on it

and I never really even talked a lot about that. I don't know if I've ever talked about that. I'm not definitely not scared of that, but it was I was putting so much pressure on myself. I was so uptight. I was holding so much stress in my neck muscles and my shoulders and everything. They're closes on these muscles and it doesn't give them anywhere to go. So you're wearing your vocals out like right away. So I'd be like one to go. So you're wearing your vocals out right away. So I'd be like one song in, I'd be wearing it out. Now some people wouldn't even always know because I'm trying to just pace it.

But in my mind, I'm still thinking on a night where I'm allowed to have, you know, you're playing every single night or a lot of nights in a row. I had to get okay with myself having times where you know what, my voice is not gonna be perfect tonight or it's not going to feel amazing tonight. Ordered I'm not going to hit all the notes. It took me a long time to get that point.

Once I started to get there and I actually started to engage in the show and engage in when I was instead of just I was like holding on to the mic stand. White anduckle like trying to just stay alive up there at times. Still no one really knew and I could still have moments of fun, but there was a period of darkness there where I was just trying to make it through a show. And once I kind of started going on this journey and started realizing to embrace the imperfections, and that's some of the stuff that I love the most about live music is that it doesn't sound just like the records or that somebody screws up

and are actually human on stage. I think that that part of the perfection and I think you know I'm supposed to be up there and be the perfect example of you know why you loved my music and it's got to be just like that. Once I realized the fans don't want that they just want you. Anywhere in life people don't want you to be perfect they just want you to be you and once I started figuring that out Man it I started looking the eyes of my drummer and feeling that groove a lot more and going into order my guitar player And just laughing and actually feeling the joy and just that feel and connecting with the fan like I remember I was working on my when I would get in that headspace

I was working with my therapists about this and headspace. I was working with my therapist about this and he said go out there and actually connect with somebody that you think really in the crowd that you think really needs this show that needs this moment. Get it out of your mind and go out there and these people are there to see you and that's what I started to do. I started to connect with my family. When I remember my head started to go to Oh man, I got a lot more songs left and I'm pretty tired instead of just staying there and white knuckleing on the mic stand, I'm going out there and I'm reaching out and I'm connecting with something in the crowd. And those things, embracing all those things and embracing the imperfections in the show

and imperfections in my recording even, especially with this new album and not trying to fix vocals to where, I don't know if I say that exactly right even on the recording. Well, I love a lot of my favorite recordings are kind of some of the notes that they might not hear aren't exactly on, but many feel them. You feel them a lot more than if they were spot on sometimes. And that's where the soul is and the music and the artist. And so that's really where I am right now. I haven't completely got there, but I am definitely in a good spot that. And when I get back into those patterns that maybe, you know, because you're going to have some revisits to those things a little bit from time to time, I know that I have this mindset and I have the people that care about me and I have the people that just want me

to be the artist and the person that I am. And if I can focus on that, it grounds me back to just being Brett and not, you know, the picture on the wall that you think it has to be perfect and something that you look up to, you look up to him because they're real and you relate to him. And that's, that's where I've tried to get. You're very tall, which forces me to look up to you when we're together and I resent you for it. I just have to wonder. So I don't know the country world very well. And if I never admitted this to you before, but before I met you, I never really listened to any country or nor did I like it. But then I started to like you. And then now I really like your music. How does it go down in the country

world for you to be talking in the way in which you're talking, like super open, super honest. I mean, I love it. I am just floored by the honesty, but is it risky? I hope so. I mean, I guess, yes, I guess it is, but I mean, there was a point when I wasn't to talk about it. Not because I just thought, I mean, I grew up in a town of Paris Illinois like thinking about any kind of mental health stuff I mean I had

an amazing childhood amazing parents, amazing family I've been very fortunate but I didn't know about any of this stuff and for me I kind of had to start living through a lot of tough parts of my life to start realizing what I was going through was brutal, but then I started to see it all around me. And I couldn't live that way anymore of this acting like everything was amazing. Country music, you know, just in general, I mean, everybody's very a lot of honest, you know, a lot of small town folk really.

I mean, a lot of true honest people. But, you know, I think this in general and all music and all everything, people are starting to speak out about it, which gives you more strength to get out there and talking. So I want to be one of those people that is opening up a lot more about it. And because I just know how much it sucks going through it, but how much better it feels to know that there's other people going through it and that it does get better and it'll get worse a little bit but it'll get better. It's going to be there with you, but these struggles are the things that have really,

you know, sound cliché, saying about there, the things that have made me way stronger and way more because I became aware of them and just and so forth. So I guess long story short, yeah, I just, if it is a thing to be risky that I'm glad I'm taking a risk because I wanna be a voice out there that helps people through it. And then one day, everybody's meditating. Everybody's being kinder and gentler to each other

and sharing compassion and finding love and kindness for each other. And you know, it's a long journey, it's not. But I have a little bit of voice in that and I don't want to miss out on that. I want to help on that. So I'm glad to take the risk. And I think there are a lot of other artists that are kind of doing it as well as I'm the first one ever. I just want to be one that does and I'll take that risk all day from here out and hopefully even more so as I continue to grow

with my journey in it and trying to figure it out. And very fortunate to make relationships like I have with you and other people that have, you know, been in entertainment business and had their struggles and friends that work at and banking that have had their struggles in the same way. And you know, I just think that it's really fascinating and you start to realize that the anxieties

and the struggles are the most human thing that there is. And once you see that, it gives you a power to kind of connect with a lot of people. You mentioned meditation, and I don't want to be a meditation bully. So this is not a past fail question here, but are you still meditating and if so, how's it going?

Yeah, I'm a four or five day a week guy at least. If I stay up late watching a movie on Friday night or something, then I throw off my routine the next day. And the weekends, I feel like I don't fall on my routine the same. But I do pretty good with the still. And I've kind of tried to figure out the things that work better and what don't work for me. And sometimes it's guided.

Sometimes it's put on a timer and listen, you know, and just kind of focus on sounds. I'm a very feeler kind of person, sensitive person in a lot of ways where sometimes I'm focusing so much on the breath. I'm thinking, oh, I didn't get my full breath there. And then maybe today I just need to focus on sounds. So I'm kind of just always trying to figure out

what the best thing is for me. But I still show up and I try to do the work. And sometimes I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Most almost always I still don't feel like I know what I'm doing. But I just trying to do the repetition of it. And I'm usually better forward after I did it. I'm glad I did it. Even if I only had 30 seconds of that 10 minutes that I had,

that I actually caught myself in some thinking, and some kids I'm always ruminating. And I have trouble shutting that off, and I just realized that I don't have to shut it off. I just have to see that and catch it in the middle of it and go back to folks on my breath or what's out there in nature. I do a lot of, I've been on my hikes.

I do like the more of the walking meditations too, which I've enjoyed, because it makes me more, in awe of what I'm around. You know, there's beautiful, like Nashville's just beautiful and I go out every morning on hikes and I'll put on a guided walking meditation. And I'm looking at the trees and actually seeing these things. I'm actually feeling my feet touch the ground.

And I'm actually, I'm here. I'm actually doing this instead of some days I go on a hike. And I realized I just walked for 45 minutes. I didn't know what I was doing the entire time. That happens quite a bit. But I'm trying to shrink in myself and get better in meditation, but I'm trying to show up still. I've hit a few rolls.

I've hit a few moments where I get frustrated with a little bit, but I've definitely gained more than I've lost out of it. So I know that I just have to keep on giving a shot. Much more of my conversation with Brett Eldridge right after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellasai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where

each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling

parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app. I think I can say something that might alleviate any frustration you've experienced. I hope, which is that when I heard you describe your meditation practice, to me, it sounded perfect.

Now, I use that word very carefully because striving for perfection is the enemy of meditation. It is inherently imperfect. But what I heard you say was you have moments where you wake up to the voice of your head and realize, oh, it's just that's this nattering voice inside my head. I can drop it and go back to my breath or back to the sounds or back to the feeling, the raw data of my senses as I walk through the forest. That is meditation. And over and over and over again by engineering this confrontation between you and the nonsense

that, you know, the voice in your head offers up. That is the point. There's a great meditation book called Who Ordered This Truck Load of Dung. And like that is what you see over and over in meditation, a truckload of Dung. That's amazing. Yeah, it's just like an amazing book title. That's a real book. It's a real book. I should have the author on. So anyway, that's a long way of saying, keep going. That sounds great to me.

My main struggle with it, sometimes, if it's like a bigger thing that's kind of all I'm going, I'll get trapped in the aversion, I'll get trapped in the, because maybe it's, I can't stop thinking about something with my album that I've really been working hard on that I can't quite figure it out. And it's kind of a whole thing and

Lassing for a few weeks so I can really get a figure out and I wake up thinking about it and go to bed thinking about it My main thing with that is sometimes I'll stay in that for a while and that's what I've been working with is Trying to just be okay that it's gonna be there, you know, and that's gonna show up. And I remember a tip from one of your limitations about asking if this is useful, and that's helped me a lot. Just asking myself, is this useful? And when I do that, that's true, because it's none of that crap's useful.

Oh, I mean, all of us always, I mean, you know, it's okay to question certain things, but usually if you're questioning in a million, a million times, you've already played every scenario on your head to the point where you're like, is this doing me any getter than just making me more wound up and more tense and more sleepless

and more aggravated and irritable and more short of breath and not, you know what I mean? And so if I could catch myself in that, that's what I'm working on now is sitting with that and not rooming. So it's I'm growing with it. Bravo. Keep going. So you mentioned the album Sunday Drive, the new record. So it's interesting to me because you made, we've been talking about risks. This is another risk. You had gotten famous for sort of kind of like party

anthem country stuff. Some of the big songs were, I wanna be that song, I guess that's a love song, but drunk on your love, it was good time music even if it had a romantic overtones, and you went in a pretty different direction. I read an interview you gave to Rolling Stone, actually, it's a great interview.

And you said that you told yourself you were not allowed to use the words damn or girl in your lyrics. Yeah, and that was my manager, and I really just like breaking it. I was really trying to get a more kind of real, not that any of the other stuff wasn't real, but I felt like I grew up really on making this album

and making this album instead of singing a love song because it's gonna relate to every single person. I wanna sing, if it's a love song, I want it to be more relatable to what I'm really actually living my life, you know, I'm not in love, I've never been in like deep love. Am I open to the idea that finally got to the place in my life where I've given myself enough credit to be able to be that person for somebody

You know, it took me a while to get to that and I have a song called the one you need that's like let me be the one you need I've spent most of my life thinking love was out of reach Maybe just this one she could be the one I need if you let me be the one you need It's like open myself up to the idea. Okay. I'm here. And I would love to be that foundation for somebody instead of just being like drunk on your love. And it don't regret it. Those songs got me here and they're still, you know, many artists, you hear a lot of the time

aren't necessarily in love, but they just, they love to sing the song and the energy of it. But I think getting to this point, this record where I'm not trying to write a song just because it's a hit or just because I think this is what everybody wants to hear. I want to write it because it means something extremely profoundly to me in a deep way that if it's that honest that everybody else is going to hear the heart in that. If it becomes a hit because it's that true, it's that real and

it's that raw and the honesty is what I try to chase down in this and and It's a scary thing to do you know you can I I completely changed away and made my record from other records I changed people is writing with everything I had some of the people that I've written with other records but I always want to try to grow and the fact that I was growing in such a different way, personally, as well, really made this album extra special in that front. And the risk of that was I had everything to lose if I didn't take the step, I think, in my mind. It's like, if I don't go to the... I mean, I could continue to put out songs that are,

you know, at least in my mind, and I have a really good inclination for what I think are hit songs and I really love writing it songs and also still want to continue to have hit songs but I don't want to put the focus just on that. The risk is in not say all the things that I want to say and beat myself up there all the time and unapologetically and not with the thought of someone else telling me,

oh, I don't know if this is going to work because it doesn't really, you know, it's not what everybody else is doing. And it was like, when I started feeling, I don't wanna follow any trends, but be the person that I am uniquely myself, and actually having people around you too, I found that support that mission, you know,

to take that risk and to step off that ledge and say, you know, we're going to go record an album in Chicago with just me and a couple other musicians. And for a couple of weeks live up in Chicago and make this music. And when you live in music city, you know, in Nashville, Tennessee, I can go out my front door and I could walk down the street and be in a recording studio and it's an amazing place. But I needed to get a different lens the way I was getting a different lens on my life and looking at it a different way. I needed to get a different way in every aspect. It's really easy to give up on yourself in that process because it gets scary at times.

I mean, I was out in California when I had started this and it's like, am I crazy? Am I going to make this thing? I'm going to tell all these people that I'm going to go make something really special. And I come back in a year and a half, and here's these thought gremlins on your mind. I'm going to come back in a year and a half and it just made some weird artsy record or something. It's like, but I really, I just stuck with it.

My manager was right there with me, and my label was right behind me. I got people that were really in it for not because this is going to be, you know, we're going to have four number ones on this album or whatever, you know, we're going to have something really important to say. And it's going to be uniquely myself. And you get people behind you in that way. You're going to be unstoppable. And for me, I've got a lot more meaning and gratitude behind that and feeling like I'm not like I

said, I wasn't a fraud from what I was doing before. That's what got me here. And I think all of that is growing up to a place to where I can actually get to make a record like this. And I wouldn't have been able to make the record that I made on this one when I first came with my record on my first album. And I think each record got deeper. And now I finally just really took that step and stuff. And I think I'll get to be singing for many years of common and just really feeling it and embracing those perfections.

I got to tell you, because when you record a record like this, I was in the studio with Ian Fitchick, who's one of the producers in Daniel Tashin, who's one of the producers in that wrote both, I'll have to record with those guys. And they're playing in the room with me. I'm singing on the mic in the same room with them. So for people that don't know how music recording goes as much, you get vocal bleed sometimes. Like the drums are bleeding into the microphone if you're singing on the same microphone in the room.

You're picking up the drums on your microphone. So it's not a clean sound sometimes, but it's really honest and it's really real and I never would have done that before. I'm seeing it raw to the point where you can't really go back and fix it because the drums are in your mic and everything and your voice is in the drums, you know, so you got to nail it and you got to believe and you got to nail it and that's when I put the faith in myself to do that and had, you know, people behind me that says, you're very capable of doing that. I showed up and the first song I recorded was a song called Gabrielle, which is my first single from it. And we nailed

it to the point where the first take, it was amazing. And I felt like all that weight of like all those doubts and actually the part of believing in yourself and sticking to that made it worth it. Hey, what? That's Brad. He's in Nashville. He can't he can't hear you but he says hello. Say hi. Can you say hello? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when you say? Can you say hello back? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when you say? Hi. Remember when he sang to you the Christmas songs that yeah, yeah, that was fun. Haha. What's fun? Next year maybe we'll do it again. Next year after COVID, we'll do it again. Okay. Okay. Go eat dinner and I'll see you in a minute.

Every time he comes in here. I love every time he's starting growing up in a year. He is growing up. Every time he comes in here, he hotbox. He's starting growing up in a year. He is growing up. Every time he comes in here, he hot boxes me. It's just unbelievable. That's awesome. Did you have purpose? I think he saves it until he's time to visit daddy in the podcast.

That's amazing. That is a strong move. That is so strong. It's pretty edible. So I want to ask you, on the record, you were talking about the record. You were saying that, you know, over time, you've recorded love songs, but you've never been in, I think you use the term, deep love. And I just wonder to pick up on a theme that we've been exploring throughout this conversation.

Does perfection stand in the way of love for you. Absolutely, in a huge way. That's been a heavy topic in my work that I've tried to do right now. Yes, absolutely. Perfection is a certain way of everything, especially in love and relationships and everything. It's been the tough part for me. So now I'm very aware of that and I've gotten a way better placed with that. But absolutely, it's definitely still annoying. has been the tough part for me. So now I'm very aware of that, and I've gotten a way better placed with that, but absolutely, it's definitely still annoying. You know, another thing you said

was sort of growing up on this record, and it just reminds me, because for me, perfection did stand in the way of finally achieving romantic love, and I think perfection is a big problem not only in Getting up and running in a relationship, but also keeping the relationship up and running Because we're sort of in this arrested state of development sold this bill of goods by The media by Hollywood about how love is supposed to be but it's not really like that a friend of mine

I remember when I was first getting married, and friend of mine said, dude, it's not the Oscars every night. Some nights, it's the People's Choice Awards, you know, and that is true. But the other thing you say was that you grew up, and I just reminded me, I remember being like 25 and having a breakup conversation with a girlfriend, and she was saying, well, until you were with yourself, you can't be with anybody else. Yeah, that's a great point. The journey I've been trying to go on is just being with myself a little bit, not like just spending time with myself

and are alone and like go up, but like actually also just feeling like give myself some self love and actually feeling like I can give a lot of myself. Being in this position, I've learned to have some trust issues. It's kind of weird to like date or anything when you're, it's because I don't like the fame part

of anything. And so I feel very strange. I love to get on stage and sing. And that's it. I love to connect with people and everything, but when I get off the, the part of the fame has definitely been a weird part for me, I was dating and everything. And so that's been an interesting thing for me, because I always feel like I'm supposed to be giving some perfect picture to somebody.

And how do I know? It's just been a weird experience I guess I can imagine that be really tough Like you find yourself questioning people's motives is the person with me because they like me or because they like the you know What I do? Yeah, and then you want somebody that loves your passion and trust me a lot of time I think people just I'd like to believe that they really actually do this like you It's just the back of my head. I've had to really work away from that idea of thanking somebody just wants to hang out because they love, you know, what you do

in your music and, you know, all that. So I've had to really step away from that. It's very, it's a very strange thing, just being somebody that I still, in my mind, and you can ask a lot of people that nobody is as I still feel, I am exactly, you know, that kid that before I had any hits or had anything or anybody knew that heck I was, I still feel exactly like that in my mind. So when people start screaming your name and all that, you love that connection and the crowd and everything,

you love that part, but then the part where it's like, they meet you on the street or something, and wanna take a photo in the middle of your meal or something I'm totally fine with that usually but it's just weird for me because I'm not I still never get used to that. So it's just a strange thing to kind of have that separate from when you're actually on stage and then actually you know going to the dating world or actually trying to find love or whatever. It's just been an interesting aspect but but I really do believe, you know,

now being able to be with myself and with this time and spend this time, I really open myself up to the idea that, you know, I got a lot to give to somebody. This is a good honest, real person and, you know, try to be kinder to myself in a tough time and because I've usually held those perfections up, like you said, I gotta be something really perfect for somebody or it's, you know, it's not going to be great.

And so I'm working on perfection. You're opening my eyes even more to the perfectionism today. That's good because that's what I'm working on. It's free therapy. It's worth what you're paying for it, unfortunately. So last question, just about on the record. In many ways, the centerpiece of the record from what I can tell just as a fan is the title track Sunday Drive. And it really landed with me because it starts out

talking about you being a kid, taking Sunday drives with your parents driving, and then it ends with a Sunday drive with you driving and the parents in the backseat. I had that experience recently with aging parents and it's very painful and very poignant and quite literally being the guy in the front seat driving my parents now. And so yeah, that really landed for me and I just and I know that you actually I read that you kind of broke down while recording the song. So I'd be interested to hear that whole

story. So this song was a song that actually, so I wrote every song in the record except this song. And the story about this song is very interesting because I was an intern at a music publishing company, Universal Publishing, back in the day. And you're just taking this internship, you want to get to know songwriters, you want to get to know how this crazy music business works.

And I was listening to all these songs. I was working in like a dungeon looking, I would, I mean, it's not that scary looking, but it was like a basement with no windows. It had a bunch of CDs and dats and like all these different things that you had to transfer to MP3s. And I was just going through all these songs and I'm just, you know, early 20 20s, enamored by songwriters,

but you get numb to the songs because I heard, you know, thousand songs. And a lot of them are great, but you're just listening, you know, as your job too, well, then this song came up Sunday drive and I was just completely destroyed by it. I was like, my young self, I always kind of had an old soul. And I was very close to my family in this song

to stop me in my tracks. And I very much, I'd take my family to the core with me everywhere I go. And so the thought of being the kid in the backseat, thinking life's never gonna, life's always gonna stay this way. And time's not gonna fly by. And you're just in the backseat eating ice cream and cookie dough blizzard and you're spilling it all yourself and you got everywhere and you're, you know, just worried about going to the fair and,

you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to your baseball practice or whatever. The next thing you know, you're in high school and you're flying on the wind and you're about to go out to college and you're thinking that's never gonna go and the next thing you know, your parents that were taking you on a Sunday drive in the beginning when you weren't thinking anything was special about that. You're taking them on a Sunday drive, and my parents are still young, but you know, inevitably,

just like we're all gonna grow older, and you can start to feel that, and you can start to feel the fragility of time. And when it gets to that third verse in the song, I was in the studio. And I'm an emotional guy, but I don't always just like break down, cry or anything. I just, I'm very emotional in the way I talk a lot of times,

but I also very good at hiding it at times too, which I'm learning to not as much. But I'm in the studio, my friend David Ross, who's now the manager of the Cubs, he and I just became friends for the years and he was in town. He was getting ready. He was just doing the interview for the Cubs. So he was in there.

He has a few kids. So he's a father in the booth. One of my producers is in the other room. He's in the booth. He's got three kids of his own. The big guy, Planet Piano, has a couple of kids of his own, so everybody's very family-oriented in this room. Everybody, it's very emotional

about how this song is gonna go down. Well, I go in the room, because we'd already recorded it once before we recorded the center drive, and we just didn't quite nail it. So, I had told my friend David, oh, we're not gonna record today, but come on in, we'll always like, we got real with each other in my

production. And I was like, I don't think we nailed it. So we went in there. I was like, okay, maybe we are going to record today. I go in there. He's playing the piano. I'm singing it down live. We get down to that third verse. And I just completely lose it. I just lost it. Like, I mean, you know, I just started picture my mom and dad. And I started feeling every single word from that song so emotionally and so deeply and I started bawling. And I could even look up, but when I finally looked up, I saw the piano player, Ian Fitchick,

he's still playing and he's so emotional but he's still playing through it and I can't even say a word, but I'm also so blown away by the fact that he's still playing the motion, it's still in the music that he plays all the way through the rest of the song. And I look into the other room in the booth where these other fathers and family guys are and producers and they're all so emotional in that room too. There's just one of those moments where you're like, man, music is such a, when you let, sometimes you don't have to let it go there, it'll take you there, it'll make you feel something and it'll shift something in you that I didn't think I was even capable of, like sobbing

crying in my adult life for a long time. And man I did and then we went back in there and I sang that. I finally got myself together enough to sing that last verse. And we had that taken and I think that just came across. You can feel it when you listen to it. And if you watched a video, that was the other time I had the shift again. When I watched it, I'd broke down and crying as I was drinking a smoothie and parking a lot of a juice place.

Oh, I'm watching that after we had filmed that because I'd learned piano just for this. I didn't really play piano on guitar player really. And I learned piano during quarantine. At the very beginning, I was like, I'm going to learn this song on the piano. I've always said I'm going to learn it. I want to play it on stage when we get out of this quarantine. I'm going to do it. So every night before I go to bed, part of my routine, I would wind out and put my phone

in the other room. I would drink some hot cameo meal tea and I would wind down and put my phone in the other room. I would drink some hot camel tea and I'd sit down the piano. I would play 10, 15 minutes of the song and then I would go to bed. And by the time I got to record in this video, I could actually play the song. And so it kind of dissolved. All came together during all this and the emotions came out again when I saw that video and and it's just a really special song to kind of be the heart of this album because the album is very reflective and kind of reflective of the path I've taken to get here. It's very real and honest and I thought this song was a good

placeholder and a good you know heartbeat for a whole album. It's a great song and it's a Buddhist song in many ways about impermanence. So yes, absolutely as a consequence. Brett, every time I interact with you, I like you better. Hey, well, same here my friend. I hope we can hope we can get together here before too long and chat it again. And last year we were we were jamming in the beacon theater together. And I do have to believe that on the other side of this,'re gonna do that again and it's always a pleasure my friend. I share that belief and it was absolutely a pleasure and I really appreciate you're just utterly unguarded and I respect you for it.

Well, thanks for the coaching to the years as well. I appreciate that. That you get for free forever. So all right. As long as you take it with a grain of salt. That's a hey, it's better than most. Big thanks to Brett, really appreciate him coming on and check out his new album Sunday Drive. Again, I've never been a country fan, but I really like his stuff and I really like him. So big thanks again to him and a quick reminder. I mentioned this at the top of the show. I'm mentioning it at every opportunity these days. But join us for the Election Sanity Meditation Challenge. Download the 10% happier app and start meditating your way through the final stages of this election season.

And then the challenge begins on October 27th. Big thanks as always to the folks who work so hard to make this show a reality, two and a half times a week. Samuel Johns is our senior producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our producer, our sound designer is Matt Boynton from Ultraviolet Audio, Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. We get an enormous amount of useful input

from TPH colleagues such as Jen Poient, Ben Rubin, Natobian, Liz Levin. Also, big thank you to my guys from ABC News, Ryan Kessler and Josh Kohan. We'll see you all on Friday with a bonus meditation from Tuwere Selah. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself

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