Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - From Kelly Corrigan Wonders | A Conversation with Dan Harris

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Dan sits down with his friend Kelly Corrigan at the Aspen Ideas Festival. A few of the topics they break open: uncertainty, humility and practices to keep us connected. You can learn more at https://www.kellycorrigan.com or listen to the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks to our many friends at the Aspen Ideas Festival for making this conversation possible.This was recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Follow Terabli Famous Wherever You Get Your Podcast. Terribly Famous. Hello everybody Dan here. We're dropping something special down the feed today. I recently had a great conversation with my new friend Kelly Corrigan over on her podcast, which is called Kelly Corrigan Wonders. We talk which is called Kelly Corgan Wonders. We talk about being a lifelong learner, the value of intellectual humility, and the tools that I personally use in my daily life, including provisional language, which I will explain in the course of this conversation, and which has greatly improved my communication with

other human beings. Just a little information about Kelly before we dive into this conversation here. Kelly is the author of four New York Times best sellers about family life and she's the host of a long form interview series on PBS called Tell Me More. I really hope you enjoy this bonus content. And if you do, go check out Kelly's other stuff

over on her podcast, which again, is called Kelly Corrigan Wonders, and you can find it wherever you listen to your podcasts. The brain and the mind are trainable, and you're not stuck with a bunch of factory settings that are unalterable. You can work on all of your stuff. Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan and today we are continuing a three-part series called After Much Study, conversations with people who spend their lives learning. Today I am with Dan Harris, a journalist, a former ABC

news anchor, and the force of nature behind 10% happier, a podcast, a book, a set of insights that I myself am leaning on every day. Dan Harris is so interesting to me personally because he comes to meditation through panic attacks, which I can relate to. We're lucky to share a candid conversation with Dan Harris about the push and pull of everyday life. We'll be right back with Kelly Corrigan Wonders. [♪ Music playing in the background, playing in the the Aspen Ideas Festival this past summer and I had a chance while I was there to talk with journalist podcaster and devoted meditator Dan Harris. Dan is a former ABC news anchor. He has reported stories from all over the globe, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Cambodia, the Amazon. And during that storied career, he wasn't tracking that that kind of work and that kind of coverage was taking a deep toll on him mentally and emotionally until he had a major panic

attack on air in June 2004 while hosting Good Morning America. He knew in that instant it was time for him to make a change. Despite his initial skepticism, Dan tried meditation and it ended up being the thing that would transform his life. Dan is open, a total straight shooter and very funny, as well as being pretty devoted to sharing what he's learned with others for the greater good. devoted to sharing what he's learned with others for the greater good. So I don't listen to that many podcasts, but the ones I listen to, I listen to a lot, and yours is one of them. So I know you well. You actually do. You do. If you listen to the show, you do know me well, and I'm honored to hear that. Thank you. Yeah, I know your insights.

I wanted to make sure our listeners have a sense of you before I take you into this set of questions that I'm asking a couple different people because you are part of a series that we're calling after much study conversations with people who spend most of their lives learning. So it's you and Chris to tip it and rain Wilson. But before we dig in, um, I'm sort of drawn to your way of talking about the slings and arrows of daily life because I'm a little bit of a skeptic myself. I was raised by a woman who barely believes in like doctors and car mechanics. And also I'm a huge believer in the power of the stories

we tell ourselves. So what is a story that you've told yourself, that you have edited or abandoned altogether, to the betterment, to the good? To my good or the good of the world? Either. Well, I'm still working to edit and abandon this, but I have made some progress, but this kind of idea that I'm a monster,

you know, that I'm irretrievably selfish and self-centered. And I think that I am constitutionally pretty pretty, you know, and I don't think it's my fault necessarily because of lots of causes and conditions, you know, you don't become a news anchor if you're not into getting attention and getting paid. So, I think that's in me. And I didn't notice that for a long time, and that impacted my actions in lots of ways, made me defensive because I kind of harbored it somewhere in my viscera,

this fear that I was incapable of giving a shit about anybody other than myself. And so then if somebody made even an oblique reference to my selfishness or whatever, I would blow up because it was forcing me to reckon with this thing I didn't want to see. And so over time, I've been able to see that like nobody's all one thing or another. And more importantly, the brain and by extension, the mind are trainable. And you're not stuck with a bunch of factory settings that are unalterable. You can work on all of your stuff. And I've found that doing that work

has actually benefited me and everybody else. It's interesting to think about the impact that you thinking that you were self-centered might have been having on the way you were perceiving others. Because I've always felt like if, say, a person cheats on their girlfriend or boyfriend or their spouse, then their assumption is that everybody else is doing it too. And if you cheat on your taxes, your assumption is, you just kind of wave it off like, oh, come on.

Everybody I know does this. And if you just kind of wave it off like, oh, come on. Everybody I know does this. And if you're kind of a dick and you put yourself first in a lot of situations, then you are perceiving that like that's the only way to live with it is to perceive that that's pretty much the way everyone operates too. And the beginning of the unravel is when you think, oh, God, maybe it's not a doggy dog world. Maybe not everybody is playing it this way. And I am being less than I could be. I am being like a chaos agent in this. There's a subreddit on Reddit that I really love, which is called M.I.D. asshole, and people post these moral dilemmas and ask them,

I'd be asshole, and I just think that's a geratical act to ask, you know, maybe I'm, because we're so hardwired to think we're right. It's such a threat to think we're wrong. My meditation teacher is a guy named Joseph Goldstein, who's been a huge influence for me, has this little thing he likes to get people to say to themselves in moments of conflict,

which is don't side with yourself. And it's just a great way to get you to think, well, why do other people think the way they're thinking? And are they maybe right? And even if they're not right, can leaping into their shoes empathetically take some of the heat out of the situation because you understand that if you came out of the same womb and endured the same causes and conditions that led to and fueled their lives,

maybe you'd believe the exact same thing, and that's just a really useful way to look at the world. One other thing to say that I think helps the unraveling that you were talking about, is a guy named, you've probably interviewed him, Father Gregory Boyle, who... I did, for PBS. It was wonderful.

On site in East LA. Amazing guy works with, as you said in East LA with gang members and current and former. And he said this thing to me, which is like, I don't believe in evil people. I believe in bad behavior. And so I really believe that too. I don't, with rare exceptions, I don't think there's, and I'm not even sure I believe in the exceptions. I don't think there's purely evil people.

I think there are causes and conditions. I keep harping on that, and might be worth talking about that, that can lead to bad behavior. That needs to be punished, but that doesn't necessarily mean there are thorough, goingly evil. And I'm not even... Yeah, right, going li evil. And I'm not even. Yeah.

Right, right, right. So this idea of causes and conditions is super important to me too. I did tons of work for Children's Hospital, Oakland, where the causes and conditions of these kids' health are so far beyond their control and they're so embedded in their environment that it's almost like a no-win situation.

And I have been so grateful over time for the codification that is ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, because I think that it's super easy to understand, like what would those be and you rate it on a scale of one to ten, so it's like, is there violence in your neighborhood, is there violence in your home? Is there mold in your home? Is there mold in your home? Might you have asthma? Are you living in a place where nutrition is easy to come by or hard to come by? Do you have a bed? And when you codify it, it sounds very real. It doesn't sound like someone's opinion. It sounds like a scale that doctors use in hospitals. So it's like legit. And I think it's like a, it totally reframes things and forces all of us to think about causes and conditions that

affect a person's behavior and also their potential outcomes. I think I've said this three times now, but 100%. You know, this is, it's a, I get it from Buddhism, and they talk a lot about this a lot. And often they use the word karma, which is, I think, a largely misunderstood term often, I think, in the West, when we invoke the idea of karma, we're talking about, like, oh, if I cheat on my taxes, I will be a gila monster in my next life. And I don't think it's that mechanistic. And I don't have a mystical view of this at all. It's real or a magical view at all. It's just cause and effect.

Right, so this happened, therefore that happened. And if you could think about, since the big bang, we've been in this massive swarm of causes and conditions that have landed us in this very moment. And so I guess actually, if you look at the world through that lens, it is kind of magical, but you don't have to believe in anything very moment. And so I guess actually if you look at the world through that lens, it is kind of magical, but you don't have to believe in anything metaphysical. And it can be just having this frame on the world

can be really useful, it can be a relief because you don't have to carry around this story of these people I disagree with on the news or mice, brother-in-law or whatever, they're evil. You can just think, oh, yeah, maybe if I was in their shoes, I'd be doing the exact same thing. And by the way, you can use it as a way to take it easy on yourself.

It's not to let yourself or anybody else off the hook just to see that there are reasons for what's happening right now. And it's not necessarily your fault that you occasionally have thoughts that are bigoted or that you have desires that are inappropriate to speak aloud, but it is your responsibility not to be owned by them. Right, right. We did a series on intellectual humility

and it's coming to mind right now because it has so changed my posture and thinking same with Tammy, my producer, like we've said to each other, like this is the most affecting set of conversations we've had in terms of like I carry it with me all the time. And all it does is force you to say there's always things I do not know or understand about every interaction, every human being. And then it inspires this curiosity loop to say, I wonder, I wonder what the causes and conditions are for that guy who came into this room at this moment. I wonder if his wife just left

him this morning. I wonder if his kid just dropped out of school. I wonder if his mom just died. You know, like, if you walk around thinking, there's so much I don't know. I know it like I actually know like a tenth or less of what a person would need to know to have like a really full and a full bodied judgmental response to the situation. You can really protect yourself from getting into that hot space where you're like and another thing. Yes. And if you're paying attention, there's a subtle pain to that kind of dogmatism, because somewhere in the corner of your mind, you know that you don't really know, even though you're putting up this show. And it's a relief not to carry it around.

I'll give you a little hack here, because I'm all about like practices. And I picked this up from this married couple that they are communications coaches. And they've been teaching me for the last couple of years have to remove my foot from my mouth on the regular and their names are Dan Clermann and Muudita Nisker. They have a great book that you should go look up. Anyway, one of their many, many tools is called Provisional Language.

And it's just a little thing that you can teach yourself to do, which is to never say anything with too much confidence. To recognize that in a world where impermanence is a non-negotiable law, things are causes and conditions are swarming on all the time, things are just changing all the time, you really can't say too much with too much confidence. You can't deliver either diagnosis or prognosis with too much confidence. So therefore to just pepper your language with maybe perhaps

it looks like just to have that kind of humility, it can take a nice idea, this practice, and actually get it into your neurons because it's giving you something to do about it. So it's not like, oh, I think intellectual humility is nice. It's just the thing that you're doing on the regular that actually makes you intellectually humble. One final thing to say is I love that St. Augustine, the guy who came up with the least intellectually humble idea ever, which is original sin,

which I think has done a calculable damage. He was asked once St. Augustine was some life advice from some younger person, and he just said the word humility three times in a row. You can believe in humility as a life goal, but not actually be humble, and that's why we all need practices to pound it into our neurons. Of course, of course. So the other thing you said that I wanted to ask about was when you squelched something you give it power, ignorance is not bliss. Yeah, man, this is kind of like goes right back to the whole, I'm a monster dialogue. You know, that I've carried around and I think is not uncommon.

But we all have some story about ourselves. And if it's unexamined or it's like partially examined and we're fighting it. It's just, it's getting stronger and stronger. It's controlling you from the unseen crevices of your mind instead of just like let's put it on the table and talk about it either with a shrank or to explore it gingerly in meditation or whatever you're talking about it with your good friends. So I think ignorance is not bliss in that way because we think, yeah, let's compartmentalize X or Y, difficult story, X or Y trauma, and without dealing with it. But you know, you can't fool your mind. You might be able to fool parts of your conscious mind, your executive function, but you can't

fool the whole thing. Yeah. Are you so glad that you're not an anchor anymore? Like, this work is so, I mean, it's me search, but it's also like so valuable to the world. And there's, there were a thousand people on the back and on the door wanting your job anyway. And now you can do this thing that's absolutely essential. Do you feel that? Yes, mostly, but, you know, nothing is, you know, everything's a little complicated. So I retired almost two years ago and mostly super happy about

it. But you know, I can have moments of like, well, I was doing the 10% happier stuff anyway while I was on the news. So I could be doing both. And that's extra income. And boy, it was kind of nice to, you know, be an anchor man. And I had a whole identity around that's extra income and boy it was kind of nice to you know be an anchor man And I had a whole identity around that and people stopping me on the street to say they knew me and all that and on a more wholesome Note like I I loved being a journalist and I loved my colleagues. So there are things that I miss and There's more that I don't miss you know, I My whole life we get turned upside down

anytime some asshole walked into a supermarket with an AK-47, like I'd have to go. And I don't wanna live my life that. I was okay when I was younger, but North of 50 now, and I just don't wanna do that anymore. And it was just getting really hard on me physically and psychologically speaking of physical pain, like getting up at 3.45, a couple days a week to anchor,

good morning America on the weekends, was really hard, it was like living with permanent jet lag. And so there are a lot of things that I don't miss, and I love having the extra bandwidth to be with my family. This is the first time I think in my whole adult life that I don't have to work on weekends. Wow.

And so that's just incredible. I have an eight year old son, I have spent a lot more time with him. And to get to the point that you were trying to make it, I do have more time and energy to do the type of work that you and I are talking about right now, which is so incredible. And yes, I'm super grateful for that.

Coming up next, Dan talks about how he evolved from someone who viewed meditation as hippie nonsense to someone who embraced it, and unlocked a whole new side of himself. We'll be right back with Kelly Corrigan Wonders. Welcome back to Kelly Corgan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corgan, and today I'm talking with journalist author, podcaster Dan Harris, a guy who is at least 10% happier than he wants for us. So this is the set of questions that I've been asking in this series,

and you can give me some speed round type answers and some longer answers. I can't believe that in the same category of Christa Tippett and Rain Wilson, it's like Donald Duck being carved into Mount Rushmore, but I'll take it. Actually, you made the fact that you're in this series made Christa really nervous. He's going to have such zippy answers. She texted me last night, actually. Maybe that's why. Uh-huh. She did. What's the situation recently where you felt totally attuned with your very best self, where you felt morally beautiful?

Very good friend of mine who does not have a lot of money lost her daughter suddenly and the daughter was a grown up. My friends a little bit older and just showing up for her in lots of ways helping her get a grief counselor that type of stuff was I've actually never taught I'm a little embarrassed that I'm talking about this because. Remember in Hebrew school, them teaching us that the best kind of philanthropy is totally confidential. So I'm a little embarrassed that this is what's coming to mind, but I do, it felt really right. There was no existential angst in that moment. Being useful in that way is it, you can feel it physiologically. I would say the same thing, like literally any time I'm in a Q&A situation with people

where I can tell, you know, they have questions about things where I can be useful. I feel morally beautiful, I don't know, but definitely on the spectrum. Yeah, like in in tune. Yes. I had cancer in my 30s and I given a thousand speeches since then and I always say to people that if you won't accept help, you're eliminating this great opportunity for other people to feel this sense of attunement that you just described. So I'm glad you brought it up because it's just another reminder that if you're, you know,

in a hard place, when you let people do a little something for you, you're giving them a better day. And so when you engage in these really essential moments in another person's life, you're realizing your humanity. I mean, that's it. You're in your kind of highest state. You're making yourself useful,

which is always my thing. Make yourself useful doing something hard with good people. Yes. Rob Doss, the great meditation guru wrote a book called How Can I Help? And that's not a bad slogan. Yeah, that's nice. What's something big you've been wrong about? Oh, this is a long list. Oh, where should we start? Yeah, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying. You know, I was super reluctant to get into meditation because I thought it was hippie nonsense and I was very wrong about that.

Not only is that disproved by the significant body of research that pretty strongly suggests it's very healthy. But my dismissiveness extends well beyond that, and I have this tendency to be reflexively judgmental that is so often steered me wrong. And even within meditation, you know, for my early years in the practice, I was very like, oh well, I'm gonna do these science-backed, non-cheesy, secular practices, but this other stuff is bullshit, and I really dismissed this whole set of practices. So I was into mindfulness meditation,

which allows you to kind of see clearly what's happening in your heads, so as to help you not be owned by it, as we keep talking about. But there's a whole other sort of set of practices within Buddhism that are designed to make you warmer, more loving. And I was not into that at all. I felt like they were Valentine's Day with a gun to your head type of thing. And that was stupid, you know, like just being dismissive makes you stupid. And again, there's a bunch of data to suggest that these practices often refer

to as loving kindness. These practices have amazing psychological and physiological benefits. And doing them in my own life has helped immensely with really with the whole story about I'm a monster, you know, and how that leads to me treating myself and therefore others. And the big unlock for me has really been having a warmer attitude toward myself and other people. And that doesn't mean you're a pollucall of a sudden. What the the Sufi Islam folks say, praise Allah, but tie your camel to the post. Like you do, you do have to, you know, have boundaries and think clearly about things, but, you know, my being a little easier with myself has had huge impacts in my life.

What's a piece of feedback you've received that really stung? Well, you're talking to somebody who's had a couple of 360 reviews. You know what 360 reviews are? Okay. So just for the uninitiated, they're often used in corporate settings where you do an anonymous survey of your boss's peers and direct reports to get a sense of like what your strengths and weaknesses are. I've done a couple, but I've also included people for my personal life like my wife and my brother and friends and meditation teachers. I often joke, it's like I've done the colonoscopy version of 360. So I've had a lot of feedback and I also like I'm a public figure with a

Twitter feed so I can you know people call me names all the time. Just the picking something somewhat at random here, but in my first 360 which happened in 2018, it was pointed out that I had a pension for being rude to junior staffers, which was not at all the way I saw myself. And at first I was like, well, this isn't true. And then the way this 360 was done, it would list a charge against you and then put pages and pages of blind quotes. So it was like, I couldn't argue with this.

Obviously, true. I was doing this. And I think I came up in a very hierarchical, militaristic run by boomers, news organization, ABC News, which is now a very kind place. But when I came up in the sort of Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Ted Couple era, it was really not nice. And I was treated like shit. And I think I just treated other people like shit. And that was really, really, really embarrassing. And I've done a lot of work to turn around on that.

And I mentioned Dan and Mudita, the communications coaches, they've really helped me. And I've come to see just the blazing wisdom of this idea of psychological safety, that the teams that function the best have this mysterious quality of psychological safety, which can be summed up as just the safety that even the most have this mysterious quality of psychological safety, which can be summed up as just the safety that even the most junior people on the staff feel to speak up. And I am just obsessed with that notion and just the teams that I work with now making sure that, you know, I present as humble and interested in other people's opinions.

And sometimes I actually am. What's something you've reluctantly said yes to that turned out really well? So during the pandemic, not that it's fully over, but at the height of the pandemic, my family, and I moved out of the city in New York City that we love so much. My wife grew up in Manhattan.

Our son was a real city kid. His backyard was effectively central park, although we didn't have enough money to actually live on the park. We live a few blocks away and that's where he played all the time. And he was not, he, my son was not doing well in the pandemic. And so we moved, I said, yes, reluctantly, to moving temporarily to the suburbs, which I had always considered to be a form of death.

And I remember the first day we were there. I was sitting in a pool in my son and he got out of the pool and he was talking to himself the way kids often do and he didn't know that I could hear him. He was going to get a pool toy or something and he said, this is the best day of my life. And I was like, all right, guess we're never going back. And yeah, turns out that I really like it. I do miss the city a lot, but just the constant access to nature. And again, this is backed up by science. It's just, you know, and you won't be surprised to you as somebody who lives in Montana part-time that it just has a huge bullying effect on the psyche.

It's incredible. It's incredible. If you had to perfectly align your spending with your values, this is a super nosy question. So forgive me. If you had to perfectly align your spending with your values, what would change? It's terrifying to think about this because I think an enormous amount would change. I find the effective altruism argument, which is basically that, you know, you should give away most of your money, because literally $2,500 can save a life demonstrably. So any money you're not giving away is not saving these lives. I find that argument to be extremely convincing, and I have changed me nothing. You know, we give money away quite a bit, but it's not anywhere near what the effective altruism

folks do. And, yes, it's humbling. This is not a world where people get what they deserve. What helps you make sense of deep unfairness? I don't think there's any way to make sense of it. I think there's, I mean, I guess the way to make sense of it is to think about it in the terms of causes and conditions. This is a way in which karma can be weaponized against people, which is to say, well, you're

impoverished or malnourished or not getting the medical care you deserve because you did something bad in the past life. I do not believe that. What I do think is that, you know, it's a huge lottery, the womb you come out of, and there's an incredible set of unfathomable set of causes and conditions that produce these outcomes. And so that's one way to kind of make sense of it. So what next, I think what next is two things. To be grateful, to not take it for granted, in my case, that I've had this extraordinarily lucky life. The other step is what Peter Parker's uncle said, Spider-Man's uncle, you know, with

great power comes great responsibility. And I'm talking to my son about this all the time. He has, because I had this incredibly luxurious life, but that comes with strengths. And those strengths are that you need to give back. And that's up to you to figure out how you're going to do it. But you need to use your platform for good. And the good news here, and I think this is potentially the saving grace for the entire species at a moment

when we have so many problems. But the good news is that we have so many design flaws, but one design feature in the human software is that it feels good to do good. And we can ride that a long way at this perilous moment in the history of the species. And so it doesn't have to be a hair shirt. This doing good. It can, it can be, it will improve your life. I just want to thank you parenthetically for hair shirt. You know, it's that, it's those kinds of poetic phrases that really bring me back to Dan Harris over and over and over again.

Because we're in this heavy thing and then you're like, it doesn't have to be a hair shirt. You see there, that or it's on the show off, you know, it's like I said, you know, I was raised by overeducated parents. I'm not actually overeducated and go beyond college, but I tend to show up and there's no way your parents brought you hair shirt. That's a downhairs original. But speaking of children, and you're a little guy, and I'm so envious that you have an eight year old. My kids are 21 and 20. People say I want my kids to be happy. They say I want my kids to be good people. Above all, what do you want your kid to be?

I would just invert that order. I wanted to be a good person. I think that will make him happy. And, you know, it's delicate because kids are wired to reject all the advice that you give them. So I try to be really careful about pushing kindness because kids are wired to reject all the advice that you give them. So I try to be really careful about pushing kindness on them in a way, actually I was emailing with my brother today,

and he was telling me about a buddy of his who was raised by devout Buddhists and as a consequence, completely rejects it, probably to his detriment. I mean, I don't know this person, but Buddhism's pretty helpful. I think properly understood. And so I don't want that to happen in my son. You know, I'm a pretty devout Buddhist myself in my way. And I really try hard not to be annoying with him. I will say, and this I think is evidence that it's going reasonably well. He brought home or somewhere in his bag, my wife found this doodling he was doing or some sort of artwork at school and it was the loving kindness phrases. May you be happy, may you be safe, healthy, live with ease. She framed them and put them in my office. So like, that's a pretty good sign.

Oh, that's amazing. When I went to visit my daughter at UVA, she was a freshman a first year as they like to say there, for parents weekend, we were walking to the football game and she like threw her arm around me and said, you know, you asked me if I was homesick at all. And I have been a couple of times, but instead of calling you, I just listen to your podcast. That's very sweet. And I'm resisting the urge to say UVA, that's so good. Yeah, good job. Good job resisting. I really resist.

Kind of slipped it in, didn't you? So the kind of work that we do gives us opportunities. It gives a lot of opportunities for ego boosts. It's a lot of applause out there. There's followers, there's speakers fees, there's first class there, there's followers, there's speakers, fees, there's first-class flights, there's cool invitations to stuff that not everybody gets to go to. And I know that the Buddhist consider fame and privilege and influence and wealth to be a carton of ratnags. And I wondered, how are you doing with your carton of ratnags? Like, is it totally an impediment to your personal growth or is it somehow in balance with what you're looking for? Well, here's where I've landed on this and you can tell me what you think, because

I think my desire for fame and remuneration has fed my storyline about what a asshole I am, like how thoroughly rotten I am. Mm-hmm. So I was kind of weaponizing. I must say, I wondered, like at the very top when you were like, you know, I have this story that I'm a monster. I was like, do you, like do you really think you're a monster?

Like that's really quite a statement to make about yourself. Like, and if you do that, it's like kind of tragic. Like, you know, there's a lot of things that a person could do with their days. And the things you're doing with your days are like more or less on the, to the good. Like even if you're being paid well, and even if you're buying too much,

or being applauded too much, or forget how to carry your own bags, it's still like you're on the right side of a line, but then I wonder, do I want him to be on the right side of the line so that I can be on the right side of the line? Because I'm like right behind you. Like, well, so it's clear, I think I've largely disabused myself of this notion. It can creep back in occasionally, but the practice and therapy I've done since getting that first 360 review, which really put the story on steroids, has been super helpful. And so I don't really walk around with this story.

Good. But it is, you know, it's there as a cycle. Me and all my listeners were starting to worry about you. I have a lot of really caring listeners and they're all going to start writing you letters. Well, I appreciate that. You can save the ink. Although I'll take the I'll take the letters. It's, you know, we all have these neurotic tendencies and ancient storylines and I, you know, this was, this was mine. And it's still there. And I just, it's a, it's a dynamic. What is a Stereporel, the great couples counselor says? Love her. She says, some things are not problems to be solved. They're dynamics to be managed.

And I think that for me, that's the- Could you say it with her accent? No, and I don't want her to get mad at me because I'm terrified of her. She's amazing, but she's like pretty scary in a good way. I love you, Stere. Anyway, to answer your question, I think what I was going to say is, and this was, I have this executive coach, speaking of privilege, that I can have this executive coach Jerry Kelona, who I recommend as a guest, actually, has got a new book

coming out in a couple of months, or is just an incredible guy. He sometimes referred to as the man who makes CEOs cry. He's a little mad. He's never made me cry, but he's been very, very helpful to me. And we were talking once about the, you know, he was, he would often get frustrated with me as we would have these conversations and I would always bring it back to yeah, but I'm only doing it for this or I'm only doing it for that. And because I never wanted to let myself off the hook. I really wanted to look at this. And he gave me some context for it. Like, look, think about it as an exchange that you, it feels good for you because it does

for all humans to get paid and get a pause. And that fuels you to do more good work that helps people who that applaud you and pay you. And I think contextualizing, recontextualizing it in that way as an exchange of to use a loaded term here, love. And I just as a parenthetical think of love as just anything north of neutral are human evolutionarily wired capacity to give a shit. This is an exchange of that. And so yeah, I do like getting applause. I can't overturn the way humans were wired. We're wired to play the game of social reputation.

And so I do like it. Can I turn that from an unhealthy addiction to something that fuels me to do something very helpful to other people? I believe in hope. Yeah, I think that's doable. Anyway, how's that land for you as somebody who's got a similar predicament? I mean, the biggest promise that I've made to myself is that we'll try to give more along the way, give it all at the end. Like not not that we have some massive pile of money that's gonna change the world, but I don't plan to leave any money to my children

and they know it. And so that to me sometimes I'm like, well maybe you're just banking it for some future day where you get to like give it to people. And then I started to think about stupid things like these micro steps, like being really nice to customer service people, like at the airlines or these like faceless people

that you're on the phone with, who typically have just brought out the absolute worst of me. I've started tipping more, like for a minute, when the whole world started asking for tips, like you buy like a cup of coffee and they'd ask for a tip, I was sort of offended by it. Like, why am I not even sitting at a table? Like I just stood in the line.

I'm putting my own half and half in it. Like, what am I tipping you for? And then I was like, oh, don't be small. Just tip them. Just tip everybody. Tip to you, Uber guy and tip to Starbucks person. And that small step is just exactly like what you were saying earlier, which is to say this like little hack where you're doing something throughout the day that is not only to the

good, but is also a reminder to you of like, this is who I want to be. This is what my values look like in action. And I got to keep doing this to keep refreshing my sense of commitment to this tiny idea of like the people you interact with should be a tiny bit better off because it was you on the other side of the interaction. I'm gonna say it again, 100%. There's so much in what you just said.

Aren't you supposed to be saying like 10%, why wouldn't you just say like 10%. Super off brand. Um. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I, I really agree. And yeah, look, it's very easy to listen to a podcast, read a book, go to a talk, whatever, listen to Ted talk,

and feel inspired. It's really like, what do you do about it? Like, well, that's why practice is like meditation or whatever are, and it doesn't have to be meditation, but tipping is a practice that helps you and I think I used this phrase before, like pound it into your neurons. You take something out of the realm of mildly inspirational

and make it operationalized in your life. And that changes your brain. And you start to, from a Buddhist perspective, if you can afford it and you and I can afford it, so that's a lucky position to be in. But tuning into what does it feel like to give these tips? It feels good. And that you're training the mind over time to be more generous and to let go.

And because ultimately, we're going to have to let it all go. And so it's all a training for that moment where you're dying. And that's coming for all of us. So yeah, there's a lot in what you said. And also just comes back again to just Spider-Man's uncle. Like, you know, if you can help, if you're in a position to help, you should. And that will redound to your benefit, speaking of which, just back to the barista, there's a lot of data around what are called micro interactions and the quality of your interactions

with people, even if they're really marginal figures in your life, like that adds up to happiness. This is the weektie's research. I love the weektie's research, because I totally believe it. It was like my intuition all along. I was raised by this guy who was just like blowing life into the world wherever he went.

And I saw it. And I was like, he is having a completely different existence than people who have their head down, their hands and their pockets, and are not like seeing the person in front of them. The other micro practice is to be interested in other people. So, you know, if someone's meeting you at the elevator to take your bags and to help you with this,

you know, big keynote speech that you're giving somewhere, like all that time walking around with that person, like to the extent that you're asking, now how many kids do you have? Where are they? Where'd you grow up? Oh, your're parents so alive of like I've had so many people like that that interaction I'm never gonna see him again who at the end of it will say something so sincere like um thank you for being interested in me mm-hmm which makes you think oh I think the last 10 people who have been here have been either had their

face in their phone or they were just receiving questions. You know, they weren't like seeing the person. They didn't even, it didn't even occur to them that the person that's helping them get to the stage is really a whole person unto themselves every bit as meaningful as you yourself. This was another one of the things that I learned about in my 360-wear. I was doing a very bad job at this. And that was humiliating to hear.

And getting better at it has been massively additive to my life. I know. It's so fun. It's so fun to know people. I know what they want. Yes. Yeah. And it goes back to this idea that we're talking about before with the exchange of love, that we are in this double helix, us as individuals and the world writ large.

And so you can think about self-interest in a pretty, the Dalai Lama talks about it as wise selfishness, that everybody's selfish, but the best way to be selfish is to be generous. Because that makes you feel so good. And it also, again, it were down to the benefit of the people with whom you're being generous. So that's just a great, like, rejiggering of my approach to the world that's happened. And I'm not perfect at this. Catch me on the wrong day. I'm not going to be that chatty with whoever's, you know, serving me coffee or whatever, but most of the time now I am. Well, it takes a minute. You can't take your day so seriously. That's the thing. Like, when I miss,

it's because I'm in a big rush and I think it's like so important and everything I'm doing, and I got to blow through it, and I just don't have time today. And it's like, really, do you really not have any time today? There's another little practice, by the way, and I've been playing with this recently, to make a little mental note when you're rushing because I'll just say for myself that this is a massive thing in my head of, yeah, I'm just rushing all the time. And there have been studies that have shown like there was one great study that took seminary students. You probably heard about this. It took seminary students like aspiring priests, I guess. And they sat in a room and they were given a lecture about generosity and helping people, and then they walked out of the room and they were confronted

with somebody on crutches who had fallen over. And half of them had been told you're late for an appointment on the other side of campus and half hadn't been. And those who were told they were late didn't help the dude with the crutches. And these are seminary students. Rushing shuts you down. And we're in a rush so often. And so just to have this little practice of, oh yeah, rushing. I don't have to rush right now. Even if I have a deadline,

I can do it without rushing, relax. Relax, just do what you need to do. I find that like a really rich little life hack. I'll add one to it, which is to in an attempt to slow down the whole world, I try not to respond to emails as quickly as I used to, because I want to indicate like, I'm going to take a day, and then you may take a day, and we may all take a day. Like, it's not all that urgent. Like, there's eight billion people here. We're working on something. If it doesn't work out, if it gets bumped

back a little bit, like, so what? Like, let's not drive each other crazy along the way. Like today counts. Today means something. We should give it a chance to be great. And if I set the pace and say, this is how we're going to do this email thing. I'm going to respond in 10 minutes and you're going to respond this email thing. I'm going to respond in 10 minutes, and you're going to respond in 10 minutes, and you're going to respond in 10 minutes, then nobody's where they are. Nobody's present in the whole chain. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm smirking rooffully because I'm terrible at this and thinking about Christa Tippett texting me and I texted her like literally right back. So, uh, yeah, I, I respond quickly, which maybe I shouldn't. Yeah, well, if we start texting, just brace yourself

because I'm gonna slow it way down, Dan. Way down. Okay, last question. We know that it's all about meaningful connection to others. You've met so many people through your work and I'm wondering if you could tell us about someone you've met through the pod

who has really changed you for the better. We've done, I think, 600 episodes. So that's a large pool to choose from. I will pick Joseph Goldstein, who I referenced earlier, who's, I didn't meet him through the pod. Just to be honest, I met him through podcaster Sam Harris, who is a dedicated meditator and longtime friends with this incredible meditation teacher named Joseph Goldstein. And Joseph has become my teacher and I go on retreat with him once or twice a year and he's on my podcast all the time and he's just like my one of my favorite human beings of all time and he's not a stereotypical meditation teacher. He doesn't wear robes or anything like that. He's like a menchi, nearly 80 Jewish guy, and he's got this kind of Borscht belt style

humor and teaches in these little slogans, these little phrases, one of them I referenced earlier, like don't side with yourself. And then I find that at key moments, his little phrases come up in my head. Another one which would be relevant to some of the conversations we've been having is, and he took this from Father Gregory Boyle, love no matter what. You know, that can sound a little cheesy at first, but it basically just means when you're pissed off at somebody, just try to understand the causes and conditions. Try to not sigh with yourself and to understand, to take a God's eye view, whether you believe

in God or not, and I'm agnostic on the issue, but just to have some perspective and see we're all acting out and to one degree or another doing our best. And that just can, it's a huge relief. And you know, just in my life to have his little phrases coming up in my head at key moments has been massively helpful. Something I've always loved about the Buddhists is that they all seem to have such a great sense of humor and like these kind of bubbly laughs. And they do have these very clever ways of taking something really enormous and consequential

and boiling it down to like a five word statement that you'll never forget, that you could tattoo on your forearm and it would make every day of your life better So I'm with you the one I love that you had We're out of time, but I just want to tell you this this I can't remember his name And I was looking on my phone to see cuz I knew I thought I downloaded it, but I hadn't It was this like little funny monk Ming you're really? Oh, yeah, he's so great. I mean I listened to it twice

I sent it to my kids. I was like, just think your heart into this. Just live in this. Listen to it every day for a week. Let it get in there because just the tone of his voice and his, he was so joyful. He's this just for people who don't know Mingur and Boucher. He's also written some books that I recommend. He's and he lives in people who don't know Mingur Mishae as he's also written some books that I recommend. He's and he lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, but he's from the Tibetan Buddhist lineage and he's a monk, he's incredible. And he's lived with panic. He's had panic attacks when he was little. He doesn't have many more, but he still has that penchant for nervousness. And I had this delightful little story when I saw him last year at the TED conference, we're both giving Ted talks, our first Ted talks. And I saw that I was so relieved. I was like,

oh, Mingur's here. This is great. I'll have somebody that I can, you know, like feel comfortable with. And I walked out to him. I was like, how are you doing? He said, dying. So great. It was just so real. It's so great to know that this guy who's a Buddhist monk and a, just a revered Buddhist monk at that was nervous about giving it Ted talk. And I actually found It was just so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great.

It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great.

It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great.

It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's so great. It's a few things about what the mind can do to the body. Yeah, we're animals. And the fight or flight is real. You're such a joy. Thank you so much for your work. I'm delighted to know you. And thanks for coming on. Right back at you. Thanks for the amazing questions. All that matters is that I did a better job than Chris does. So you'll tell me you're healthy, very healthy Dan. That's

a very healthy point of view. You're a real inspiration to all of us. How these like do-gitters in spiritual people are like competing with each other who can be like the zippiest on the podcast. That's not the right direction Dan. We're still human beings. That's right. And you know why Buddhist have a great sense of humor

is because you can't look at your mind for an extent of period of time without laughing because it's ridiculous. That's by the way, the number one most frequently used word by Joseph Goldstein, ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Your mind is ridiculous. And so the sooner you can get comfortable with that and familiar with it, to repeat the phrase,

you just won't be on by it as much. Yeah, it's great. I can talk to you forever. This is great. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. It's such a pleasure. My pleasure. Talk to you forever. This is great. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Such a pleasure. My pleasure.

Before we get to the takeaways, I do want to say, if you have thoughts on today's conversation, please shoot us a note. Our email is helloatkelycorean.com. Okay, here are my takeaways from my conversation with Dan Harris. Number one, the brain and by extension, the mind are trainable. You are not stuck with the factory settings. Number two, we need to pound humility into our neurons.

Number three, ignorance is not bliss. When you squelch something, you give it a lot of power. Number four. If you want a team to function at its very best, you must establish a condition of psychological safety. Number five. Although we humans have so many design flaws, one design feature is that it feels good to do good.

Number 6. Stop. Rushing. Number 7. Dan Harris and Christa Tippett may be two of our best practitioners of mindfulness, but that doesn't keep them from a little competitiveness once in a while. Thank you Dan Harris. Thank you to the team at Aspen Ideas Festival, who helped make this interview possible. That's Trisha Johnson, Cara Stein, Eleanor Loden, and Gabe Chenoweth. Thank you also to the team at Kelly Corrigan Wonders, technical producer Dean Katari, executive producer Tammy Steadman, our graphic artist, Gaggy, as well as Rachel Hicks,

and Charlie Upchurch, who help us stay connected. Thanks also to you all for listening and sharing our show with friends around the country. We'll be back on Friday with a new for the good of the order and on Sunday with a new thanks for being here. In the meantime, feel free to email us. Our address is helloatkelycorgon.com or you can find me on Instagram anytime at Kelly Corrigan.

Thanks everybody. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ 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.