Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - From The One You Feed | A Conversation with Dan Harris

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

In this episode from The One You Feed podcast, Dan sits down with host Eric Zimmer and discusses his original skepticism of meditation and the benefits he discovered from developing a regular meditation practice. Listen to The One You Feed for more compelling interviews. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everybody, it's Dan. Every once in a while here on the show, we'd like to point you in the direction of another show that you might like, and that's what we're doing today. I recently was a guest on a podcast called The One You Feed hosted by Eric Zimmer. And we're going to drop that interview here on this feed as a way to maybe get you interested in the other work that Eric is doing. In this interview, I talk about what it's been like for me to transition away from my life in TV news, what I learned from the podcast series we ran a few months ago called Get

Fit Sainly, and how I have an inner character that I have nicknamed RJ, who is a gigantic pan in the ass. It was a great conversation. I hope you enjoyed and maybe you get turned on to all the other stuff Eric is doing. Check out the one you feed podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. These skills of mindfulness, compassion,

calm, concentration, the various skills that can be taught through meditation, you just keep getting better. And there's not as much of a physical limitations like there's a ceiling on how good I can get it basketball. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized

the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend to our negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have, instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking, our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dan Harris. He's the author of the number one New York Times bestselling memoir, 10% Happier, about a fidgety skeptical news anchor who finds meditation. He's also the host of the 10% happier podcast and a co-founder of the 10% happier meditation app. For 21 years, he worked at ABC News where he anchored

such shows as Nightline and the weekend editions of Good Morning America. Hey Dan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you back on. I was saying to you right before we started that, I think the last time we did this, we did it in person, and you were still at ABC at the time. So we came to your offices in New York and did it there. You and me and Orrin, who I know is a part of your app and been on your podcast a few times. That's right. Well, I think in the interim, both of us have been able to quit corporate jobs.

Yes. So that is good news. Is that transition been good for you? In most ways, yes. It's great because I'm a control of my own schedule for 21 years. As much as I loved ABC News and I really loved it, my life was really at the whims of some crazy person

walks into a supermarket with an AK-47, I got to fly there. Yeah. You know, and yeah, I think when I was younger, it was exciting to be at the whims of the news cycle. And as I got older and had lots of other stuff and a family, it was harder and harder for me to do. So that part is great. And you know, I'm around my family much more.

And I was, you know, at the peak of my time at ABC, I was working nights, anchoring nightline and then weekends anchoring nightline, and then weekends anchoring good morning America. So that really took me out of the mix. And so now I have a lot more time to be with my son and my wife. And so all of that's great. Once in a while, I feel some identity crisis stuff around, you know, I'm no longer an anchorman and, you know, what am I then? That kind of thing. But that's pretty fleeting. Yeah. Yeah, I buy and large love my change. But there were things about it that I liked. I liked, you know, we went into an office and there were problems that kind of needed solve that didn't

have anything to do with the human mind, you know, and I kind of occasionally liked, you know, something like a software problem that I could go fix that was very straightforward. Yeah, you were working kind of crazy hours, I know there for a while, for a long time. Yes, yes. Crazy hours. Yeah. So we always start this podcast the way

that we have all along, which is by the reading of the Wolf Parable. So I'll go ahead and read that to you and kind of get your up to date take on it. So in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, and they think about it for a second, and they look up at their grandparent, and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I can't remember what I said last time and I apologize if it's the exact same thing, but I love that. I love the parable because it speaks to the animating insight of my former side hustle and now in whole career as a meditation evangelist, which is that the mind is trainable.

And we are not stuck with factory settings that we can work on the aspects of ourself that we might struggle with, and we can further hone our positive attributes. I would say the one thing that I've really noticed recently, perhaps this would be new, is that I think that I told myself a story, probably subconsciously, I don't know if I intellectually

believe this, but subconsciously that maybe I was one way. I think I harbored a long suspicion that I was kind of irredeemably selfish on some level. Of course, there's a boundary between inside and outside when it comes to psychology, where the mind is really permeable. And so you tend to project your conclusions about yourself onto the world.

And I think I felt that way about individuals in the news with whom I disagreed that they were all one way. But I've realized that it's much more complicated than that. And that I think leads to me taking it easier on myself so that when I screw up and do something that might fit into the old story about how I'm a bad boy, I can see it as an isolated incident or even part of a pattern but not a reification of a non-negotiable truth. And that's really helpful. And also it makes it easier to be less judgmental about other people. And that being

judgmental is a it's a pain in the ass. You know, you're carrying around this view that on some level you know isn't true, but you're sticking to it. I've heard that that's actually the definition of hysteria sticking to a view that you know on some level isn't true. And, you know, so we look at the world as people we disagree with on social media or in the news or maybe even in our family and harbor some belief that they are fundamentally one way. But I don't think that that's how it works. And I think that if we do the experiment of putting ourselves in their shoes and coming out of the same womb and living in the same circumstances, we may very well do the same things that they're doing. There's a great figure you may have interviewed him,

Father Gregory Boyle, you're nodding your head. So, you know, he is, Father Boyle was on my podcast one time and he said, I don't believe in evil. I believe in horrible behavior, but not evil. Yeah, I mean, it gets to the point that most of these things that we might call the bad wolf are typically coming out of some reaction to something that's happened. And I think you're right that it's far more complex than like there's a good and a bad side of us, right? It life is, we are far more complex than that.

And one thing that I think I've seen in your work of all over the years, and maybe I saw it most clearly seeing your recent TED talk, is this sense of really recognizing that these patterns inside of us, I want to find your line here because it's really good. You said, my demons were actually fear-based neurotic programs probably injected into me my culture or my parents and they were trying to help me. Is a really beautiful idea around recognizing the ways in which we aren't showing up in

the world as the person we want to be, is because of some habitual reaction pattern. Now, again, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of, is everybody that way, and what about psychopaths, or any of that stuff? But for the vast majority of us, right? Our fear, our anger, our greed, they're coming from these deeper things within us that can be used differently and related to different. Yes. Yes. Just to clarify one thing, I don't think I was making the case that, you know, we're either part good or part bad, but I actually agree with that case. It's a more sophisticated case than the one I was making. I was more arguing that other people I judge them and myself, I judge them to be wholly bad. Right. And I think that's not true.

In terms of our demons are wolves. And I think there are lots of bad wolves. If you want to use the word bad, let's use that word even though it's probably overly simplified. Yeah, I think it's really helpful to view them warmly, to give them a high five instead of trying to slay them. Because the aggression just makes them stronger. I have an executive coach who I really like,

Jerry Kallona, and he's often told me that I can't bully my inner bully out of existence. It just doesn't work that way, you drive him underground, and it comes out in other places. And so the only route that I've found to dealing with the aspects of our personality that are difficult is to view them warmly as ancient programs that are trying to help us, but are not highly functional and move on, because that's the fundamental and radical disarmament.

Yeah, and that's a phrase that you used in the TED Talk. You said that this counterintuitive extension of warmth to these things was not indulgent, but was indeed radical disarmament. I just love that phrase that really jumped out to me when I heard it. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of what we're talking about. And where I always find the nuance for me

is in recognizing and allowing that those things are there and befriending them and not feeding them. That to me is where the nuance gets to be, even if I want to think about something like thinking more positively, knowing that I have a mind that goes towards the negative, right? Like I don't want to just the minute negative thoughts show up, like squelch them down.

So I want to allow them to be there and recognize them and explore them. And then there's a certain point for me where it's like, okay, we need to move on here and change the channel or work on cultivating different thoughts. And so I've always found that dynamic to be one of the higher arts of sort of mindfulness, healing, all this stuff, is kind of knowing how much to devote to each of those sort of areas. Yeah, I mean, you're putting your finger on the key issue here in my view. You can make the philosophical switch of not hating yourself because you might have

venal impulses, but then what do you actually do with said impulses? And there are many strategies from modern psychology to ancient meditation. And, you know, I am not Olympic level. I can get carried away by my lesser impulses hourly, but I have been able to use some of these tools and we can talk about them whatever order you would like to achieve, you know, maybe 10% of the time, a different relationship to my stuff

so that I'm not completely handing over all of the power to voices in my head that are, you know, not so constructive. Yeah, and I don't know if you've seen this in your work because you talk to a lot of different people like I do. And I'm oversimplifying, but I've seen it in psychology and I've seen it in Buddhism. These sort of two different approaches. And one is very much an acceptance approach. Be with what's there. Befriend it. Let it be there. There's

that. And then there's another approach, which is more, I might call more of a cognitive behavioral approach, right? But it shows up in Buddhism too, which is you recognize the thought. And then you choose to put a different one in, right? You might think of that as I'm choosing to pull out a weed or I'm putting in a flower in, but there's an active changing. And I've really noticed, as I've talked to people, seeing both of those things, and unless a evolved version of me would have said, well, which is the better approach? And now I know that's a foolish question, right? But the question is, and the art is, when do I use which approach and for how long? Yes. Yes. I'm just doing a little math in my head as we're talking. Like, I think there are probably, for me personally,

like five different approaches that I interweave when I can remember to do it. And some of them are, you know, meditative, contemplative Buddhist practices, and some of them are more sort of modern psychological practices. And the overlap between them is very significant, because I think the Buddha made some insights 2600 years ago that modern psychological researchers and practitioners are just coming to see the wisdom of. Yep. So let's explore what some of those are. You just came up with the number five.

I'm sure if I gave you 10 minutes to think that number might become four or seven or, but let's go through what some of those categories are. All right, so let me list them and then we can go through them. First, I would say it's just straight up mindfulness. Second, I would say is loving kindness. up mindfulness. The second, I would say, is loving kindness. So both of those come out of Buddhism.

The third would be a modern psychological tool that has been perfected at least to the extent of my knowledge by a school of psychology called internal family systems, IFS. The fourth would be self-compassion. These are all very related. That is, self-compassion is a mixture of modern psychology and ancient Buddhism pioneered by some researchers, Dr. Christen, Neff and Dr. Christ Gurmer.

And then the fifth is, I don't know what he would call it, but Dr. Ethan Cross at the University of Michigan wrote a book called Chatter. And the way I would describe what he is teaching is a kind of internal counter programming where you kind of talk back to your thoughts. And so I want to be clear that I'm speaking here not, you know, from the mountaintop as some expert, I'm sure I'm leaving out CBT or DBT or lots of other modalities. These are just the five that have worked for me. Yeah.

I think you've talked to many of these people. I've talked to many of the same people. I'm curious your experience with IFS. When did that enter your life and what did it look like for you? Well, I don't have extensive experience with it. Richard Schwartz, the Godfather of IFS internal family systems, came on my show and we actually did a session live just for the uninitiated here, the basics of IFS and my apologies to Richard if I'm mangling this, but you look at the term of art within IFS is parts of your mind. You just kind of do a taxonomy of the various parts of your mind. You may have a prominent jealous mode, a prominent anger mode, a generous mode,

whatever. These, if you've ever seen the movie Inside Out, the Pixar movie where they have all these different characters representing human emotions, that's not far off from the IFS model. And in the IFS model, you actually give the characters names. And I haven't done much IFS therapy beyond the one experience with Richard, which was very interesting. We got a lot of response to that. Before I met Richard, I had given names to the inner characters, which I found to be quite dopey. At first, I was like, I'm not going to name my inner characters, but actually many of these practices, at least of people like me who are skeptics, at first are going to appear, either dopey or forced or annoying, but I often think of this great quote I heard from a meditation teacher.

I don't know who said it, but I love it. Somebody was complaining to some meditation teacher about some of the Buddhist practices that we will, I think, eventually get to being cheesy. And the teacher said, well, if you can't be cheesy, you can't be free. And I think that's, I think that's very true in my experience. And you got to kind of get over yourself to do this awkward stuff. And the comp I often use is exercise. If you landed here on Earth from another planet, and you went to a gym, you would think this is nuts. People are running in place for 30 minutes and then systematically picking up and putting down

heavy things. What is going on? This is ridiculous. But we call that exercise because we know that repetitive motion, repetitive exercise can lead to cardiovascular, muscular benefits. And the same is true with your brain and by extension, your mind. And that's what's on offer here. So in terms of IFS, yes, I found the idea of labeling my inner characters,

one of them I call RJ or Robert Johnson, who was my grandfather, complicated dude, had many good parts to his own personality, but was quite an angry man and could be abusive and abulli and I see that in my own inner repertoire quite clearly, unfortunately. And so just giving it a name and being able to, I don't know, usefully objectifies it. Instead of having this measamatic juggernaut feel within your head, it's just like, oh, yeah, that's just one aspect of my mind, and I can work with it better once I've identified it. So that makes sense? 100%. You know, acceptance and commitment therapy

is another one that often encourages you to give a name to these things, because it just to use the Ethan Cross term, right, it gives you a measure of self-distancing. And I think I listened to your interview with Richard in preparation for one that I did. And I think I did something similar to you where we did a little of the work online. And I remember, and it was the exact experience that I have, and I often have with that stuff, where I think you were like, I don't know if I'm really feeling that or if I'm just making this up. Like what's actually going on in here, right? This stuff gets so complicated. And you know, it's like we know, you know, he's asking a question apart apart and you know that

the part is supposed to have some kind of answer. So an answer comes and he's, is that the real answer? I mean, I did, this was a long time ago. This is probably 2000, so 25 years ago. I did some therapy work after my first marriage failed and it was under the rubric of inner child work. That was what it was called. And I just couldn't stand that name. The whole idea of it made me a little bit crazy. But when I looked at what was going on inside of me, and I went like, oh, there do seem to be these times

that the way my brain and my mind is reacting is exactly like what a three year old would be reacting like. I kind of went, well, I kind of get over myself here and recognize that this makes sense. I may choose to call it something different and you're a skeptical guy you talk about in your TED talk, you know, how putting your hand on your heart initially for self-compassion made you cringe.

I think we both come from a very similar place with all that stuff. Yet a lot of that stuff really does seem to help. I love that phrase. What was it? If you can't get cheesy, you can't get free. Something like that, yes. Something like that. That's really good.

It is. Yeah, your inner child experience I resonate with that. IFS says Richard did with me and with you, he basically has the same part of you talk to the various insane parts of you, or maybe that's probably a overly negative way to describe it, but the various parts of your personality, you have a dialogue with them.

And doing that feels very strange, and you're not even sure, like am I articulating what that part really thinks? I don't know, it's very strange. And so I'm not saying sure, like am I articulating what that part really thinks? I don't know. It's very strange. And so I'm not saying you, dear listener, need to do all of these things. What I'm saying is in my experience, it's very helpful and just to repeat your phrase Eric,

getting over yourself can really be a key to dealing with some of these things. So we've talked about five broad approaches that have worked for you that have been really important. And in your TED talk, you say, the massively empowering news is that love is not an unalterable factory setting. It is a skill you can train. It's actually a family of skills. And I was kind of curious, are these the skills that you mean the things we just listed

you, the self-compassion, the compassion for others or the loving kindness, the IFS worker, these sort of to you that family of skills, or did you have something else in mind when you use that line in the TED Talk? Yes, and I think those five skills that I referenced, those five modalities that I referenced earlier are all really good for inner work, but there are other skills that I would also put in the family of love skills. And as you know, I define love quite broadly, not just romantic or familial love,

but just our capacity to give a shit, which is wired into us via evolution. We're social animals, we needed to have this care capacity and it's omnidirectional that it applies not only to people in your life, but also to yourself. And so those five skills that I was referencing, yeah, those are all really kind of on the self love side

of the spectrum, you know, having a better relationship with yourself, which of course, inextrably leads to better treatment of other people. But there are skills in the family that I think are really just about working, you know, with other people in a more effective way. Communication skills I would put right there at the top. I've spent a couple of years, maybe five years, I think, coming up in five years working with a pair of Buddhist inflected communications coaches who have utterly changed the way I interact with other people. So, yeah,

that's just one example. Is Orrin one of those? So Orrin J. Sofer is an incredible meditation teacher who's been on my podcast and teaches on the 10% happier meditation app and he has written extensively and he's written a whole book about how to communicate better. The coaches that I work with are slightly different. Their names are Dan, Clermann, and Moody to Niskur. If you're looking for great guests for your show, I highly recommend them. They're incredible. And their system, in my opinion, it's simpler than Orin's. And so I've gravitated in that direction. Orin bases his stuff on nonviolent communication, which is this incredible system for communication. Dan and Moody to, it's a little bit more stripped down and I've just found

it very easy to get into. Yeah, it's easy to understand, very hard to do. Yes, you know, there's a book out there, they wrote a number of them. One of my favorites is Crucial Conversations and they've got other ones Patterson and Kerry and different people. And that's always been the one that just like turned on a light in my head about like how do you relate to other people? And you know, they were talking about this sort of idea of, you know, psychological safety, you know, decades before it became a buzzword like it is today. So you recently mentioned on your podcast that you've had a resurgent and very inconvenient set of panic attacks recently. And I very recently have had something come up in my life that I can't really share much about because other people are involved,

but it has caused me to have a level of anxiety that it's been 20 years since I felt anything like it. And it creeps up towards panic, you know. And so I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about what works for you there, you know. You've got a great recent podcast with I don't have her name in front of me. Luana. Yes. Dr. Luana Marquez. So do you have any sense of why the panic resurfaced for you after having worked with it skillfully for a number of years, or is that not even important to you? That's definitely important to me. This is a rich area.

I have so many things to say. I'm going to try to do what the aforementioned Dan and would need to often urge me to do, which is to chunk rather than flood, to not say too much at one time rather than flooding you with information to give it out in chunks. So I want to talk about what's going on with you. I think an important, definitional thing to get straight up front is there's in my mind at least a difference between panic and anxiety. And I think anxiety at its peak can become panic. But I have found different ways to deal with both. So for example, for me, my recent

both. So for example, for me, my recent bouts of panic have almost all been brought on by the two triggers that have always been there for me. One is public speaking, my most famous panic attack was on television in 2004. What's it like to have a famous panic attack? Yeah, most people don't say that. My most famous panic attack. I often joke about I've been dining out on that story for a long time. Yeah, it's turned out to be great to have a famous panic attack at the beginning of a new career, but it's not great to have panic attacks. And in the fall of 2022, I started having panic attacks not only when I had to give public speaking, but also when I was in situations where I felt trapped physically, so elevators and airplanes. And I'd struggled occasionally with elevators, you know, over the years,

but never like this. I was having to, if I was in the city, I would just walk up 15 flights instead of taking elevator. That's how terrified I was. And I was either getting off of planes because I was unwilling to fly or having to take a lot of the clonopin in order to get myself onto the plane. It was very embarrassing. You know, I hear I am, Mr. Meditation Guru, not really a guru,

but Meditation Evangelist is the phrase I often use and you know, mental health, quote unquote expert. And I'm freaking out. I can't even get on a fucking plane. And that was very embarrassing and demoralizing. The good news though is that I did a bunch of exposure therapy where I literally rode in elevators with a shrink. You know, I did it over the course of months

and I consistently went back on planes and sometimes I had to take meds, but then I would taper down so that I was taking very small doses and then none. I just went at it. I want to say aggressively, but that's not the right term, but I would say persistently and doggedly. I really just did not want to let my life get small because panic was stopping me from doing things. And it really worked. It really worked. I'm on planes and in elevators now and sometimes I feel a little nervous, but it's really helpful. I'm going to stop talking in a second but I just want to say that to me that high, high,

high anxiety of panic is slightly different from daily anxiety even when it rises to a level where it's kind of debilitating and I use different tools for each. So what do you is the difference between something that would be like high anxiety and panic. Oh, so I kind of think if high anxiety and panic is the same thing as opposed to, you know, garden variety anxiety, background static of fear. So, I mean, I'm not really an expert. I mean, I'm an expert in my own experience, but this is my way of thinking about it. You know, the daily background of fear that I think I certainly live with

as somebody with anxiety can go up or down depending on the circumstances or whether I've slept or whatever. And it can get pretty high and really be intrusive. But panic or high anxiety is when fight or flight really kicks in and your heart races lungs sees up, you're completely debilitated and you feel like you're having a heart attack. So to me, that's the bright line. Yeah. And because we know that what we might call garden variety anxiety, which makes it sound like a lady's gardening club, which is not what it feels like.

No. There tend to be two elements to it. In my mind, right, There's all the thought patterns, and then there's the degree of fear in the body. And so you're saying that from your perspective, panic is when that fear is at like a 10. Whereas if it's only at an 8, that's anxiety to you. Even though you might notice that your heart is racing, you might notice that you're feeling a little bit short of breath. You might notice like, okay, I can't quite get my bearings here. Yes, well, you just did there. It's called reflective listening where you,

this is a thing I learned from Dandamudita, which is you repeated back to me in a more succinct fashion, what I was trying to say in your own words. And yeah, exactly right. Well, you and I both sort of do it for a living. So I should be good at it after almost a decade. You know, if not, I pick the wrong field. And so you've got acute events. You've got to give a public talk. You've got to get on an elevator. Those cause panic.

The rest of the anxiety, you know, does it get up into that seven, eight level for you or is that mostly floating? And again, I'm talking less about the thoughts and more about the physical sensations. Yeah. To me, and again, I cannot stress strongly enough, I'm not a clinician and I'm not an expert in this, but stuff that's giving me garden variety, anxiety, and yes, I agree with you, there are the thoughts and then there are the physical manifestations. Rarely gets close to panic. I can get very angry or

very distracted. I'm not able to focus on stuff because I'm worried. But the source of the daily anxiety is quite different. At least consciously. Yep. I think subconsciously maybe all the same thing. But what's giving me anxiety on a day-to-day basis is not claustrophobia. At least consciously. Yep. I think subconsciously, maybe all the same thing. But what's giving me anxiety on a day-to-day basis is not claustrophobia. Yeah. What gives me panic on the regular is claustrophobia or public speaking. Yep. And you said you had some theories as to why it was resurfacing.

If you're comfortable sharing it. No, I don't mind sharing it at all. I think one of the very practical explanations that we were in a pandemic. So I wasn't getting on airplanes as much. And I had moved out of the city, where I live, New York City, to the suburbs, with my family. And so I wasn't getting on elevators as much.

And so after a couple of years of not being exposed, when I started getting back onto planes, especially with masks on, it was harder for me to do. And it was just one experience I had where I was getting on a flight to LA for a big talk and I was getting over COVID. I was clear to travel, but I had to have a K-95 on. And I was sitting on the plane. I hadn't been on a plane in a long time and I had the mask on and I didn't feel good.

And I started to freak out and I got off the plane. And that just set me so far back. And then it just started showing up everywhere. And that's, in my experience, the way panic works. Once it creeps in, it just metastasizes into lots of areas of your life. And if you're not really on top of it, you can start pulling back from everything,

you know, not doing the things that might give you panic and then your life gets super small. And so luckily, I have a lot of experience like you do interviewing mental health experts, I just started calling my shrank, I called Dr. Marquez and got some advice from her and I just started getting treated right away. But it took months. Yeah. You know, I find what you just shared and the fact that you are sharing it to be courageous in kind

of like you said, that you are positioned in a certain way in the world. You know, I know I do this with myself. When I'm struggling, I'm like, you've interviewed all the leading people in the world about this stuff. You teach programs on this stuff. Like, what does the matter with you? The Buddhist idea of the second arrow and the shame that comes with it can be so pernicious. Yes, it can. The second arrow is a great story, another great parable, I think. Maybe it's

technically not a parable, but it's a great story from the Buddhist canon of guys walking through the woods, gets hit by an arrow, and that hurts, obviously, and then starts telling them stuff a whole story about like, why, why, always, the guy gets hit by the arrow and, you know, I'm not going to be able to make dinner tonight and all that stuff and that's the second arrow that we inject voluntarily. And I think we're doing this to ourselves all the time. And I think what has been helpful for me as a allegedly an expert in mental health and meditation and Buddhism who you know continues to make lots of mistakes and have lots of setbacks in his life is to recognize that this was never promised to be linear.

Personal development, personal growth, the spiritual path, not afraid as I love. It's not supposed to be like a hockey stick that just goes up in an uninterrupted way. Like, life is going to happen to you. And I think it's just been important for me to remind myself of that. And, you know, it's another example of self love, actually. Yeah, that is the way we tend to think about growth as in it goes in one direction.

And when it doesn't, it can be very, very discouraging. And, you know, I often think of it almost like a, I don't know who I heard say this, but like a spiral staircase, you know, like if you go on a spiral staircase, you may come up by that very scary picture. But ideally, when you get to it next time, you're slightly better than before or at least have more tools in how to work with it than before. But it doesn't mean that the picture doesn't scare a shit out of you. Yes.

A friend of mine told me a story about something that his shrink said to him. My friend was complaining to his shrink about how he, yet again, made the same mistake that he had made a million times. I can't believe I did this, you know, thing X again. And the shrink said, was it as bad as the last time? That's just a great way to look at it, you know?

And that is a great way to remove the second era. I think it's so important to do what you are doing, or I'm attempting to do, which is to share that, it doesn't matter where you get in life, you know, life still can kick your ass. And I've talked to enough people and I think you have to where I've recognized that after a while, I was like, oh, they're incredibly wise people. They have a lot to share with the world, and they still have their moments. Now, you know some people I don't know, like the Dalai Lama. So you might say, well, not the Dalai Lama.

There's some people that maybe get to a different level. But most of us in Western society, there is some degree of life still comes at you, and sometimes it takes a while to recalibrate. Yes. Yes. One of the best Buddhist book titles is by a teacher named Jack Cornfield, incredible meditation teacher, and he wrote a book called After the Ecstasy, The Laundry. And, you know, you can have these incredible transformative experiences in meditation, with psychedelics, in therapy, in nature nature and then you got to do the laundry Yeah, and sometimes the laundry sucks. Yeah

So a recent podcast series that you guys started doing I love the idea of and the question really is can you get fit Sainly right in that you know many of us have a relationship with exercise that has been driven by very often poor body image or insecurity or trying to look a certain way or going overboard. And I'm curious, what did you learn from doing that series about getting fit in a sane way? I know I'm asking you to condense what were many episodes into a few key thoughts,

but what were some of the big takeaways for you for that? First of all, thank you for the kind of words about the series. And also that it was six episodes. And so there was so much stuff in there. But the thing that leaps to mind as you ask me that question, like, what was the takeaway when after interviewing all of these experts in getting healthier in various ways. One of the people we interviewed was a teacher named Cara Lai, L-A-I, as her last name. She's a Buddhist teacher and also a social worker and used to run marathons barefoot. So she was a hardcore exerciseer and then got Lyme's disease and has really not been able to exercise as much and has really wrestled with that and

She talked a lot about why we exercise like what is driving you to do this and That really got me thinking like why am I? spending so much time in the gym what is my motivation is it? to keep up with people I'm seeing on Instagram? Yeah, I think in part. And that's fine. We live in this culture. We're going to be impacted by the culture. I'm not saying that it's bad to have that motivation. What I'm saying is, is that the fuel you want? Can we switch to something else? and what impact might that have? So for example, can I really consciously boost my attention on my motivation being staying healthy for

my now eight year old son as he gets older? And what would the ramifications of that be? So yeah, maybe I'll spend less time working on my biceps because I like the way my arms look in t-shirts. And more time working on, I don't know, biceps because I like the way my arms look in t-shirts. And more time working on, I don't know, my core because that will help me get up or time my own shoes when I'm a hundred if I live that long. And so I think it can change your goals. And also it can really, in my experience, lead to stickier habits. You know, if I've tried to get into the habit and to get this is going to be one of those things

that's going to sound cheesy. But of, you know, when I get on the exercise bike or I, this morning, it's like a run, just taking a second and saying, like, I'm doing this to make myself happier and stronger so that I can make other people happier and stronger and so that I can be around for my son and my wife. I don't know, I have more grit in my exercise regime and my priorities

have changed because my motivation is clearer. Yeah, I agree. I also think that for whatever reason, fuel, the ego fuel doesn't work for me in the way that it did when I was 25. It's just not strong enough necessarily to get me to do it consistently. I think the biggest change for me was when I realized, like you said, this makes me healthier and stronger. And for me, it was really emotionally and mentally. When I realized, like, emotionally and mentally, this is the practice that is better for me than any of the others. If I had to set meditation aside, if I could keep one of the two, I would say, let me keep exercise. Let me keep exercise strictly from a mental health, emotional health perspective.

And that's really good because it shrinks the time horizon between the action and the reward. Even wanting to be healthy for your son, there's a way in which you can be like, wow, but yeah, I mean, I've got 20 more good years before I have to really start to worry about that, whereas I'm like, if I want to feel better this afternoon, so I can, you know, have more energy, like the benefit is so close, as humans, the bigger that span gets between the action and the benefit, the harder it is to sort of really work with ourselves more face in resistance.

I agree. And if you're doing a class in the, you know, just say you're doing spin quite a bit and sometimes the teachers having you sprint a bunch and it can be nice to picture my son or my wife in those moments. Yeah. So I think it's yes and a shorter time horizon is always a powerful motivator and if I'm doing it for my own abs I'm gonna be less likely to push that hard. Yeah I interviewed a woman years ago and she had done some research on this and I've asked her sense like has this really been Replicated or not and I'm kind of curious what you think about it because it was counterintuitive to me And I don't know that I think it's true. And she said that when you start to layer multiple motivations on,

you weaken what can be a primary motivation. And to me, I've always been under the school of thought of like, you know what, have a bunch of them because different ones may pull me through on a different day. And again, when I talked to her, she was like, I don't know how well that's really been replicated. I think it gets to the intrinsic extrinsic motivation debate and people say, well, if you reward somebody for doing something with just

money, they have less intrinsic reward to do it. And I've just found that most things in my life seem to be a blend of those things anyway and that leaning into that has been helpful for me, but I'm kind of curious what you think. Well, I don't really know what's coming to mind is something that my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, has often said to me and others, which is that if you look carefully at your motivations, and it's not just your motivation to exercise, it can be your motivation for saying a certain thing in any given moment or for having a career goal or whatever, you'll probably see a range

from the high-minded to the crass. That just feels like a part of human nature that we have many motivations seen and unseen. And a good life goal is to try to emphasize the wholesome and the emphasize the unwholesome. I've heard you talk about this, and I've thought about it a lot over the years, particularly as I went from doing this

is something that I just did because I wanted to do it to something that paid the bills, you know, that the motivations start to get confused. And instead of making that a problem, right, I just kind of go, well, of course, I'm motivated by making money, because everybody is motivated by making money to some degree. And now it's how I make a living. And of course, I'm motivated by being seen and approved of. But can I try, like you said,

to focus more of my energy and tension on the more wholesome motivations? You know, can I try and let that be what drives me more without making it a problem that these other things are there because like what your teacher Joseph said, it just feels fundamentally true to me. Yeah, I've had that conversation with myself that you just described. I'm out here supposedly helping people, but am I just lining my own pockets

or just trying to get cloud or influence or fame or whatever? And I have gone down the toilet on that many times. I had a really useful conversation about this with a guy who I mentioned earlier, Jerry Kallona, who's also might be a good guest for this show. He's quite a famous executive coach and he's also written a bunch of books about leadership from a really sort of psychological slash Buddhist perspective.

And I found his stuff to be very helpful, both one-on-one and his public pronouncements. And I was talking to Jerry once about my motivations and raising the question of whether I'm maybe broken in some way. And he's like, look, we all have the desire for money and to be liked by our fellow mammals. And that's natural. And can you just look at it as like an exchange of, and he used the term love, which is a complex word. And carries a lot of cultural baggage, but back to my sort of capacious broad understanding of it.

Can you look at this as an exchange of love? And I think this applies to you Eric. Like, yes, you get paid for doing this podcast. And you might get more Twitter followers or somebody stops you in an airport and says they love your show. And all of that makes you feel good and makes you safe and gives you the capacity to do more good work to help more people. And that's a beneficial cycle. Yeah, I agree. I definitely go that way. You did a recent thing for the podcast meditative story with that team and you did an episode where you share taking a

trip with your son. And it's a really beautiful episode. We had Rohan on recently and he did a meditation based on the two wolf parable. But I loved your story in that talking about how spending time one on one with him kind of brought you together. And I'm kind of curious, you know, this was sort of your first trip, you know, with your son. And I don't know when you recorded that episode. But I'm kind of curious as that trend of spending time with your son, one on one in that way, continued. And as it continued to sort of be a way of giving you more quality time with him in a way that still feels really good.

Yeah, that was a thousand percent. So I did this story for meditative story about how what my son was like four, I think I took him on the road with me to go see my parents. We went from New York to Boston. My parents were living in Boston at the time. So this was pre-pandemic, he's eight now. Okay, so that's a while ago. Yeah. I was a while ago, but there's some cool updates. And I, I mean, obviously, I hope this is obvious. I love my son. I loved him then. And I was at a time in my life where I was working all the time. You know, I was working nights on nightline and weekends and good morning America. And I was traveling to give speeches. I was writing books, I was traveling to do investigative television stories, I was hosting a podcast, I started a meditation app, it was insane.

And as a consequence, I didn't get that much time with my son and he really didn't have time for me. When I was around, he was just like all about his mother and it just brought me back into the place of feeling like I was a monster. And so I took him on this trip and we had a great time and you can listen to the episode if you want. But the update is that now he travels with me all the time. So I do a lot of corporate speaking and we'll fly around the country to talk to different professional groups

or corporations. And so I have this eight year old, who is my right hand man and I pull him out of school and we go and so we just did a 10 day trip I had three speeches one in Vegas one in New Orleans one in Jackson Hole and he's my little guy and it's awesome We are really close now and part of that is because of the travel part of this because I'm not working as much and part of it Just because he's gotten older and I'm a little bit more interesting to him Yeah, but it's phenomenal. It's completely changed our relationship. And what did he say to me in the middle of the recent trip? He said, Daddy, I love

you, but I'm sick of you. He's got a sassy mouth on him. Eight is such a great age. You know, I think I mean, they're all great ages, but five to ten just felt like the glory years to me. I was just like, how many kids do you have? Just one. And he is grown and he is currently a wildland firefighter. So he's been in Canada for, for much of the summer. But I loved that five to ten range. When I was listening to that story, it took me back his mother and I split when he was like two and a half. and he was very attached to his mother, which you know as a two and a half year old, you know she was home with him all the time. I was working, you know similar, similar dynamic and I all of a sudden had this two and a half year old all by myself for stretches of time and it was difficult in some ways but I'm so glad also that

it gave me a relationship with him that was just different than it would have been had I remain sort of the secondary parent, you know, or the parent that wasn't around as much. And so suddenly I was getting these big blocks of time with him. So when I heard that story, it kind of took me back to, you know, the sweetness of that one-on-one time, not the time with like you and your wife and son. I'm sure isn't wonderful also, but there is a difference there. Definitely. I don't know if you get asked this question a lot, but I can't resist it. But I'm sure you get asked it a lot because it's the obvious question, which is, you know, you are a decade or so off of writing 10% happier. It's a great book title, right? I'm sure you wouldn't change the book title because it's so good.

Would you change the degree to which you think these things have made you happier better? Is 10% really the right number? Or would you revise that upwards to some bigger number? I have never been good at math and I came up with this title and as a consequence get math questions a lot. So the way I think about it and I actually think this is a very important question. Love getting it is I'm going to make a math assertion here and you know just with the caveat that I'm not good at math but I think about it like an investment and the 10% compounds annually. And so I'm way more than 10% happier, 10 years out from writing that book.

And I think it's because you just have to keep at it. These skills of mindfulness, compassion, calm, concentration, the various skills that can be taught through meditation, you just keep getting better. And there's not as much of a physical limitations like there's a ceiling on how good I can get at basketball. You can go pretty far

and the interior realm. And I'm not saying that I've gone that far, but I like the possibility. I love that answer. And it speaks very much to what I think is a truth, which is if you were to compare how much happier you are in the recent time, you might go, well, I'm getting a little bit better, you know, but the accumulation of that, you know, I've studied a lot in the Zen tradition, particularly in Rinsai and Koan Zen, and there's a lot of focus on Satori, right? These moments of just like bam, Thunder Cloud Enlightenment, right? You know, I've been fortunate enough to have some really profound experiences in that way, but I often think about this, and I've said this on the show a bunch of times,

that I think if you were to take the 23 year old version of me who was a homeless heroine addict, and you were to drop him into this brain today, he would think he was suddenly enlightened, because the gap between where I am now and where I was then is so vast, the gap between where I am now and where I was last year might vast. The gap between where I am now and where I was last year might not be in the same way.

It's harder to see. It's the nature of progress. And to your point, it's not always linear. But I do think that answer of compounding really does make sense to me that over time, I've radically transformed as a person due to many of the things that we've talked about on this show, the psychological principles, the Buddhist principles, you know, all these different things have made such

a big difference over time. So I love that answer that, yeah, you may not expect to earn more than 10% in a year. And to take your market analogy further, you know, if you talk with the financial planner, they'll say, well, you know, we think we can get you like 7% over the long term. Knowing that some years, you're going to get 14% and some years, you're going to get 1% and then over time, it's going to sort of average out. And that feels like a apt way of thinking about the growth in healing journey. Yeah, I mean, I love your story. That's amazing. It's incredible that you've been able to make that progress. And I think the takeaway for people listening is that you shouldn't get to hung up on the

day-to-day improvements in your meditation practice. You shouldn't be thrusting more arrows into your thigh because you lost your temporary yesterday and you've been meditating for a month and you can't believe that happened. That's just the way it is. The best way to look at it over time is from a pretty broad lens. This is a long, long path. Joseph Goldstein, who we talked about before, the great meditation teacher, sometimes jokes about how when he was a kid, he did some gardening, and he kept pulling the carrots out of the ground to see how they were growing. And it's not a great way to garden, and it's not a great way to meditate or to engage in any kind of personal growth if you're just constantly and obsessively

checking your progress. Yeah. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up Dan. It's lovely to talk with you again and see you again and I appreciate you coming on. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me on great conversation. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support

the one you feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members' only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now we are so grateful for the members of our community, we wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level and become a member of the OneUFeed community. Go to OneUFeed.net slash join. The OneUFeed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.