The School of Greatness - 309 The Power of Meditation with Andy Puddicombe

Episode Date: March 30, 2016

"Meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention." - Andy Puddicombe If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowes.com/309

Now, this is episode number 309 with meditation expert and Headspace founder, Andy Pudicombe. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. There's a great quote by Ramiz Sasson that says,

you get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind. Your nature is absolute peace. You are not the mind. Silence your mind through concentration and meditation, and you will discover the peace of the spirit that you are and have always been. I am very excited to introduce you to Andy Putakom, who is a meditation

and mindfulness expert. He is an accomplished presenter and writer, and he's the voice of all things Headspace. There's a great app right now called Headspace that I've been using for a while that has been blowing my mind and literally blowing my mind. I listened to it almost every single day. And Andy is the voice and the creator of this process. And in his early 20s, he made the unexpected decision to travel to the Himalayas to study meditation. It was the beginning of a 10-year journey, which took him around the world, culminating with ordination as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in northern India. He later decided he wanted to transition back into the real world, and he trained briefly

at the Moscow State Circus, where he then returned to complete a degree in circus arts. And in this episode, we cover all things meditation, and also about his crazy experience from leaving again normal life to going to be a monk, what that was like, the whole process, to then unraveling that process and going back into the real world, to then teaching meditation one by one in small groups and now building the largest meditation app called Headspace with over 6 million users. And in this episode, we cover a lot of things, especially how to navigate emotions in a busy life. If your life feels overwhelming, you're definitely going to want to listen to this one. How monks can survive for years and only on four hours of sleep a night. Why you can sleep for 10 hours and still be exhausted.

We also walk you through a guided meditation about how to optimize for any type of performance that you have. This is something you want to make sure you listen to. Why the approach is more important than the technique you use in meditation. And so much more. I really enjoyed this one because again, Andy's, it's interesting. It's almost like I meet so many people who listen to the podcast and they say, you know, I listen to you every single day and I hear you for almost an hour a day while I'm

driving or working out or, you know, getting ready for the day or going to sleep. And it's like, I know you, right? A lot of my listeners, a lot of you listening who talk to me and these are like, Oh, it's like, I know you when I hear you and I meet you in person. It was like, I knew Andy cause I've been hearing his voice every night before I go to bed. And it was such a pleasure to connect with him in real life. And he's an incredible human being. And I hope you enjoy this episode. Again, this is episode number three zero nine. Make sure to share this out with your friends and have them listen along with you right now. lewishouse.com slash 309. And check out the full video interview.

There'll be a special bonus as well. So make sure to stick around to the very end to hear what that is. And it includes Headspace. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only, Andy Putakom. Welcome back to one of the School of Greatness podcasts. Very excited about our guest, Andy Putakom. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being here in studio. I'm excited about having you on. For those that don't know who you are, you are one of the creators of an app called Headspace, which I just learned that you've been doing the Headspace thing

for like five to seven years where it was an event. And then you did one-on-one kind of coaching, meditation coaching, and then you built this app, kind of bootstrapped it, and now it's this huge platform, six and a half something million subscribers users and um it's taking over the world in it in a world of hundreds of meditation apps i feel like it stands out which is you've done an incredible job so congratulations thanks thank you very much right it's a big big team effort there's like a hundred hundred people in the team now yeah split between la and london and everybody kind of adds something to the app. But it's been quite a journey.

It's probably 10 years or so since I left the monastery. And in that time, it's hard to – I never could have imagined. Right? The impact that you're creating now. So tell me what happened. So you became a monk. Why did you become a monk um i became a monk it's a strange um thing to do as a 22 year old guy i get 22 year old monk yeah oh 22 i i went off to become a monk i trained

first as a lay person then as a novice monk and then as a fully ordained monk um but i started meditation i was pretty young i was like 11 something like that and my mom was kind of doing it and i was going along to classes with her you grew up in the uk right in the uk yeah it wasn't But I started meditation when I was pretty young. I was like 11, something like that. And my mom was kind of doing it. And I was going along to classes with her. You grew up in the UK, right? In the UK. Yeah. And she wasn't like a crazy hippie or anything.

She was just kind of, she was fairly open-minded, I'd say. Sure, sure. And quite progressive. And early adopter, they say now, right? Sure, sure. And then in my, I kind of did it for a few years. And then it dropped out a bit. And then just in my late teens, early twenties, a couple of pretty heavy things happened. I was out for a night with a group of guys. We were outside the rugby club, I think it was Christmas Eve, and a drunk driver crashed into like a big group of us.

I was on the outside of it. I didn't get hit. Most people did. A couple of them died. Wow. A lot of them really badly. Your friends. Yeah.

Wow. And then probably about three months after that, my stepsister was killed in a car accident as well. She was cycling and the driver fell asleep. Yeah. With the wheel. And for a couple of years, you know, I kind of, I didn't really know what to do with that stuff. You know, and the mind was very busy and I, it was kind of there in the background but i didn't really kind of know how to process it and and i was going out with this girl and she was talking

a lot about buddhism and stuff and you know and um and i wasn't really kind of like massively kind of engaged in those conversations but at some level like the idea really kind of resonated, you know, like not to go and read a book about philosophy or psychology, but to actually, you know, go and look inside. Exactly, you know, and kind of actually examine the mind and find out why the mind was unhappy, you know, and why it didn't feel kind of at ease or at peace. And in that moment, it felt like the most natural thing to do in the world. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Wow. So, yeah, I quit university. Wow.

In London or? It was just outside London. I was doing a degree in sports science at the time. Oh, cool. So I was kind of competing in gymnastics. I was working as a PT, and I was studying sports science. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. I was working as a PT. Nice. And I was studying sports science. Okay. Yeah.

Very cool. Yeah. I'm a sports management major. I haven't done anything with it, but, you know, it's good. So you left university and went to go be a Buddhist monk. Yeah. Okay. And where did you go?

I went first. It's a bit cliche, but, you know, where do you go to start being a Buddhist monk, right? So I thought, well, I know where the Dalai Lama lives. Maybe I'll go there first sure so i went i went there and i i stayed in a retreat for a little while just a few months to begin with just kind of get a hang of you know what it was like and to better understand the different traditions and and i actually ended up going down um the theravadan route which is it's the school of school of Buddhism, which is more – it's probably easiest to think about it in colors. So you see the maroon guys, like they're from Nepal and Tibet. Black is a bit more kind of like Japan and China.

And then you've got the saffron, kind of, which is more Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka. The orange? Yeah, exactly, like the orange. Oh, it's the laos and everything. Okay, exactly. Salmon, the orange, yeah, yeah. So I did that. I sort of studied in that tradition for about five years.

Okay. And then eventually went back to become a fully ordained monk in the Tibetan tradition. Wow. So I did a bit of both. How about five years? So five years I studied Theravadan and then five years I went and did the Tibetan. Wow. The Tibetan thing.

And is that where you essentially, you know, you don't work? You just like go get food in the morning? Like all the monks would come out in the morning and get the rice and the food and everything? There's different ways actually. So there are working monasteries where you're involved in, you know, cooking and cleaning and you have responsibilities for the community. Yeah. And then there are retreat monasteries where it's a little bit more hardcore. You don't do anything other than

meditate just like a 10-day silent meditation retreat type of except imagine that over like a year or something you know so yeah so it's you know if you think uh in burma uh you you get up at two um and apart from breakfast at five and lunch at 11 uh 2 a.m. you get up. Yeah. When do you go to bed? Yeah, you get to bed about just after 10. Okay. So it's quite a short night, but about 18 hours of meditation. Wow.

Only four hours of sleep. Yeah. But I guess the meditative training you do during the day is almost like a deeper sleep where you're getting the rest you need. It's very different. I think as well the environment and the atmosphere of the monastery, you have no distraction. There's no stimulation. The mind is not active in the same way. So you're not getting exhausted.

Exactly. And if you think about it, even when we get a full night's sleep, sometimes, I say this having a baby at home who wakes us up often in the night, sometimes even if we do have a full night's sleep, the mind is not necessarily resting. So we can wake up from like a 10 hour sleep exhausted and be exhausted interesting so as long as the mind is active it doesn't really matter whether we're awake or asleep we're still going to end up kind of feeling quite tired so it's very different in the monastery so the goal is to calm the mind whether you're throughout the day exactly or at night exactly

and the reason they kind of make the nights really short in the monastery is you're you're attempting to kind of develop stability of awareness 24 7 even when you're asleep and if the night's too long it's really hard to kind of try to maintain any awareness through the night anyway never mind over like an eight hour period but for a few hours you can start to kind of get a sense of rest. So you're being aware of your sleep. Aware of the mind throughout the sleeping process. Really? As much as possible. Yeah. That's the – I mean, speak to real masters.

They've done it. So they're dreaming and they're aware of themselves being asleep. So it's lucid. So the dreaming is lucid. And then they wake up and they're just like, well, yeah, I just experienced a little. I know everything that just happened. Exactly. Wow.

I mean, that's quite kind of an advanced kind of practice. And those guys, they're doing it as a vocation for their lifetimes, you know. What's the benefit of that, being aware of every moment 24 hours a day for your whole life? What's that benefit? I think there are many different ways of talking about it. ways of talking about it. I think the interesting thing is, I think there's often this idea that happiness or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, is this thing out there, over there, in some other place. When actually you start to realize when you kind of practice in that way, that it's actually moment to moment. Like enlightenment, happiness, peace of mind is here

in this moment. If we experience this moment, not only now, but in the next moment, and the next moment, and the next moment, then we have stability of enlightenment, of happiness, of peace of mind. So if you have it 24-7, and it's moment to moment, and you develop consistency and stability of that, then you always have what you always wanted and it was always here all along so okay but i get that and part of me is like that's something to strive for and another part of me is like there's no flavor to life if everything is enlightened and perfect all the time, where's the texture? Where's the juice? Where's the contrast?

That's also what makes life exciting and interesting as opposed to just this, I'm fulfilled all the time. Does fulfillment ever become unfulfillment? You know what I mean? Well, it's interesting because the idea, again, I think misconception sometimes is that that um fulfillment or peace of mind or nightmare whatever you want to call it is somehow somehow dull and boring you know um and that maybe we experience less of life less of our thoughts less of our emotions everything's just a bit flat but if you think about we're training awareness so we're not becoming less aware of our emotions and of life and the highs and lows we're actually becoming more aware of it the difference is that life is no longer

controlling us we're no longer so easily overwhelmed and we get to choose so we see a thought that appears and doesn't mean that we're not going to experience sad thoughts yes close friend dies of course we're going to feel kind of devastated but does that kind of leave us so paralyzed that we're unable to continue to live our life or are we able to see it process it and let it go it doesn't mean we forget them in that so that we're still living kind of life in in the same way life is still going on all around us but we're just getting to kind of step back a little bit and kind of say, actually, when I follow that route in my mind, when I follow that habit of thought, it doesn't make me feel good.

So you know what? I'm not going to do that. You're going to let it go. I'm going to let it go. Wow. Wow. Okay, so what happened next? You went two different routes for you to be a monk.

Yeah. And the second part was how long, two years? The Tibetan. So I trained in Tibetan school for about five years. The last, I suppose, three years of that was as a fully ordained Tibetan monk. What's the difference between ordained and? When you're a novice, you're still kind of training. You're learning the ropes and a lot more rules when you take full ordination.

So, it's a bit kind of stricter. Sure, sure. Yeah. It feels a little different. It feels a bit more serious. Okay. It's like high school basketball to professional. Exactly.

Right? Okay. Exactly. So, you did that for two years, right? For three years. Three years. And why did you stop you stop i stopped so um i finished the period of training i went to a tibetan buddhist monastery and did a year's retreat there and after that they they sent me off to to moscow and in russia and i ended up spending about four years there but um whilst i was there a lot of lay people like general public would come along to the

meditation center and i was still in my my robes and the feedback was always the same this is really beneficial i really kind of find this useful but you know i don't necessarily relate to the whole kind of buddhist thing and look it's a bit weird like yes you're a man dressed in a skirt exactly you know so the more we kind of talked about the more i thought about it and i was kind of like you know so what am i passionate about here is it is it being a monk or is it kind of teaching meditation and it was it was teaching meditation every time you know so you gain fulfillment and benefit from adding the value to other people not just being alone exactly meditating all day exactly and i thought that was something that I could do, something useful that I could do.

So I spoke to my teacher and I made the decision to, yeah, to not leave the ropes behind, but to kind of dress in a different way. That's interesting. For me, like, nothing has really changed that much. You know, obviously. Just the appearance, the transformational appearance. Yeah. And obviously I have a wife and a child now, which I couldn have done as a mom done right but it's i'm i'm teaching meditation and whether i'm dressed in maroon robes kind of and smell a little bit of incense

or whether i'm kind of living here in la and wearing board shorts it kind of it's pretty similar lifestyle yeah it's not that different you know living in venice it's all right so interesting now did you have conflicting thoughts when you're like okay well i'm not It's not that different, you know. You're living in Venice. It's so similar. All right. So there are a few differences, yeah. Interesting. Now, did you have conflicting thoughts when you were like, okay, well, I'm not supposed to – this is the path that I thought I was supposed to be chosen to do or choosing to do. And, you know, no wife, no kids in this path. But now everything that I thought I wanted, I'm going to change and go against those beliefs, I guess, in a way. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting. So the lovely thing about Buddhism is well it's interesting so the lovely thing about buddhism is that it's very kind of open you know so there's no idea that once you take robes that's it for life in fact people regularly go in and out of the monastery and kind of it's not considered like you know a bad thing so there's no guilt or anything attached to it in fact so much so you even make a commitment like one year three years five years and then every when that commitment ends you either just stop because that's the commitment you made or you make another commitment to continue a bit further right so it provides a certain element of freedom i would say

um but in terms of of changing i think the hardest thing was like as a monkey give away everything so i had nothing my i kind of had my clothes I was wearing. And I was thinking, like, how do you even begin to go back to normal life? I was living in Moscow. I kind of wanted to go back to London. And so anyway, I finished my time. So how did you? Yeah, so I finished my time as a monk.

And I had six months left in Russia before going back to planning to go back to England. I had some friends who were helping me go back to england and some friends who were helping me go back to go back to england you were still in contact with friends and family at this stage i was not so much in the in the retreats and the monasteries but once i was living in moscow there was a bit more a bit more contact and a friend of mine in moscow was um studying he was doing a degree at moscow state circus and you know i'd competed in gymnastics and i'd had 10 years where i'd done no exercise at all. No exercise.

No exercise, zero. Yeah, it's just kind of not part of the daily kind of routine. So it was kind of itching a little bit to do that. I could imagine. Just to get back into my body. Oh, my gosh. Too much headspace. Exactly.

Exactly. There is such a thing. And so he said, look, why don't you come along to the circus, you know, and kind of, you know, maybe just do some one-on-ones. And so I did, and I really loved it. And the guy said, hey, do you know what? Like, you can actually do a degree in London. And so I started thinking about this. And I was like, well, I want to go back to London.

I kind of need a bit of time just to work out how I'm going to do this transition and what I'm going to do. And I knew that the government in England, because I was quite old by that stage, like 32 or something, and they give you incentive to kind of go and study. And they would actually pay. And they'd not only pay for you to go to university, but they'd pay for like your accommodation and stuff. And I was like, hey, this could work out. This could work out. So I sent off a video.

I made a video audition tape to get into the National School of Circus, which is part of the Conservatoire of Dance and Drama in France. And yeah, somehow I got in. I've no idea how. So I did a degree in circus. And while I was doing that, I put together the material for Headspace. Really? Yeah. And were you working on different people in the circus or in the school and teaching them?

Meditation-wise? Yeah. More outside, actually. So I was, yeah, not so much in the circus or in the school and teaching meditation wise yeah more outside actually so i was yeah not so much within the within the circus um that was very much kind of physical kind of interesting what was the most uh interesting lesson you learned about being in circus school yeah good question there are several i think the one that stayed with me is the willingness to just go out there and just try something. And to leave behind any idea of success or failure. There are ideas in the mind. Admittedly, if you're swinging from the trapeze, you want to succeed in catching the other one.

Absolutely. But in terms of kind of going out there and performing, as long as you're thinking, you're kind of getting in your own way, like in life generally. And you think if you're too tight on the tightrope, you're going to fall off. If you're too loose and relaxed, you're going to fall off. It's finding that kind of sweet spot. So there's something about stepping out on stage,

finding that sweet spot in both body and mind, and kind of letting go of any idea of trying to be a certain way but just simply being in the moment and just letting that moment unfold there's something beautiful in that very kind of liberating and there's no way i could do what i'd now do with headspace today unless i'd gone through that first i think wow you know interesting yeah interesting what's the scariest part of uh being a monk um for you what was scary was there anything scary for you before going to do it yeah before and during i think before um the idea of leaving friends and family and life kind of somehow carrying on without wow me like you, friends were getting married and having kids and all that stuff. You weren't there.

Yeah, it was kind of happening and I was kind of missing a lot of it. So I think the idea of that before I went was pretty big in my mind. And then when I was there, I think just the intensity of it, like sometimes it's just like, oh, wow, this is full on. Yeah, yeah. As much as you get the calm and the peace of mind a lot of it involves sitting down with a very busy mind that's kind of you know it's quite cantankerous you know throwing up difficult thoughts and you have to kind of maintain that sense of awareness of just

seeing thought without getting involved in it without and that takes some time that takes some practice because normally when difficult thoughts arise in the mind or difficult emotions, we normally buy into them. And we become those emotions. So it takes a little while to kind of step back enough to kind of go, oh, you know what? That's just a feeling. How about that? And I don't have to become it. Exactly.

I can let it go. Exactly. But it takes time. And so to begin with, it's quite a shock when you – wow. Do you face big moments or breakdowns in your day-to-day life right now? You're co-founder of a big company. You've got a lot of employees on the team. You're in a busy city.

There's traffic. You're probably getting here. You're probably like, what's going on? What happens when you feel like you're about to have an emotional breakdown or you feel the motions turning or something how do you navigate the process now in a busy life yeah i think the the beauty there is of training consistently is that it tends to kind of last like there is a training last yeah the training last so there's an element it's not like you leave the monastery and you leave your mind at the monastery and all the training at the monastery kind of comes with you and that's really the idea same with meditation in everyday life it's the idea is not to kind of

make it all about the meditation those 10 minutes because what about the other 23 hours and 15 minutes right so it's how do we take that and kind of carry into our life in the same way how do you take those years of training and and it after a while there isn't really any kind of effort required it's kind of in inbuilt it's an effort it becomes an effortless thing it doesn't mean like i'm definitely no kind of master here like so of course i have moments and you know if the baby kind of hasn't slept for a number of kind of nights. How do you handle that when you're just like agitated or you're frustrated or something? Yeah.

What's your process? Yeah, I don't really have a kind of, okay, right, now I need to do this. Definitely stopping, pausing, and doing some meditation will make a difference. It kind of helps to reset the mind a little bit. A couple minutes, 10 minutes, some seconds. I think, look, in the night, kind of a few, genuinely, 10, 20, 30 seconds is enough to kind of let go of the frustration of kind of being awake. Because if you think about it, anything in life,

it's really just our resistance towards it. It's wanting it to be a different way. As soon as we realize, oh, yeah, it's just because of that, then we kind of let go of, it's just because of that, then we kind of let go of it. It doesn't mean that we kind of love the situation. Yeah, yeah. But at least now we're not pushing against it, resisting,

causing even more stress. And it's not owning us. Exactly, exactly. Interesting. What's your – do you have like a go-to mantra or meditation practice like in these situations? Yeah. I mean, your app, obviously, you have like all these situations yeah i mean your app obviously you have like all these different uh i guess kind of like chapters and categories but what do you personally do in that moment when the baby's crazy or something you know someone

says something to you or the car you know traffic what is yeah what's the go-to for you there's a little bit at the end i know you've used the the app this analysis a little bit at the end um whatever one you're doing that i always say okay right right now just let your mind do whatever it wants to do so it's a sense of on the one hand giving the mind total freedom to do whatever it wants and at the same time there's a sense of awareness you can't really do that let your mind go free unless you maintain a certain degree of awareness so So for me, that is the shortcut. It's in there because I think it's just an incredibly valuable tool. It's so short because if you leave it too long,

then the mind will start to wander and you lose that sense of awareness. So it's kind of just getting the balance right. But if you do that even for 10, 20 seconds, it's a game changer. You know, we were talking before we started the interview that I've been doing guided visualization meditation for over 15 years. And I see the power of it because when I started doing this, my sister gave me a meditation. It was like a 13-minute meditation from a guy from Tibet. Right. Or no, a guy from Nepal who was a yogi his name is

swami g it was like her swami g or something and she just goes here's the audio check this out i think you might like it when i was in college i was like 18 or 19 and like i said about a month afterwards i broke this world record in football and just the records kept coming and i just felt sharper and so focused yeah and i was a pretty focused guy already, but I just felt like unstoppable. You know, it's just like, I just didn't feel like anyone could stop me in my sport and in life really. But I was just like, I was more committed to my vision. I had, I guess, more willpower to like, you know, I wanted to be, to eat well. And I was able to be clearer on like why i'm

eating purposefully as opposed to just eating junk food and everything just made a lot more sense yeah in sports life relationships and i was just like okay i'll just keep doing this one thing yeah and i didn't really know and i actually took a break for a few years after sports and i gained like 40 pounds and you know i was making money but I was like my life was kind of out of balance and I remember getting back into it listening to the same audio track a few years ago and it noticed a big difference yeah and then I started Headspace about five or six months ago I think and um man it's been so impactful in my life it's been so positive and powerful and the way you teach or the way you just share, it's like this – it's almost like therapy.

It's like a therapeutic, so relaxing. And I actually listen to you right before I go to bed, which I don't think you – I think you actually say don't do this. I think it depends on the individual actually. I think it's a very personal thing for me it puts me to sleep after like a few minutes yeah because my mind is so busy that i need to allow myself to calm down yeah and it puts me in like this calmer state and um and then i'll listen to it i try to listen in the morning the first thing as well depends what i'm doing but um i feel like even more powerful when i do it in the morning for 10 minutes yeah because then i'm really setting my intention for the day.

Exactly. I think that's the difference. And it's just a game changer. I mean, it's like such a game changer. And I'm curious, how many meditation apps are out there right now? Do you know? I have no idea. We were definitely the first one. Really?

Out there. When did you launch? We launched about four years ago wow the first version of it but it's really kind of taken off in the last year yeah i think about a year and a half ago we launched the first one was really uh it was a beta version we just wanted to to see what worked and what didn't and then we kind of worked a lot on the app over about a period a year and a half and then yeah uh about a year and a half ago we we launched version two and we jumped from like 750 000 uh users to say well over six million crazy so it was a big a big jump big change crazy

oh who is it for who's the app for it's for all of us yeah you know and it sounds a bit kind of cheesy like it's for human beings like but i don't know anybody i've never met anyone in the world who wouldn't like to feel a little more calm who wouldn't like a bit more clarity who wouldn't like to feel a bit more content and who wouldn't want to feel more kindness or compassion in their life i just even if we feel like everything is going well in our life at some stage the the nature of the human condition is such that things will probably change and it might be it could be illness for ourself or it could be illness for the people around us that we love right it might be a change in environment it might be a change in geography anything can happen you know so i feel like rather than i think the society generally right that we live in is very kind of about fixing stuff like once it's already happened right it's

management treatment like meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention when you're already doing well. Exactly. Not when things are crazy and messed up. Yeah, only because it's that much harder. If you're in the middle of a really intense situation, someone's like, oh, just learn meditation. Struggling to even deal with, never mind learn new stuff. So it doesn't mean we can't use it for those things. But I think if we can get into a cycle and a habit in the same way,

we don't wait for our teeth to go really well in britain we do um exactly right so we get into this kind of pattern of hygiene and in the same way i think it's hygiene of the health of the mind you know how do we just kind of keep it fresh and sharp and calm and focused and if we do it consistently that happens interesting i love it it's like flossing your brain yeah right it's like getting the gunk out in between the stuff it's a new light it's flossing the brain yeah um i didn't prep you for this but i'm curious can we can we do like a couple minute meditation or something you know okay i would love to. Yeah. I mean, just to either give people a sample of, like, what this even looks like and sounds

like and is. For sure. And I know you have different, like, tracks for, like, going to sleep and, like, all these other things in there. Let's do one, if you can, again, I'm putting you on the spot here, but let's do one for, like, preparing yourself for a big moment in life. Okay. Like, you're feeling anxious because you yourself for a big moment in life okay like you're

you're feeling anxious because you've got a big speech ted talk you've got a big sports game like the biggest game of your life you're going on the first date of like the woman of your dreams that you're about to meet yeah and you were just like your heart is pounding your mind is racing you know nothing bad is happening in your life but you're just like overwhelmed and you can't relax but you want to perform and do the this is like your make or break moment yeah we can do that let's do it the the context and it's important to give because it's as much about genuinely like the technique's important in meditation but the approach is even more important because unless you know how

to approach it you're not going to get the benefit from it what do you mean by that so for example three just three tips kind of which i think will give you more benefit from this exercise so tip one expectation like if you are sitting down and you're thinking just because we're doing something called meditation that your mind is immediately going to switch off and be quiet and there'll be no thoughts, you're going to think that this has failed. Right. And you might not do it again because you think, I'm no good at this. Right.

Because your first time, it's probably not going to be calm. Exactly. You're probably going to continue to have thoughts. Exactly. Not be able to focus. Exactly. Perfectly normal, like learning any skill. Yes.

More than that, meditation is not even about stopping thoughts. It's about stepping back and seeing the mind more clearly. And so this place, I always think about it like cars on a road. Kind of the road is the mind and the cars are the thoughts. Kind of the job is not to kind of run around in the road, kind of trying to stop this thought and chase after that thought. And it's about actually stepping off the road. And seeing the thought.

Sitting on the verge comfortably and witnessing thoughts coming and going and when you do that over time the traffic starts to kind of slow down a little bit and you might one day doesn't happen very often here in la i know but you might just see a road without any cars on it at all you know who knows who knows so expectation is the first thing okay so know that your mind will continue to think thoughts will arise that's okay perfectly natural second thing effort okay we again live in a society where we're encouraged to kind of do stuff and to do stuff kind of with passion and intensity and well that's fine and it's great and it gets us

kind of to a lot of places you want to get to in life but you can't force relaxation to happen you can't force a quiet mind in the same way that you can't force sleep so you know i would say the things are very similar you lie in bed let's say you've got that big presentation or whatever it is the next day and you're lying in bed thinking i've got to get to sleep i've got to get to sleep well the more you think that the less likely you know you start start sweating you know oh my god i can't get to sleep no i've got to try harder i've got to try harder this is never going to work right so in the same way you know with meditation it's can't it can't be a case of oh no i'm doing terrible i've got to focus harder i've got to focus harder. I've got to focus harder.

I was saying to someone the other day, I mean, it was a talk I was giving. I can't remember. I went to do a thing in a bank once with 600 kind of bankers, traders there. Teaching them meditation. Yeah. And as I walked in there, I heard one of them say to the other one, like, right, I'm going to meditate the crap out of it. And it's kind of like, okay, well,

if we're going into it with that kind of intensity, we're probably not going to get the benefit we're looking for. Yes. You want to give your full effort. Exactly. But that doesn't mean like. It's not kind of a will kind of thing. It's more kind of actually like easing off a little bit,

like, and kind of saying, oh, this is nice. Yes. For 10 minutes, I don't have to do anything right you know so expectations are first efforts are second and the third one

i think of it as blue sky it's um for me this idea was a total game changer i always meditated with the idea that as we were talking about earlier like happiness or peace of mind was somewhere else and it was maybe five minutes ahead of me or 10 minutes or maybe a year ahead of me and if i could just get to that point then everything would be okay then one of my teachers said kind of like think of it like this you know so even on a even on a cloudy day the the blue sky is still there if we think about the blue sky being that peace of mind, that sense of kind of happiness and ease, like that's always there.

And if we live in a very cloudy country like England, where I'm from, you know, sometimes you forget. You don't see it much. You don't see it much. And so you forget and you kind of, and you have to get in a plane and kind of go up through the clouds to be reminded, okay, it's still there. And in the same way, like in the mind,

happiness, peace of mind is always with us. It's never been anywhere else. It's just that we in the same way like in the mind happiness peace of mind is always with us it's never been anywhere else it's just that we've got so caught up in the clouds or the clouds have obscured our our perceptions so much that we've forgotten about that so it doesn't make any sense to be sitting there trying to create what we think is relaxation or happiness or peace of mind because it's already there it's within us and so all of it that does something to the dynamic rather than trying to project an idea onto the experience instead we simply witness the experience so remembering that your mind will think anyway knowing that you don't have to try too hard and knowing that peace of mind is all is with within

us and is always here if you can remember those three things, then you start to get some benefit from the exercise. Before we get into the exercise then, can you give some, for those that are skeptics, or I was talking to a friend of mine recently the other day who's a world-class, really well-known athlete, top of the world. And she was like, yeah, I don't know if I'd do meditation. I just don't know if

I'd believe in it. I don't know. I feel like I'm already trained my mind so much through my practice, working out and rehabbing and everything that I just don't know if I would need additional training for the mind. She's got sports psychology. She's got everything. So maybe she's already doing it in a sense. Maybe. So know why for anyone who's skeptical why is meditation is there science that backs this up is there research is there facts like data it's like here's why when you do this it adds so much value to you yeah well there's a there's a ton of different stuff in in that one in that one question i think the first thing i'd say is that like to anyone who kind of is skeptical and thinks that kind of meditation isn't for them, the beauty of meditation is that you get to define it by your intention.

So we can't even say that meditation is this in a box. To one person, it's helping them sleep better. To another person, it's about reducing stress. To another person, it's about performance, kind of on the track or in the water whatever it might be to another person it might be about patience and being able to listen better to their to their partner and have kind of happier relationships so we can't really kind of say like it is one thing is defined by the intention of the user so if there is something in your life i would say to that kind of that skeptical audience you know that you would like to feel more at ease with then there's a pretty good chance that

meditation is going to be beneficial sure and whereas kind of 20 years ago um i'd have probably sat here and was like i can't really prove it you know it's so now we have the science so we have fmri technology which allows scientists researchers to actually look at the brain before during and after meditation and they can see that the the areas of the brain which are responsible for our feelings of happiness and well-being the cortex is receiving greater amount of blood flow when we meditate really it gets thicker it gets stronger in the same way as when we go to the the gym and we train the muscle it gets thicker and stronger same time same way when we sit down to meditate we're training that part of the brain it gets thicker it gets stronger so we spend more time there we experience more of it and there's some

really interesting sometimes people think like yeah it's fine for tibetan monks but kind of what about the rest of us you know what if we're only doing a little bit a day a year two years back some great research that shows that after just four or five days of doing 20 minutes a day already the areas of the brain kind of that we were just talking about they're already receiving a great amount of blood flow so although the cortex isn't necessarily changing that quickly the behavior the kind of neural network is already changing so we can see changes really really quickly and this whole process this world of neuroplasticity where we start to understand that the brain is not fixed that our habits are not fixed it can change and not just on a psychological level but on a

physiological level as well it's i think for a lot of skeptics you kind of look at that and it's like wow that's real like it's there's no kind of does it work doesn't it work it's there there's a talking about sport just now this is a great one which i i still love it was um it's golfers and they're visualizing playing a golf shot we got a professional golfer he got an amateur golfer and you look at the professional golfer who's visualizing in the mri and in the brain there is just like a single dot like it's beautiful it's like a little golf ball actually it's kind of it's just bright it's very clear everything else is black it's like a single pointed focus and then you look at the amateur golfer and it's like fireworks going off

like because they're not just playing the shot they're not in the moment playing the shot they are thinking about playing the shot and so they're thinking about oh my shoulder's in the right place but what about this and this and this and this and i think in life so often we're kind of thinking about life rather than simply living life. We're so busy. We make it so complicated that the mind becomes scattered. It feels very kind of busy. Whereas if we can kind of let go of some of that stuff and simply be in the moment with whatever we're doing, then we might start to experience that single-minded focus. I love that.

Okay. Perfect. All right. Well, let's do the exercise. Okay. That works for you. All right. So we won't do a whole kind of 10 minutes just a few minutes just a couple of minutes yeah no big deal okay so obviously you know typically we wouldn't be sitting here looking looking looking at each other yes excuse me so but i would recommend to anyone who's kind of

trying this exercise don't need to sit cross-legged on the floor or any of that you do it sitting on a chair and i do it with the arms and legs uncrossed with the feet flat on the floor and the hands you know just on the on the lap or or in the knees you know this intro well by now i'm always laying on my back actually you always say like sit in the chair but i'm always laying down that's okay too you know that's okay so you're gonna start off okay we're gonna start off with the eyes open and just looking directly ahead so you're not looking at me and if you're at home you're not looking at one particular thing you're aware of that entire space around you so without moving your eyes you're aware of the peripheral vision either side of you and also above and

below so you have a very sort of soft focus that takes in that entire space. And just maintaining that focus, just taking a deep breath, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. As you breathe in through the nose, just a sense of the body expanding, the lungs filling with air. And as you breathe out, a sense of the muscles just sort of softening in the body a little bit. And with the next out breath, just gently closing the eyes. So as you close the eyes, you're immediately going to be more aware of the space around you, the other senses. So I'd like you to focus in particular on that sensation of touch. You can just allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm now, just in and out through the nose. And just focusing

on that feeling of weight, the body pressing down against the chair beneath you. That sensation of the feet on the floor and of the hands and the arms just resting on the legs. Just take a moment to notice any sounds around you. It doesn't matter what environment you're in. It doesn't matter how many noises are going sounds around you. It doesn't matter what environment you're in. It doesn't matter how many noises are going on around you. In this exercise, we're going to actually use the sounds as a point of focus.

So just noticing the different sounds, allowing them to come and go. Remember it's perfectly normal for thoughts to arise in the mind, especially if you've got something big coming up. So just recognizing that, allowing the thoughts to come and go. And as you do that, just bringing the attention back to the body. Just starting to notice how the body feels. Again, not trying to change anything. If you feel nervous, whether you feel a sense of lightness in the body, excitement if you've got something coming up. Just noticing it. The easiest way of doing it is just to scan down through the body. So starting at the top of the head, just scanning down, noticing how each part of the body feels.

just slowly working your way down towards the toes so not trying to change the feeling in any way maintaining a nice slow slow, steady pace as you continue down through the body. And as you get down to the feet, just feeling that contact between the feet and the floor. It doesn't matter whether you're standing, sitting, or lying with your knees bent. Just focusing for a moment on that contact, the feet on the floor, feeling grounded, knowing that the mind will continue to think, that thoughts will come and go,

to think that thoughts will come and go, allowing them to do that. We're just bringing the attention to that feeling of contact. And then just starting to become more aware again of the space around you the different sounds starting to become more aware of that contact of the body on the floor, hands on the legs. And when you're ready, just gently opening the eyes again. And have a stretch. If you don't, you didn't fall asleep as you know oh man oh that's so powerful and it's just a couple of minutes a couple of minutes you know it's so powerful put me right back into this relaxation calm like at the first moment of it i was like i actually started sweating and i felt very heavy

yeah and so i started thinking man am i gonna look sweaty and then i was just like just let it go as you're going through all the different moments and then i felt very relaxed and you know fine not sweaty anymore it's just like uh it's just such a every time i do it it's such a powerful reminder that even a few minutes yeah can change the trajectory of your day. Yeah. If you choose it. Absolutely. And if you allow it.

Yeah. It's so powerful. Wow. How many different types? I mean, when I think about it, when I try to break it down, I haven't thought about it that much. But when I try to break it down right now, there's different elements of these 10-minute meditations that you talk about. You talk about being aware of the body, the sounds, feeling, touching things. And then there's some meditations where it's like, I don't know if you do this, but I've heard some where it's like thinking about the trees and the clouds and this and imagine yourself walking in a mountain.

It's like taking you to different places. Yeah. We definitely do a lot of visualization or I do a lot of visualization. It tends not to be so much to kind of imagine you're walking out there, that kind of thing. It's more kind of, okay, here's the image. Yes. Okay. Can you sort of maintain it?

Exactly, kind of maintaining focus on that. I think that does something very particular. Why do you do that? So one, it's a technique that we used a lot in the monastery. I found it incredibly beneficial. I was trying to explain it to someone the other day. For me, it's really kind of interesting when you look at pictures or documentaries of monks and nuns kind of and

they're sitting there and maybe they're chanting and they're ringing bells and stuff and you're like like how does that bring peace of mind what are they doing you know is that even meditation and so if i think back to kind of the tibetan buddhist monastery so you'd be sitting there and there would be kind of piece of paper and you'd be reading the tibetan buddhist monastery so you'd be sitting there and there would be a kind of piece of paper and you'd be reading the tibetan so you have to learn to bend and then underneath they'd very kindly put an english translation so you're reading in tibetan but you're at the same time scanning the translation to make sure you understand that you know what you're actually sort of saying in this hand you got a little bell and if you don't keep it steady like this the bell

starts to kind of do this and all kinds of kind of funny shit. So you're trying to keep it really kind of steady. It sounds easy. It's not because in this hand, you're holding something else. And then in your mind, you're visualizing. And if I think about kind of one particular visualization, there's 108 different people all wearing slightly different things.

They're all sitting in slightly different positions, holding different instruments. They're wearing different color clothes and you're trying to kind of main build up this visualization you start with one person you kind of build it up you're trying to maintain this visualization whilst doing this and doing this and kind of reading the tibetan scanning the english and what it does is it kind of it creates a situation where you're not having to force the mind to stop thinking in that space there is no there is no place for the mind to think like thoughts just kind of disappear they evaporate in that space because you've got five things exactly so kind of and and through that it kind of creates a very sort of gentle focus so there's there's something about kind of setting up a framework

of visualization where it allows us to to naturally be present with one thing rather than being kind of caught up in in lots of things what would you say is the key to getting in the zone for someone you know we talk about as athletes talk about getting in the zone is like where you can reach your peak performance yeah um and obviously it's being present and focusing on the single moment yeah that's how you get there but how does someone approach that yeah to to cultivate that experience yeah so what i would encourage with that kind of thing is is to look at the the shortcut so because in those situations you probably don't want to kind of sit down. You don't have 10 minutes. Exactly. It's like, how do I get there now? Exactly.

So part of that is training. And the more you train, like the easier it becomes and the quicker it becomes. You'll always be prepared and ready. Exactly. So there is that aspect. Yes. But I would look at another aspect as well. And that's kind of the loop that exists between body and mind.

So the temptation with meditation is thinking, oh, okay well it's it's all about the mind it's not about the body but the the quickest route kind of to getting in the zone is to step out of the mind and to be present in the body normally the body is here or we're walking down the street but the mind is somewhere else it's with a conversation we had last week or on your phone or a big game or something that's kind of coming up soon so what happens is okay in the mind perhaps there's a thought like oh wow this is a really important moment for me like i really need and then we feel in the body like a reaction to that thought there's an emotional response maybe it's butterflies in our stomach or maybe the chest gets a bit tighter the mind recognizes

that and goes oh shit we're in trouble right like it's time to start worrying like this is real yes so then the mind starts kind of producing a lot more kind of anxious thoughts the body recognizes that it gets even more tight even more tense and all of a sudden we're caught up in this vicious sort of spiral you know yeah so it's how do we step out of the loop and the quickest way to step out of the loop is to be present in the body so just like we did just then like i chose the the sensation of the the feet on the floor but if you can find a either that or it might be the sensation of i don't know the the backside on on the chair if you can find a point of focus that's in the body essentially again you're not

kind of ignoring the thoughts you're not resisting thoughts you're just saying hey mind just kind of be present at this sensation. And it has a really weird – it's like the thoughts just – they just – they disappear. And all of a sudden, we're in the body and ready, present to do whatever we need to do in the moment. Yeah. I've heard another trick of just like taking your shoes off and stepping on grass or dirt and feeling the ground with like your feet. It's all about feeling grounded and being present in the body rather than lost in the body. Do you think there's a great, like say someone's like a beginner and you're like, okay, here's

the approach you should take. If you want to become a master meditator, here's the right time. Here's how often you should do it throughout the day. Like should it be first thing in the morning? Should it be last thing at night? Driving your car? I don't know. Like, how many times a day?

When is the perfect optimal time? How long should you meditate for in those times if you're just starting out? Okay. Yeah, it's a great question. Well, I would say it's all about consistency. This is a skill. And like any skill, it only works if you practice it. Yes.

And I would always think about it as a practice. I'd say that we are never masters of meditation. We are always students of it. We are always kind of learning and we're continually refining. And if you don't use it, you probably lose it eventually. Exactly. it eventually exactly and and i think um like you know i know a lot of people who very diligently kind of take their their gym kit to work every day but they don't go to the gym okay you're probably not going to see the benefits right right so in just the same way with meditation

it only works if you do it that's my number one number two yet although we're all different and we should be flexible we're finding the right time the best time the or the time you're going to see probably the the maximum benefit in terms of stability of awareness as opposed to kind of sleep is first thing in the morning okay um i'm always reminded of a an email we got in from a guy who said look i'm loving this meditation but to be honest the meditation thing isn't the bit I'm excited about. The difference is that when I meditate first thing in the morning, I'm more mindful throughout my day. I make better choices.

I eat the right foods. I actually do follow through and go to the gym. I actually do communicate better with my wife. I don't react to people. Exactly. So somehow by setting up first thing in the day we are that much more likely to be mindful throughout the day so i think that's a really important thing if you look at kind of just basic habit stuff um habit formation same time same place is is a

useful thing again don't allow that to be an obstacle if you find yourself somewhere else at a different time it's still fine better to better to do the meditation but a trick that kind of i think works especially well it's called coupling i don't know if you've ever heard of this so if you're if you're brushing your teeth every morning make it brush your teeth and meditation or if it maybe it's a cup of tea at the same time well definitely be more mindful of brushing your teeth, but actually to do the activity. So, yeah, to find something that you do in your life every day and to attach meditation to it. So, it just becomes kind of part of the schedule.

Second nature, yeah. Exactly. Oh, breakfast and meditation, shower and meditation. Yeah. And it just becomes kind of, it works really well. yeah and it just becomes kind of it works really well um and if you still struggle put it in your diary kind of actually prioritize the health of your mind to such an extent you say hey you know what my happiness and the happiness of the people around me is worthy right of a 10 minute space in my diary yeah and i think that will make a make a real difference. Is physical activity before or after meditation a good thing, a bad thing?

Does it benefit? Does it not benefit? I think it's just a thing. Okay. It's not going to hurt you. No. A lot of people I've spoken to, and it's a really personal thing. Some people love the feeling of exhausting the body first, and they find that meditation is much easier after doing that.

Other people find it's a great way of preparing the mind to go and exercise. So I think it can work either way. What's the future of meditation like? I mean this is something I've been hearing more and more people talk about. Unplug is the center in Santa Monica. It's a meditation center. It's kind of like a yoga practice for meditation. You do hour-long sessions. Where do you see meditation going? Obviously, your app has

blown up 6.5 million users. There's tons of apps out there, more books about it. Do you feel like it's going to die off eventually? Do you feel like this is a small trend that's going to fade at some point and people are going to get back to realizing that the mind isn't invaluable? I don't know. Or do you think that it's just going to get bigger and bigger and more saturated of everyone's going to be doing this. They're going to be teaching in schools. Where do you see it going? Yeah, it's interesting.

I was just thinking of a phrase one of my Tibetan teachers said. With meditation, it's a bit like swallowing a porcupine. It's not coming back out. It's like with meditation, it's a bit like swallowing a porcupine. It's not coming back out. And in the same way, I think as a society, once we've kind of started out on this journey, you can't really kind of change it. I think once people become more aware of the importance of mental health and the health of the mind generally, you can't really be less aware of that.

We can ignore it, but you just have to look at the the how physical health and how we've kind of related to physical exercise over the last kind of 30 years to see what the pattern is so people start to become more aware of it scientists start to become more interested in it we get the science and we get the research and we get a better understanding of why it's important that starts to influence kind of normally kind of fairly either early adopters or it's very kind of high level. And it's kind of government start to look at it. And, you know, in the UK, there's even kind of a government panel on mindfulness and meditation and kind of looking at how does it apply to the judicial? How does it apply to people in jail jail to schools to education and people in the

military exactly yeah so it's it's really kind of broad and when you look at right now it already is available like we make it available to people in jails we make it available to schools um and to the people in the military have used it i think it's it's already part of so many different environments. We have companies of 100,000 plus using Headspace. If you think it's already in all those things, there is an element of faddish behavior that comes with everything. I think perhaps eventually the media might kind of tire a bit but i don't think that will make it any less important i just think we will have a more refined understanding and i also think there'll be a shift away from just awareness and again although it

sounds a bit kind of cliche towards compassion i think there's already research ton of research going into it and what is the impact of meditation, not only on ourselves as individuals, but also on those around us? I think that would be the biggest kind of shift. Okay, cool. A couple of final questions for you. Sure. And before I ask the final questions, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but is there like a special discount or code people can use to go try this right now that I can send people to? Yeah.

You can just try it yeah free see if you like it and i would say to anyone even the most skeptical try 10 minutes and try it for 10 minutes a day like it's completely free yeah like 10 minutes a day for 10 days just see as an experiment to yourself do you feel any different if you don't don't use it again nothing lost don't use it again but if you see a difference then maybe you might start thinking differently about looking after the health of the mind and even if you do it once a week it's better than nothing 100 like yeah start somewhere exactly yeah it's as much as consistency is important like yeah uh be flexible as well and start start in a place that feels comfortable and there's times where i'll go you know months without doing you know meditation and i'm like you know what what am i

doing this is something that's important it's just like again when you focus it on like would i go months without working out yeah you probably wouldn't you know if you're an avid person that likes to be healthy um so just take that into account and like this is just as important yeah 10 minutes is nothing. Yeah. You know, for the benefit. Just doing this for five minutes before, I feel so much calmer and relaxed and, you know, refreshed at the same time. Yeah. It's just it continues to remind me every time I do it.

So I'll link this up in the show notes afterwards. So check out the show notes here in a second. The app is called Headspace for you guys to check that out on the App Store. It's in iTunes and Android and everything. Yeah, web. Final three questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? I think the arrival of our little boy.

How old is he? He's 18 months old now. Just passed. And it's been an extraordinarily kind of exciting rollercoaster time, you know, and mindfulness has been so valuable in the midst of it all,

you know, because it's so exciting, but any parent, you know, it's also exhausting, but he it's so exciting but any parent you know um it's also exhausting but he has brought so much joy into our house and i'm very grateful did you ever think you'd have a child as a monk i never thought i'd wow so it was you never dreamed of this huh i think as a as a as a younger guy you know like in my late teens i really really kind of family was

really important to me and i always dreamed of having a kid but once i'd made the commitment to be a monk i was kind of like okay so that's not happening and then all of a sudden here i am with a little boy and i don't know if it's kind of relevant but i i feel like in terms of gratefulness a couple of years back when i arrived in america i actually found out i had um i had cancer i tested for cancer wow and so again we sat in a sat in a sat in a room with a doctor and the doctor was kind of like you know like if you want to have kids like you know you got three or four days kind of just shut up yeah so again kind of four days yes until the operation oh my gosh he's like you know you need to go to the bank and stuff and right right banking

exactly and then so but again i found myself in a situation where i kind of thought like wow okay so maybe i'm not going to have it. Even though I'm not a monk anymore, maybe I'm not going to have it. And then two months after the operation, my wife got pregnant. Shut up. And here we are. Holy cow, man. I feel grateful for many things.

That's incredible. Even when you go to the sperm bank, there's no guarantee. Exactly. Holy cow. So we were just incredibly grateful you know it's wow man yeah i didn't know about this operation that's crazy that's a whole nother conversation there's another how did you how important was meditation during i mean during the first of the stress of knowing that that was happening yeah i mean i didn't even know it happened it

literally happened i don't scare anyone but like it literally happened overnight kind of um it wasn't like uh the tumor was growing but it was growing in such a way without going into too much detail that it kind of grew from the center so there's no way of kind of knowing it was happening until one night something kind of changed and it was like oh i think i need to go to er and i went and found out and it was really advanced and very aggressive and i had to have the operation here four days four days later gosh how did you what did you do in those four days how was your mind racing man yeah it was crazy that's like 20 years of practice to the test now yeah yeah let's see how good of a monk you are yeah it's true it's true you know like i think initially there's just the shock of

it oh man you know and having to share it with family and stuff and my wife and that was that was tricky you know wow um and then there was the kind of there was even you know first you find out and then it's like okay well that's kind of it's not good like but let's find out how bad it is and then you know go and see the doctor and doctor saying well we should do some scans because it may well have spread you know so then there's the uncertainty of like has it gone to the brain and i think throughout that time like having that sense of being grounded and the most thing the thing i'm most grateful for in that situation from the training and meditation was was being okay with uncertainty wow and not knowing and in that moment because the truth is in that moment you don't know

anything like does the could be might this happen should this happen could this happen but the truth is in that moment you're sitting in a chair in a doctor's surgery you're alive there's no pain it's kind of like okay this is this is actually what's happening in the moment everything else is an idea yeah and so kind of keeping kind of present on the side of the road rather than kind of, you know, hopping in the cancer car and kind of driving miles down the road thinking about it. That for me was the most valuable thing. Wow. Holy cow. It was a surprise.

Big surprise. Oh, my gosh. I can only imagine. Yeah. Wow. Well, congrats on making it through the other side. Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah.

It feels good. It feels good. Now we'll have to have a whole other conversation about this. Final two questions. It's many, many years from now. Yeah. And it's your final day on Earth. Yeah.

And – Big question, man. Headspace is deleted. Yep. And every book you've written is gone. This interview is gone. Yeah. Videos you put out there, man. Headspace is deleted. Yep. And every book you've written is gone. This interview is gone. Videos you put out there, gone. And I know you've got a lot of content on Headspace.

A lot of videos, a lot of content. But for whatever reason, it's erased. And your friends and family are all there. They give you a piece of paper and they say, this is all that we're going to be reminded of you physically. The words you write down here is going to be the message you leave behind. And there's three truths we want you to share with us. Three things you know to be true about everything you've learned in this experience from childhood to being a monk to meditation to whatever you create for the rest of your life.

What would you pass behind for us to remember and to use as principles, as three truths? Goodness me. I think, I mean, I was tempted at first to say I would leave it blank. And not as a, to dismiss the notion. But actually, I feel in words, we kind of limit ourselves. I feel every time I speak about meditation, in a way, moving further away from the experience itself. Talking about it. Exactly. And I feel like as a world, as a society, words so often divide us.

Of course, they bring us together as as well but so often they divide us and in our mind even if we don't speak the words we are always judging and labeling and dividing and if we could only just for a moment my silence unites like i sat in a room last week with three four thousand people doing meditation leading meditation and in that moment all we were doing as a group was experiencing the human condition like we were all the same like it didn't matter what people were wearing what names they had what culture they came from what age they were kind of what they believed in what politics they followed like we were all just following the breath and i love the idea of that unity you know that in man in silence we we are united but if you if you then said look dandy that's a load of nonsense like still give me the three

things you know then i would probably say um the first one appreciation like precious human life like this it's so easy to forget that our time is limited yeah and we live very often with this delusion that we're going to live forever we know it intellectually that we won't but that's not the way we live our life so number one would be appreciation or precious human life number two i think would be recognizing and embracing change or impermanence. Everything is always changing. Nothing stays the same. So much of our suffering in life comes from trying to hold on to things or being fearful of what might arise in the future. If we recognize that everything is always changing,

that everything's always coming and going, then we're free. There's a completely different feeling kind of to life and the last one would be probably acceptance and i think we live with this idea that life should be kind of we should always be happy that everything should always be as we always want it to be that's not the nature of life because of that we're always fighting with life now we're fighting in our mind fighting outside like it doesn't matter like there's this sense of kind of resisting we want life to be different from how it is life is how it is and if we can only be okay with that

acceptance then you know we we live a very different kind of life we feel very different it doesn't mean to be clear acceptance doesn't mean just going with the flow when someone's doing something very negative it doesn't mean kind of just saying oh okay then i don't need to do anything that's a very different thing but you can still choose to change your outcome exactly but it's with those things that we're unable to change in life can we be at ease with them so appreciation impermanence and acceptance would be my three i I love that. That's great. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Andy, for the choices you've made in your life to first leave everything behind and go learn something and develop your

mind, your heart, your body with the practice that you have. And then to have the courage to leave that, which I can only imagine how fearful and scary that could be at that time, to go back into something else that you hadn't been used to for a while, and then say, I'm going to use everything I've learned for the last decade and impact the world to the best of my ability. I think it's incredible your amount of service, world to the best of my ability i think it's incredible your amount of service your amount of of love and compassion that you have for humanity and helping all of us heal whatever that is going on in our minds and our hearts that isn't serving us so i want to acknowledge you for your incredible

gift to humanity it's very generous like i yeah it's really really kind i i don't know you know you know what it's like like for me i'm just i'm living this life and and i i genuinely anything that i have i have to offer i've learned it from people far more impressive to me and i've learned it from teachers and this is uh these techniques these teachings They've been around for thousands of years. And I think whenever I teach meditation, I always kind of think what I'm teaching has been refined by how many individuals over how many hundreds, how many thousands of years. And I'm just another one. And there will be kind of many more who can refine it and simplify it in a way far more eloquently than me. Yeah, yeah yeah sure sure no i appreciate it thank you yeah the final question before i ask the final question

you know as you were going through things today the meditation today and as i listen to them all the time the way you do it is much different than when i hear other people do it and what i love what what came up for me was that meditation for me comes when you're listening to a guided meditation. It comes in the space between the words. It's the pauses that you have. They're very intentional, I'm assuming, in their length of time. And that's when everything starts to connect with me. It's not actually when you're saying the words.

No. It's when you stop saying the words. Yeah. And I'm like, everything you do is the words. No. It's when you stop saying the words. Yeah. And I'm like, it's just so, everything you do is very intentional. I'm aware of it and it's so powerful. So I want everyone to make sure they check out and try this for yourself because it's going to be really transformative for your life and impact the people around you because how you show up on a daily basis impacts others and you want to show up your best.

That's it. Um, final question is what's your definition of greatness um again not wanting to dodge the dodge the question but i would encourage anyone to actually i think if we find greatness in letting go of these labels and notions of what we perhaps, because what I thought was greatness when I was younger, turns out that was something else. That was maybe for me that it didn't turn out to be true. And what I thought wasn't important when I was younger, those turned out to be the really important things to learn to be, to love well and to be able to be loved and to be kind.

And yeah, all those other things, to be successful with what we're doing in the world, that's important. But it's probably not as important as being happy, as having peace of mind, of having kind of healthy happy relationships and remembering that we are just one person of many on a very crowded planet and each and every one of us has a responsibility not only to ourselves for our health and happiness but also to those around us immediately and people we've never even met on the other side of the world andy thanks so much it's a real pleasure. Thanks for having me in. Thank you. There you have it, gang. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, meditation is something that I continue to dive in and talk about and apply to my own life because I see such incredible benefits. I'm not saying you have to meditate to achieve your dreams and achieve greatness and get to the next level.

And there's a lot of peak athletes that I talk to who actually don't meditate. They don't follow a specific practice. But I believe it is extremely helpful, especially if you're not clear, if you get distracted, if you ever feel overwhelmed, if you've ever feeling stressed before, I feel like it's an extremely important and valuable tool to use to help you stay balanced and focused on a day to day basis and not feel the overwhelm or the busyness that comes in our lives. So I hope you guys enjoy this and make sure to take up the offer on

Andy, check out lewishouse.com slash 309 to learn about the Headspace offer. And yeah, guys, make sure to check it out. Let me know what you guys think of this one. Share with me your thoughts over on Twitter at Lewis House. And please share this with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 309. If you know someone who feels stressed or overwhelmed or could use some meditation in their lives and maybe they haven't tried it yet and you've been telling them to, send them this interview and maybe we'll get them to jump on board and give it a try.

Thank you guys again so very much. I love you. You mean the world to me. And I hope you're constantly going after your dreams and know how much that you do matter. Thank you again. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.