297 Dan Harris on the Power of Meditating Even If You're A Skeptic

"I don't think we should put upon ourselves expectations of perfection that are not attainable." - Dan Harris If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/297 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 297 with number one New York Times bestselling author, Dan Harris. 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.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. So pumped up for today's episode. It's with my man, Dan Harris. And for those that don't know who Dan is, he's a number one New York Times bestselling author of 10% Happier. He's the co-anchor of ABC News Nightline. And he's also the co-anchor of the weekend edition of Good Morning America. He has covered many of the biggest stories in recent years, including combat in Afghanistan, Israel, and has made over six visits to Iraq. He has led ABC News coverage of faith and spirituality, and is just an incredible human being. I had a great time with him in my studio, covering all the topics we talk about in his book, and so much more that he's learned

• 1:19Lewis Howes?

  over the years of being on TV. And we also talk about the breakdown he had on live TV a number of years back, and how it transformed and triggered him into learning about all this that he's going into right now. And some of the things that we're going to be talking about today is how to stay present when there's so much happening, and there's so much overwhelm. How do we actually stay present in the moment? Why we react so quickly to challenges, instead of remaining calm, and how to shift this? How taking drugs led to Dan's panic attack while filming Good Morning America? Why Dan views mental exercise the same way as physical exercise, and so much more. This is for the skeptics that

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  don't believe in mindfulness or meditation. Dan is the ultimate skeptic who didn't believe in any of this. To share why he believes in it now and how he applies it to his daily life and how it's improved his life. So I hope you guys enjoy this one. It's gonna be a fun one and make sure to check out the full show notes at LewisHowes.com/297. You can watch the full video interview there. Share it with your friends as well because this one's gonna help a lot of people. Now, without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only, Dan Harris.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School for Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest today. His name is Dan Harris. He's got a book out. It came out a while ago. It's a number one New York Times bestseller. It's called 10% Happier. How I Tamed The Voice In My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge And Focused. Found Self-Help That Actually Works. A True Story. Thanks for being here, Dan.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thanks for having me, man.

• 2:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited. We were just talking about making a murderer and podcasting and many other things. Maybe we'll show some of these videos later. But I'm excited to dive into everything you've been up to because I don't know too much about you actually. I've heard about you and I've done some minimal research for this, but I know you have been on air. How long have you been on air for now?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  I've been on ABC News for 16 years and before that for seven years I was in local news.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, 16 years on ABC.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  16 years on ABC and then seven years in local.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  All with GMA or?

• 3:28Speaker 01

  No, I, so I, when I started ABC News, I was just a general assignment reporter, meaning I just covered whatever. So I went, I spent a lot of time after 9/11 in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank. And then I started anchoring shows. I anchored the Sunday Night News for a while.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I like this product placement. It's good.

• 3:51Lewis Howes?

  So we can see it, yes.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  I anchored the Sunday Evening News for a little while and then I started anchoring the Weekend Edition of Good Morning America. And now I also anchor Nightline.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, okay. And what made you inspired to be doing what you're doing?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  With the book and stuff like that?

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  With TV stuff, yeah, journalism.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  Why get into that in the first place?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  I didn't, I had a, you know, a short attention span. My parents are doctors and I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor. Um, and I had a, I had, um, TV and the movies kind of mixed up in my head. Uh, so when I was in college, I either wanted to go into the movies or television, television news, even though in fact they have like nothing in common. So I ended up going to film school for a little bit.

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  Where was this?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  At NYU. I did a semester at NYU and I realized that I sucked at, at, at film. So that was useful. So then I went into TV news. I did a bunch of internships in, in college, loved it. Um, I really like, because as I said, I had a short, I have a short attention span. Every day is different. Every day is unpredictable.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  Um. And that's fun for you.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  It's amazing. And I get to, and you, you get to do this on your podcast and so you know how fun it is. You get to ask people impertinent questions like anytime you want. Um, so I love that.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  And I'm curious and a little bit rude and so that, that works for me.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  What's been the most, uh, memorable interview you've ever done?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Most memorable interview?

• 5:11Lewis Howes?

  And who was that person?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  I don't think I can pick one, but the one that's coming to mind right now is actually in the book, uh, was right here in LA with, uh, Paris Hilton, where she walked away from the interview in the middle of the interview.

• 5:22Lewis Howes?

  No way, why?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Cause I asked her.

• 5:24Lewis Howes?

  For the book or was this for?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  This was just, this was for GMA, for Good Morning America. I was, I was assigned randomly to interview. I don't interview a lot of celebrities and I don't know why they asked me to interview Paris Hilton.

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  And it's not live, is it live?

• 5:35Speaker 01

  It wasn't live.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  It was a taped piece about, I can't remember what the specific reason was. I don't follow celebrities much, but my wife hates when I say this. My wife's a doctor, she's incredibly smart, but she really knows a lot about celebrities. So I asked her some questions about Paris Hilton and she said, well, you know, one thing you might ask her about is that she's kind of lost her step a little bit, you know, Kim Kardashian's, you know.

• 5:56Lewis Howes?

  She's not in the news as much.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Eclipse her, yeah. So I said to her in the interview, I said, you know, you little, does it burn you at all that, that, uh, Kim Kardashian, you're, you know, has like kind of overshadowed you a little bit? And she said, no. And I said, do you sometimes think maybe your time has passed? And she just got up and walked away.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  She got up and walked away.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Did she say anything to you after that? Did you say, I'm sorry or go after her?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  She said, uh, off camera, she said that my, she said that I was rude and that the question. She used in some words that I won't use here to describe the question and so we kinda like had it out a little bit and then she tried to tell me that I couldn't use that moment where she walked away on television and I was like, well, you can't really tell me what I can do.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  You agreed to do this.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yes, and so then, so then we kinda made up. She gave me a hug and then we ended up using that moment on TV anyway.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  So I don't know.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Not that it matters because no one's gonna watch her when she's being overshadowed by Cam anyways. I'm just kidding, no.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, Paris.

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm teasing. I'm sure she's a great girl. Interesting. So what is, how do you prepare for your interviews and how do you prep your, your guests before? Is, do you ask them a set of questions before you begin? Like, did you ask her, is there anything off limits?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  No, so we don't do that.

• 7:12Lewis Howes?

  You don't do that? You just show up and let's go?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you can talk. I mean, you can definitely talk to them and broadly about what you're gonna talk about, but we are, it's against our, so we have very specific, at ABC News, very specific standards and practices.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  You can't give people questions beforehand.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Nope. You can talk about broadly what you want to discuss.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  You can say like, hey, how are you? It's good to see you.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, or like, hey, we're gonna talk about your book or we're gonna talk about this, but we can't, I can't say I'm gonna ask, ask you X, Y, and Z. And if they tell me that certain things are off limits, is my.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  You can still ask them.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they, they don't have to answer.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  But that almost makes me, it almost pushes me into where I have to.

• 7:53Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Because I don't want to be dictated to as a, as a journalist.

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm only covering these things.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay, so.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  So you asked me before we went on, is there anything off limits? I said, no.

• 8:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, which is, I wish you would've told me something so I could've dove in.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. That would've been more provocative.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, right, okay. Who is the, what's a question, what's a big guest you had on that afterwards you, man, you, you thought to yourself, and I really wish I would've asked something different, or I really missed the opportunity to ask that one question that maybe could've like. Made this story complete or made it that much better. Is there one guess you can think of?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I talk about, I talk about this a lot in the book too. I had one, a formative interview for me was, have you ever heard of Eckhart Tolle?

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Eckhart Tolle, sorry, I'm losing my voice a little bit. So Eckhart Tolle, I, I, you know, the book's about meditation and which-

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Is that the Four Agreements, right? Is he have a book called?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  You know, he wrote The Power of Now.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Power of Now. I'm thinking of another one. This is, uh-

• 8:49Speaker 01

  The Four Agreements.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Ruiz or Ruiz?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Ruiz.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  I don't, I've seen The Four Agreements like in the bookstore, but I haven't, I don't know who wrote it and I haven't read it.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  I think that's Don Miguel.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Ruiz.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Ruiz, yes. I have it here. I'll give you a copy somewhere here.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  Uh, but The Power of Now is Eckhart Tolle.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  So, so, uh, I, as I was saying, the book's about meditation, which I was like, not really my thing. I mean, I'm, I'm kind of, I grew up thinking meditation is bullshit and, and had no interest in doing it. But interviewing Eckhart Tolle is actually one of the things that kind of set me on the path toward.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yes. Because he was the first person I ever heard talk about having a voice in your head, which I know you've talked about in your podcast, the voice between your ears.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  He, he is really the first person I ever heard, um, articulate it so clearly. He says that you have this inner narrator that chases you out of bed in the morning and is yammering at you all day long and has you constantly wanting stuff or rejecting stuff or comparing yourself to other people or thinking about the past or thinking about the future to the detriment of whatever's happening right now. And I had never heard anybody actually say that so clearly. And, um, so I went and interviewed Eckhart Tolle because, uh, because I was interested in that. And my question for him was, what do you do about the voice in the head? What can you do about it? And he seemed unwilling or unable to answer that question.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I just pressed him and pressed him and pressed him. And maybe I'm a moron and he did answer it, but, and I didn't understand it. And that's entirely possible because I have, I definitely retain the capacity to be an idiot. But that was super frustrating for me. That was an interview where I walked away thinking, the guy's clearly smart. He definitely different. He seems like he's kind of in a different headspace than most of us. But I did not get, I did not get what I came here looking for.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. All right. But ultimately, wouldn't his answer just been meditation?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  If he had said meditation, it would have simplified things immensely for me.

• 10:54Lewis Howes?

  But he didn't say that.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  He did not say that. He did not say that. Although, you know, I have to say, in Eckhart's defense, in some of his books, he does talk about meditation, but it's kind of like not front and center. It's not the focus.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. So for those that don't know, the catalyst for why this journey began, what happens, something happened to you on the news, correct? And what, what is this that happened? When was it? Can you tell the story?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure, sure. I had a panic attack on a little show we do called Good Morning America. So.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  Primetime?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Primetime.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  How many people are watching you now?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I know. I know the exact number. Five point oh one nine million.

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Do you remember the day?

• 11:32Speaker 01

  June 2004. I don't remember the exact day.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  2004.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was a while ago.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  So I was in the middle of, I was actually doing the news updates. So that's the guy who comes on at the top of each hour and reads the headlines. And I had done the job many times. So I didn't have any reason to foresee that I was going to freak out.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  And a couple of seconds into my shtick, where I was, you know, just going to read six or seven stories off the teleprompter, I just lost my mind, basically. I, my heart started racing. My palms were sweating. My mouth dried up. My lungs seized up. I couldn't talk. I could not talk. And that, as far as I know, is the job of an acrobat, to talk. And I couldn't do it. Yes. I was supposed to be saying things. I couldn't say things. I couldn't squeak out any noise. So I basically just ended it. I tossed it back to the main host of the show. And.

• 12:24Lewis Howes?

  How long did this go on for?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Went on, it felt like, it felt to me, yeah, like the length of Ben Hur, but it was actually just a couple of seconds.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  And if you watch it, and it's actually, a lot of people watch it on YouTube, if you watch it, I get one of two reactions. If you've ever had any taste of panic in your life, you know exactly what you're looking at, and it's very painful. If you haven't, some people say, eh, you know, it's not that bad. It really doesn't matter, because for me, I know exactly what it was, and it was the worst moment of my entire life, no question about it. So after the panic attack, I went to, actually, I had two panic attacks. The second was much more mild. So after the second panic attack, I went to a shrink, who's an expert in panic, and I was, you know, trying to figure out what was going wrong. And he asked me a bunch of questions, and one of the questions he asked was, do you do drugs? And I kind

• 13:14Speaker 01

  of sheepishly said, yeah, I do. And so here's the backstory. I, as I mentioned before, spent a lot of time in war zones when I was a young reporter. Very ambitious guy, type A, striver, also very curious, and also a deep, firm, and still fervent believer in the power of journalism.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  And so I, after 9/11, went to Iraq six times. I went to Pakistan, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Gaza, Israel, covered the second Intifada. And I came home in the summer of 2003, after spending like four or five months in Iraq, and I got depressed, and I didn't even know I was depressed. And I did a very stupid thing, which is I started to self-medicate with cocaine and ecstasy. I had never done drugs before, I was 32 years old. I'd smoked weed, but not, never done a hard drug. And so this doctor asked me, do you do drugs? And I say, yeah, I do. And he says, okay, idiot, mystery solved. And he pointed out that even though my drug use was kind of intermittent, I never, I wasn't, you know, I make this joke a lot, it wasn't like that movie, The Wolf of Wall Street,

• 14:17Speaker 01

  I don't know if you saw that, where he's like doing loo's every day. I was, you know, I was doing it once in a while. But the doctor said, and I wasn't high that morning, it was like, I had done it maybe a couple of weeks prior.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  He was like, it was enough to artificially raise the level of adrenaline in your brain, and make you more likely to have panic attacks. So stop doing drugs. So I did, I stopped doing drugs, and I started to see this guy once or twice a week, for years, I still see him once in a while.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Then something else happened. So this is like a multifactorial story. My boss at the time was Peter Jennings. Assigned me to cover faith and spirituality for ABC News. So I started covering religion. And that's how I interviewed Eckhart Tolle. Because I started covering religion. And so after this interview with Eckhart Tolle, I It put so many things together for me. When he started describing the voice in the head, I realized That is why I had a panic attack. Because the voice in my head told me to go off to cover wars without thinking about the psychological consequences. That voice in my head allowed me to come home and get depressed and be insufficiently self-aware to know it. And then they gave me the terrible idea of using drugs. And so it put so many things together for me.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  And so why, which is why I wanted to go interview Eckhart Tolle, who, you know, Was not the type of guy who normal, I was not a big consumer of self-help. You know, I was raised by scientists. I'm married to a scientist. I was, I grew up in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. You know, like I'm not a religious or spiritual guy at all. But I ended up talking to Tolle because I was so interested in this idea about the voice in the head. And I was very frustrated that he couldn't do, tell me anything to do about it. And then I came home and my, like a couple of weeks later, my then Fiance and now wife slash baby mama Bianca gave me a book by a guy named Dr. Mark Epstein, Who is a shrink and a Buddhist.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  And I read that book and I realized, oh, A, all the stuff that I liked the most in Eckhart Tolle seems to be lifted without attribution from a dude named the Buddha. And B, the Buddha had a really simple thing to do about the voice in the head, which is to meditate.

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  That's the long answer to your question.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Okay, so when did you apply your first meditation? Or when did you get into it and test it or sample something or something?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  This was like 2009. My problem was even though I was really interested in it. I was

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  You never did it.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Well, it took me a while, and here's why. I was of the view that meditation was like the hardest of the hardcore bullshit. Like, I just thought it was only for weirdos and people who are really into Cat Stevens and aromatherapy and, you know, G.O.S. Yes, yes. And, you know, make, you know, flower crowns and kombucha, whatever. So like, not my scene.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  Burning man, everything, yes.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not so, I'm not, I'm not against Burning Man, but, but for a variety of reasons. But, but, but nonetheless, I, culturally had a lot of resistance to doing it. Then I learned a couple of things. One was, there's an enormous amount of science now that suggests that meditation is really good for you. That lowers your blood pressure, boosts your immune system, literally rewires key parts of your brain.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  So that I learned, that was the thing I learned first. Then I learned that mindfulness meditation, which is the kind of meditation that is being studied the most in the labs, is totally secular. You don't have to believe in anything. You don't have to join a group. You don't have to, you don't

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  Not religious.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  No, you don't have to be a Buddhist. You don't have to be anything. You're just very, it's very doable and secular. And third, that it's simple. You don't have to wear robes. You don't have to like clang bells.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Chant.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  None of that. You can if you want, if that's your thing, but you, but you don't have to. It's really just about feeling your breath coming in. Exactly. And then every time you get distracted, which is gonna happen a million times, you start over and over and over and over.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Especially for someone like you who has got ADD, right?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Correct. I don't know if I have ADD, but I certainly

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  Likes to jump from thing to thing.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Correct. Yes, yes, yes.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  And it's probably in the newsroom too. It's like, you got one story, then the next story. It's like you're gonna go from the next, the next.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Million TVs.

• 18:14Lewis Howes?

  You never get to slow down.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Correct. A million TVs going and you're jumping from story to story. It's, it's

• 18:19Lewis Howes?

  Five million people watching everything. You're like, ah, you know, I can only imagine having a panic attack, you know?

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 18:24Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So do you find yourself, okay, so what was the first thing you implemented or tried?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  So I, I read a book, I read a bunch of books about meditation. Finally got comfortable with the idea and I just set the alarm on my phone. Back then it was a BlackBerry and I like sat on the floor for five minutes and I tried to do it. And it was terrible. It was like my, it was terrible. I had a full frontal collision with the voice in my head and I realized that

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  This is stupid, it hurts, it's not doing anything. For me, it's annoying.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yes, all of that.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Basically, what you see head on is that you're an asshole.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Like, you see, like, I'm a complete asshole. Like, I'm just like, all I'm thinking about is, when is lunch? Do I need a haircut? You know, what's my relationship with my boss right now? What can I get out of this person?

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Who screwed me over?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. And the whole game is just to notice, like, these are just thoughts.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  These are just thoughts. We, we spend so much time enchanted by these stories we're telling ourselves, but they're just stories. And you can let them go and go back to your breath. And that is a huge change in your life. It doesn't mean you're gonna become a master meditator, if such a thing even exists. You know, I mean, I, I think maybe you can become a master over decades, but you're not, it's not gonna, this is, you're not gonna win at meditation. It's not, it's not like a competitive sport.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  The, the, the whole, you are winning as soon as you realize that this circus in your head is just a circus, and you don't need to listen to the ringmaster all the time.

• 19:52Lewis Howes?

  Correct. Unless you make it reality.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay. So, did you have a teacher or someone coach you, or you said you were reading these different books and learning about it? Have you found something that you do every single day now? Or do you try different types of meditation? I know, obviously, you talk about it in your book, you've got an app out that we'll talk about as well, but what does it use specifically do that works for you?

• 20:13Speaker 01

  So, I, I guess this was pre-app period, you know, like, there weren't a lot of apps that I knew of when medit, when I started meditating.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  2009?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think it was before apps were out, and I didn't wanna do guided meditations, and, and so I just read some books, and it's not complicated.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  So, I, I-

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Breathe in, breathe out.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Right, right. Um, although, frankly, we make it complicated, and it's really helpful. Apps can be really helpful. So, I did about a year of on my own, and then I did a crazy thing, which is I went on a 10-day silent meditation.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I have a lot of friends who've done that, and they say it's unbelievable. And what'd you learn about yourself during that?

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Um, well, first of all, the first four or five days were the worst thing that ever happened to you. It's the worst, the worst.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  No, there's like a little bit of talking in here, like, with the teacher or something, maybe at night, if you have a question, but that's essentially it.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  And then you're just alone, you can't look at anyone.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yes. The silence is not the hard part. Because it's not like the other people there that I'm like dying to chat with.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  It's, it's, the hard part is meditating all day long. You wake up at five in the morning, you're basically meditating until you go to bed.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  It feels like time is forever.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  The seconds are landing hard, man. It's, it's, yes.

• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  Tick.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  That's, that's the tough part.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  It's like eight hours of meditation or more.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Um.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  So you have breakfast, lunch, you do like some walking or something.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  I added it up. I can't remember. It's, it's between seated and walking meditation. It's like between six and eight hours a day.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Unbelievable.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  And, and you're supposed to be mindful, like on your mindful game, basically paying attention all the time. So as you eat, you're supposed to eat really slowly. When you're walking between things, you're supposed to be doing it really slowly. There are some people on this meditation retreat that I was on who were like moving in slow mo all the time. And, but what happened was, uh, the first four or five days, terrible. And then I had, I don't know.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Breakthroughs.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Breakthrough that I don't know if, whatever. I don't want to be overly dramatic.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  Realizations or...

• 22:02Speaker 01

  I, I just had a moment that lasted, I would say about thirty-six hours where I was probably the happiest I've ever been.

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow, why?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  I was dragged kicking and screaming into the present moment. Instead of

• 22:18Speaker 01

  wandering off into rumination or projection, I was like right there with whatever's happening. And my senses were incredibly sharp. Everything looked vivid. I could hear the birds in the trees. My food tasted amazing. Um, I wasn't obsessing about things. I was just enjoying and, uh, being right there with everything that was happening right there. And that's your life, by the way. I mean, that should be our lives, except we're cursed with these prefrontal cortices and we're, you know, which gives us the ability to like make iPhones and build skyscrapers, but it also yanks us away from, uh, you know, reality all the time.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the purpose of our lives on a day-to-day basis? Is it to be present? Is it to have a vision and a dream and be thinking, forward-thinking of how we can become better for this better future? What do you think is the, or is it to focus on the past? What do you think is the purpose?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I think that's an amazing question that I am probably ill-suited to answer, but let me give you a, I, I, I would, my, I haven't thought this through, as you can probably tell. So let me say, my gut tells me there are several purposes.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  The, the first of which would be to be of use to other people and, and to the world, I would say. And the second of which is you can't do that if you don't have your shit together. So it's the, the, this is not my analogy, but the analogy that I've heard used is a little bit like when you, when the oxygen comes down in a, in an airplane, when they're having trouble, they always say, put your own mask on first before you help others. So I, I think those are the two, two arenas in which we should be playing.

• 24:04Lewis Howes?

  How do we stay present when there's just so much happening and so much in the past and so much in the future that we're thinking about? How do we bring, come back to the present?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Look, I, I, I don't think you need to be perennially present. I think that's a little too much to ask, although somebody like Eckhart Tolle will tell you that he is. And that, that, if that's true, you know, awesome.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  That works for him.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yes. Hashtag blessed. That's awesome.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  I, I don't know that that's possible for the rest of us. So, I mean, there's a reason why I called the book 10% happier because, I mean, it's a joke. I pulled that out of my ass, but, but I don't think we should put upon ourselves expectations of perfection that are not attainable. I think you can, you can get a little bit better all the time.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  And so meditation is a really good tool to help you not get so yanked down the rabbit hole of rumination or projection, because it basically, you're training your brain to come back to whatever's happening right now over and over and over again. And every time you get lost in thought while you're trying to meditate. And you notice you've become lost and you start again. That's a bicep curl for your brain, man. And it shows up on the brain scans.

• 25:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  You're changing your brain. You're doing a kind of neurosurgery on yourself.

• 25:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  And we have a lot of science now to suggest strongly that it works.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you ever practice daily that you follow?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Oh, you asked me that at one point, yes. So I do. I, uh, I, I do a lot now, so I've kind of, um, jumped into the deep end of the pool. Or at least I'm trying to. Uh, so I do two hours a day and, but my, my way of doing that is I tell myself I can do it in whatever increments I want, whenever I want.

• 25:44Lewis Howes?

  Five minutes at a time.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  I could do five minutes. So this morning I had time, so I did 70 minutes. And so at some point during my goal during the rest of the day will be to get those 50 minutes in somehow. And I do straight up mindfulness meditation, which is, um, there are lots of permutations of that. So usually the basic instructions are just to feel your breath coming in and going out. And every time you get lost, go back to the breath. So I do a little bit of that, but I also do what's called noting practice where drop my focus on the breath and just note whatever's happening in my field of consciousness. So thinking, feeling my butt on the chair, uh, feeling the cold air coming in.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, and what the, why that's useful is in a sense, you're kind of like objectifying your thoughts and, and the sensations that come up in your, um, consciousness. And so you're not taking it all so personally. And so when anger comes up in your real life, you're not yanked around by it. So when somebody cuts you off on the freeway.

• 26:47Lewis Howes?

  It's like, uh, someone just cut me off on the freeway, you know?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  You don't have to, you, you will get angry. You're not going to be like transformed into, you know, a, a jet, you know, a bowl of jello, but you don't have to take the bait and act on it and start chasing that dude down the highway. Your kid's in the back of the car. So the, the, the cliche here, and I hate meditation cliches, but the one that I love is that what meditation teaches you how to do is respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. And that's the game. That is mindfulness.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think we react so much to? So many situations in our day to day life.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Because we're unaware of the central feature of our lives, which is our inner narrator. Nobody points out to us that this voice that's offering up terrible suggestions like, you know, eat the 18th cookie, or say the thing that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage, or whatever. Nobody points out that that voice is full of shit. You know, that it's just a, you know, it is, um, has no relationship necessarily to reality. Sometimes it has great ideas, but you have to have.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  An awareness.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Mindfulness. Yes. You have to be able to step out of the traffic and to see it with some nonjudgmental remove in order to figure out, in order to separate wheat from chaff, in order to figure out, oh, this is a good idea. This is a terrible one. And mindfulness is a basic human capacity we all have. It's our birthright. It's not just something like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra have. We all have it. And all you, all you have to do is have it pointed out to you that you have this capacity to step out of the stream of consciousness a little bit and to see it without blindly reacting to it. And meditation teaches you how to do it.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think we were wired and designed to be this way?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  You know, it's, you know, the best guess I've asked this people, I've asked this question a lot. I mean, we, we, you know, we evolved for threat detection. You know, we as a species evolved in a time when there were a lot of threats, you know, saber toothed tigers, other dangerous human beings, other animals. And so we had to constantly be on guard. And what made us different from other animals is this ability to plan for the future and learn from the past. And so really, we evolved, this part of the brain, the new part of the brain really evolved and allowed us to do some of the things that are the most remarkable feats of humanity. Like I was saying before, build, plan and build skyscrapers.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Go to the moon, build a airplane.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Correct. Yes, yes, yes. And, but it also, you know, you don't see your dog spending a lot of time worrying or planning. By the same token, you know, the dog poops on the rug. So it's not.

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Mindful.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I don't know if you want to call it, there's a difference between being present and mindful, right? But the dogs are present.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  You know, my cats are present. I don't know if they're mindful when they're puking on my bed, which they do.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  They all do, right?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. Amazing. So no one's really given you a great answer except for that, that answer of

• 29:39Speaker 01

  That's the guess. That's the guess. But clearly, we also have in our brains/minds this capacity to be mindful. So and what the genius of the Buddha, and I say this as a guy who describes himself as a Buddhist, but at the same time, I'm not religious. I think Buddhism is not something to believe in, but something to do. The genius of the Buddha was, and lots of other people in history, by the way, not just the Buddha, but the Buddha is the guy who I just know the most about, is that he saw that we have, we have this ability to kind of hack our own minds and get out of this rut.

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

  How many years ago was Buddha?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  2,600 years ago.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Pretty incredible.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  So what is, what's next for this mindful space, this meditation space? There's a lot happening. There's a lot of voices, experts, books, apps. Where is it heading? And how can we know what's right for us? Or what can we start with?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  I think it's awesome. I think there's like kind of an explosion now where you're seeing it in corporations, you're seeing it in locker rooms, you're seeing it in

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  TV stations, probably.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We have a meditation room on the 13th floor of our building.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  In ABC News. We have a meditation room.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  Do you go in there?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  Other people?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I do. I do. When I go, it's usually because I usually go before I anchor Nightline, and so I'm by myself. But there are three o'clock meditations almost every day.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  No way. So someone's leading the meditation.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Actually, you know, they use the meditations from our app.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  In the room.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  And sometimes people lead it, and it's a whole mix. But it's taken off on its own. Lots of corporations have meditation rooms now. Lots of, you know, I mentioned before, the lead singer of Weezer is a daily meditator, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, 50 Cent.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  Lot of people, yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Lot of people are meditating. So I think it's an awesome thing. I don't know where it's all heading. What I, where I hope it's heading is that this is the next big public health revolution.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  I think that

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  The next yoga, like the way yoga is becoming mainstream. It's like this is the next.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  I think we're going to view mental exercise the same way we view physical exercise.

• 31:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, physical gyms. I mean, there's a, I don't know if you're aware of the Meditation center that's here.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Unplug.

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, Unplug.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm assuming those are going to be opening up like yoga centers.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  There's one in New York now called Mindful. There's, I just heard that they're opening up. I just got a call from a woman who's opening up a center in Miami. I know there's one in Austin. So it's definitely happening.

• 32:03Lewis Howes?

  It's happening, yeah. And it's going to be just like yoga, I'm assuming. And there's going to be mindful or meditation centers everywhere.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  So the question is, see, I think this is a big business question is, is, does it become like there are yoga meditation studios like yoga studios? Or is it more something that people do at home that is an app based thing? So our bet is that it's a mix, but, but probably more of a private thing.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  Well, people like, people like to do yoga in private than other people like to have like the group energy.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  And like being in Unplug, I went one time and it was, you had someone leading, facilitating it, but there was a lot of silence. So she would just kind of facilitate. I think they had maybe some light noises, like some bowl things or something rhythms being played. But it was literally just laying on my back and breathing and you almost forgot there were people around you. So I think it's a little bit of both.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  I think there's something very powerful about being in a, in a room full of people doing it. It is kind of a HOV lane effect, you know, that you're, you move a little bit faster when you're, when you have friends with whom you're talking or not, who are, who are also take this seriously.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  So I, I think that's going to be a big thing. I also believe, you know, as you mentioned before, that apps are going to be a big deal.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And we're already seeing it. There are lots of great apps out there. We just started, literally just started. I love your advice as, as somebody who has infinitely more experience in business than I do. We just started a company to build an app that's called 10% happier meditation for fidgety skeptics. So it's really aimed at people.

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  I like the name.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's really aimed at, at people who are.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  People like you.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. The pre meditation me. I'm, I am, I have in mind, I'm designing this for the me of like seven years ago. Who would have said, you know?

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  Laugh at this.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. So.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  This doesn't work. That's fluffy. That's some woo woo stuff. Right.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Mostly, I mean, the prop, my diagnosis, the, the big problem in the space with meditation is even though it's being accepted in really interesting areas, and even though there's scientific evidence, it's still too often served up with a pan flute.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  It just served up in like a woo woo way with like pan flute music and crystals and all that stuff. And it doesn't need to be presented that way. It just doesn't. I mean, it's, first of all, as soon as you look into your mind, you realize it's funny.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  So you can, there's a lot of jokes to be made. So you can do this with a sense of humor. You don't have to be so serious about it. Second of all, it's, it's, um, it's pretty simple. You don't, it's pretty nuts and bolts. You don't really need to, talk to people and address them as grasshopper, you know, it doesn't have to be that way. And so our whole approach is with the app is let's talk to people like normal people.

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Not like they're 75 years younger than me, or as if I'm standing on a mountain top with, with robes on. That's just not the way it works. And I, I should say, I am not the meditation teacher and, and because I don't know what I'm talking about. I mean, what I do is we bring in the world's greatest meditation teachers. And every day the user gets a clip, like a short clip of me talking to the teacher. And then an audio clip where the teacher guides you through it. And then what we do is we give you a coach who you can text with, because when people start to meditate, they have a million questions.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Usually it's a permutation of one question, which is, am I doing this right? But thus far, we've noticed that there are no apps that, that give you somebody, a real live human being can answer your questions. So that's what we do.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  I love it. And what's it called?

• 35:41Speaker 01

  10% happier meditation for fidgety skeptics.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  I love it. And it's on the app store. It's on Android.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  You can get it in the Apple App Store. If you have Android, you can get it through 10% happier.com. You can download, get a version for your phone.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  We'll have it linked up here in the show notes here after this.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  How many interviews have you done in the app then?

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Right now, we have four teachers, four teachers who've taught courses. So we've got a couple of basic courses. We're taught with this guy, Joseph Goldstein, who's my teacher.

• 36:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Um, who I think is, um, Among the, if not the greatest living Western meditation teacher. He's been doing it for upwards of 50 years. He was really one of the key guys to bring it here from Asia. He went and learned it in his twenties. Sharon Salzberg is another person on the course, on the platform. And then a couple of younger guys who are specifically teaching courses about how to use mindfulness to eat better and to communicate better. And we're basically going to do infinite courses. You know, we're going to do parenting, depression.

• 36:44Lewis Howes?

  Fitness.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Health, fitness, stress, lots of, lots of areas.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  I mean, for me, the reason I like, you know, as an athlete, I felt like it's all about your belief. If you believe in yourself, essentially, that might sound a little woo wee, but you know, when you go against, when I'm competing at the national championships or when I'm competing against a great competitor, if we both have the same talent, usually it's the person who is willing to work the hardest, who has the best driving, who believes more and has that little bit of an edge and belief. And it's the voice between our head, you know, in our head, between our ears, that tells us whether we're worthy or we're not worthy and, or whether we should be reactive or angry or resentful or any of these things that aren't serving us to move forward in a positive way. And so the reason I like to talk about it is because I'm just like jock looking dude

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  who's not some spiritual leader or something, you know, and I feel like it works for me. And I feel like if it can work for you, for me, it can work for a lot of people when it's approached in a different way, more relatable way. So I'm glad you guys are doing that work.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  You're doing a great thing. I mean, it warms the cockles of my heart to hear somebody who looks like, I don't know, your listeners, your viewers know, but your listeners may not know from being in this room with you. You're a large dude who played football and now plays handball. And you are not the stereotypical evangelist for meditation. So to have you out there is awesome.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes. So this is different for me. My friend Danielle Port was like, you gotta have a crystal in your office. So I was like, all right, send me a crystal. So I'm just like, I'm trying to add a little bit of it.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to get on your case about that.

• 38:14Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. That's all good.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  But it is awesome that you're doing that. I really do think it's great.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, what's, what do you think's the future for you? Besides this app and this movement, what's with your future for?

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  TV here, are you still going to continue doing?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  GMA and all these other.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  I, you know, like.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  What's the plan for you?

• 38:33Speaker 01

  It, it, being a meditator has not dimmed my ambition.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Before, I want to talk about that before I forget though, because getting back to your point about how it helps you as an athlete. What you were describing there, and I knew I wanted to say this, was getting in your own way.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  So when they talk about being in the zone, it means just not letting.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  Out of the way, yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  The voice between your head mess you up while you're trying to make a free throw.

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  And, and that is what meditation can help with. So, and, and, and even though I'm better now, you know, 10% better at like not getting in my own way. And, and I'm a little 10% calmer and a little bit nicer than I used to be. I'm still really ambitious. I still get in my own way. I still say, you know, I make this joke a lot. My, if my wife were here, she would give me 90% still a moron speech. So I'm, I still retain the capacity to be a complete schmuck at times. So I, I'm just trying to be better all the time.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  And I'm still super ambitious. So, you know, you asked me about what I'd like to do in TV. I still want to keep moving up. I love what I do. I love being a journalist.

• 39:34Lewis Howes?

  What's the dream segment or spot for you?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  I kind of, you know.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  You already there?

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Well, I, I sort of feel like I have, if, if somebody told me today, you, look, you're going to continue co anchoring Nightline and the weekend edition of GMA in perpetuity. I'd be cool with that. But, you know, if somebody told me today, hey, we're going to give you an evening newscast or a morning newscast during the week, I'd also be psyched to do that. So I, I'm, or you know, whatever. I, there are a million things I'd be psyched to do.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Is there, is there another level?

• 40:00Speaker 01

  It gets, well, sure, there are definitely levels up from where I am. There's there, you know, there are people who are significantly more prominent than I am. But I'm in a funny space now where I'm simultaneously very happy with where I am, but also would be happy if, if somebody wanted to give me a bigger job too.

• 40:17Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  What I've gotten a little bit better at doing is not sort of like burning with the kind of negative style of ambition where I just can't stand that somebody else has something. And I, you, we sort of labor under this false impression that if somebody else has a position, that they got it.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  You know, instead of us, that we would have gotten if, if they, we would have gotten it if they hadn't.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  I don't think that's true. You know, I don't look at people who have bigger jobs than me and think, oh, they only got that because, you know. Whatever, because they, you know, for some random reason, I should have that job, etc. I don't think that's true. And I think get dropping that illusion has been very useful.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Final few questions. This has been great, and I want to make sure everyone goes and follows up. Check out the show notes, download the app, get the book. We'll have it all linked up here afterwards.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Final few questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Baby. I had a baby 14 months ago.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Your son, right?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yes, Alexander. You just saw him. Every time I'm on the road. Thank you. Yeah, I ask my favorite question to ask him is, what does a sheep say? And he said, that's the only question he can answer, actually.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  He, you know, the annoying thing about having children is that all of the cliches are true.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:35Lewis Howes?

  It's the greatest thing in the world. You've never felt love like this before.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  It's all true.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  All true. Hate to say it. As a man who, as I'm on record in this podcast, has sang, I hate cliches. They're all true. And it's the greatest thing.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Yes, it's also the worst thing. You know, like the worst thing, like you just, when you fall asleep, the little shit starts screaming, you know? And you have to get used to a poop, which will really make you more humble. Changing diapers.

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  When your baby just throws up on you?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yes, pukes, he's puked on my face, he's puked on my shoes.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I got 5 million people I gotta go talk to right now. You gotta deal with this little baby throwing up on me.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  He does not care. He's a little karmic torpedo aimed at my head. But it is incredible. And you never, when I'm on the road, as happened right before this podcast, my wife and child will FaceTime me and I'll, you know?

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  It's, it is a huge burst of dopamine.

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. If you had all the money in the world to solve one problem in the world, what would that be? What would you use the money for?

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Poverty.

• 42:40Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  We live in a, well, now as I'm saying that, I'm thinking of a bunch of questions, a bunch of other things. But I thought they were all interconnected because I think of poverty and climate change.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Inequality, obviously, is part of poverty. Climate change is disproportionately going to affect the poor who live in countries like Bangladesh and stuff like that.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  I think climate change is the biggest story of our lives that nobody's talking about. And that the media, myself included, is not doing a good enough job to highlight.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a big, difficult story to cover. There isn't a huge appetite for it.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  So I guess I'm doing this thing of giving you two answers when you ask for one. But poverty and climate change are the two things. And I'll add a third, which is racism and/or bigotry of any variety. You know, and these are all intertwined in ways, deep ways.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Because they all really go back to our, the voice is in our heads. But bigotry and racism, religious bigotry, prejudice against people of different sexual orientations. All of that, I don't know if there's enough money in the world to solve this problem, but it's a big problem.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  Would you call it education? Would you call it being educated?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Look, I think mindfulness will help.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  I do. I don't think, I'm not of the view, I'm not a utopian. I don't think that mindfulness is going to solve all of our problems. But I do think.

• 44:10Lewis Howes?

  Help us be happier, friendlier.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yes, I do, I think, and less greedy.

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  And less judgmental. And, you know, if, in fact, I'm right, that it's the next big public health revolution. Think about the last couple of public health revolutions, oral hygiene and physical fitness. So they had a good effect, but they didn't change behavior so much. This one could change behavior. Lowering reactivity, lowering your emotional reactivity will impact bullying, road rage, politics, journalism. And perhaps big things like climate change, which is, this is a sort of term of art, you know, a tragedy of the commons. Where we, it's a problem that's so big that it's easy to ignore. Because one country and one person often feel like they can't do anything about it. It's so big.

• 45:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I think there are ways that it could boost the sort of global level of wisdom and selflessness. That it's possible, it could be a positive, it could be a positive contribution to some of these deep, deep problems.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Biggest lesson you've learned from all the years of interviewing people and being on TV? Besides the mindfulness stuff, what's the biggest thing that has come up for you? The biggest thing you've learned about yourself?

• 45:28Speaker 01

  The hardest thing I've had to learn, which you are great at naturally, is listening. You have this ability when you're interviewing. I feel like you're listening to me and you're not, you have to like know what your next question is gonna be. But I don't, I feel like you're actually listening and then asking something based on something I just said.

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  I was really bad at that. I was always just kinda like planning the next thing and not listening, which made me a much worse interviewer because I wasn't spontaneously reacting to things.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, being as present.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. So you're really good at that and naturally, and I think for me, that's something that I've over time gotten a little bit better at. I can certainly do better.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  Sure, well, it's definitely been training on my end and practice, so it's not easy to do, that's for sure.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  Okay, thanks for the compliment.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  Final two questions, and this is what I like to ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. And it's the final day for you, many, many years in the future. All your friends and family are there, it's a happy moment. But everything you've ever created has been deleted and erased. All your TV interviews, your book, your apps, everything, gone. And they say, you know, we have a piece of paper and a pen. We want you to write down the three truths that you know to be true about your life and your experience that you could pass on to us as wisdom for us to live our lives. What would you write down as those three truths?

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Don't be an asshole.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Try to make awesome shit. Meditate.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  Awesome, I love it. Final question, before I ask it, is there anywhere we should go follow you online? Anywhere we should go to connect with you specifically? Where do you hang out most online?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  I'm on Twitter a lot. We also have 10% happier.com, Facebook.

• 47:29Lewis Howes?

  At Dan Harris on Twitter?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, at Dan B. Harris.

• 47:31Lewis Howes?

  DB Harris.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  The B is for beefcake, actually.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Okay, awesome.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  That's actually not true. Your viewers will maybe not be able to tell that I'm small and scrawny.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  You remind me of Bob Costas a little, has anyone told you that?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Uh, no, but I see it actually, because I've met him and he's also like my height.

• 47:46Lewis Howes?

  He's shorter than you, I think actually.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  He may be shorter than me.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  He's like 5'5" maybe or something.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's shorter than me.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  Um, okay, cool. And final question before I ask, I want to acknowledge you, Dan, for your...

• 48:00Lewis Howes?

  Your willingness to see what was in the way for you and to take to get out of your own way to start getting feedback and information to support your growth. Cause it sounds like for many years you were cynical and thought a specific way, but then you had a challenge and you were willing to get out of your own way and see, okay, maybe some of the people know some things that I don't know. That could serve me and therefore serve the world in a better way by it helping me. And so I want to acknowledge you for taking a leap and working on this because this is a big topic that I think not enough people are consuming and taking in and by you with a platform and being able to get the message out there, you're serving a lot of people in a powerful, loving way. I think it's really important what you're doing, so I want to acknowledge you for that.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Thank you, appreciate that. Thank you.

• 48:45Lewis Howes?

  And final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  What is my definition of greatness? I would go back to my list before of the, of the three truths. The definition of greatness would be the first two there of doing or building something awesome that you truly believe in and in the process, building and maintaining great relationships, not being an asshole is a sort of flippant way of saying, being a good compassionate person. Because that actually will be the greatest source of your happiness. And also, by the way, you need those other people in order to build the thing that you want to build.

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  Right. Jay Harris. Thanks for coming on, man.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Great job.

• 49:30Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please tag me on Twitter at Lewis Howes and on Instagram at Lewis Howes and let me know what you thought. Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are putting out videos two to three times a week right now. Inspirational videos, the full video interviews of our, of our podcast as well. It's all on YouTube at youtube slash Lewis Howes. Make sure to subscribe, like, leave a comment, share it with your friends and let me know what you think of the new video series. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Make sure to check out the book of Dan Harris, check out his new app. We'll have it all linked up at lewishouse.com/297.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  And it means the world to me that you continue to show up. We're getting over a million downloads a month, a million plus downloads a month. And this movement of greatness, of moving people towards their best life, their best health, the best relationships, their best purpose is what I'm all about. This is what I live for. And you guys are fueling it and moving it forward and spreading the message. We would not be able to create this movement without each one of you. So what you can do right now is to email a friend and send them this link, or send them a link that you like the most on the School of Greatness, and tell them to start listening, and ask them questions, what they think about it, and tell them to subscribe.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  And one person at a time, we're going to reach millions and millions and millions of people together. We're in this together. I love and appreciate you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.