958 Dan Harris on Conquering Fear and Becoming 10% Happier Everyday

"The quality of your relationships say a lot about the quality of your life.”Lewis is joined by TV anchor and #1 New York Times bestselling author Dan Harris to discuss what it means to become 10% Happier. They talk about the power of mindfulness to cultivate compassion, how to make a sport out of fear, ways to let go of what you can’t control, and the biggest lesson Dan learned from the Dalai Lama. For more Dan Harris on the School of Greatness, visit lewishowes.com/958. And text Lewis at 614-350-3960. 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 958 with number one New York Times bestselling author, Dan Harris. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Ronnie Ware, the author of the book, Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, said, "Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose cautiously, choose wisely, choose honestly, choose happiness." I'm so excited to bring you this episode because it's focused on one of the biggest goals that all of us share, being happier. And in my last interview with the news anchor, Dan Harris, he talked about what it was like to have a panic attack on Good Morning America. It made him start to concentrate on his mental health and learning simply to be a little bit happier every single day. And Dan studied meditation and wrote the number one New York Times bestseller, 10% Happier, which he also turned into a podcast and an app.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  And Dan's objective is to help people who are skeptical about meditation, because he once was too, while also connecting with those already on their mental and spiritual journeys. And in this episode, we discuss how meditation can open us up to be more compassionate and forgiving to ourselves and others. Why it takes daily effort to be happier, and it doesn't just happen by default. You've got to show up every day and make it happen. How to make a sport out of fear. This is something that I love to do from my sports background. We talk about methods to conquering your fears in a fun and less stressful way. The biggest lesson he's learned from interviewing the Dalai Lama, and trust me, it's not what you would have expected.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  We talked about one of my favorite topics, masculinity and vulnerability. And Dan shares what he learned from his parents growing up and what he wants to teach his children about expressing. themselves today and we talk about what most people struggle with on their road to happiness, acceptance and how to let go of what you can't control and focus on what you can control. I'm so grateful to share this information in the episode with you and remember pass this along if it's making an impact on you. You have the power to change someone's life today by sharing this with a friend and make sure to subscribe to the school of greatness. If this is your first time here. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only Dan Harris.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the school greatest podcast. We have the iconic and inspirational Dan Harris in the house, my man. Good to see you.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Great to see you. Great to see.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited about this. We've got, um, I've been on your show. You've been on my show before. You've got an amazing book, 10% happier and app and a whole ecosystem and community. You're number one, your time bestselling author, you're on GMA, you're doing so many different things. And for those that don't know about you, you know, the thing that you became famous for was having a nervous breakdown on, on live TV. A panic attack, anxiety attack, whatever you want to talk about and say, and you were the most skeptical person on the idea of meditation and mindfulness and going into your inner world and being spiritual, you were, you were essentially against it. Is that right?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I don't, I just didn't even think of it. It was not on my radar at all. Um, I don't know that I was against therapy because after I had the, the panic attack on good, good morning, America back in 2004, I went to see a therapist and I wasn't, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a child of physicians, my, um, I got, I eventually married a physician, so I, I'm not against basic scientifically validated stuff, but I, uh, so it wasn't that I was anti-introspection per se. It's just that I thought meditation was ridiculous because I didn't know anything about it. I just pictured what most. People who don't know anything about meditation picture, which is somebody in a loincloth on a mountaintop or, or you know, you live in a yurt or whatever.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  And, and then what I learned ultimately was that there actually is a lot of science that suggests meditation is really good for you. It can lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system. It's been shown to affect key parts of the brain. So we have an area back here called the amygdala, which is the fear and stress center. And meditation has been shown to like literally shrink the gray matter in that part of the brain. And it's been shown to help with the prefrontal cortex, the area that regulates our attention and our ability to think rationally and be self-aware. And so that got me into sitting doing.

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. So would you say that unless there is science or research backing the benefits of something, you will always be skeptical?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I think the old me for sure, no way I was gonna do it unless there was a lot of evidence. Now, I like to have evidence, but I'm a little bit more open-minded and, you know, I would like people I trust and respect to, to be guiding me towards something. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think if there's any example of something for which there is no scientific evidence that I'm.

• 5:30Lewis Howes?

  I mean, like something, maybe something like a psychedelic, which now is coming out with more research and science, I guess. But for me, I've never done drugs, I've never been high, I've never been drunk. I don't drink alcohol. I've never thought about taking drugs. And so it's never piqued my interest, even though I have lots of friends who do psychedelics and go to the Amazon and retreats in Sedona and Burning Man and talk about the power of healing through psychedelics. I just still have no desire. I personally, even if there is science, I don't wanna tamper with that part of my brain or body with something personally that I don't have control over, you know? Whereas breathing, I feel like you can manage the.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  The release of it, you can go into a place and control letting go as opposed to needing something else to make you let go.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  That's my point of view.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, my, my, just my opinion, um, having never done any of this stuff myself, is, but having looked at it, um, and talked to a lot of people I respect and trust who are, and, including scientists, um, is that I'm deeply intrigued, but I'm very scared.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  And, and I wouldn't look at it as drugs, I would look at it as medicine. Having said that, I would, I wouldn't look at this as drugs, I think it's really a medicine, and it's gonna emerge truly as medicine now that there's this scientific backing. And still, I'm really scared to do it. I suspect at some point in my life, I will, though.

• 7:00Lewis Howes?

  Do you think you would try something like that, only if you felt a deep level of anxiety and stress that you couldn't figure out how to manage on your own through meditation or other natural practices? Or is it something you would actually try as a researcher, journalist, to say, you know what, I'm fine right now, I feel pretty good, my life's amazing, and I still want to explore and see what this can do?

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Both. I, I think curiosity is a huge driver for me, and, um, I've heard so many anecdotal reports from people I really trust, that this is an incredibly powerful intervention technology, that I am very curious to try it, and I think, you know, I've heard it described by people who come from, you know, the meditation world where I, I come from now, uh, I can't believe I'm even saying that, but I do.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  And, and who talk about it as an accelerator of this practice, which I, you know, have so much faith in. And, so I really do see it as connected, and, so I would be curious, and, you know, I'm an anxious, I, I've done not insignificant amount of meditation, you know, maybe eleven-ish years of meditating, I'm still an anxious person, it, you know, there's a reason why I called the book and everything else I've done, ten percent happier.

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  It's a little bit happier.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. There are, I am very skeptical of miracle cures, I don't think there is such a thing, so, I, I do think meditation is also an incredibly powerful intervention, but it's not gonna magically solve all of your problems, and, the idea, the, the evidence around reduction of anxiety and fear among terminal cancer patients, to me is incredibly compelling, and...

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  We're all gonna be, you know, being born is a terminal condition, you know, we are all headed in one direction. And so death, which is probably not the subject you want to explore on your show today, but is something that I'm very interested in, is scary. And, you know, and I there are, we, we talk about it a lot in the meditation world, in the Buddhist world, and I, I think the idea that you can have an experience that's so powerful that reduces, makes you more accepting of this non-negotiable fact, I find that very compelling.

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  Is the country Bhutan, is that the country Bhutan, I think that's where it is, that practices and focuses on their death five times a day? I'm not sure if that's even the name of the country, but there's a country that does this, there's a, there's an app called We Croak, I don't know if you've seen this app.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yes, I have, I have.

• 9:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and it reminds you five times a day that you are going to die.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:38Lewis Howes?

  And there's a, there's a reason behind this reminder and this country that focuses on this five times a day, on how it actually brings you more peace and happiness, knowing you're gonna die, and focusing your attention on it. And I don't know the full understanding of it, but I just know that when we do that, as opposed to resisting it, as when we resist, that thing will persist. You know, when we accept it, we start to live more full and peaceful lives in the moment, is that correct?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  That's 100% my view. I, the We Croak app, the founder of that app came on my podcast.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yes. So I think that app is excellent. It's reminding, you're reminding me that somehow, I haven't checked it in a while, I must have disabled notifications, but it notifies you five times a day that you're gonna die, and here's an inspirational quote associated with the finitude of human life.

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  You know, and this is not just a Buddhist tradition, Bhutan's a Buddhist country, it's a Tibetan Buddhist country, it's near Tibet, so Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, they all practice Tibetan Buddhism. So in Tibetan Buddhism, and, and as with in all forms of Buddhism, the Buddha himself talked a lot about impermanence as, as like the fundamental non-negotiable fact of life, applying to everything, including you. And so death is a very important thing to contemplate, and a healing thing to contemplate, it's not morbid. It is, it can add vibrancy and electricity to the only time it ever is, which is right now. And it jars you out of ruminating about the past, planning for the future,

• 11:17Speaker 01

  and wakes you up to right now. And that's a really useful thing. It also can put things in perspective. I spend an enormous amount of time worrying about bullshit.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  What do you worry about the most?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  You know, I had an experience early on in the pandemic where I was seeing a pattern of, I was seeing a regression to sort of pre-meditation level.

• 11:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Anxiety.

• 11:45Lewis Howes?

  You were personally?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I was.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  More anxiety than 11 years ago when you started the meditation practice?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really worried about a number of things. And this is, this is embarrassing, but it's true. I was really worried, and they were selfish things. They were like, how is my company gonna do? My, you know, I work at ABC News, but I'm on a contract which is gonna expire in, you know, not too distant future. What's gonna happen there? My parents are elderly. Any number of things I was worried about. And I was just looping on it. And here's the problem with, we are not wired as a species for uncertainty. We don't handle it well. We need to be able to forecast in the future with some, you know, some level of confidence. And in a pandemic, you cannot do that. We don't know when this is gonna end. We don't know how it's gonna end.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  We don't know what changes will be wrought across our culture, across our economy, and across our political scene. And I kept finding myself trying to project into the future and then just running into a wall of fog and looping in this. And, and then feeling a lot of shame about the fact that so much of my anxiety was so self-centered. And I called my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who's this incredible figure. And I told him, I told him what was going on. And he said two things were incredibly helpful. One was, welcome to being a human being. Anybody who's under threat is gonna have some, the organism is gonna try to protect itself.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  And so anxiety, self-centered anxiety is a completely normal reaction to this situation. And it wasn't all, not that all of my anxiety was self-centered. I was worried about my parents, worried about my family, I'm worried about, we have an elderly neighbor. I'm worried about other people, of course. But just to know that some selfish stuff is gonna come up when the organism is under threat. The other thing he said was, there's a kind of meditation that we can talk about if you want, which is designed to boost your compassion, in which you focus on the suffering of other people and actively, repetitively wish for them to be free from that suffering. Just the way you would work on your bicep in the gym, which I know you do because you're, you know, so buff.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  We repetitively lift something heavy, which would look ridiculous. If you landed from Mars here and walked into a gym, not that you can go into it right now, but if you landed from Mars and went into a pre-pandemic gym and looked around at people systematically putting down and picking up heavy things, you'd say, why are they doing this? The same thing can happen in your mind. Compassion, or you might even say, if you want to be grandiose, love is a muscle, is a skill that you can train. And so Joseph had me start doing this kind of meditation more systematically. And I found that really helped jar me out of the black hole of self-obsession and put me more in touch with the suffering. I'm in New York City, the suffering is all around me and us here.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, a meditation teacher of mine once said, suffering is the root of obsessive self-centric thinking. And when you get out of yourself and put energy towards mission, love, purpose, source, people, you don't suffer. And it's hard, though, when you feel like everything's coming at you and you are dealing with this stress and you are dealing with this frustration. It's very challenging to stop obsessing over you, but that's part of it, right?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Self cherishing, there's a guy named the Dalai Lama who's talked about self cherishing being a natural and a certain amount of that you need to, to, to, you know, make dentist appointments, put your pants on and, um, you know.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Achieve goals and yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Achieve goals, those are all totally legit, but the, the more time you spend in the rut of navel gazing, of worrying about yourself, counter intuitively, the less happy you will be. So if you want to be happy, the more time you are externally focused, the better off you will be. And so I've, I, this is something I spend, and I'm actually writing a book on this subject, on the subject of kindness, compassion, love. And I'm trying to make it less syrupy, more science-based and self-interest-based, and also to kind of take love and knock it off its pedestal a little bit. Cause I think love has been

• 16:14Speaker 01

  pulverized into meaningless by, meaninglessness, by road repetition, by Hollywood, by Bon Jovi, by the Care Bears. And, and, and so the idea of compassion or kindness and love either comes off as like an after-school special, or, you know, you gotta have the string music come in. But actually, it's just about the fact that we are evolutionarily wired to care. Otherwise, we would never have survived. We would, we don't have big teeth. We don't have, um, uh, speed like the cheetah. We survived as species, we could work together to take down the mastodon. And so our capacity to care about one another and ourselves, because care is a sort of an omnidirectional, um, force, is what has

• 16:58Speaker 01

  a, it's wired deeply in us. So there's nothing schmoopy or woo-woo about talking about this capacity. And I think it's largely talked about the wrong way.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  You recently interviewed Dalai Lama, didn't you?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  I've interviewed a couple of times and, you know, he, he has a phrase that I, that for me has been incredibly useful, which is

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Wise selfishness.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  That if we're all selfish by design, but if you want to be wisely selfish, you will spend most of your energy worrying and taking care of other people.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  That's why selfishness was his definition is putting attention towards other people?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Helping, helping out.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, serving.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I can see in my own mind, the difference between the flavor

• 17:55Speaker 01

  of my mind when I'm obsessing about how many likes I did or didn't get on my recent tweet versus when I'm running errands for my 85 year old neighbor.

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  And that insight is scalable ad infinitum, and that, that I think is really useful.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  What was the greatest, I think, I think you interviewed him from the last year because I heard an episode of yours with him. I don't know if it was recent or I just went back to the back catalog. I think his translator was there or no, it was you on the stage somewhere. You'd done an interview with him on stage and you put it on your podcast, I believe.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  Really cool. What's been your biggest lesson about being in his presence? Not about what he said, but the way he was.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  To me, the, the thing about the Dalai Lama, and I won't claim to know him super well. I've interviewed him a couple of times, but to, to me, it's that people act around him like he has some supernatural power, but he does not claim to be anything other than just a, a normal guy. And the first thing he ever said to me when he walked into the room was that he needed to go to the bathroom.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  This is, I saw him at a speech one time at an intimate event, and that was the first thing he said is like, oh, I have some constipation right now. I need to poop or something. It was like super funny. And I think he does that intentionally to kind of like bring it down from this.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  All you have been thou, I am the spiritual guru, because everyone is like in awe around him, but he's a human being.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  And I don't think that kind of pretending he's trailing pixie dust is that useful. I think he is another human being who, just like me and you, needs to use the bathroom.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I was gonna say put your pants on, but I don't think he wears pants. I think he wears a robe.

• 19:36Lewis Howes?

  I know, it's just a robe, it's just free ball.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's command, he's going commando, but. The point is, what I get, here's the common denominator for me of all of the great spiritual teachers I've met over the years.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Doing the podcast or writing the books, the great ones do not take themselves that seriously. And that, to me, flows inexorably out of the practice of meditation, because what's happening in meditation? You are continually thrust up against your own insanity, right? You're just seeing how ridiculous you are all the time. And if you don't develop a sense of humor in the face of your own inner onslaught, you are gonna suffer. And, and in an even deeper level, the point of Buddhist meditation is to see that this self that you take so seriously, you know, this, this little Dan in between my ears or right behind my nose, or this little Lewis that you might think lives like a homunculus

• 20:37Speaker 01

  pulling, pulling.

• 20:39Lewis Howes?

  The strings of your brain.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, squeezing your brain or pulling levers in your skull somewhere, doesn't exist. If you close your eyes and look for Lewis or look for Dan, you won't find it. All that there is, is just this continual dance of whatever's coming in through your senses, hearing, thinking, smelling. And so in the Buddhist concept, their schema, there are not five senses, but six. Then the sixth is, is what is the mind. And so what's happening all the time is just this continuous flow. And so you get to see this, the deeper you go into meditation, and you see there is no core self. Of course, then, the people who've really seen that are a little bit more rubbery in their presentation.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  They're like, they're not so wrapped up in their own bullshit.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Me, I just see that over and over again. The Dalai Lama definitely is there.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Now, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know why, if it's just the pandemic or the types of questions that I've been getting, a lot of people want to learn how to. Start a side hustle, grow their business, and they're coming to me for a lot of that in my community at least. And the question I continue to get by people to me is how do they overcome this fear if they're nervous or afraid to put themselves out there? Now, over my life, I've seen a theme where I had many fears as a kid. One, speaking in front of five people was a fear of mine, let alone thousands, was terrifying. Dancing in public was a fear of

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  mine. Singing, right. Launching a business was a fear. Starting a podcast, writing a book, when I was flunked out of English in high school. All these things were fear. But when I decided to lean into my fears as a teenager, I decided like I'm never gonna be afraid of something, I'm gonna go all in on it until the fear disappears. The more I leaned into my fears, the more that thing I thought I could never do became a superpower of mine over the years. You know, now I speak on stage, I salsa dance around the world to the best places. I, you know, I can interview anyone now. It's type of feel, I have the feeling of confidence in the things that I do because I actually practiced and went all in. Now, do you feel like going back to the meditation side of things, it's not something you were even interested in,

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  you weren't even thinking about it. And you focus more on practicality, focus more on research and science than trying certain things like that. Do you feel like all of our fears can become superpowers of ours? Now you're this meditation facilitating, curating master. Do you feel like any fear that we have as human beings can become superpowers if we choose to go all in on them?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Let me tell you a story. First of all, I wanna, I'm so glad I'm talking to you because you always ask questions that get me thinking about a million things. I want to answer that question directly. First, there's gonna be a church bell, you're gonna hear a church bell. We live next to a church, so it's the top of the hour. Apologies for that.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  No worries.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  I'm gonna answer the question you just asked me, but there was a comment you made before that I would love to swing back to, which is that people are coming back to you, coming to you and talking about their side hustle. Let's just put a pin in that because I wanna, I wanna say something that may be controversial for you, but I wanna say it.

• 23:54Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  But on the fear thing, just a recent story is coming to mind. First of all, let me just say, I'm still in awe of what you did in Mask of Masculinity. And talking about what happened to you as a kid, uh, which you came on my show and talked about, which I just think was just the most baller of moves. Talk about leaning into the, you know, into the worst thing that could happen to you. And just owning it, retaking it was a masterclass, I think, in, in what you're talking about. Thank you. Uh, the story that's coming to mind, based on what you just said is I, you mentioned had a panic attack on Good Morning America,

• 24:37Speaker 01

  but I, I also have horrible claustrophobia. And I was We're about to do this in the closet. Yes. Yeah, we were, we, Louis is right about that. We were gonna do this podcast from my wife's closet, Bianca's closet, because, uh, it has the best acoustics in the house. I didn't realize we're actually gonna be videotaping it, so I came out here to the living room. Hence the, uh, some of the, uh, audio interruptions. The closet has been, uh, I've been able to survive that, but I've had some trouble, real trouble recently in elevators. And Really? About nine months ago, I was in a, I was doing a shoot in downtown Manhattan. We're at a loft in Soho. And I got in the elevator, pressed the sixth floor, and all of a sudden realized I was in a tiny elevator. And it was moving like,

• 25:23Speaker 01

  just like very slowly. And I got out of the elevator and my hands were shaking. And I was trying to have a conversation with my producer, but I was looking down at my hand. It was just shaking. And it set off this thing where I would, I would be at a part, I would go to show up in apartment, building here in New York City and go to see our friends on the 25th floor. I'd look at the elevator and say, I gotta walk. No way. 25 floors? 25 floors, up and down. And I read this book by Barry McDonough. Do you know who that is? No. Okay, so he wrote, you, you, you might wanna have him on. I actually have never met him. I Thinking about putting him on the podcast, but I've never met him. I never had him on the show. So Barry's watching this shout out to Barry because he really had a positive

• 26:05Speaker 01

  impact on me. And he, the book is called The Dare Response and D A R E is an acronym. And I've totally forgotten what it stands for. But essentially his, it's all about how to handle anxiety and panic. And his advice, which is, which tracks with what you would hear in cognitive behavioral therapy and, and other, you know, well established forms of therapy is to lean into the skid. And so he says, when you're feeling the panic come on, to say, bring it on and turn it around from being the hunted to the hunter.

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  It's beautiful. And so when I get in the elevator now, I'll say to myself, all right, give me a panic attack.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  His point is, this is just a set of physical sensations that you know, beyond a shadow of, of a doubt, you will survive because you've survived it before. And so get curious about it. Ask for it. And that has been really helpful to me. I don't know if that's the answer you wanted, but that's the answer.

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  I think it's not, it is because I think we can't think our way out of a, you know, nerves from being on stage. If we don't go back on stage and practice feeling it again, we can't think our way out of like, I'm gonna only meditate and pray that I'm not gonna have a panic attack in the elevator. No, you're gonna have it again until you face it over and over again and accept it and let it go. For me, I was terrified. I spent three months, literally, I would go once a week to a salsa club for three months and would not step one foot on the dance floor. I'd sit in the corner and be mesmerized watching everyone dance, terrified of what people think about me as this tall, white boy, a foot taller than everyone else in the club, all Latinos and just me, fully out of place.

• 27:57Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, what am I doing here? But I was just like, this is amazing. I want to be able to do this, but I'm so terrified. And it took me three months until finally some girl dragged me on the floor of me pushing her, kicking her off of me like, no, I don't want to embarrass you. I don't want to embarrass anyone. And finally went out there. And I remember for like 20 minutes, she was walking me through the basic steps and I looked down at my feet. And I was terrible stepping on her, bumping into people. I felt so humiliated. And then I finally looked up and realized, oh, no one's actually looking at me. Everyone's doing their own thing, dancing, having fun. No one cares. Maybe they looked at me for a second and thought, oh, that's good. He's trying.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  And that's it. And so I was like, okay, like, I'm gonna come here every week and practice. Until I'm no longer afraid. And I did that for six months until I was like, man, I, I am a salsa dancer, you know, it's like, I own this. And you are an elevator rider. You own it.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want to overstate it because there are times where like, I'll look at an elevator, it's too small. And I'm like, I don't know if I can push myself right now. But I've made a ton of progress and

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  And I think your model, the way you intuitively as a young person with no, I know you just came to it on your own of like, no, I, I am, I'm not, I'm gonna be the hunted here. I'm not gonna let fear limit my life.

• 29:23Lewis Howes?

  I think I was just so, um, sick and tired of being scared, sick and tired of being feeling alone, sick and tired of feeling insecure, sick and tired of just not being, believing in myself and what I was capable of. I was in some areas like sports, but not in other areas like connecting with new people, speaking in front of an audience, dancing, like these other areas with human dynamics. I didn't have those skills. I was very insecure. And I just said, I'm sick and tired of feeling this way. And the only way to do it is to create a game in my mind. Where, okay, here's a challenge. And I'm gonna set this out for three months, for 30 days, for one year, whatever it takes. And each week, I'm gonna get a coach. I'm gonna have a game plan. I'm gonna take action and I'm gonna have homework and repeat the cycle.

• 30:09Lewis Howes?

  And that's pretty much what I do in my life. It's just like, how do I make a sport out of my fear until it becomes fun?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  It's a really good example to be setting, I, I think. It's very powerful.

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  I think, um, I love that you share that you're scared of elevators still because, I mean, people are afraid of plane, my girlfriend's afraid of planes. Uh, it's a real thing. I mean, the fear of it shaking. It's not fun being in an elevator when it's shaking and small and it is not fun. But I think I've come to just say, okay, well, this is the choice I made and there's nothing I can do in this elevator. I'm either gonna get out or I'm not. And it's just like, but me having anxiety around it is not gonna support me in the next five minutes of my life. So that's, that's what I try to do. Even if I get nauseous or scared, but for what that's worth.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Can you be happier without meditation?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I am not a meditation fundamentalist. I think there, you know, I've spent a lot of time on my show. I talk, I talk to people, you know, you, including you, who are talking about human flourishing to get a little

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  grandiose on you, but talking about human well-being, human flourishing from so many different angles. And it's very humbling to see that there are a lot of ways to, I say this reluctantly as a cat owner and a vegan, but to skin this cat and, and I, you know, by the way, I became a vegan in part because of going on your show and having a vegan dinner at your apartment afterwards.

• 31:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  As a side note, that is true.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  No, you did not.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yes, true story. True story.

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  That's right. We did that dinner in my place with like 25 people.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:54Lewis Howes?

  And had Chef Dave come out and do this dinner. Why did that, why was that partly?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  It was, you know, it was, I will answer your question eventually about meditation, but, but it just crossed my mind. It was a delicious meal and I realized, wow, you can really eat well as a vegan. And then it also, it wasn't Chef Dave. I met Chef Dave, but I also met the guy who was his investor, who was talking about his reasons for being a vegan. And I realized that I had no argument, no rebuttal. And, and by the way, this is not to say that I have any judgment of people who are not vegans. I, my wife and, and, and my son and our nanny eat cheeseburgers here all the time.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And I have no, it's not like I, I'm not a judgmental vegan. Just for me, I'm out of the killing game. Like I'm just, I'm not doing that. So, yeah, so it just became like, I, a seed was planted that night. And about a year later, I gave it up. And so it's been a couple of years.

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  But is it, what is, how's your life been different? And do you notice actual mental changes, physical changes? Because being a vegan, or do you just feel more compassionate since you're not slaughtering helpless animals? Like, like I do.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  I can't sit here and say it's been some magical change. First of all, I've gained weight because of more carbs.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Second, it's not like, you know, I had to learn how to eat in order to have enough protein. I think the whole protein thing is a bit of a myth, but like you need, you need some protein. And so I had to hire a nutritionist who really I worked with for a solid year to learn how to eat well. And, you know, it's a gigantic pain in the ass and the animals don't say thank you. So it's not like some, I'm walking, you know, I'm walking on air because I'm a vegan. But I tell you, it's just, it's just like, there was a background static of it doesn't feel good to be gnawing on this bone from a bird that was using it to fly. Like, I didn't like that. It wasn't good. It didn't feel good for me. And I know it doesn't feel good for you because you got your-

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't feel good, man. It doesn't feel good. I've been more and more conscious over the last few years. I hang out with vegans all the time. I'm an investor in a vegan company. I go to vegan places with my friends. You know, I try to be, you know, I watched this documentary. It wasn't a documentary, it was a movie called Okja. If you ever watched this. I watched this and I was like, I'm the worst human being in the world. That one almost got me to convert. It was so close to making me feel like the most horrible human being in the world that I was like, I need to change.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Well, but, but here's the thing. I just want to be clear. I actually look at it not as a binary. You're like either a vegan or you're not. Like on some technical level, that's true. But like, I think it's much more helpful to think of it as a spectrum. And are you eating less animals? Or are you just like constantly gnawing on bones? And like, you're on the right end of that spectrum. And I don't think, so I think that's perfectly super defensible. You can make a huge reduction in suffering and a huge contribution to the environment by cutting cheeseburger consumption down to once a week or twice a week or whatever. And so I really don't, and I don't think it's helpful for vegans to be lecturing. I met-

• 35:15Lewis Howes?

  It's horrible for a vegan to judge a meat eater, because the thing you're judged for, you don't want to change. It's when someone has compassion and it's like, listen, you know, do you, and I want to educate you on this when it makes sense. And I support you and love you no matter what.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  That's what I, that's what I saw at your house that night.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Keep living your life. Like, I'm going to live my life and show you this example and model and show you how amazing my life is because of it. And if you ever want to come over, cool.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Right. That's right. That's exactly. And that's my view about meditation as well. You know, uh, you know, like to get back to the question you asked me, do I think you can be happy without meditation? Uh, like it's, it's not a dissimilar question to can you be a good human being without being a vegan? The answer is yes. A thousand percent yes. There are, you, you can be a good person, but just by cutting back and being mindful of the fact that animal suffering is not something you are like super psyched about and, and environmental degradation is, is something you want to help with. All good. So have, have a delicious cheeseburger once in a while. Who cares? The, the other thing I would say about meditation is that there's, there are, you know, the most important variable I've seen by talking to scientists around

• 36:28Speaker 01

  human happiness appears to be what you and I are doing right now, which is human connection.

• 36:34Lewis Howes?

  Connection, yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  The quality of your relationships usually says the most about the quality of your life. Now, I believe that meditation, first of all, on its own, is a great way to enhance happiness. Just as I would put exercise, sleep, diet, exposure to nature and, and, and, and social connections. Those are the big six for me. I think that was six.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  I would also say that meditation enhances your ability to have positive relationships. And, and by meditation, I'm referring to not only the traditional mindfulness meditation where you sit, feel your breath. And then when you get distracted, start again, which has the benefit of boosting your self-awareness. So that you like, you might feel the urge to say something that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage and you don't do it.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  You're aware of your relationships.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  But the other thing is this compassion meditation, which I'm, you know, really a big evangelist for.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  What does that look like?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  So it's super, super sappy. Um, I'm going to describe it to you, but just bear in mind my gym analogy from before, before you. Although I actually think that you're the kind of person who's pretty sensitive and open minded. So I don't know.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  I'm very sensitive. My, my sisters would call me the sensitive jock growing up.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yes, and I mean, we've only hung out a few times, but that tracks with what I picked up for you. I'm more judgmental, and I don't say that as a proud, I'm not proud of that, I've been really working on that. So when I heard what I'm about to describe to you, my reaction was I'm going to run into a wall headfirst. The move is, you sit, just like you would in any meditation, you sit or lie down in a comfortable position, close your eyes, or if you don't want to close your eyes, you can kind of gaze softly somewhere neutral. And then you envision a series of beings, so people or animals. Usually, we start with ourselves. Bring to mind an image of yourself, or a felt sense of yourself, and you silently repeat phrases like,

• 38:36Speaker 01

  "May you be happy, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease." And then you move on to, traditionally, the flow is from yourself to an easy person or a good friend, so that can be like a really close friend of yours, or maybe your dog.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Then you move to a mentor, then you move to a neutral person, particularly poignant now because the neutral people, food delivery folks, people manning the cashiers at your supermarket, the people we often overlook are saving our lives right now. Then you move to a difficult person, and then finally, everybody, all beings everywhere. And so I heard this, and it sounded like Valentine's Day with like a knife to your throat, and I was super not into it. But there's a lot of science that suggests this form of practice has psychological, physiological, and behavioral benefits. And we know that people who are compassionate are happier, healthier, more popular, more successful,

• 39:41Speaker 01

  and that, as we just discussed, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life, as the great Esther Perel, the great couples counselor, often says. So to me, the case is rock solid for this form of meditation. And it's why I think meditation can be incredibly important, but I don't think if you don't do it, somehow you're consigned to a life of misery.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Right. What do you think is the, I had Dr. Laurie Santos on, I'm not sure if you've ever heard her yet. And she said, based on all the research and the science, I was like, what are the key four or five things? If you do these things, you'll be happier, based on so much research and science. And the top two things were gratitude and being of service to others, helping others. You know, I think those were top two of the four. I'm not sure how it ranked specifically, but she talks on gratitude was her main thing. And I was like, this is what I've been talking about and all these woo woo people have been talking about for years. But you're saying now it's based on science and research. She goes, that's what it comes down to as a, you know, a researcher at Yale.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  This is what it comes down to, having appreciation and gratitude. And I think it's when we can get to a place of gratitude and like you said, compassion. And this is one of the hardest things for me that I've had to overcome over the years. Or to have compassion for people that I didn't like, or I felt like abused me. You know, I talked about in your show and in my book about being sexually abused a kid. How do you have compassion for someone who takes advantage of you sexually, who rapes you, who steals from you, who kills a relative of yours? How do you have compassion for people like that? And this is where, you know, it took me 25 years to forgive a lot of things that happened in my life. 25 years of suffering and pain and agony.

• 41:27Lewis Howes?

  One, because I didn't have the tools, I didn't understand the power of compassion for people that had done things that you didn't appreciate. But when I started to forgive all these things, and then I started to have compassion for people, that's like another level of consciousness and getting out of your own ego. You did, I brought so much peace to my life and I'm not saying what people have done or what I've done in the past to people is okay and is uh right or wrong, but what it's saying is, and it shouldn't be done again, but it's, it's just having an understanding of letting go. Because holding on to that continues to hurt you and the people around you, if you hold on to the suffering and the pain of the past.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  There's some expression, I don't know who said it.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Holding a grudge is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And yeah, there is.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  You're not doing, you're not finding compassion and forgiveness for somebody who did something horrible to you. For them, you're doing it for you. And, cause you can just stop carrying it around as much. And that's incredibly helpful. It's not easy to do. Twenty-five years sounds pretty quick.

• 42:40Lewis Howes?

  It's only a lifetime for me.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  I know, but I'm saying that as out of respect for you. I don't want to minimize what you went through and, and anger and rage and all of that is, how, how can anybody take your right to feel those things away from you? You can't. But that you came to it finally, I, I only, I can only imagine is a source of relief.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  It's been, it's been amazing because my whole life was based on competition, winning and being the best and being right at pretty much everything that I could, you know, put my hands around in terms of owning, no, I'm the best at this, I'm the best at that, I'm right at this. And defending myself at all costs, that became an intention of mine without even knowing it. I was unconscious at it. When I started to forgive, let go and have compassion for anything that happened to me and to the things that I did to other people. Cause I think we hold a lot of shame and guilt for things we've done and we beat ourselves up as well. When I started to let go of all that, I stopped being as competitive and defensive.

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  I'm still competitive and defensive at some points, but I started to just be like, you know what? When I'm collaborative as opposed to competitive, things seem to do better. And I'm not in pain and I don't hurt other people and we're, you know, I'm friends with everyone as opposed to a closer circle and, and, and I want everyone to be right. And I want everyone to be successful. And when I started celebrating other people as opposed to saying, only look at me. When I started lifting those up, it's one of the reasons I started the podcast was like, I want to put the light on everyone else as opposed to, I need to be number one. Everything started to shift. Everything came my way when I celebrated other people and said, how can we do this together? And both get what we want.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's where I learned to be compassionate in that practice as well. This is beautiful how you explained it, but I think just having compassion for people and supporting people is, is a powerful thing, but it's really, it was really hard for me to learn how to do this, especially with people that I did not like or people that were hurting people I didn't know. That's really hard to do.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. It is. And in this practice, the loving kindness practice, that's the name of the meditation I was just, it's sometimes called compassion practice or loving kindness, the traditional

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Pali word, that's the ancient language, Indian language of Pali is metta, M E T T A. In this practice, one of the buckets, one of the categories of beings to whom you're sending the, these, this, these good vibes is a difficult person. And you can go, it's really challenging.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  How do you do that?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  But it's as you said, it's you, you answered that question. It's, you're not saying, I wanna have you over for dinner. You're not saying, I want to, I condone your behavior. You're saying, I, you know, I recognize that you're a human being, something happened to you that made you do this kind of thing. May you be free from that suffering.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  And as a consequence, and ultimately, it's you are the one who's free from the suffering. You don't need to wish this person endless wealth and power.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  You can wish them the peace of mind that, because if you have peace of mind, you're not going to be doing venal things.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  It's true.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  And so it's, it's, it's really-

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  If you feel loved, if you feel supported, if you feel people care about you, you're not going to try to put anger into the world and hurt people who you don't feel like are supporting you.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  This is wise selfishness. This is enlightened self-interest. It's all, it's to me as a, as a kind of, again, I'm not proud of this, but congenitally kind of selfish, ambitious person. To me, as soon as I started, as soon as I met the Dalai Lama, and he's kind of reframed compassion, kindness, love in a, in a more self, selfish way, in this, in this, it's a, it's a great Jedi mind trick for, for the, for people like me to frame it as wise selfishness and then dump in all this science to show that it's, it's, that actually you'll be happier if you're, if you can reorient in the ways that you've described so eloquently. Then it really made, it helped me make that shift.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh, curious.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  I feel like you're in a really tough position. I'll tell you why. And I'm sure you'll have a great answer for this, but imagine you are outside by a train track. And you see a train hitting a family of people every five minutes over and over again. And you, you can't stop watching it. You have to watch it. Imagine the amount of anxiety and stress that'll come up every time you watch something horrible like this happening with your eyes.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's a bad analogy. I'm not laughing at that. I'm just laughing at the setup here. You're on the new, you are the news. You are showing people or your station, maybe not you personally, but news stations are showing people. All of the bad, the, the fear, the stress, the anxiety, the worry. How do you as a host, and you guys are sharing good stories too, and showing, you know, all the powerful stuff that's happening as well. But how do you as a host handle the anxiety of watching it? And knowing that it's being fed to the eyes of people watching it around the world. Of negative stuff or the fear based stuff or the stress emotion side of things as opposed to.

• 48:20Lewis Howes?

  How do you handle that? You know, you've got this meditation app, books and courses, but. Here are our networks feeding, you know, I don't know how to position this question, but.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I think I, I, it's getting me thinking about a lot of things.

• 48:34Lewis Howes?

  Like I tell people, don't watch the news. Like if you don't want to be stressed, don't watch it. You can get an update from an article or two a day, you can. But the, the emotional side of watching something visually and the pain and the suffering. And here's the death tolls and here's the scares tactics. I'm like, and I'm not saying GMA does this, but. News in general tends to highlight more negative than here's how to be happier.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's an expression. There's nothing more. The, the expression is we don't, we don't, we don't report on the plane that lands safely.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Because it's not news, right?

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  So, I mean, that's obviously somewhat problematic and also somewhat not true. Because as you said, we do, especially now, we're doing a lot of-

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  You're doing tons of great, you're doing tons of great stuff. I'm just saying, not GMA in general, but news stations in general.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And to be clear, I don't feel defensive one bit based on what you said. I feel, I feel reflective and I'm thinking about like, I'm trying to think really honestly about my own experiences. And again, I'm going to say some things that I'm not proud of, but I think there's a hardening that can happen. Do you ever watch that show Mash where the, it's about a field hospital in the Korean War? The show lasted longer than the Korean War, actually.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  It's about these doctors and they're treating the wounded, but they're telling jokes. And it's a way to kind of steel yourself against the reality of the horror. And I, I think that for me, as I used to be a war correspondent after nine 11, I spent a lot of time in, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. And, um, you know, I think there was a mixture of things going on there. I think some of it was driven by ambition. I think some of it was driven by curiosity. I think some of it was driven by an idealism that this is a really important function in society to, to report from the tip of the spear and tell people back home what's being done in their name and on their dime.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Uh, so I had a range of motivations and I like to think about motivation is at range because we are human beings. We're going to have crass motivations, but also idealistic, high-minded motivations. And I think in there, um, a little bit you get in, I say, and I was right, as I said, I was raised by physicians and my wife's a physician. You, there is a way in which you, you do steel yourself against the train hitting the people and-

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  You have to, otherwise you'll be sobbing all day long.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:04Lewis Howes?

  Crying on the news, you'll be like, I can't take this. I need to walk off, right?

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Exactly right, but I think what I think that's why this this compassion or loving kindness meditation has become so interesting to me because I think in part because of my job, in part because of my own wiring as a frosty New England guy, and in part because of, you know, issues around masculinity that you've talked about very eloquently. You know, I was thinking about a story recently about how I was a very sensitive kid, cried a lot, had to go to see a shrink because I was so worried about nuclear war. And then I remember going into junior high and high school, we were in like the meat grinder of masculinity.

• 51:50Lewis Howes?

  You're not a man unless you kiss this girl, unless you beat this kid up, unless you do this.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Yes, and I remember one night I was with my boys, Larry, Gavin, and Eddie. And we were like for a minute, like the four of us, we used to call ourselves the gruesome foursome. And we were hanging out in Gavin's basement and somehow I got hit in the head with a lacrosse ball. And I cried and they made so much fun of me that I think I semi consciously vowed, I'm never going to let this happen again. And I think I can count on one or two hands the times I have cried as a grown man. Yeah, really that few. And I so I think all of that combined to a kind of hardening and turning off that is not uncommon among men and also women just to survive out here.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think, but I actually think there's a power in the softness. And I think I've been kind of using this phrase, this like, I think there's a vast power to our gooey center. And it goes right back to evolution. We are wired for this. And it's enfeebling and and and not a strong state to be stuck in your own selfish concerns. That you're more vulnerable to attack when you're just gazing at your navel and thinking about how many likes you've got on your Twitter feed than when you are looking around at the full view, which will encompass other people. And so for I've become very interested in this subject.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Do you think you would be a more?

• 53:23Lewis Howes?

  Effective human being in your personal life and more effective in your career with, you know, GMA and your personal 10% happier career if you cried more. If you were able to tap into the gooey centeredness of emotion on that side of the spectrum.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  I don't know. The reason why I say I don't know is that I think you can be in touch with the gooey center without crying per se. I don't know that it has to be dramatic.

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  I think it's, it goes back to what I was saying before about kind of knocking love off of its pedestal and.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  And not just like Hollywood emotional tear fest, but.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  But it may also be true that my emotional range is stunted as because of everything I just described in that the work I'm continuing to do may get me to the point where I'm crying more often and that's cool.

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  Do you remember the last time you did cry?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yes, it wasn't that long ago. It was, well, maybe a year and a half ago. My father's had some health problems and there was a moment with him where he was, things were not going well and I cried. And but I remember I was on the phone with my brother and who called me in the middle. I was dealing with my dad and then my brother called me and I stepped away and it was only in talking to him that I, I just couldn't speak anymore. I had to kind of let the phone down and I remember feeling really embarrassed. Not that my brother was judging me at all. He's not, he's a really kind person, but it just, the conditioning kicked in.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  I mean, you know what it's like. You're.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  I know, I know what it's like, man. I, yeah, I never used to show any of those emotions because I was just so humiliated and embarrassed by having them and being made fun of or picked on or whatever, or feeling less than, feeling less of a man than I can be or whatever it may be. I'm curious, what, what was it about your father that made you that emotional towards that moment? Is it the, something he taught you? Is it something that he did for you growing up? Was it?

• 55:35Lewis Howes?

  The fear that he might be gone, or what was that emotion?

• 55:38Speaker 01

  It was, so it was actually an acute situation in which he was, he's, his health has declined and we were together on this day and he was having just a bad morning and was just struggling. And I was dealing with it in the moment, but when I stepped away to talk to my brother, it was

• 56:02Speaker 01

  thinking about how, I think I said something to Matt, like, that's my brother, that in my mind, he lives as a very vibrant guy who used to run the Boston Marathon. It would go right past our house and we would hand him cups of water as he was running by and, and, you know, he was a big, very successful doctor, pioneer in the area of radiation oncology for breast cancer. And, you know, I just remember him being a jocular, vibrant, successful, compassionate guy. And to see his decline was very painful for me. And he's a huge figure in my life.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  And there was an expression that I heard once, like, so and so is the theater for my actions. In other words, it didn't feel real, nothing in my life has ever felt real until I told my parents. And to see my parents get older and struggle has been very difficult for me.

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man, that's tough. I see that in my father. My father had a car accident about 15 years ago where he was in a coma for many months. And then he's alive still today, but he's never fully emotionally, mentally recovered. So I witnessed that. He's here physically and you can talk to him pretty good, but he asks you what you did when you grew up again, where you went to school, he has to, you know, ask you all the same questions over and over. And so it's the same type of feeling where it's like, he's not this larger than life human being that was my dad and coach and mentor and, you know, throwing baseball in the backyard. It's It's more of a shell of a human that you can't do all, everything with and that's,

• 57:44Lewis Howes?

  it's really challenging. Is he okay right now? Is he healthy? Is he doing all right?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  I mean, he's doing okay. Um, but you know, uh, he's a different guy and uh, and this, you know, in some ways goes back to uh, what we're talking about before about impermanence, which obviously culminates in death. And you know, this is a central tenet in Buddhism that you know, we suffer because we're clinging to things that won't last. And so, we're always changing. You're not the same guy you were 10 years ago. You're certainly not the same guy you were 30 years ago. And, or what's that cliched expression? You can't step in the same river twice because it's all just flowing and changing all the time.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  And we don't like that. Um, especially when we have a collision with impermanence because our dads change or our bodies change or our energies and interests change in ways that are discombobulating or we realize, you know, I look at, I've been doing Zoom calls with all my high school buddies recently and I look at these guys and I'm like, what? How did we become middle aged like Jewish guys? What happened? Uh, so you know, the, it, the clinging is where the suffering comes and then it's some of these things, it's just hard not to cling, you know, when it's your dad.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  That's it. This has been powerful. I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation and um, thanks for sharing everything that you've been opening up with. If people want more, they should go, check out your podcast, 10% happier, which is a exceptional podcast. Uh, where you, you know, Dan's got a great sense of research, science and bringing on uh, all the experts to talk about both things. So make sure you guys check out 10% happier and your book is incredible. If you guys want to increase a little bit in every area of your life of happiness, check that out. You've got an app that's amazing. Uh, 10% happier app, which is all about meditation. You've got some of the top meditation teachers that come on and teach, right?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Indeed, indeed. Thank you so much for saying that. I appreciate it.

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah. And you guys, I mean, it's like a full curriculum of so many different types of courses and meditation in there, isn't that right? Is it, is it just an app or they're courses as well?

• 59:57Speaker 01

  So it's an app where you can, so most meditation apps, they just give you audio to teach you how to meditate. So, which is a great thing to do. But we have do, we do a lot of videos. So we run these courses where you could take it at your own pace, but every session you get a little bit of video, often told with some humor, that teaches you a basic tenet of meditation, and then it rolls directly into a guided audio meditation. We hear from people over and over again that they finally get what it is this whole thing is about, because we're explaining it simply. And it really, because I have 30, almost 30 years of being a TV news guy, that I'm bringing video storytelling in, and my team

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  and I are doing that together. Combine that with like, the greatest scientists and meditation teachers, and really just trying to make it a masterclass for your mind.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. Yeah, I'm on the site right now. 350 plus guided meditations, daily dose meditation of the day, sleep meditations, world-class teacher, personalized coaching, bite-sized inspiration. And we've actually got a code for people. If they go to 10% dot com slash greatness, I think you get a discount on the app if people check that out there. But powerful stuff, man. What are you most grateful for in your life right now, as we finish things up?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  I have a five-year-old son. We worked really hard to get him. I've described him as the most expensive baby on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, because we had to do IVF a couple of times to get him. And just the fact that he's running around here calling me dummy is just endlessly delightful to me. And so I am super grateful for that.

• 1:01:37Lewis Howes?

  Well, Dan, I appreciate you for always showing up with a big heart and, and backing him with great stories and examples. I acknowledge you for constantly leaning into it, man, and sharing that you're, even though you're embarrassed to say you're afraid of the elevator at times, I acknowledge you for talking about it and opening up about it, because there's a lot of people that are embarrassed about claustrophobia, or speaking in public, or whatever it may be. And so for someone at your level, who is You know, looked at as the authority on TV, as the leader, the person that is trustworthy, who's got it all figured out to the viewers for you to open up and talk about this stuff is really inspiring and powerful and it shows a lot of compassion you have for all of us.

• 1:02:20Lewis Howes?

  So I appreciate you, man. I'll finish with the final question. It's what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Well, I'll be interested to look back at how I answered this question.

• 1:02:28Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Hopefully I don't. I think there are a lot of ways to define greatness, obviously. So but here's the one that's coming to mind right now, which is the capacity to give a shit about yourself and other people and to lean into that in a way that actually makes a difference and not in a way that's so self-sacrificing that you're a martyr because, again, giving a shit or caring is omnidirectional and it includes you. But that capacity is the undergirding power of us as a species and of your own capacity to be happy.

• 1:03:11Lewis Howes?

  Dan Harris, thank you so much.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  And to make a difference, you know, like this is how we get great things done.

• 1:03:16Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Dan, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on, sharing your wisdom.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  My friend, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share these new insights that you learned on meditation and happiness with a friend of yours or a family member of yours or post it on your social media network and tag me, Lewis Howes, and Dan Harris. And hey, tell a stranger, of course, from a socially appropriate distance. Make sure to get this out there because you have the power to change someone's life when you share a message like this. And like Kevin Hart mentioned last week on the podcast, it's a bigger win when you show other people how to win. And speaking of Kevin Hart, if you haven't listened to it yet, make sure to go to that episode and listen to it right now. It will change your life. Also, we're doing daily content over on TikTok. So if you're on TikTok, make sure to go check it

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  out. We're doing unique and creative content that we don't post anywhere else. So make sure to follow me at over on Tik Tok right now and if you want weekly inspirational text messages make sure to send me a text with the word podcast to 6143503960 right now and I want to leave you with a quote from Robin Sharma he said everything is created twice first in the mind and then in reality you know happiness is a daily habit and we must create it in the mind first so we can manifest it in reality second I love you so very much I'm so grateful for you and you know what time it is it's time to go out there and do something great