Your Inner Critic Won't Stop Adding Rules. Here's The Fix. | Julian Shapiro-Barnum

What kids can teach you about how to handle anger, being uptight, and rejection, according to the creator of Recess Therapy. Julian Shapiro-Barnum https://www.instagram.com/julianmsb/?hl=en is a comedian, writer, and interviewer known for Recess Therapy, https://www.youtube.com/@recesstherapy Celebrity Substitute https://www.youtube.com/@CelebritySubstitute, and Outside Tonight https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyhszw_lY-3Qx1aZdNYc1w. He's won seven Webby Awards, was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, and received a Family Entertainment Award from Variety. His first book is How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761125/how-to-grow-up-without-becoming-a-grown-up-by-julian-shapiro-barnum/. In this episode we talk about: The playground question kids ask that adults are too scared to say out loud Why Julian stopped calling it your "inner child" — and what he calls it instead The trick for making feelings pass in minutes instead of weeks How breaking a rule on purpose can loosen something bigger in you The childhood habit that makes rejection sting so much less What growing up with five parents taught Julian about talking to anyone A tiny physical habit that can snowball into real change Why the most viral moment of his career wasn't about wisdom at all Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD This episode is sponsored by: Planet Visionaries: In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, listen to or watch Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts. Fitnexa: You can learn more about the FitNexa Somnipods 3 at fitnexa.com http://fitnexa.com/ and use the code HAPPIER10 for $10 off your order. To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

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

• 0:03Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. I have this mode that I go into that I really don't like. It's this kind of heads down, grind through it, bulldoze through your to-do list mode. It's kind of militaristic and mirthless. And I feel like one really prominent antidote to this mode is to be playful or childish in the positive sense of the word. So I was very eager to talk to my guest today because that's his whole thing. Julian Shapiro Barnum is a comedian and the host of the phenomenally successful digital show, Recess Therapy. You can see it on YouTube. You can see clips on social media. And he's got a new book, which is called How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up.

• 0:47Dan Harris?

  Julian, welcome to the show.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 0:50Dan Harris?

  Did I get all of that right?

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. That was more than enough.

• 0:52Dan Harris?

  Okay, all right. Just can you tell me a little bit about the

• 0:57Speaker 01

  The impetus?

• 0:58Dan Harris?

  Yeah, behind recess therapy, because I think there's a little bit of a story there.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%. So, hi, I'm Julian. Nice to meet you and everybody. Yeah, so I started recess therapy in college. I was at Boston University. It was my senior year and I was studying theater. And my senior year of college was COVID, which was not a fun way to spend theater school. We were, went from being in person and learning the craft of acting to suddenly just being in our rooms and doing Zoom acting classes, which sucked. And there's a lot to say about COVID, but I won't say it here. But basically, I was not very happy. And my way of kind of combating that was I really fell in love with the act of interviewing. And every day, I would go out

• 1:47Speaker 01

  into the street and interview people. And I was trying to connect with adults and interview people. And I think every other week, I would do a different, random idea that came into my head. And then one day, at the end of spring, my senior year of college, I was sitting in a playground with my friend, Charlotte. And there were all these kids running around and having so much fun. And I said something to her, like, what do they know that we don't know? Like, they're also in Zoom school, but they seem to be tapped into something really joyful. They seem to be able to finish Zoom school and play and let go of all of that. And I need to, I need to know what that is. And so, truly on a whim, we interviewed them

• 2:30Speaker 01

  and asked them how they found happiness during the pandemic. And as a comedian, I went into it looking for probably some piece of comedy. But what I found was something really heartwarming and deep. And I posted online, not really expecting anything of it. And strangers connected with it. And I thought, this is something really special and worth exploring. And it's almost six years later, it's become a passion, a career of mine.

• 3:00Dan Harris?

  No, it's gigantic. And you have many other shows now. But recess therapy seems to be like the heart of what you do.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  It's the flagship.

• 3:07Dan Harris?

  There is a genre of content here that I'm twice your age, as we established before the interview. But I remember shows like

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Kids Say the Darndest Things.

• 3:16Dan Harris?

  Right, exactly. And then there was a show like, Are You Smarter Than a Third Grade? This, this whole idea of interviewing kids has been around for a minute. Why do kids say the darndest things? I mean, like, the wisdom from the mouth of babes trope has been around since the Bible.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  I feel like recess therapy has marked, I don't want to be too self-aggrandizing here at all. But I feel like my show is tonally a little bit different from those shows. I feel like the Kids Say the Darndest Thing was, oh, my God, look how adorable and witty and off-the-cuff kids can be. And that served its purpose in this place. My whole thesis of recess therapy, or hypothesis, or the thing I was searching for with that show, was how can I become a better adult by honoring and exploring the wisdom of kids? So instead of this top-down approach of like, oh, my God, kids are so, look at what these kids can

• 4:15Speaker 01

  say. My whole approach was, what can I, what can they teach me? What can I learn from these kids? And so when I started the show, I made a list of, I don't know how many, but maybe 80 topics of all things that I was wondering about as I was growing up. From climate change to anger, to are there aliens in outer space, to is magic real? Like, all these, all these just things that I was really wondering about. And I made a list on my phone. And then every single week, I would go out and talk to kids about them. And we'd post them online. And what I really quickly learned was that adults were also fascinated to know what kids were

• 4:56Speaker 01

  thinking about these things. And what it came down to, I think the whole crux of it was that kids simplify things. We adults take topics and we think about them to death. For a good reason, because there's nuance to everything. But when a kid takes something and strips the nuance of it and makes something a black and white issue, there's actually some relief in that. And there's, there's, there's beauty in that simplicity. And I think that's what I've really enjoyed about my conversation with kids. And now, I have this book, and I feel like I have grown up and I don't need it in the way that I did when I was 20. And now I just really enjoy bringing interesting topics to kids. But back then,

• 5:41Speaker 01

  it was this real need.

• 5:43Dan Harris?

  So the wisdom that emerges from the mouths of babes is, in your view, the fact that they're not burdened by this conceptual overlay that we bring things, they're not over-intellectualizing things?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  I think at its simplest, yes. If we pick any given subject, and if you, if you give me like, a genre of topic, and say, what can you learn from kids? I think it can be brought down to, they look at its essence, because they're not seeing all the sides of it that adults are able to.

• 6:17Dan Harris?

  Speaking as a parent, I have an 11-year-old son.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Do you agree with me?

• 6:22Dan Harris?

  I agree, but I will complicate the picture slightly. And you, you may have seen this in your vast archive of interviews. My son will occasionally say something truly profound. I was, we just finished a vacation, and my friend Glenn taught my son how to ride a bike for the first time. And, and then my son wanted to ride the bike every day, and just to get it into his molecules. And at one point, we're biking around this little neighborhood where we're vacationing. And my son turned around to me and said, this is peak childhood. It struck me as like, really, really just honing in on gratitude for the present moment is quite profound, if you think about it. He will, in the next breath, make a Deez Nuts joke.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  100%.

• 7:07Dan Harris?

  So kids say wise things, but most of the shit they say

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Is not.

• 7:12Dan Harris?

  is very, very stupid.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that's awesome. I think most of it is just fun and goofy.

• 7:18Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  I never, I don't think kids are philosophers by any stretch of the imagination. Most of what I do with kids is long-form improv. Comedy improv is just playing.

• 7:28Dan Harris?

  You're playing off of them.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, my background is in improv, so the way I treat these interviews is through that lens. And I yes-and them. And I be their scene partner. That's how, that's how I, that's how I think about it.

• 7:42Dan Harris?

  So the, probably the most viral clip was the kid talking about corn?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yes, that was definitely the biggest one.

• 7:47Dan Harris?

  With a mild and adorable speech impediment, so he doesn't pronounce corn.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Corn.

• 7:52Dan Harris?

  Corn. Yes. So some of these, some of these clips aren't necessarily about wisdom from kids. They're just hilarity.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:00Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I also think people enjoy the cuteness of it, the cuteness factor. I think people see a kid that reminds them of themselves, or their friend, and there's something relatable about that. I think there's a lot of reasons why the child trope brought to social media has worked and connected with people. But, you know, I was, I was just looking for the deep side of it, just there. I also have my own, just I just think it's fun, the side of it.

• 8:34Dan Harris?

  Okay, but it is fun and definitely the way it plays on YouTube and social is incredibly fun. But you now have this book, which again is called How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  In stores now.

• 8:46Dan Harris?

  In stores now. Check it out. I'll put a link in the show notes. I am gonna receive some kickback and payola from Julian's publicist after this. But the core thesis, as I understand it, really is that there is an enormous amount to learn for grownups about how to do our lives better from children.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%. I mean, the whole purpose of the book was that I had been doing all these interviews for years, and at a certain point, I started to feel like the interviews weren't showing the entire picture of what I was learning. Yes, the things they were saying were wonderful, but a lot of the times when somebody was like, what's the most impactful thing that a kid has ever said to you? It's really hard for me to like, find a sentence. Because a lot of the times, they don't have these like, quippy one-liners. A lot of times, what I'm learning from the kids is more, I'm seeing it in the way that they move and act in the world. And I'm sure you might relate to this as a parent, but the way kids problem solve, or play, or use their imagination, or are inquisitive, or make friends, like, just the

• 9:49Speaker 01

  way they act, to me, is much more interesting sometimes than the things that they say. But the way that kids holistically act is really hard to put into a one-minute Instagram clip. And so I thought I could translate that into a book much better. And so I started writing essays about all these topics, like love, or making friends, or work, and tried to make a compelling case about why adults could stand to bring some of this, what I call childish, energy into their day-to-day lives, and kind of make a case of saying that we would be happier if we did act a little bit more childish.

• 10:28Dan Harris?

  I buy that. I mean, as I said in the intro, today's one of those days. We're recording this on the day after Labor Day. I've just been on a long vacation, and now I'm back in the grind, and I can feel like my face changing. I feel like I, all of a sudden, I have this stern, you know, look on my face that wasn't there a week ago.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I biked to Rockaway Beach this weekend. I just played all weekend, and I was so happy. And then I woke up this morning, and I was like, ugh, I gotta do the adult grind again.

• 10:57Dan Harris?

  In terms of your interest in childhood, your childhood was quite interesting.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:03Dan Harris?

  Can you talk a little bit about that?

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was raised in Brooklyn. I have three moms and two dads. The long and short of that was, my mom's lesbian couple wanted to have a kid, asked their friends, a gay couple, to be the sperm donor. Each of my moms got pregnant, and they had me and my brother and sister. My moms broke up. One of my moms met her wife, and all five of them raised us in Brooklyn. And we had this really cool childhood where I had so many adults in my life. Yeah, so I grew up, I had all these different households with different parents. And I think it laid this groundwork for the way that I work with kids now, because, yes,

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I was parented and had parents, but I also was around so many adults all the time. And in that, my parents and their friends allowed me to be privy to so many conversations where I was kind of looped in and allowed to share my thoughts and be part of an adult conversation. And I think from a really young age, I fell in love with being treated that way, and being given a space where my opinion mattered that much. Like, I remember sitting with my mom and all of her friends when I was like, eight, and they'd be like, what do you think, Julian? And I like, loved that so much.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And then when I started interviewing kids, I think I was like, remembering that experience and wanted to bring that to my interviews with kids. So I think having so many parents and so many adults in a bit of an unconventional childhood allowed me to interview in a maybe unconventional way with kids.

• 12:53Dan Harris?

  Tell me if I'm close to this. It's like, you, as a very young person, knew how to code-switch between talking to grownups and talking to kids.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  100%.

• 13:01Dan Harris?

  And that has helped attune you to the way kids talk, like, I think you call it like, the dialect of childhood.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, the microdialect.

• 13:08Dan Harris?

  The microdialect, yeah.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%. I also, at the end of the book, I talk a lot. I have this epiphany moment, spoilers, not really. At the end of the book, the last chapter, I have this picnic.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  It's my favorite chapter, so if anything, read that end. Where I have all the kids and parents I've worked with, we all have this big picnic together. And I described the experience of playing with 40-plus kids that I've worked with, and then jumping around and talking to all their parents. And I have this realization that the way I'm talking to the kids, and the way I'm talking to the parents, are actually a lot more alike than I realized. And that the version of myself that I put on to speak with kids, and the version of myself that I put on to speak to adults, is actually only a little different. They weren't these, it wasn't this grand dialect switch. It was, they're both in me, and they're both very close to each other.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And I think that was a freeing thing to realize, which is that the childish version of myself is very close to the surface.

• 14:16Dan Harris?

  Yes, and that's how you grow up without becoming a grownup.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Or you learn to see that they can happen at the same time. You don't have to turn one off and turn one on. You can just be.

• 14:27Dan Harris?

  They're not separate in the end.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all one guy.

• 14:31Dan Harris?

  People ask me all the time, how do I boot up a meditation habit? Or, if you already have a meditation habit, but it's inconsistent, another question that I get from people is, how do I maintain a consistent habit? Really, it's about having access to great teachers and having access to community. These are both of the most prominent features on my new-ish meditation app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. As part of this app, we've got some of the greatest teachers in the world who do guided meditations, and also courses on various aspects of Buddhism. But the community features are really some of the most powerful aspects of the app. You can connect to other people who also take this weird little mental training program seriously.

• 15:15Dan Harris?

  And we do weekly, and sometimes more frequently than that, but at the very least, weekly live video meditation and Q&A sessions, so you can meditate with me and our teachers, and with all of our subscribers. It is a great way to feel supported as you embark on the often difficult process of habit formation. So go to danharris.com. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to check it out before you buy. 10% with Dan Harris, that's the name of the app. Again, danharris.com is the place to get all the information. Oh, and I should tell you that if you sign up, you'll also get ad-free versions of this podcast. We'll be right back after this. Most of us can remember being about 15 and feeling completely invisible, or worse, extremely visible, but for the wrong reasons.

• 16:00Dan Harris?

  I remember one year, when I was a teenager, I had a pimple in the crevice of my nose for the entire year. I didn't like that. Either way, even if we have painful memories of that age, most of us tend to soften it in memory, and it was actually harder than we remember it now. That is the territory of Carrie, now streaming on Prime Video, the first-ever television adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. Eight episodes from Mike Flanagan, with Stephen King as an executive producer. Flanagan had described this show as a tragedy. It's about a girl who doesn't feel seen by anyone, and about how small, everyday acts of unkindness compound into something nobody meant to cause, which happens now at a speed

• 16:44Dan Harris?

  and scale that would have been unimaginable not long ago. What I really appreciate about the show is that the show takes Carrie seriously as a person, rather than as some sort of symbol. And the season keeps circling around one major question: are you watching the making of a hero a villain, or something more complicated than either of those options? Carrie is now streaming on Prime Video.

• 17:13Dan Harris?

  You said before that kids aren't necessarily philosophers, but I do want to read you a quote that is really profound, and it's from your show. It's from eight-year-old Sloane.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 17:26Dan Harris?

  When asked for her best advice on being a boss, she delivered this speech. Here's the quote. "Even bosses cry. You need someone to lean on, even if you're an adult. It's okay to be scared and show it. So I guess really probably stick with your friends and family, because they're who will be with you until the end. And if you're ever feeling sad, find someone to lean on. Even if you're an adult and you think adults aren't supposed to have strong feelings, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a stereotype. Adults can cry too."

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Right?

• 17:55Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  So for the book, I was, I, you know, I have all these interviews. I've interviewed thousands of kids, but I wanted to do all new interviews for the book. And so I went through this very funny process of inviting kids and their parents to my office, which is just a shared workspace near my house. And we would go in the backyard and I would conduct these very serious interviews with the kids about really non-serious things. And they were just really excited about the concept of being in the book. They were like, wait, anything I say could be in the book? And I'd be like, yeah, anything you say could be in the book. And then they'd say all this really insane stuff that would obviously not make it into the book. But the concept of anything being in the book

• 18:41Speaker 01

  was enough to, to, to keep them talking.

• 18:44Dan Harris?

  But on this quote in particular, I think she's, Sloane is on to so many things, but in particular, the fact that we move through the world, many grownups, believing we need to squelch our emotions.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:55Dan Harris?

  When in fact, it is actually okay to cry and it is okay to be scared. These are natural things and the, we do more damage by pretending.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And like, to her, that's so obvious. But we feel as though bosses can't cry.

• 19:10Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  And a boss is devoid of feelings. Sloane is somebody I met really early in doing recess therapy. She was maybe four years old when we first met. And she's been obsessed with the idea of being a boss ever since she was a baby. And now she's 12 years old and she still wants to be a boss. But she really believes that there's a right way to be a boss and the right way to be a boss is to be a kind and gentle boss. And she talks a lot about it there.

• 19:37Dan Harris?

  I mean, I would like to have Sloane as a boss.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Right?

• 19:40Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  A boss who shares about her feelings. She also says later in that same interview that a boss shouldn't be stinky, which I think is really important. A, a, a good boss showers, has good hygiene, which I think is hard to argue with.

• 19:54Dan Harris?

  But back to the emotions piece. I believe one of the core arguments in your book is that children, there's something for grownups to learn about how children process their emotions.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the big points of the book is this whole emotion element, which is just that kids feel their emotions immediately and in real time. You've seen it as a parent, but like kids have temper tantrums. They will skip around and laugh. Like if they're excited about something, they'll sob and cry, but they also get over things really quickly. Their feelings are something that are able to pass through them very naturally and freely. Whereas I feel like adults, in contrast, we hold on to our feelings. We control when we're going to have our feelings. And my big concern with that is that they stick with us for so much longer than they need to.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  I've had so many experiences in my life where I, somebody says something to me that sits wrong. And then, I, I don't know, I don't process it or I don't get mad about it or I don't feel sad about it. And then I'm still pissed about it a month later. And I really feel like if we, we shouldn't have temper tantrums or like break down, but if we could sit shiva or like have a moment for our feelings in a more childlike way. My hope is that we could let them pass faster. And I've, I've tried to put, put this into practice and I do think it genuinely works. I'm not, I'm not just capping, as the kids say.

• 21:20Dan Harris?

  Just for grownups out there, capping is lying.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm not just capping. Have you ever tried something like this? Are you good at processing your feelings?

• 21:27Dan Harris?

  Well, obviously a huge theme of the show and a huge theme of meditation, which I'm a, a dedicated practitioner of. I would say that naturally, I come from the stuff at Down School.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:38Dan Harris?

  As a, you know, Gen X male, we were not encouraged to.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 21:44Dan Harris?

  No, not to display emotion, not to process it. So it's, I kind of come up to it the hard way. But a million percent, it is my view that most emotions actually will come and go if you allow them to, if you let them in. You can metabolize them in a minute or two. I think the half-life of anger or something like that is a minute or two.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Really?

• 22:07Dan Harris?

  But if, if you're not processing it and you're essentially just chewing on it and ruminating and re-upping it.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  It can last forever.

• 22:14Dan Harris?

  It can last a lifetime.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  I talk about, I compare the way kids process feelings to meditation in the book. Just in the way that in meditation, it's not about having no thoughts. I, it's not about having no bad feelings, but it's about letting them come to you, addressing them, feeling them, but then letting them pass, instead of trying to suppress them or fight the, the action of feeling them. You know what I'm saying?

• 22:42Dan Harris?

  I do know what you're saying. I had a bar mitzvah, so I know what sitting shiva means.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:46Dan Harris?

  Which you referenced earlier. That is just the, what we do, what the Jews do.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  It's the grieving process, the, the time, you set aside time to grieve. And my kind of reference there is just that like, we should sit shiva for our feelings.

• 23:00Dan Harris?

  What does that look like for you?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yesterday, I was, got into a kind of a scrap, not physical. My, my mom and I got into a little fight. And I let myself be really upset about it and I didn't call any of my friends. I feel like sometimes my go-to unhealthy response is to tell the same story over and over again. And in that, I stir the emotions back up time and time again. In kind of a masochistic way, I, I think I enjoy the story of it. But what I did was I just sat with it alone until it passed. And I think experiencing the frustration in isolation

• 23:45Speaker 01

  was more productive than spreading it and getting other people's opinions and, and rehashing it. And I think kids wouldn't FaceTime eight people and look for their opinions. I think they go in their room and they yell into a stuffed animal or something, or they, kids just have to deal with it on their own. Not that yesterday I was processing it like a kid, but I think I was trying to purposely set aside time for my feelings and it really helped.

• 24:14Dan Harris?

  Are things copacetic now?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah. Yeah, I called her, we're good.

• 24:17Dan Harris?

  I'm just curious. How old is, is your mom my age?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's your age.

• 24:21Dan Harris?

  How old is she? 55? I'm 55.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  She's like 61.

• 24:24Dan Harris?

  Okay, okay. So at least I'm a little younger than your mom. Respect, mom, you did, you did a great job.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  We're good, we're fine.

• 24:31Dan Harris?

  This kid is great. Okay, so another lesson in the book that you learn from kids, is it something about breaking rules?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh. Do you break rules?

• 24:39Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I do.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Not fashion rules.

• 24:42Dan Harris?

  I mean, I don't have the confidence to break fashion rules. Just to say, Julie and I were talking before the show started about.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Sorry, that was an off-camera conversation.

• 24:49Dan Harris?

  No, that's fine, but I'll, I'll just fill it in for people that I feel as, as a man of a certain age, that it's probably not best to push the fashion envelope too much. Just, I'm not as comfortable with it. So I don't break the rules there much.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  I think you should get an eyebrow piercing.

• 25:07Dan Harris?

  My son wants one.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Really?

• 25:09Dan Harris?

  Which I'm, and he.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  At 11?

• 25:10Dan Harris?

  He got, he, both ears pierced at eight, which I fully supported. My wife and I are like totally down with it.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 25:16Dan Harris?

  He wants it and if he asked for it, I think I would let him do it.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:18Dan Harris?

  Why not? Self-expression. Painful.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's brutal.

• 25:23Dan Harris?

  His pain tolerance is low, so I suspect when he learns that, he will opt out of it.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can handle it.

• 25:29Dan Harris?

  Do you break the rules?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  I love breaking the rules. So a big part of the book also I talk about is breaking the rules. Kids love breaking rules. I'm sure you've seen this. I feel like a big way that kids understand the world is by breaking the rules. I think when kids enter a new space, they like to test. They like to see what they can and cannot do by just doing it. This is not all kids, of course. I also just, big disclaimer, everything I say is not a blanket statement. This is just a lot of kids that I've worked with, I've seen this. Also from being a kid, we, we all were kids once. But I feel like a, a way that kids gather information is by testing boundaries. And you see this, they, they get, they, they go in a school, in a classroom, they'll be told not to do something, then they'll do it. They like to see how much they can get away with.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  And I feel like that act of exploration teaches them a lot about themselves, about the boundaries of the world, what kind of person they are and want to be. It is just this big experience of self-definition. And then as they get older slowly and people morph into adults, I think this really tricky, kind of dangerous, and in my opinion, awful thing starts to happen is, which is that less and less external adults tell you no. And all of a sudden, this internal adult, you, start to tell yourself what you can and cannot do. And I think what's dangerous about this is once you start being the adult in your own head telling you what you can and cannot do, there's like scope creep. Do you know that?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Like the, the, uh, there become more rules than are needed. You start to tell yourself that you can't do X thing like, oh, I don't, I don't dance. That's, that's not, that's a rule for me. I don't do that. Or I don't do X, I don't do Y. And what once was like a helpful tool that we implemented for good reasons to protect ourselves, to, to stay, to kind of stay in line, so to speak, all of a sudden limits our identities. And my whole theory is that we need to start breaking the rules again as kids do, even in small ways, just to, just to test again and redefine ourselves.

• 27:37Dan Harris?

  I love that, like the inner grown up.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:39Dan Harris?

  Or it can be an inner critic, which is maybe one facet of the inner grown up. Basically, kind of like a sheepdog hurting you. But in this way, you become kind of uptight and unhappy.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:51Dan Harris?

  So what do you do to counteract your inner grown up?

• 27:55Speaker 01

  My personal choice of counteracting it is by listening to small impulses that my body has. And I think for me, and it's different for every person, I talk about this in the book, of like figuring out what your way in is or was. But for me, it was very much tactile impulses of like touching things. I found that when I was like on the subway or walking around, if there's like an interesting texture or a, like a gargoyle or a weird flower or just things out in the world that I would notice. Or at first I wouldn't even notice them, but then I would start to will myself to notice them again. And then will myself to act on the impulse to touch or interact with them.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And this was just my like little window into being aware, recognizing this thing that I have told myself I shouldn't do and then doing it. And then allowing that to translate and snowball into bigger and bigger things. And it was a little bit like snapping the rubber band on my wrist in a good way. And then it was like, okay, if you do that, you can do the other thing. And it's like habit forming and it really is. I said the dancing thing earlier, I, I've really always been like, I don't really dance. And now I've been doing it a lot more because I think I've gotten more comfortable with telling myself that there isn't anything that I couldn't try.

• 29:20Dan Harris?

  So it's, it can start small with, hey, you know what? If I see an interesting texture out in the world, I'm gonna touch it.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Feel it.

• 29:26Dan Harris?

  And that can start to scale up to dancing or maybe saying the uncomfortable thing.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's, you have to start with the thing that feels insignificant and be like, this feels stupid and completely disconnected. I mean, it, all of this is all that intention. You have to set the intention that I am going to actively unlearn these rules. My way in to unlearning them was through touch. And that I was able to correlate into trusting myself into doing bigger things. But I feel like for every person, finding what impulse, what the easiest impulse that you've been suppressing to then try is the best way to start.

• 30:10Dan Harris?

  I like that a lot. Two things to say about that. One is you're absolutely right. It's backed up by research that if you start small with anything.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 30:17Dan Harris?

  It can really grow into, so you're correct. The second thing to say is one of my least favorite parts about myself is that I too struggle with dancing.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  It's bullshit. You gotta dance.

• 30:29Dan Harris?

  Yes. You know, I saw, we, I keep referencing my, I guess it's appropriate to do that in this, in this context. My son, he has this tell for when he's in a really good mood. He just dances all day.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Really?

• 30:41Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Just like around?

• 30:43Dan Harris?

  He's just constantly moving and dancing and totally unselfconscious. And that is how I know he's having an A plus day.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 30:50Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Did you dance when you were younger or have you always been?

• 30:54Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I think I danced a little bit when I was younger. But maybe like a baby, my mom said I used to dance around the house, but not much since then. The funny thing is I play the drums, so I have rhythm. But when I dance, I feel like there's a pole in a place where it shouldn't be.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  You know, there's nothing better than a dancing dad.

• 31:12Dan Harris?

  My son gets really embarrassed when I dance.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  I love when my dad dances. It's really, he like, it's like really awesome. He does that.

• 31:22Dan Harris?

  Yeah, what you just did is close to what my, my move is.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  You gotta go to like a family friend's bar mitzvah.

• 31:29Dan Harris?

  Yeah, we have one coming up.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the spot.

• 31:31Dan Harris?

  So, but when he did this, when you were a kid.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:34Dan Harris?

  Did you find that mortifying?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, mortifying.

• 31:36Dan Harris?

  Okay, but now you're cool.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  But now I think it's, it's sweet and I'm happy he's having fun. But that's, you know, give your son 12 years.

• 31:47Dan Harris?

  One of the other things you, you talk about in the book is normalizing rejection. That like kids are not as afraid of rejection as we are. I really resonate with the fear of rejection. So just say a little bit more about this argument and like what we could do about it.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Kids put themselves out there all the time. Again, not generalizing, just a lot of kids. When your son was a little bit younger, would you bring him to like public playgrounds? Would he play with strangers or would he stick with his friends?

• 32:17Dan Harris?

  He wasn't as good at doing that as I would have hoped.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:20Dan Harris?

  But I, there were always kids on the playground who I super admired, who would just walk up and say, you wanna play?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Like, do you wanna play? Do you wanna play? Do you wanna be my friend? Is such a common phrase amongst kids. I've done multiple episodes now and spoken to probably like a hundred plus kids about how to make friends. And I would say the most common answer is kids say to me, well, just ask them, do you wanna be my friend? Which is so mind boggling. An adult would never say that to another adult. Maybe they could, but I don't think it would work. Going up to a complete stranger and saying, do you wanna be my friend? I think would be creepy. But I think in that there is this, it speaks to the ethos that kids have, which is just, they bring their entire selves to somebody and they say, do you want me?

• 33:08Speaker 01

  The reason an adult would never do that is because I think the no would be painful. I think saying, do you want me is too open. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's too vulnerable. But kids are comfortable with that rejection. And I think being comfortable with rejection opens up the door to so much more opportunity. Because you can try and try and try again. You can fall and get up. And, you know, dust yourself off and be okay. I also think there's so much here. Wow, I just had so many thoughts. Just two other quick things.

• 33:44Dan Harris?

  Keep it coming. I like it.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Well, uh, two, I guess. Kids also never drip feed information about themselves. They are really comfortable being a hundred percent who they are very quickly. Kids are just very forthcoming with information. May that be good or bad. I've had kids share very gross or bizarre or misleading or not misleading, but very like, too much, too fast with me. And I kind of love that about them because they just share their entire being very quickly. Whereas I feel like adults try to share the right version of themselves a lot of the time. And I feel like in sharing the right version of themselves, they're not being themselves.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  And when you're meeting a new person, I think it's so much cleaner or leads to a healthier, faster friendship to just really, to not hide anything and just be a hundred percent you.

• 34:44Dan Harris?

  Do you actually do that?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Do I do that? Yes. I, I've really gotten good at going whole hog.

• 34:50Dan Harris?

  Here I am.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Here I am. I used to like code switch a lot more, but I don't. And then the last thing I was gonna say, and I think this is like the cheat code that kids have that adults just don't have, which is that the reason the playground works is because they're all kids. They're all, they all have this shared identity, like being a kid is a shared identity. And so when a kid sees another kid, may it be on the playground, may it be at a kid's table or at the toy section at Target or at the aquarium. They have this shared thing that is exciting and allows them to connect. When an adult sees another adult out in public, there isn't much, there's no reason to talk to each other.

• 35:35Dan Harris?

  No.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  You see that go away the second you're in like Madrid and you hear someone else speaking English and you hear another American, you go, oh my God, what are you guys doing here? Having a unifying identity is really exciting and allows barriers to be broken down and, and allows adults to drop that fear of rejection. And this thing I talk about in the book is, and again, so many of these lessons are so maybe obvious or simple, but I really think work if you're looking for connection in this way. And it's something that I personally have done, is look for a space that gets rid of those boundaries. When I moved to New York, I didn't know anybody and was having a hard time meeting new people. And so I, comedy improviser, started going to improv jams,

• 36:20Speaker 01

  which is every Tuesday night, people would get together and do improv together at a comedy club. And that's where I met all my friends, like immediately, because we were there to do the same thing. We were there to be kids together. And so I always recommend to people, if you're having a hard time meeting new adults, put yourself in a space where you are like other kids or you're like the other people there. And it just, those boundaries go away. You can be like, oh, how long have you been doing improv? Oh, how long have you been rock climbing? It, it just takes away that, uh, there's no need to ask someone to be your friend because you already have something to talk about.

• 36:53Dan Harris?

  Right. You can let the mask drop a little bit.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  The mask is gone.

• 36:55Dan Harris?

  You, you use this term, I think it's quite a beautiful term of like getting back in touch with your proto self.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The, the proto self, it's, it's the idea that your childhood. Self, to use that word, had some really amazing things going for it. And that you, as you got older, started to build this notion of an adult self, this, this idea of adulthood based off of the way other adults were acting, or the way your peers were acting, but that you didn't need to get rid of everything that was there. There was a lot of really potent, beautiful philosophies and, and actions at work that should be teased back out and that are still in you. And the reason I don't really use the term inner child, and I like the term childish,

• 37:44Speaker 01

  even though people have not loved that I've used that word. People would have preferred to use childlike, but I like childish. I stand by childish.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Is I think inner child, to me, draws this association with something being like deep within you and kind of hard to connect with.

• 38:00Dan Harris?

  Also wounded.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Wounded, like this, this wrapped up thing inside of you. But to me, childish felt accessible and casual. And to me, it is. It's all about just having the right entry point.

• 38:14Dan Harris?

  I think what you're saying is we should move through the world looking for opportunities for the proto-self that lurks right beneath the surface to emerge.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. Because it is right there and it just takes some muscle building to get it back to a place where it feels accessible, I think.

• 38:34Dan Harris?

  This thing about vulnerability or, or dropping your fear of rejection. I think that this is, there's a lot there.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  So much.

• 38:42Dan Harris?

  People are terrified of divulging. I think it's a little different for people like us because we're both in the public eye. I have, you know, made a whole career about talking about like doing too much cocaine and having a panic attack. And so I'm kind of used to it. I'm used to it, but I think there's some research to show that selective vulnerability, picking one spot to say one thing, to test with other people is a great way to go through, to, to overcome this fear of rejection. Just to say a little bit more, I was listening yesterday to an old episode of This American Life, the NPR show. It was, they had pulled it out of the archives and it was, it was just in, new in their feed. And it was all about middle school.

• 39:27Dan Harris?

  They're interviewing this kid who was talking about the fact that he was, he had arrived as a new student in a new town after living somewhere else in middle school and had a lot of friends from when he was younger in the old place. But now he's in this new place and it was middle school where you can't just walk up to somebody and say, do you want to be my friend? Because the world has set in on you by then and you're like working with your masks and personas, new rules. So, so how do you find places where you can bring a little bit of that? How do you find the moment where you can bring a little bit of that? Do you want to be my friend energy without like ripping off the Band-Aid in too terrifying a way? I think you can start small and just pick your spot and see if you reveal something to somebody. How does it go?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  I think that maybe, maybe you don't need to be 100% yourself immediately, but at least drip feeding some very real pieces of yourself and not just being a character. I think when I was younger, especially in like middle school and high school, and probably for most of, maybe the first two years of college, I was such a cartoon character when I met people. But also I was a theater kid comedian, so.

• 40:37Dan Harris?

  But that cartoon, so that cartoon character was semi-real, semi-not.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the feedback, this is, oh my God, he's going to hate that I say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. My, my dear friend Julian, also named Julian, I'll tell the story. It's very short. In acting school, we learned about this thing, maybe junior or sophomore year, called first circle, second circle, and third circle. And the concept was that first circle acting was being too internal. It was like, you know, that Shakespearean actor who's doing Hamlet. It's a soliloquy just only to himself, you know? It's acting, but it's not for the audience, it's just for you. Third circle is doing way too much, you know, over the top, clownish, no emotion in it.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  And second circle is what every actor is looking for, which is honesty, truthfulness, connection, you know, balance. And one time, my dear, dear, close friend Julian, or not dear, close friends at the time, he came over to my house to hang out with my roommate. And when he was leaving, we kind of had a short conversation. He gave me a hug and he went, ah, Julian, one day we're going to get you out of that third circle. And it was like 1:00 AM and I was going to sleep and I was like, I hate you. But I did get out of the third circle.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  And, and I, I think being a more authentic version of yourself takes comfortability with yourself and a trust that the real you isn't going to be rejected.

• 42:20Dan Harris?

  I fear that it might be harder for somebody in your generation because you've grown up with social media, which is all about performativity and curating.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you see this new thing about, I'll, I'll answer that, but the new thing, which is the, the under 18, there's all this social, there's Instagram regulations.

• 42:37Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  I think it's amazing. I think it's brilliant. I think the Instagram that I grew up with was different than the Instagram or the social media of now. I think we were just posting pictures of our food. Now it is reels and TikToks and the whole social media landscape of now, I can't imagine what it's like to be a teenager now. I think it's so performative and artificial. I don't want to say superficial. I think at times, yes, but I think it is very put on. But I think all we were dealing with was just, ah, they're hanging out without us. It was a lot of FOMO, fear of missing out.

• 43:13Dan Harris?

  Yes, I still have that at 50.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sucks.

• 43:16Dan Harris?

  55. Did any of my producers talk to you about this little segment that we're?

• 43:20Speaker 01

  No, tell me.

• 43:20Dan Harris?

  Okay, we're just experimenting with this new segment at the end of the show called What's Good? Like, is there a TV show, a book?

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I like it.

• 43:27Dan Harris?

  A record, anything that's out right now that you are, that you would recommend?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Have you seen Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine?

• 43:37Dan Harris?

  No, say more.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  It's a, a movie he made in the early 2000s. He wanted to make a biopic about David Bowie, but Bowie wouldn't give him his life rights. So he made a knockoff Bowie biopic with Ewan McGregor and Christian Bale. And it's really weird and fantastic and really beautifully shot. And I was very captivated by it.

• 44:04Dan Harris?

  Velvet Goldmine, and this is available to stream?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's released in 2002.

• 44:08Dan Harris?

  Okay, all right.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  It's a great movie.

• 44:09Dan Harris?

  I appreciate that. All right, here's mine.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  What's yours?

• 44:11Dan Harris?

  Did you get into the, you live in Brooklyn, right? I think it felt like all of Brooklyn was into this band, Geese.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Of course, I love Geese.

• 44:19Dan Harris?

  There's this band from the UK that in my opinion is even better than Geese, but kind of similar in its style. They're called Westside Cowboy.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Saving this right now.

• 44:28Dan Harris?

  Notes of Velvet Underground, notes of Arcade Fire, with a little bit of Modest Mouse mixed in. And they're really young, really, really good. They, they have been, you can tell this is a band.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  You put me on, this is big.

• 44:44Dan Harris?

  This is a band that has been touched in some way. Like they are going to have a huge career.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Thank you for putting me on. I'm a huge Cameron Winter, Geese, Velvet Underground fan. All right, hip. I'm going to redo mine.

• 44:59Dan Harris?

  Okay. No, you can just do two.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  I'm going to do a second one.

• 45:02Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Coyote versus Acme.

• 45:04Dan Harris?

  Oh, is that good?

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 45:06Dan Harris?

  Okay, that's in theaters right now.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  In theaters now.

• 45:09Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  So fun, go see it.

• 45:11Dan Harris?

  Okay, so this might be good for my son.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good for everybody.

• 45:17Dan Harris?

  Coyote versus Acme?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Good for all ages. I went on a date to see it.

• 45:21Dan Harris?

  Really?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  And we had a great time.

• 45:23Dan Harris?

  I feel, when I saw that it was out, I thought, okay, I'm not going to like.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  No, you've got to see it.

• 45:29Dan Harris?

  My inner grownup saying this is going to be annoying, but it's not.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  It is, it is a, it is how IP should be utilized.

• 45:37Dan Harris?

  Interesting.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  It is a wholly original story told with characters you know and love, but it is hilarious, it's heartfelt, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry.

• 45:50Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  I really think it's really fun, but let's see it with your son. It's a, it's a, it's a hoot.

• 45:54Dan Harris?

  Thank you. Two recommendations from Julian Shapiro Barnum. Everybody should check out Julian's book, which is called How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grownup. You should also check out his many, three digital shows. Okay, one is called Recess Therapy, we talked about it extensively. Another is called Celebrity Substitute. Where you get, like you had Tom Holland, you get huge stars.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we get everybody on there. Billie Eilish, Tom Holland, A$AP Rocky, SZA, all, everyone comes on that show.

• 46:21Dan Harris?

  And then you have late?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Outside Tonight, which is my only non-kid project as of now.

• 46:27Dan Harris?

  It's a late night show though, kind of?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a, it's the, it's a digital late night show that we film out in public.

• 46:33Dan Harris?

  All of the links to all of these things, including his recommendations, will be in the show notes. Julian, such a pleasure to meet you.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me, though.

• 46:41Dan Harris?

  Great job with this.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 46:44Dan Harris?

  Just a quick note before I let you go. If you're a listener to the show and you're looking for other ways to engage with my content, let me give you some options. Your first stop is danharris.com. That's my new website and it has information and links to my meditation app. It's where you can sign up for my free newsletter. It's where you will find all the latest information on upcoming live events that I'm doing. We've also got 10% happier plus, which is an ad-free subscription right inside Apple Podcasts. So that's another option. And if you would rather watch than listen, we film every episode now. Video versions are up on YouTube and Spotify, so please like and follow, whether you're watching or listening. Also, I'm on social media. I try to inject a little sanity into your feed, into the darker corners of the internet.

• 47:27Dan Harris?

  So just search for my name, Dan Harris, and you'll find me wherever you have a scrolling habit. All right, that was a mouthful. Thank you for being here. Deuces. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson, Marissa Schneiderman, DJ Cashmere, David Hart, and Hayden Broome. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. And Nick Thorburn of the indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Thanks for listening. Peace.

• 48:01Dan Harris?

  You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.