Dan Harris

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Welcome to the third installment of Meditation Party, an experiment we're running with a chattier format – more of a morning zoo vibe, but way deeper, of course. Dan's co-hosts in this episode are his two close friends: the great meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren. Sebene Selassie is based in Brooklyn and describes herself as a "writer, teacher, and immigrant-weirdo." She teaches meditation on the Ten Percent Happier app and is the author of a great book called, You Belong. Jeff Warren is based in Toronto and is also a writer and meditation teacher who co-wrote the book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics with Dan Harris. Jeff also hosts the Consciousness Explorers podcast.

Related Episodes:

#489. Can You Really Conquer Hatred Through Love? | Father Gregory Boyle

#519. The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together | Shinzen Young and James Gross

Best of the Archives: Making it RAIN | Tara Brach

For more info on the Meditation Party Retreat: Meditation Party Workshop at Omega Institute

To watch this interview online, go to: https://www.youtube.com/@TenPercentHappier

If you want to be part of the show, please call in with a question or comment. The number is 508-656-0540. Or you can email us with a voice memo at podcast@tenpercent.com with a voice memo.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/meditation-party-3

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's guest is Linda Åkeson McGurk, a Swedish American writer and author of There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids. Her latest book is called The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day. She is the founder of the blog Rain or Shine Mamma, a resource for parents and other caregivers.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why humans are so drawn to nature and what the many scientific benefits are
• The historical roots of friluftsliv in Nordic countries
• Why we should go outside even when the weather sucks
• Why we should go camping
• The benefits of cold plunges
• The benefits of silence
• The danger of seeing ourselves as separate from nature
• And why she believes appreciation of nature and meditation are complimentary

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/linda-akeson-mcgurk

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Wim Hof

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

Ryan also talks about how meditation helped him ride out a brutal political campaign, escaping the grind, and whether he'll run for office again.

Tim Ryan served for 20 years in the U.S. Congress. He is the author of a book on the power of mindfulness. He is the author of a book on the power of mindfulness, Healing America: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Recapture the American Spirit and a book on reforming the broken food systems, The Real Food Revolution: Healthy Eating, Green Groceries, and the Return of the American Family Farm.

In this episode we talk about:

• How his practice helped him weather a brutal political campaign
• Why he's joined the ice bath craze
• The link between breathwork and meditation
• How he's adjusting to civilian life after 20 years in Washington
• How he handled things when he realized the race was not going his way
• What he was thinking and feeling when he made his concession speech
• What it's like to be outside of the DC fishbowl
• The freedom that comes with not living under a microscope
• The kids basketball game made him realize his life had changed
• Escaping the grind
• Whether he's considered running for office again
• And what the rough and tumble of politics has taught him about dealing with difficult people

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/tim-ryan

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Gladwell On: the importance of flow states, why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice, and how he personally relaxes.

Malcolm Gladwell is the president and co-founder of the podcasting network Pushkin Industries, and the author of six New York Times bestselling books including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He's also the host of the Pushkin podcast Revisionist History.

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

For tickets to TPH's live and live streamed event in Colorado on November 3:

https://www.milehichurch.org/calendar/10-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/

Do you have a favorite episode of TPH? We want to hear about it!

Here's how you can help us uncover these hidden gems.

1. Call +1 508-656-0540
2. Tell us your name and favorite episode
3. And, in a couple of sentences, tell us why this episode hit home for you

Do this and your episode and story may be part of our Deep Cuts feature

In this episode we talk about:

• The backlash Malcolm faced from his work from home comments
• Pushing the noise aside when it comes to social media
• Lessons in kindness from a recent Revisionist History episode
• The importance of flow states
• How he personally relaxes
• Why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice
• What he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument
• Why we need to engage and investigate the views of others to be morally alert as human beings
• And his biggest journalistic mistake

Content Warning: Brief mention of eating disorders.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode//malcolm-gladwell-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

The scientific case for self-compassion and why it doesn't have to lead to passivity, self absorption, or cheesiness.

Today's guest is Kristin Neff, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She's the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself and Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive.

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

For tickets to TPH's live and live streamed event in Colorado on November 3rd:

https://www.milehichurch.org/calendar/10-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/

Do you have a favorite episode of TPH? We want to hear about it!

Here's how you can help us uncover these hidden gems.

1. Call +1 508-656-0540
2. Tell us your name and favorite episode
3. And, in a couple of sentences, tell us why this episode hit home for you

Do this and your episode and story may be part of our Deep Cuts feature

In this episode we talk about:

• How Kristin first got into meditation and why she was drawn to the practice of compassion
• How, paradoxically, self-compassion actually makes us less focused on ourselves
• The three components of self-compassion
• One of the big blockers for men in practicing self-compassion
• What self-compassion is and isn't
• How research shows that self-compassion is a trainable skill
• Whether we actually need the internal cattle prod to get ahead
• Being kind to yourself even when you notice prejudice coming up in your mind
• And how men and women deal with shame differently

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/kristin-neff-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

We also cover: What to do when you're feeling stuck, the difference between authenticity and sincerity, and his approach to work/life balance.

Rick Rubin is a nine-time GRAMMY-winning producer and a New York Times number one best selling author of the book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time and the most successful producer in any genre by Rolling Stone. He has collaborated with artists from Tom Petty to Adele, Johnny Cash to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys to Slayer, Kanye West to the Strokes, and System of a Down to Jay-Z.

In this episode we talk about:

• Rick's meditation practice
• The connection between meditation and creativity
• Why creativity is a birthright for all of us
• How good habits help facilitate the making of good art
• The benefits of accepting the magical and mysterious aspects of creativity
• His analogy of the vessel and the filter
• The difference between authenticity and sincerity
• The role of doubt when creating
• The role of intuition
• What to do when you're feeling stuck in a creative endeavor
• His approach to a work/life balance
• His take on drugs and their effect on the creative process
• And his thoughts on the creative capacity of AI

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/rick-rubin

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

The great meditation teacher Sebene Selassie said this about today's guests: "I think their work is going to revolutionize mindfulness."

The guests in question are Jake Eagle, a licensed mental health counselor, and Dr. Michael Amster, a physician with a specialty in pain management who is also a certified yoga and meditation teacher. Together, they're out with a new book called The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout & Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, Find Clarity & Purpose―In Less Than 1 Minute Per Day. In it, they lay out a simple technique for "microdosing mindfulness" that just about anybody can work into their daily lives.

Plus: Dan's wife, Bianca, joins Dan as co-interviewer.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Jake and Michael stumbled upon this method (the story involves pancakes)
• Why Bianca has had trouble booting up a meditation habit (and why Jake says he's "a terrible meditator")
• Why people who have trouble sitting daily for extended periods might find that these microdoses are easier to work into their day
• How to do the A.W.E. Method
• The similarities and differences between A.W.E. and traditional mindfulness meditation
• Practical tips for trying out A.W.E. in everyday life, given how hard it is to form habits
• The early scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of the A.W.E. Method
• And, finally, whether Bianca and Dan were convinced to try the method!

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes:

https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/eagle-amster-630

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

The hidden influence that your surroundings can have on your happiness. And how to tweak things in subtle but powerful ways.

Today's guest is Ingrid Fetell Lee, the author of Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. She is the former design director at IDEO and the founder of the website The Aesthetics of Joy. She holds a Master's in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor's in English and Creative Writing from Princeton University.

This is the second installment in a three part series we're running called, Mundane Glory about learning not to overlook the little things in your daily life that can be powerful and evidence-based levers for increased happiness.

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

In this episode we talk about:

• The physiological and psychological benefits of joy
• How to find joy in tangible objects and sensorial experiences
• What Ingrid means by "faux joy"
• How joy can intersect with many emotions including sadness and awe
• How to change your environment, at work and at home, to infuse it with joy
• A practice she calls, "Joy spotting"
• Her list of, "The 50 Ways to Find More Joy Everyday"
• The importance of noticing your killjoys
• The risks of being visibly joyful
• And how even on your worst day, joy can be accessible

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ingrid-fetell-lee

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Did you know that just 20 minutes of art a day is as beneficial as exercise and mindfulness? Or that participating in one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years?

Our guests Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen talk about their new book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. Together they explore the new science of neuroaesthetics, which explains how the arts can measurably change the body, brain, and our behaviors.

This is the first installment in a three part series we're running called, Mundane Glory about learning not to overlook the little things in your daily life that can be powerful and evidence-based levers for increased happiness.

In this episode we talk about:

• Their definition of the arts and aesthetic experiences
• How they see nature as, "the highest form of art"
• How simple actions like humming in the shower & gardening can be categorized as art experiences
• How you don't have to be good at making art to benefit from it
• The difference between "makers" and "beholders" of art
• What they mean by art being a part of our evolutionary DNA
• How engaging in the arts can help strengthen our relationships and connectivity
• How arts and aesthetic experiences create neuroplasticity in the brain
• How society's emphasis on optimizing for productivity has pushed the arts aside
• The four key attributes that make up a concept called an "aesthetic mindset"
• The benefits of partaking in a wide array of art experiences
• The importance of infusing play and non judgment into the art you make
• How art can be a form of meditation and mindfulness
• How artistic experiences can extend your life, help treat disease and relieve stress
• How the arts affect the way we learn
• The emerging field of neuroarts and neuroaesthetics
• How food fits into the arts category
• Simple ways to integrate the arts into our daily lives
• Technology's relationship to the arts
• And the importance of architecture and your physical space as a form of art

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ivy-ross-susan-magsamen

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Our guests today trained an AI on the world's most beloved texts, from the Bible to the Koran to the words of Marcus Aurelius, Maya Angelou, and Leonard Cohen. Then, they asked the AI life's hardest questions. The AI's answers ranged from strange to surprising to transcendent.

Jasmine Wang, a technologist, and Iain S. Thomas, a poet, join us to talk about not only the answers they received from the robot, but also why they are deeply concerned about where AI might be headed.

In this episode we talk about:

• The origins of the book
• The definitions of some basic AI terminology
• The biggest takeaways of their conversation with AI—some of the answers they got back were fascinating and beautiful
• The perils and promise of AI (we spend a lot of time here)
• The ways in which AI may force us to rethink fundamental aspects of our own nature
• And what we all can do to increase the odds that our AI future is more positive than not

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jasmine-wang-and-iain-s-thomas

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Jennifer Egan is not only a novelist, she's also written short stories and award-winning magazine journalism. She's one of those writers who can both spin a fascinating yarn and load it up with insights into everything from human nature to the future of technology, all while pulling off bewitching turns of phrase; what the writer Jonathan Franzen has called "micro felicities."

Egan is as funny, fascinating, and open IRL as she is on the page although it's not clear she feels that way given she talks about how much smarter she feels in writing than in speaking!

In this episode we talk about:

• Egan's writing process
• The power of writing by hand
• The shocking, relentless, ruthless discipline that she imposes on herself to never do the same thing twice as she's writing
• Curiosity, awe, and panic attacks
• How she handles feedback
• Her feelings of insubstantiality
• Our cultures fetishization of authenticity
• The impact of success on her work
• AI and our possible technological futures

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jennifer-egan

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's episode is a wide-ranging Interview with Zach Braff, one of those rare famous people who's really willing to go there.

You may know Braff from the TV show Scrubs or the movie Garden State but Braff is actually a genuine multi-hyphenate; a true triple threat. He acts, writes and directs his own movies and other people's TV shows including Ted Lasso on Apple TV. Relatively recently he put out a new movie that he both wrote and directed called A Good Person starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman.

In this episode we talked about anxiety, depression, insomnia, addiction, grief, social media usage, and what he means by "learning to love your fate"—a notion that is literally tattooed on his wrist.

This Interview was conducted in person at the TED conference in Vancouver this past April.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/zach-braff

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

In today's episode, Dr. Donn Posner proposes a whole new way of thinking about sleep. First, he normalizes the sleep problems many of us experience. If you're sleeping poorly right now, he says, don't freak out; it's natural and normal. Second, he has a bunch of tips for how to deal with insomnia, some of which you may have never heard before.

Dr. Donn Posner is one of the leaders in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for insomnia. Dr. Posner is the Founder and President of Sleepwell Consultants, and Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between chronic and acute insomnia
• How we can adapt to things that can mess up our sleep, like remote work
• Sub-chronic sleep conditions
• What to do if we're experiencing acute insomnia so that it doesn't become chronic insomnia
• The importance of structure when it comes to good sleep
• What social jet lag is
• Dr. Posner's take on napping
• Why wake time is so important when it comes to good sleep
• Why we shouldn't try to compensate for a bad night's sleep

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/donn-posner-268-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

If you're not sleeping well, it's harder to do anything you care about. It's harder to get healthier, to be more focused and productive, to be happier, to be more successful, to have good relationships—all of it.

Sleep may be the apex predator of healthy habits, and yet so many of us are getting terrible sleep because we don't prioritize it or because we've told ourselves a whole story about how we're just not people who sleep well, and so we just live with it.

In this episode, you're going to meet somebody who decided she was not going to live with it any longer, and she launched an extremely detailed personal investigation in order to fix it. And luckily for us, she is a journalist, so she documented the whole thing and gathered extremely useful, heavily vetted information and insights we can all use.

Diane Macedo the author of the book, The Sleep Fix: Practical, Proven and Surprising Solutions for Insomnia, Snoring, Shift Work, and More. She is an ABC News anchor and correspondent and she appears on Good Morning America World News Tonight with David Muir and Nightline. Diane is also the daytime anchor for ABC News Live, the streaming service.

In this episode we talk about:

• Key signs that you're not getting enough sleep
• Do sleeping pills really work?
• When and how to find a sleep specialist
• How to deal with performance anxiety around sleep
• The difference between sleep deprivation and insomnia
• Mindfulness and sleep
• The biggest sleep myths

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/diane-macedo-444-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Every year, Joseph Goldstein does a three month silent meditation retreat by himself at his home in Massachusetts. In this conversation you're about to hear, Joseph had just emerged from one such retreat with a bunch of thoughts on what are called the three proliferating tendencies or three papañca to use the ancient Pali term.

These are three ways in which we perpetuate an unhealthy sense of self. Joseph has explained that you can think about the process of going deeper in meditation as a process of lightening up or getting less self-centered. You're about to get a masterclass in doing just that.

For the uninitiated, Joseph is one of the co-founders of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. His co-founders are two other meditation titans, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Joseph has been a teacher at IMS since it was founded in the seventies and he continues to be the resident guiding teacher there.

In this episode we talk about:

• The framework for understanding the three proliferating tendencies; the basic building blocks of our experience in the world
• Six things that make up what the Buddha called "the all"
• What non-self means and why it's essential to the Buddhist teaching of liberation
• The two levels of truth: conventional and ultimate
• Why language is so important in conditioning how we experience things
• How the three proliferating tendencies provide a very practical guide to understanding how we manufacture our own suffering

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-364-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

These days, the word mindfulness has become a buzz phrase but very often people don't know what the word actually means, much less how to practice it. One simple definition of mindfulness is the ability to see what's happening in your mind without getting carried away by it. The benefits of doing so are vast and profound— from decreased emotional reactivity to being more awake to what's actually happening in your life.

Today's guest Joseph Goldstein talks about a classic Buddhist list called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which lays out various techniques for developing mindfulness within your practice.

Goldstein is one of the premier western proponents of Mindfulness. He co-founded the legendary Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. He also wrote a book called Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.

In this episode we talk about:

• The historical context for the four foundations of mindfulness
• Why he thinks the Buddha loved lists
• Why the Buddha placed mindfulness of the body first on the list
• The steps to mastering mindfulness of the body
• The meaning of the word embodied and how that's different from our usual mode of being in the world
• How and why to do walking meditations
• What are feeling tones and why are they important
• Practices for cultivating mindfulness of mind
• The mantras that Joseph uses when teaching

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-483-rerun

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

This is a fun, weird, extremely interesting and inspiring episode.

It's about lucid dreaming, something that people might perceive as hippie nonsense, but is actually deeply woven into ancient and time-tested Buddhist traditions.

Our guest today has been studying and practicing Buddhism and what he calls nocturnal meditations for more than four decades. And he has remarkably simple and down to earth tips for doing this in your own life. He argues anybody can do this. And the proposition is pretty compelling. We're asleep for a huge percentage of our life, and from a perspective of contemplative development, or training your mind, that's a huge stretch of land that is lying fallow.

Andrew Holecek is an expert on lucid dreaming and the Tibetan yogas of sleep and dream. He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the author of scientific papers on lucid dreaming. He has also written many books on the subject, including: Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep.

In this episode we talk about:

• The Five Nocturnal Meditations, which include: liminal dreaming, lucid dreaming, dream yoga, sleep yoga, and bardo yoga
• Why bother with these nocturnal practices in the first place?
• How these nocturnal practices might be the next phase of human evolution
• The problem of wake-centricity
• Practical tips for trying this stuff yourself
• And if lucid dreaming is meant for everyone – including those of us with sleep issues

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/andrew-holecek-620

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

There seems to be one clear bug in the human operating system — most of us do not like talking about death. Yet when we do talk about it, it can genuinely upgrade the quality of our lives.

Our guest today is Alua Arthur, a former attorney who is now what's called a death doula, which is someone who helps guide people through the end of their lives. Through this work, she has learned some extraordinary stuff about how to live life right now.

Alua is also the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. She is working on her debut memoir, which will be coming out next year called, Briefly Perfectly Human.

This conversation took place at the 2023 TED Conference in Vancouver, immediately after Alua delivered her triumphant talk, which is out now. Special thanks to the TED Audio Collective. You can listen to Alua's talk and other TED talks on the TED Talks Daily podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

• How death can be a powerful motivator
• How consistently being aware that you're going to die can be a "stress reliever"
• The utility of imagining your ideal death
• Her view on reincarnation
• How the concept of "healing" can sometimes be used as a weapon against ourselves
• The importance of not leaving things unsaid
• How "hope" at the end of life can sometimes be unhelpful
• What surprises her about death
• How her work helped her out of her depression
• The five steps that you should take when confronting your own death
• The harm that can sometimes result from too much medical intervention toward the end of life
• The often fraught relationship that vulnerable and marginalized people can have with the medical community
• The benefits of thinking about what version of yourself you want to meet on your deathbed
• The death meditation that she uses when working with people
• What to say and do when you are with somebody who is grieving
• And a practice she calls, "The dying things exercise"

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/Alua-Arthur-619

Check out our friends at How to Be a Better Human podcast, as we take a look within and beyond ourselves.

How to Be a Better Human isn't your average self-improvement podcast. It's a show that understands that being a human is hard -- because no one tells you how to do it well! Join comedian Chris Duffy as he has conversations with the kind of brilliant experts you see giving TED Talks. Listen as they share how anyone can put big ideas into practice in their own lives, and make them a little less terrible. Because although we do our best to figure out life on our own, we can always use some help. Find How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Our relationships are the most important variable in our health and happiness, but they may also be the most difficult. This is especially true when those closest to us turn out to be emotionally immature people.

Lindsay C. Gibson is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author who specializes in helping people identify and deal with emotionally immature people, or EIP's. Her first appearance on our show was one of our most popular episodes of 2022. Now she's back to offer concrete strategies for handling the EIP's in your life, wherever you may find them. Her new book is called Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People.

In this episode we talk about:

• A primer on the cardinal characteristics of emotionally immature people (EIP's), how to spot them, and why you might want to
• What Lindsay means by "disentangling" from EIP's, and how to do it
• What often happens to your own sense of self when you're in relationship (or even just in conversation) with an EIP
• How to interact with an EIP
• How to prevent brain scramble when you're talking with someone who isn't making any attempt to understand what you're saying
• How she reacts when she comes across EIP's in her everyday life
• Whether it's possible to have some immature characteristics without being an EIP
• Handling your own emotionally immature tendencies
• Whether or not EIP's can change
• The limits of estrangement
• Why she encourages "alternatives to forgiveness"

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes:

https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/lindsay-c-gibson-617

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

"Mindfulness" has become a buzz phrase. There are books on mindful parenting, mindful lawyering, even mindful sex. But what does the word even mean? And how do you actually do it? In one of his most famous and foundational discourses, the Buddha was said to have laid out, in great detail, four ways to establish mindfulness. In today's episode we're going to walk through these four "foundations" of mindfulness with Sally Armstrong, who started practicing in 1981, began teaching 15 years later, and now leads retreats all over the world.

We posted this episode a few years ago, but thought it might be a good time to drop a good, old-fashioned, meat and potatoes, stick to your ribs dharma episode to help us get back to basics. Because, like Sally says, Guru Google can only get us so far…

In this episode we talk about:

• How Sally got started in meditation – including sitting and in person retreat with SN Goenka and living near the Dalai Lama
• Using our meditation to align on intentions and values and seeing that we have a choice once we wake up.
• Where she encounters challenges in her practice today
• The importance of Beginner's mind
• Sally's clear breakdown of the Buddha's Four Foundations of Mindfulness (the first time we've really gone into detail on the show)

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sally-armstrong-232-rerun

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much shit you buy, it never really does it for you? There's always that next purchase.

I'm no anti-capitalist, but I don't think it hurts to acknowledge the lie—or if you want to be generous, misunderstanding—at the core of the enterprise: that somehow acquisition will lead to lasting satisfaction.

This insight about the limits of materialism is what animates my friends Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who together, are known as the Minimalists. Several years ago, they released a documentary on Netflix. It focuses on how to declutter your stuff and life and how that can lead to decluttering your mind and reduced anxiety.

They actually interviewed me for it—even though I am not really a minimalist—and to this day it is the interview that generated perhaps the most attention of any I have ever done. For years, people stopped me on the street about that one.

Anyway, Joshua and Ryan are now bringing their documentary – aptly entitled "Minimalism" – to YouTube, for free and without commercials. In honor of that, we are reposting an interview I did with them back in 2021.

We hope you enjoy this bonus rebroadcast, and don't forget to check out the Minimalists podcast, Youtube, website…they're everywhere. Oh, and just to say that when we originally posted this interview, we paired it with a supplemental conversation with the great meditation teacher Oren Sofer, so if you want to hear the original, you can check that out here.

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

If you want to opt out of diet culture, then what should you actually eat?

Today's guest is endeavoring to answer this question. Rachel Hartley is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and the author of a book called Gentle Nutrition: A Non-Diet Approach to Healthy Eating.

In this episode we talk about:

• The basics of intuitive eating
• Her thoughts on whether or not we should weigh ourselves
• Whether or not adopting intuitive eating means living with your face in a cookie jar forever
• How her work has influenced her own body image
• The eight guidelines of gentle nutrition
• Her provocative contention that "the healthiest choice isn't always the most nutritious choice"
• Her take on some of the critiques of intuitive eating
• Her thoughts on trendy new weight loss drugs like Ozempic

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/rachael-hartley-615

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Most of us have an intuitive sense that there's a pretty serious link between what we eat and how we feel. Today's guest is here to explain the science behind that relationship.

Dr. Uma Naidoo is a pioneer in the field of nutritional psychiatry and an expert on both the gut-brain connection and the food-mood connection. She is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, a professional chef, and a nutrition specialist. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. And she is the author of a book called This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More.

In this episode we talk about:

• What the gut-brain connection is, how it works, and why it's so important
• Her contention that "we are in control of how we feel emotionally through the food choices we make every single day"
• How to leverage nutritional psychiatry to help you handle:
• ---Anxiety
• ---Depression
• ---Sleep disorders
• ---Dementia
• ---PTSD
• ---ADHD
• ---OCD
• Her thoughts on taking in all of this information without developing orthorexia (an unhealthy obsession with healthy food)
• Her thoughts on intuitive eating
• How to understand vitamins vs. supplements (and her advice on taking supplements)

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/uma-naidoo-614

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

It's an urgent question for so many of us: Can we exercise, can we take care of our bodies, without being driven by shame, self-loathing, or noxious comparison to other people?

Our guest today has a unique perspective on this. Cara Lai is a former social worker and psychotherapist who is now a Buddhist teacher. She also used to be a marathoner. But in the last few years, her body has undergone some radical changes, leading her to some hard-won, fascinating, and deeply useful insights about how to strike the balance between taking care of your body and staying sane.

In this episode we talk about:

• Practices for that moment when you're getting out of the shower, see yourself in the mirror, and engage in a festival of self-judgment
• The surprising things that happened when Cara was forced to stop exercising
• A counterintuitive mindfulness practice suggestion for those with exercise routines
• When and why you should purposely do things you know are bad for you
• Why we often resist 'being in our bodies,' why that's OK, and how to lower the bar on this contemplative cliché–without giving it up
• A body-related Buddhist practice she finds to be totally not useful

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/cara-lai-612

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

From the way we sit while watching TV to the way we put on our shoes, our days are filled with opportunities to improve our mobility–without getting all sweaty. That's according to today's guests, who are here to teach us about some simple ways to keep our bodies durable for as long as possible.

Kelly and Juliet Starrett are the authors of the new book Built to Move: The 10 Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. Their book covers 10 tests you can do to assess your mobility "vital signs" and 10 practices you can do to improve those vital signs and make your body work better.

In this episode we talk about:

• What the Starrett's see as the shortcomings of "the fitness industrial complex"
• What mobility is, and why working on it is different from working out
• Why you should practice getting up off the ground without help
• The importance of your hip range of motion
• Why the Starrett's recommend a minimum of 8,000 steps per day, not 10,000
• The 'Old Man Balance Test'
• The 'SOLEC test'
• The Starretts' recommendations on nutrition, sleep, and breathing

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/juliet-and-kelly-starrett-611

Editor's Note (March 2026): This episode contains a brief reference to Peter Attia. Since this episode was published, documents released by the Department of Justice have revealed Peter Attia's connection to Jeffrey Epstein. We find these revelations deeply troubling and do not condone any association with Epstein or his activities. Please know that we have removed our interviews with Peter Attia from our library.

---------

Starting next week, we're launching a six part series where we're going to talk to a vast array of experts on longevity, exercise, and diet — we're calling it Get Fit Sanely.

To kick the series off, I wanted to have our senior producer DJ Cashmere on, who's the architect behind this project. You're gonna hear him get really personal about how these issues have affected his own psychology, and you'll hear a very thoughtful person talk about what he's taken away from the months of research he's done on these subjects. And, we'll give you a taste of what it's like here behind the scenes at Ten Percent Happier.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/buddhist-beach-bod

Other Resources Mentioned:

• No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School — DJ's audio documentary about his time as a teacher

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Everyone from the Buddha to the Stoics have exhorted us to remember that we're going to die. So what are we to make of Dr. Mark Hyman? He's a physician and a student of Buddhism who is just out with a new book, called, "Young Forever." In it, he argues that your biological age can be reversed even as you grow chronologically older. So we decided to have him on, learn about his approach, and gently grill him on some of the things that made us most skeptical.

This is the second part of our new six-part series, Get Fit Sanely series, where we are trying to help you to make sense of the noise around getting fit–and to do so without losing your mind.

A little bit more about Dr. Hyman: He is a practicing family physician, the Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, and a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author. He also has his own podcast, called The Doctor's Farmacy.

In this episode we talk about:

• Whether there's a tension between Mark's approach and Buddhism
• Whether it's realistic for people alive today to think that we could make it to 150 or 200 years old
• Mark's contention that he is in better shape at 63 than he was at 40
• His take on intuitive eating
• His top line recommendations on exercise
• The benefits of cuddling
• His response to critiques of functional medicine
• Whether his longevity routine is something regular people can do
• The research on cold plunges and saunas
• His advice on alcohol

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dr-mark-hyman-609

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

It's hard to be a human. No matter how good things are for you, being alive is still hard. Whatever your life circumstances are, we're all subject to impermanence and entropy.

This episode dives into a five-part Buddhist list for being stronger in the face of whatever life throws at you.

Sister Dang Nghiem, who goes by Sister D, is a nun in the Plum Village tradition and a disciple of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She was born in Vietnam during the war, and is the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. Sister D experienced an unfathomable amount of loss before relocating to the US, where she became a doctor and later, after experiencing more loss, became a nun. She's written several books and her most recent is Flowers in the Dark.

In this conversation, Sister D shares her story, and then walks us through The Five Strengths of Applied Zen Buddhism which include trust, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

Content Warning: This episode covers difficult topics including death, mental illness, and sexual abuse.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sister-dang-nghiem-403-rerun

As you might already know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month – and, while mental health is important every month, it's an important opportunity to share resources that can help one another.

So, in that spirit – we're going to bring you a bonus episode from a podcast we love called Meditative Story. We're going to share my episode of Meditative Story with you, where I tell a personal story about a father-son trip that I went on with my son, Alexander, when he was four years old. And how this trip really changed our relationship.

If you're not familiar with Meditative Story, it provides immersive storytelling with mindfulness prompts embedded right into the narrative, woven with a wonderful musical soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Meditative Story.

x

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

So many of us suffer over the issue of time management.

Our guest today approaches the topic from research and personal experience and dives into how we can think more strategically about our time and aspire to build resilient schedules, rather than perfect ones.

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books. Her latest is Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company. Laura's TED Talk on "How to Gain Control of Your Free Time" has been viewed more than 12 million times, and she also hosts the podcast Before Breakfast. Her previous books include Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done, I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why time is the great leveler
• Why time management strategies aren't only for people lucky enough to set their own schedules
• Why Laura's number one rule in her book is to "give yourself a bedtime"
• Why she is a big believer that that weekends and evenings do not have to be work free zones
• How to use exercise as a reset button during your day
• Why creating a habit doesn't have to mean doing it everyday
• The time management rule that Laura gets the biggest pushback on
• And the rule Laura says all the other rules are jealous of

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/laura-vanderkam-606

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

The notion of "being your authentic self" might sound like too much of a tired trope, but getting real and stripping away your fears and hang-ups can help you live a more meaningful life.

In her new book, "Bold Move: A 3-Step Plan to Transform Anxiety into Power", Dr. Luana Marques shares her story about growing up in chaos and learning early skills of cognitive behavioral therapy that helped her cope with anxiety and live boldly.

Dr. Luana Marques is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, a former president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), and a renowned mental health expert, educator, and author.

In this episode we talk about:

• Luana's personal story growing up in Brazil and struggling with anxiety as a child
• What it means to live boldly
• What is psychological avoidance and the 3 R's of Avoidance
• Luana's three step plan to transform anxiety into power
• How to be comfortably uncomfortable
• Why the brain is a faulty predictor
• Why being bold is not the same as being fearless
• Why social support is the number one buffer across any mental health issue
• How aligning your daily actions with your values can help you deal with anxiety
• How to identify your values by looking at pain
• And what Luana means by "being the water not the rock"

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dr-luana-marques-604

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Why, you might fairly ask, am I interviewing Rainn Wilson, best known for his star turn on the sitcom The Office playing Dwight Schrute, the hilariously dysregulated paper salesman with a lust for power and a tragic haircut? Why, you may ask, am I interviewing that dude about mental health and spirituality?

Because in real life, Rainn Wilson has spent many, many years wrestling with religion, sobriety, and marital ups and downs, and he's got a new book called Soul Boom in which he cracks a lot of jokes and also makes a dead serious case for a spiritual revolution. (I'll explain exactly what he means by that.)

In this episode we talk about:

• the role of the Baha'i faith in his life
• why he was so miserable at the height of The Office's popularity
• what he considers his greatest achievement in life
• the importance of spiritual pilgrimage
• the ingredients of the perfect religion, which he insists must include potlucks.

A little bit more about Rainn: he won three Emmys for his work on The Office. He hosts a podcast called Metaphysical Milkshake, and he's got a new travel series on Peacock called Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/rainn-wilson-603

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

We're going to start experimenting with these Friday episodes. Historically on Fridays, we've dropped guided meditations – and we will still do that – but we're also going to try some different formats, including some shorter episodes with guests that might not be a fit for our traditional Monday and Wednesday shows.

Today we've got Dan's new friend Geena Rocero. She has an incredible story about what it's like to live with an all-encompassing secret.

Geena was born and raised in the Philippines. There, she became a star on that country's thriving transgender beauty pageant scene. Then she moved to America to launch her modeling career. But here, in this new country, she was justifiably very worried about letting anybody in the fashion world know that she was transgender. So for many many years, she lived with a secret -- one that could destroy her livelihood at any moment. In 2014, she decided to come out publicly in a TED Talk that now has more than 4 million views. She's now a public speaker, trans rights advocate and an award-winning producer/writer/director.

She is also an author, just out with a new memoir, called Horse Barbie. You'll hear her explain what that title means. We also talk about the cost of living with a secret, why she decided to come out, and the overlap between gender and spirituality.

Where to find Geena Rocero online:

• Twitter: twitter.com/geenarocero
• Instagram: instagram.com/geenarocero

Book Mentioned:

• Horse Barbie: A Memoir

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Geena's TED talk: Why I Must Come Out

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Welcome to Round II of the Meditation Party. The feedback we got from our first episode was overwhelmingly positive, so we're going for it again. Meditation Party is an experiment we're running with a chattier format – more of a morning zoo vibe, but way deeper, of course. The real agenda here is to show that meditation doesn't have to be a solo death march; it is vastly enhanced by having friends.

Dan's co-hosts in this episode are his two close friends: the great meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren. Sebene Selassie is based in Brooklyn and describes herself as a "writer, teacher, and immigrant-weirdo." She teaches meditation on the Ten Percent Happier app and is the author of a great book called, You Belong. Jeff Warren is based in Toronto and is also a writer and meditation teacher who co-wrote the book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics with Dan Harris. Jeff also hosts the Consciousness Explorers podcast.

In this episode, we talk to Jeff about what it's like to be a meditation teacher who has ADHD. And even if you don't have ADHD, there's a lot of practical value to this conversation, because we all have unruly minds, and Jeff has found some great ways to work with this condition.

We also take listener questions, discussing topics like drugs. Specifically, psychedelics — and whether you're violating Buddhist precepts if you take them. We also talk about how frustrating it can be to repeatedly wake up from distraction in meditation.

And finally, we have a segment talking about the stuff we're psyched about right now… in which Sebene sings for us.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sebene-selassie-jeff-warren-601

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Historically on this show, we want guests who either have skills that they can teach us (i.e. meditation teachers or happiness researchers) or we want people who are willing to get super personal about their interior lives—and today you're gonna meet a bold-faced name who happens to have both qualifications in spades.

Mayim Bialik burst onto the scene in the 1990s as the star of the TV show Blossom. Then she stepped away, got a bachelor's and a PhD in neuroscience, and became a mom. She returned to TV with another sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. And now she has a very full plate as the co-host of Jeopardy! and the host of a podcast of her own called Mayim's Breakdown. Oh, and she's also written four books, including Girling Up: How to Be Strong, Smart, and Spectacular and Boying Up: How to Be Brave, Bold, and Brilliant.

In this episode we talk about:

• The pressures of being a teen star
• Mayim's fascination with the brain
• How she squares her scientific expertise with her religious beliefs
• Why she half-jokingly says she was born "a mental health challenge"
• The difference between anxiety attacks and panic disorder
• Why she's chosen to be so public about her complicated psychiatric history
• Whether it's possible to be overdiagnosed
• The tools she personally uses to stay afloat
• What's behind her busyness, and what happened when she decided to stop working all the time
• And why at age 47, she's now taking the time to learn how to express her anger in a healthy way

A note that there are some mentions of suicide and addiction in this episode.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mayim-bialik-600

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

It's always a big deal when we get the maestro Joseph Goldstein on the show. He's one of the greatest living meditation teachers—and we cover a lot of ground in this conversation both related to meditation and to life.

This is the third installment in a series we've been running this month on the Eightfold Path. If you missed the first two episodes, don't worry. Joseph starts our conversation with a brief description and explanation of this pivotal Buddhist list. The list is basically a recipe for living a good life.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to strike a balance between trying too hard and trying too little in meditation
• How to handle your doubts about whether you're meditating correctly
• What the Buddhists really mean when they say "let it go"
• What Joseph means when he says, don't waste your suffering
• Why he uses the word ridiculous so much to describe the way our minds work
• How the eightfold path encompasses both daily life and formal meditation
• The simplest possible definition of mindfulness
• How mindfulness can prevent unwholesome or unhealthy states of mind from arising
• What to do when unwholesome states have already arisen
• Being mindful of seeing, which is an often overlooked
• A simple explanation of the tricky Buddhist concept of not self
• The Buddhist concept of wisdom
• And the importance of having a sense of humor about your own mind

A note that we initially conducted this conversation live via Zoom as part of a benefit in support of an organization called the New York Insight Meditation Center, which is an offshoot of IMS.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-598

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's show features one of Dan's personal musical heroes, Mike Diamond — "Mike D" from the Beastie Boys. Their conversation is wide ranging and covers topics from the role of failure in achieving success to Mike's personal meditation practice. They say, "never meet your heroes", but Mike D doesn't disappoint in this smart and thoughtful discussion.

Mike D formed the Beastie Boys with Adam Yauch, aka MCA, in the early 80's, winning a number of Grammys and spanning a multi-decade career. In 2018, along with his bandmate, Adam Horovitz, Diamond co-authored Beastie Boys Book, which told the story of the band in its own words and reached #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. A limited series of live shows, in which the two brought stories from the book to life, was captured in the 2020 film Beastie Boys Story.

Content Warning: The content is a little mature at points so take care if you're listening with kids.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Mike reconciles the misogyny of the Beasties early work
• The evolution of the band — and how they freed themselves from feeling imprisoned by their own personas
• The role of failure in achieving success
• The value of taking risks in creative endeavors
• Watching his late bandmate, Adam Yauch, find Buddhism, and how that impacted their music
• The addictive nature of adrenaline when performing
• The role meditation and yoga played for Mike as he tried to calibrate the highs and lows while on tour — and how these practices also now play a role in parenting his two kids
• How he works through self-judgment while meditating
• How he and the other surviving bandmate, Adam Horovitz, managed their grief in the wake of the untimely death of Adam Yauch
• And how a Beastie Boy came to embrace, of all things, loving-kindness

Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mike-diamond-597

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Virtue is a tricky topic. It's often sold to us by religious leaders who are thundering judgmentally, and sometimes hypocritically, down to us from the mountaintop. But from the Buddhist perspective, there is actually a deeply self-interested case for ethics and virtue. The Buddhists are not trying to get you to follow a bunch of very specific rules: they are trying to get you to do no harm because that will make you happy.

This is part two of our series on a venerable Buddhist list called the Noble Eightfold Path. The three middle items on the list all have to do with ethical conduct. They are: right speech, right action, and right livelihood.

Our guest today, Eugene Cash, is gonna talk about this stuff in super practical, non-dogmatic and non-preachy ways. Cash has been a Buddhist teacher since 1990. He's the founding teacher of San Francisco Insight and a senior teacher on the Spirit Rock Teachers Council. His teaching is influenced by many streams of Buddhism— Theravada, Zen and Tibetan.

In this conversation we talk about:

• How to make terms such as virtue and ethics more attractive to skeptics
• Eugene's case that being ethical is in your self-interest
• His idea that kindness can actually be hard-nosed and tough
• How the Buddha could be hard on people when it was helpful for those people
• How to use right speech skillfully
• Why he says that practicing right action all day long is his idea of fun
• The technical versus the holistic understanding of right livelihood
• The difference between "being present" and "presence"
• And what has kept him devoted to the eightfold path for so many years

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/eugene-cash-595

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's guest is the legendary astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, the host of the Emmy nominated podcast, Star Talk, and the recipient of 21 honorary doctorates. He also has an asteroid named in his honor.

Tyson's latest book is right up our alley on the show. It's called Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization and it's basically about how taking a scientific perspective can improve your life—and the world.

In this episode we talk about:

• Applying a scientific lens to our emotions
• The importance of intellectual humility
• How the knowledge of death brings meaning to life
• Neil's long view of social media
• Whether we are living in a simulation
• Neil's personal mental health regime
• And whether there is intelligent life in the universe

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/neil-degrasse-tyson-594

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

This episode kicks off our series on the Eightfold Path which will continue on Wednesdays for the next two weeks with Eugene Cash and Joseph Goldstein.

DaRa Williams is a trainer, meditation teacher and psychotherapist and has been a meditator for the past 25 years. She is a practitioner of both Vipassana and Ascension meditation and is a graduate of the Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program and is an IMS Emeritus Guiding Teacher.

In this episode we talk about:

• The first two components of the Eightfold Path: Right View and Right Thinking
• How the Eightfold Path has played out in DaRa's life
• The notions of Intuition, Clear Seeing, and Openness
• And the very tricky skills of renunciation and fostering non-attachment to outcomes

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dara-williams-592

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

--------

Actor Michael Imperioli is best known for a string of memorable onscreen performances that include Goodfellas, The Sopranos, and most recently on The White Lotus. What you may not know is that he has a deep Buddhist practice and has actually grown into something of a meditation teacher.

In this episode we talk about:

• The classic celebrity life crisis that brought Imperioli to Buddhism
• The importance of consistent practice as a way to get familiar with your mind so that your thoughts and emotions and urges don't own you
• The specific Tibetan Buddhist tradition Imperioli practices and what his daily practice looks like
• Whether meditation helps him be more creative
• How acting and meditation are similar
• Whether getting older affects our ability to grok impermanence
• Why Imperioli started teaching meditation online
• How to meditate off the cushion in daily life

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/michael-imperioli-591

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

----

Perhaps nobody is better at helping people unlock themselves than the Buddhist meditation teacher George Mumford who taught meditation to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He's also worked with inmates, police officers, and corporate executives. There's a reason why they call him the "Performance Whisperer."

George has an incredible story: he began teaching mindfulness and meditation after kicking a serious drug habit, leaving a career as a financial analyst, and then earning a master's in counseling psychology. He's got a new book, it's called Unlock: Embrace Your Greatness. Find the Flow. Discover Success.

His first book was called The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance. If you want to hear him talk about that book, we've put links in the show notes to his prior appearances on this podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it means to be in flow and why many of us may be achieving that state more than we think
• How to challenge negative self-talk
• The importance of gratitude
• The importance of service
• The importance of making mistakes (as George says, "no struggle, no swag")
• How to recognize what he calls your hideouts
• Why he identifies as an empath and why he believes this may have played a role in his addiction
• And George's take on often misunderstood terms such as love, hope, and faith

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/george-mumford-589

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's guest is a happiness expert and devout non-meditator. In her latest book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, she describes how a routine visit to her eye doctor made her realize she'd been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestsellers Outer Order, Inner Calm; The Four Tendencies; Better Than Before; and The Happiness Project. Her books have sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide, and have been translated in more than thirty languages. She also hosts the top-ranking, award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin.

In this episode we talk about:

• What led Gretchen to explore the five senses
• How we often take our senses for granted
• How our senses work with the brain to impact our perception
• The relationship between the senses and nostalgia
• The surprising power of ketchup and vanilla when it comes to the sense of taste
• The sense of hearing and what she calls her "Audio Apothecary"
• How to be a better listener
• The interplay between the senses of taste and smell
• The sense of touch and the use of comfort objects
• Why she decided to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art everyday to explore the five senses
• And how she uses the five senses to boost creativity

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gretchen-rubin-588

You may have heard our interview with Sharon Salzberg earlier this week where we talked about openness, not believing the stories you tell yourself, and why the most powerful tools often seem the most stupid at first. I'm a big fan of hers and everything she does, so we wanted to give you a special preview of her new book, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom.

In Real Life, Sharon sets a path out for us, merging the insights of inspiring voices with her own teachings to:

• Uncover a deeper sense of ourselves
• Expand our vision of what's possible for ourselves
• Align our words, hearts, and actions with our core values
• Navigate loss without getting stuck in bitterness or disconnect
• Carry a sense of community with us, even in stormy times
• Recover from the emotional effects of crisis
• Learn the art of letting go and beginning again
• Build emotional intelligence to face times of difficulty without fear
• Seek out joy in everyday life, even when things don't go our way
• Befriend ourselves on the journey of being human
• Embark on the journey to embody a life of curiosity, authenticity, and freedom.

So enjoy this excerpt from her book, Real Life.

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

There's so much to be grateful for in modern medicine. We can all agree that we would not do as well in a world with no Advil or dentistry. And yet, our guest today, who is a renowned doctor, says modern medicine is overlooking something crucial: the pernicious impact that modern living has on our minds and bodies. In other words, we are surrounded by these hidden societal and structural sources of stress and we aren't thinking about how to treat and prevent these factors that are degrading our happiness and our immune systems.

Dr. Gabor Maté is a bestselling author with an expertise on everything from stress to addiction to ADHD. His latest book is called, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Content Warning: This episode has mentions of child abuse, sexual trauma, suicide and addiction

In this episode we talk about:

• What he means by "the myth of normal"
• How diseases, such as autoimmune conditions, are an "artifact of civilization"
• How to begin to tackle what Dr. Maté calls, "the social sources of illness"
• His definition of trauma and the difference between "big T traumatic events" and the trauma of "wounding"
• How trauma in society is so normalized that we don't even recognize it
• Whether the term trauma is overused
• Why comparing suffering is a fruitless endeavor
• What he means by "the necessity to be disillusioned"
• The power and possibility of psychedelics
• Why he thinks we should incorporate shamanic medicine into our western medical framework
• And what he means by "undoing self-limiting beliefs" and how these beliefs show up in our everyday lives

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gabor-mate-586

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

Alexander Dreymon is the star of a great show on Netflix called "The Last Kingdom." He plays a Viking, so you're literally not going to find a guy who is more stereotypically masculine. But I've gotten to know Alexander recently and he's also incredibly thoughtful.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: marriage, parenting, anger therapy, sleep, human connection, meditation, masculinity, and, uh, how to show your body on Netflix without developing body dysmorphia. We also talk a lot about his show, which is awesome, although it is coming to an end — just a few days ago, Netflix posted the series finale, a movie-length episode called "Seven Kings Must Die" that wraps up the whole story.

In this episode we talk about:

• how having male friends makes his romantic relationship even better
• The importance of therapy, of silliness and of kindness
• the importance of exercise in his life and how he tries not to get overly attached to his body looking a certain way
• a whole discussion between the two of us on the Buddhist idea of non-self
• what his meditation practice looks like now that he has a toddler around the house
• what it's like to wrap up his show, the Last Kingdom, and what might be next

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/-alexander-dreymon-585

Where to find Alexander Dreymon online:

• Instagram: @alexander.dreymon

Other Resources Mentioned:

• The books of Bernard Cornwell, on which "The Last Kingdom" series is based

Additional Resources:

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

It's likely uncontroversial to assert that Jennifer Senior is one of our finest living journalists. She's currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and before that she spent many years at the New York Times and New York magazine. Jennifer's written on a vast array of topics, but she has a special knack for writing articles about the human condition that go massively, massively, viral. One such hit was a lengthy and extremely moving piece for The Atlantic that won a Pulitzer Prize. It was about a young man who died on 9/11, and the wildly varying ways in which his loved ones experienced grief. That article, called "What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind," has now been turned into a book called, On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory.

In this interview, we spend a lot of time talking about this truly fascinating yarn, but we also talk about her other articles: one about an eminent happiness researcher who died by suicide, another about why friendships often break up, and a truly delightful recent piece about the puzzling gap between how old we are and how old we think we are. Jennifer has also written a book about parenting, called All Joy and No Fun which we also reference a few times throughout.

In this episode we talk about:

• Jennifer's perspective on the Bobby McIlvaine story
• Lesser known theories of grieving from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• The work involved in finding meaning in loss
• Why – from an evolutionary standpoint – we hurt so badly when we lose someone we love
• Commitment and sacrifice
• The puzzling gap between how old you are and how old you think you are
• The power and perils of friendship
• Why Jennifer has chosen to focus so much of her writing on relationships

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jennifer-senior-583

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

Today's episode is a rangy and fascinating conversation with a titan of the modern mindfulness scene: Sharon Salzberg. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, a renowned meditation retreat center and has written twelve books. Her latest is called, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom.

We get personal and talk about a fascinating question: why did so many Jewish kids of Sharon's generation (the Boomers) get interested in meditation? Sharon was part of a whole crew called the JewBu's — young Jewish people, mostly from New York, who found their way to India and other parts of Asia in the 1960s and 70s, learned about Buddhism, and then came home and taught it to so many of us.

In this episode we talk about:

• The case for openness versus constriction. What is openness? Why do we want it? And how does one achieve it?
• How not to take so seriously the stories you tell yourself
• Whether shame is ever useful
• How the most powerful tools (like self-compassion) can often seem so stupid at first
• The importance of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset
• Why gratitude gets a bad rap
• The difference between self-centeredness and "healthy pride"
• Sharon's recent and quite harrowing medical odyssey — and how meditation helped her get through it

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sharon-salzberg-582

As a wrap up to our Work Life series, we want to share a preview of another podcast we love: Prof G hosted by Scott Galloway. His interview, "Scott Galloway on: the Impact of Work on Mental Health, the Role of Luck in Success, and How Much is Enough," kicked off this latest series. Scott's show combines business insight and analysis with life and career advice, and we're big fans.

In this episode of Prof G, Scott shares his view on the "Future of Work"— from recruiting, to mentorship, to building teams. He touches on the role nepotism plays in the future of recruiting, to securing a job post-college, and team organization in the workplace.

You can hear more episodes of the Prof G podcast here.