10% Happier With Dan Harris

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 i

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

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

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 Ma

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

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 i

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 Sp

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/podcas

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://w

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 m

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 sense

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

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 norm

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 a

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

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

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.

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- A beautifully weird conversation with the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.  Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic in 1979, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (CFM), in 1995. He is the author of many books including Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, There You Are.  His latest book, Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief, illustrates a range of evidence-based mindfulness meditation practices for those suffering with the challenges of chronic pain.  In this episode we talk about: The origins of MBSR and its relation to pain relief Pain vs. Suffering The accessibility of awareness The limitation of mindfulness meditation as a self-improvement practice The quote, “open your mouth a

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today we have a truly incredible episode about how to meditate in hell. You’re going to meet a man named Jarvis Jay Masters, who I interviewed from his cell on death row at San Quentin prison in California. Any of us who meditate do our best to apply it to life’s ups and downs — but this person has been applying it in some truly extreme circumstances.  Jarvis has now spent more than three decades on death row, including more than two decades in solitary confinement. Shortly after Jarvis’s death sentence, he became interested in Buddhism, and started developing a rigorous practice under the tutelage of a Tibetan lama, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. Jarvis has now written and published two books about his life, Finding Freedom and That Bird Has My Wings. Both feature forewords by the renowned meditation teacher Pema Chödrön, who has been on this show, and his second book was endorsed by the late