The Science of Self-Growth: Why You Can't Hate Yourself into Change | Dan Harris

Dan Harris 0:00 Stress is the difference between the things on your to-do list and your capacity to handle that to-do list. Anxiety is fretfully projecting and fearing that bad things are going to happen. Both things are probably at the worst point they've ever been since we've started keeping those records. Former ABC News anchor.

Jay Shetty 0:17 Author of 10% Happier.

Dan Harris 0:19 Mr. Dan Harris. People who live the longest have strong relationships. Dose yourself with some discomfort. Go to that party. Accept the invitation. [upbeat music]

Jay Shetty 0:30 The number one health and wellness podcast.

Dan Harris 0:33 Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty 0:34 Jay Shetty.

Dan Harris 0:34 The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty 0:37 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 0:39 At this point in time, it feels like we've talked about this topic for a long time, but it still feels like we have a slightly unhealthy relationship with it, and somewhat a subconscious relationship with it, and I'm talking about stress.

Dan Harris 0:53 Mm.

Jay Shetty 0:54 And it seems that year upon year, people's stress increases, people's variety of causes of stress increase. Even after the pandemic, we saw a different type of stress that we experienced. I wanted to get your thesis on how you feel about the state of stress at the moment.

Dan Harris 1:15 It's not good. Um, I, I recently learned, this is embarrassing that I recently learned this, the difference, the specific difference between stress and anxiety. Hopefully I don't mangle this, but it's something like stress is the difference between the things on your to-do list and your capacity to handle that to-do list.

Jay Shetty 1:33 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:33 The difference between your, the demands on you and your ability to meet those demands. And anxiety is a little bit more, um, fretfully projecting forward into the future and fearing that bad things are going to happen.

Jay Shetty 1:45 Mm.

Dan Harris 1:46 And so I think actually both things are probably at the worst point they've ever been, uh, since we've started keeping those records. So from what I can tell, uh, anxiety, depression, suicide addiction, and loneliness are, according to the numbers I've seen, at unprecedented levels. Now, I don't, we haven't been keeping these statistics for that long, so I suspect when we were, like, on the edge of World War II, things were worse.

Jay Shetty 2:12 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 2:12 But in the modern era, things have not been worse from what we can tell. And, um, I think a huge contributor to that is, uh, the, uh, pandemic that we just lived through. I sometimes describe it as a global unregulated experiment into what would happen when you deny people a social connection and, uh, put people in a state of deep uncertainty about the future and, and add into that political polarization, the noxious impacts of, uh, social media, which we were just talking about, war, climate change, and you have a very tough situation for individual minds.

Jay Shetty 2:50 Mm.

Jay Shetty 2:51 Which one's been the one that you feel you've heard about the most from the people that follow your podcast, that have read your books? Like, what's the stress that you think is weighing them down the most?

Dan Harris 3:02 I'm projecting a little bit here and guessing, but I, I sometimes think there's a difference between what people perceive to be the source of their stress or anxiety and what actually is driving it.

Jay Shetty 3:13 Mm.

Dan Harris 3:13 So we might fasten on to things that are real, for sure, I mean, like work stress, economic str- so there can be stress about the state of your job, and then economic stress about the s- larger state of the economy. There's increasing stress around, uh, inequality and bigotry, of increasing awareness of it. So the question is, are those the proximate causes for your stress, or could it be, could there be subterranean contributors s- that you might not be aware of?

Jay Shetty 3:43 Mm.

Dan Harris 3:43 So I think today's media environment, particularly social media, and I'm not anti social media, we just talked about the fact that I recently went on it, but I think there are aspects of social media we need to be aware of and, and, um, too much comparing yourself to other people is, as you've talked about, the source... It's a really good source of unhappiness and stress.

Jay Shetty 4:04 Mm.

Dan Harris 4:05 I think also if you're spending too much time staring at a screen, two things can happen. One, you can get a distorted view of the state of the world because the algorithms feed off of conflict and anger and outrage a- um, they feed our anxiety.

Jay Shetty 4:20 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 4:20 Um, and then the other thing is, the more you're staring at the screen, the less time you're spending connecting to actual human beings. And so I think this is the deepest contributor.

Jay Shetty 4:28 Mm.

Dan Harris 4:28 We are, and this is to state the obvious, social animals. You hear this in every TED Talk. I think I said it in my own TED Talk-

Jay Shetty 4:34 [laughs]

Dan Harris 4:34 ... so I'm, like, deeply unoriginal here.

Jay Shetty 4:36 [laughs]

Dan Harris 4:37 We are social animals. We're designed to interact with other human beings, and yet everything about modern life militates against this basic obvious fact.

Jay Shetty 4:45 Mm.

Dan Harris 4:46 Everything drives us into our own information silos, into curating our own resumes and working on our own little homes, and all that can be beautiful, but when you overlook what we need, that is going to create stress and anxiety. And you might think it is observable things out in the world, and it probably is those things too, but I just wonder for many people whether it's this deeper contributor that they're not looking at.

Jay Shetty 5:11 Yeah, I'm so glad. You've just made some, two really good distinctions there. I love the way you are sharing the research around the difference between anxiety and stress. And go, going back to that for a second, that example you gave of having your to-do list and feeling like you don't have the capacity, it sounds like what you're sharing is that there's a capacity challenge and then also a control challenge. And when you're naming all those things external to us, there's a feeling of, "I can't control any of those things. All of those things are uncertain," and therefore I'm dealing with constant states of change, and that in effect creates a sense of stress and, to some degree if I'm forward projecting, then anxiety as well.

Dan Harris 5:54 Yes. Yes.

Jay Shetty 5:55 When I think about all of that, and, and I love what you just said about actually getting to the root of it, because I think you're spot on that- We often discover a new symptom, and there will always be a new thing we'll discover every day that causes or triggers stress because there'll be a new change, a new uncertainty, a new thing we can't control. But at the core of it, you've highlighted this need for connection and this need for belonging and this need for human touch, both physical and mental and emotional, that we seem to be feeling further and further away from. I was talking about this with my best friend today, who I speak to probably, like, three or four times a week, and it's the person I probably speak to the most in the entire world, and he was my best man at my wedding. He introduced me to spirituality, so we have a long history of eighteen years of a friendship. So he knows me very well. And we still talk three to four times a week. He lives in London, I live in LA, and we still find the time to, to connect. And that's th- mainly because he always makes time, and he's very kind. And I often think about it in that I don't know how I would navigate life without that friendship. Because of having someone who understands me deeply, someone who allows me to be seen, someone who allows me to be flawed and imperfect, yet allows me to process all of that, is so profoundly needed. But it required certain deposits that had to happen eighteen years ago in order to get there.

Jay Shetty 7:24 Do you find human connection is easier with people you've known for a long time, or have you found it to be building new relationships and new friendships? What, what have been the pros and cons or the, the ways you've navigated both of those?

Dan Harris 7:37 One of the things that I really try to do in my work is move away from abstractions or cliches or big ideas and get really practical about how you can actually act on these things.

Jay Shetty 7:51 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 7:51 Because it's easy to scroll on Instagram or read a book or hear a TED Talk, and you hear these inspirational notions like, "We're built for connection, and we need belonging, and you need to invest in relationships," and, uh, and then what do you do about it?

Jay Shetty 8:05 I couldn't agree more.

Dan Harris 8:05 And, and so I th- I think about that a lot, and I think you just gave us an example. You, you made a deep friendship eighteen years ago, but it's not enough to just have a connection with somebody. You need to invest in it over and over and over again. That's true for any level of deep relationship. It's true, I would imagine, with your wife. It's... I mean, you've, you've written a whole book about this, so I'm not talking to you like you don't know what you're talking about. But I, I just think you're giving an, a great concrete example of one little thing you can do, which is [laughs] figure out who you like and then make an investment in that person and hopefully a few other people consistently over time, because the rewards are huge. And this isn't just, like, a nice-to-have. I know you're familiar with this research, but the, the study that comes up for me all the time is this study that was done that's still ongoing at Harvard University. It's overseen now by Robert Waldinger, and the idea is, uh, that they've been following several generations of people who live in the Boston area, uh, to see what contributes to a, a long life, a longevity, health, happiness. And th- what comes screaming out of eighty, ninety years of data is that the people who live the longest have strong relationships. And what's the mechanism for that? Stress is what kills us. You started this whole conversation with the idea of stress. Stress is what kills us most of the time, and the best way to reduce stress is to have positive relationships. Waldinger has this great expression, "Never worry alone."

Jay Shetty 9:40 [laughs] Yeah.

Dan Harris 9:41 And w- that's what you're doing three times a week with your buddy. And there are obviously things you can talk to your wife about, of course. But the whole... And again, again, you know all of this, but you can't-

Jay Shetty 9:49 No, no, no, it's-

Dan Harris 9:50 You can't-- Your wife can't be the alpha and omega. They... Your wife can't be everything to you. Uh, and again, there's data to support this contention too, that the strongest marriages or romantic relationships, uh, in those relationships, the, the participants have other relationships that support it, you know, that, that you're getting certain needs filled through your best friend. Um, and yeah, so I just go back to what you said. That, that seems to be a direction that people can move in when they're trying to think about how to operationalize this stuff in their own life.

Jay Shetty 10:22 Yeah. No, and I'm glad that you brought it to this, and, and I genuinely couldn't agree with you more, and that's, that's why I've always wanted to talk to you, is this idea of, well, how do we actually do that? Because these big ideas and big concepts often, as you said, they give you that short-term inspiration, but then it doesn't translate into any discipline or habit or creation of a routine or rhythm that's allows us to repeat it and make it real. And so let's, let's kind of zone in on that for some of the points you made. One of the things you talked about, of course, is social media, and the truth is that all of us are, in some way, shape, or form, addicted to this. It's designed to make us addicted. It's not that we're, we're addicted because we have some flaw or some weakness or because we're not, you know, because we're alone. I think a lot of us share this. I've found myself doomscrolling. I've found myself wasting hours and hours on social media feeling like I didn't achieve anything or, or gain anything from it. So no one's immune to this. I don't think there's a select few people who've beaten it. I think it's, it's consumed all

Jay Shetty 11:32 of us. What have been the practical steps that you maybe have put in place for yourself, people that you've known in your life, that you think have actually helped people develop a healthy relationship? Because I think it's also not just, like, saying, "Well, just don't be on your phone," which is often, again, one of these big ideas that's portrayed, which is like, "Well, just turn it off," or, you know, "Don't be on it," and we know that that's not sustainable either. Like, we're both carrying our phones today.

Dan Harris 11:54 Yes. First of all, you said this thing about how you have struggled with social media. I just want to add that I have, too. I mean, I just started, as we've discussed, and I can't tell you how many times I've gotten sucked into either scrolling and looking at things that, I mean- You know, I'm, I'm-- I could be, like, talking to my child during that time, or, and this is even more embarrassing, you know, compulsively checking back to see how a, a specific video is performing. And, and so yeah, I'm, I, I don't come to this conversation with any superiority. I- I also think, um, and I will get to some things that have been useful for me, but I also wanna say that I'm not against social media. I think there are beautiful aspects to it. I think there are also very difficult aspects, and we can talk about that if you want. But it is popular not only for the negative aspects for it. And then I think it's, you know, you can get some degree of pleasure through social media, for sure. And I think it's true just for any dopamine hit in our life. You can get addicted to anything that is the source of fleeting pleasure, from food, to cocaine, to, uh, uh, alcohol, to gambling, to shopping. And there's healthy use, healthy, uh, involvement in all of these activities, and then unhealthy. And it really just depends on the circumstances of your own brain, your own life, uh, and it's a, a thing everybody has to work on for themselves. As it, as it pertains to, like, practical things that have worked for me with technology addiction, one is just being pretty disciplined about putting it away at a, you know-- Usually at the end of the day, I try to put it away and have a proper evening with my family. Don't always succeed at that, but I notice when I do it, I feel better. And that leads to the second piece of advice, which is, as you know, I'm a big advocate of meditation, as are you, and I think the self-awareness that can be generated through contemplative exercises like meditation can help wake you up to the fact that you will feel better if you don't get sucked into your phone for, you know, prolonged periods of time. And, uh, that can-- The brain is always looking for pleasure.

Jay Shetty 14:05 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 14:05 And if you can show the brain that there's, what my friend Judd Brewer calls a bigger, better offer, which that it, which is that it will feel better to connect to your family, most of the time, 'cause sometimes our families are annoying. But-

Jay Shetty 14:16 [laughs]

Dan Harris 14:16 ... it will feel better to connect to other people, to, uh, read a book, to take a walk in nature, than it will to, uh, s- uh, you know, um, uh, attach your arm to the IV drip of FOMO that, uh, that social media can be. Um, and so I th- I, I think meditation is a great way to do that.

Jay Shetty 14:38 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 14:38 Um, the final thing is, see if you can ask yourself this question, and I get this from a woman named Catherine Price, who wrote a book that I recommend called How to Break Up With Your Phone. And she encourages people to ask themselves, to try to get into the habit of asking themselves a very simple question when they're, when they find their zombie arm reaching for the phone. "What do you need right now?" Like, what, what need are you trying to fulfill when you pick up that phone? For me, it's often because I'm bored, or I'm in an uncomfortable situation, or I'm tired and I don't have the wherewithal to do something, or I'm lonely, or I'm hungry. And actually, if you run that program, you run that algorithm internally for yourself, you know, you're n- you're only gonna remember this 10% of the time. But if you can remember to do it some percentage of the time and ask yourself, "What am, what is it that I'm actually going for here?" you might realize, "Actually, the phone is not what I need right now." And for me, I found that really helpful. Doesn't work all the time, but it helps. [swoosh] I sometimes joke that if anybody said to me the types of shit that I say to myself, I would be punching that person in the face. So what can we do about it? What I've learned is that you can get into the habit of talking to yourself the way you would talk to a friend. And there are some hacks that make this easier. One of them is to actually, what need are you trying to fulfill when you pick up that phone? For me, it's often because I'm bored, or I'm in an uncomfortable situation, or I'm tired and I don't have the wherewithal to do something, or I'm lonely, or I'm hungry. Ask yourself, "What am, what is it that I'm actually going for here?" You might realize, "Actually, the phone is not what I need right now." [swoosh]

Jay Shetty 16:13 The way that that worked for me was having to remind myself after I made the right decision. So what I mean by that is, if I'm gonna reach for my phone right now, and I have the courage enough to not reach for it, but I end up spending time with my family as the bigger, better offer. Now, after I've spent time with my family and I've enjoyed it, this time they're not annoying, then after I do that, I need to deeply code that into my memory.

Dan Harris 16:46 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Jay Shetty 16:46 Like, I need to make a deal out of it. Like, I need to tell my friend about it. I need to journal about it. I need to record it. I need to take a picture, whatever it is, because what I've found is that the mind needs to be reminded, again, when I reach for the phone, that the bigger, better offer will win. But that memory doesn't get stored deep enough for us to be able to rediscover it when we most need it.

Dan Harris 17:09 Yes.

Jay Shetty 17:10 And so that's definitely helped. And I loved what you said a couple of seconds ago about being able to switch it off. I, I, I fail at this all the time, but I've at least set the rules, and I think that's what we have to do with this because it's, it is hard. But a few years ago, I set no technology times and no technology zones in my home. So I almost envisioned a no phone sign in the bedroom and at the dining table. And at one point I used to envision, like, lasers around the room, and it's like if I walked past it with my phone, then, you know, I'd, whatever. Then the floor is lava.

Dan Harris 17:45 Like Mission Impossible. Yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 17:46 Yeah, like Mission Impossible. Like, just to give that feeling. And, and yes, of course, have I walked through a laser with my phone? Of course I have. But, but I like the idea of knowing that, look, there are certain rooms in my home where technology is not the space. So actually, if I want to use my phone, I have to leave that room to use it. And, and like you're saying about leaving your phone in a, in another room or whatever it may be, I, I think is really powerful. One thing you brought up which I actually think is at the crux of so much of this And you mentioned the word you've been embarrassed sometimes in your social media usage. And I find that to actually be one of the deepest roots of the challenges we have with change and habit, or even with meditation. Like, I think as, you know, y- you, you've been teaching meditation for years, as have I, and when I first started meditating, and [laughs] and even now, uh, when I- when my attention is not as present as it can be, or I'm not as focused, or I'm distracted, which still happens today after all these years of meditating, it's so easy to feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilty. And we can often start to develop an inner critic that can say some of the most hurtful things. Like, I'll often say to myself, like, "Come on, man, you've been meditating for like 18 years now. How are you still distracted?" Or, "You know, you've been... You know, by now you should've been an expert because you're surrounded by so many experts," or, "What's wrong with you?" Like, or, "Why- how can you teach meditation if you can't meditate deeply?" Like, you know, whatever it may be. And it's so easy to get into that space, and one thing that I came across recently for myself was recognizing that you can't hate yourself into change. Like, you can't guilt yourself into growth. You can't make yourself feel so guilty that you'll suddenly achieve your goal. There almost needs to be grace. There needs to be kindness. There needs to be a safe space for you to have imperfections. So I wanted

Jay Shetty 19:43 to ask you, like, what have you done with that emotion of feeling embarrassed? Because I actually think meditation is powerful for helping us overcome embarrassment, but I'd love to approach that with you.

Dan Harris 19:52 Well, I've had the same thoughts of, you know-

Jay Shetty 19:53 [laughs]

Dan Harris 19:54 I, I don't know if you've experienced this, but, you know, once you step out into the world as, like, something approaching a, um, self-help person, as soon as you're an asshole, you tell yourself a story about how, like, you're a total fraud.

Jay Shetty 20:05 Yes.

Dan Harris 20:05 Like, the first day you screw up, you know, you, you, you're like, "All right. Well, I gotta close this whole business."

Jay Shetty 20:11 [laughs]

Dan Harris 20:12 Um-

Jay Shetty 20:12 I can relate to that.

Dan Harris 20:13 Yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm sure. I mean, I, I, I... And I think it goes to something really important, which is personal growth, spiritual development, whatever you wanna call it, is hard and messy, and perfection is not on offer. And I think just knowing that, and even hearing Jay Shetty talk about making mistakes and getting his, uh, shins cut off by a laser as he walks into the bedroom with his phone, is useful because people need to know it's not a straight, unbroken, uh, upward trajectory. That's, that's not what this is... that's not what this is about. There's a great, um, tweet, or I guess we call them X's now or whatever.

Jay Shetty 20:52 [laughs]

Dan Harris 20:53 Whatever.

Jay Shetty 20:53 There's a great X, yeah.

Dan Harris 20:54 Uh, there was a great X-

Jay Shetty 20:54 [laughs]

Dan Harris 20:55 ... the other day from a, a, a, a, a Zen Roshi, Roshi Joan Halifax. She's this incredible human being, and she posted a picture that was basically a bunch of squiggly lines just going nowhere, and then she... the caption was, "The path." That's the thing. We are... This is messy. We are messy animals and, and that's okay. And, and I th- what I think is important to know is that growth is possible.

Jay Shetty 21:21 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 21:21 But it is impossible without making a bunch of mistakes.

Jay Shetty 21:24 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 21:24 And if you can get that into your head, you're, you're better off. So how do you get that into your head? There's a bunch of, uh, research that I've become increasingly interested in about the possibility t- of reprogramming your inner dialogue. Um, we, most of us have really nasty inner, uh, weather. You know, I sometimes joke that if anybody said to me the types of shit that I say to myself, I would be punching that person in the face, and yet I talk to myself in a f- quite a scathing, venomous way. And I, and I know this is not unusual. So what can we do about it? Well, you can get into the habit, you can develop... And again, this is a data and evidence-backed assertion. I'm not making, just making this up, nor is it an original observation. But what I've learned is that you can get into the habit of talking to yourself the way you would talk to a friend, and there are some s- little hacks that make this easier. One of them is to actually refer to yourself by your name. "So Jay, I know, uh, you just got distracted in meditation, but dude, as you know, getting distracted is a part of meditation. If, if it was possible to clear your mind, um, then, um, we'd have lots of people walking around with no thoughts, but that, that isn't possible. What is possible is to focus your mind for a few nanoseconds at a time, and then start again and again and again." And we are very good at taking advice from... or at giving advice to other people, but not taking our own advice. And so this technique, which is called distant self-talk, where you use your own name to create some distance, can allow you, Jay, or me, Dan, to give ourselves the advice that we're so willing to give other people, and then actually to hear it. And does that make sense?

Jay Shetty 23:10 Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Harris 23:10 Is that something you've ever tried?

Jay Shetty 23:11 Absolutely.

Dan Harris 23:11 Yeah. Okay.

Jay Shetty 23:11 No, that resonates, that resonates so deeply, and I actually feel that makes complete sense because even the negative of that is true. And so I was reading just a couple of weeks ago maybe around how the two ways we talk to ourself negatively are either "I am," so we say things like, "I am lazy," or, "I'm so... I'm not good enough," or, uh, "I'm the worst," or, you know, "I'm the least intelligent out of all my friends," or whatever it is, right? "I am" statements. And the other one they were saying, which was even worse, was we have a voice in our head that sounds like an authority figure that says, "You're the worst," or, and it, "You aren't good enough," or, "You're behind," or whatever it may be. And that almost sounds like there's an external authority, whether it could've been a teacher or a parent, a family member who may have said that to us, and now it's internalized as a negative authority in our minds. And so what you're actually saying is the positive authority also works, that if someone says your name, Jay or Dan, and then coaches you and guides you through that, would you say that- That's a

Jay Shetty 24:16 skill that you have harnessed and nourished through meditation, or do you see that as separate to meditation?

Dan Harris 24:21 I think it's absolutely complementary. You know, as you know, in meditation, you are ... One of the benefits is that you're more self-aware. You're, you're more aware of all of these wild thoughts careening through your head. And so it's easier to wake up. Now, I mean, I get lost in, you know, homicidal fantasies and, you know, uh, unspeakable, uh, fantasy, other kinds of fantasies. It, they, it ... That's just the mind.

Jay Shetty 24:45 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 24:45 But I'm more likely now to have some self-awareness, I mean another word for that is mindfulness, to be able to see what's happening between my ears, behind my eyes, without necessarily being caught up in it. And so the sooner I can wake up to the fact that I'm in the middle of a, a jag of self-judgment, then I can bring in these other tools. Oh, yeah, you know what I need to do right now is have a, a talk between the sane part of myself and the insane part of myself.

Jay Shetty 25:12 Mm.

Dan Harris 25:13 And as you said before, the, the, the inner critic comes to the ball masquerading as wisdom.

Jay Shetty 25:20 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 25:20 But it's not wisdom. It's, it's the, it is your ancient fears.

Jay Shetty 25:27 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 25:27 And it is the dysfunction of the larger culture. So y- you might be telling yourself you need to look better. Well, that's not your voice, that is, as, uh, un- to invoke another amazing person, um, Sonya Renee, or what am I ... Uh, Sonya Renee Taylor, I believe is her name. I'm, ag- I'm embarrassed that I'm forgetting her last name, but she's a, w- a great writer and she said something to the effect of, "When I see self-criticism, I realize it's not my voice, it's the voice of the system." And so you're, you're telling yourself you don't look good. Well, whose, by whose standards? It's the culture's standards.

Jay Shetty 26:02 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 26:02 And I have two modes that I'm least proud of. One is, um, greedy, and the other is, um, anger, angry. And as over time I've learned to actually have some affection for these modes because it's just the organism trying to protect itself. It's just my ancient fear-based patterns doing their best. Usually, you know, like their f- it's a five year old's version of doing their best to protect this body. But I don't need to listen to them. And in fact, the radical disarmament is to actually make friends with them, to kind of high-five those demons instead of trying to slay them. And for me, that's been really useful. And, and just to get it back to your question, th- combining these, I would say, modern psychological tools with ancient contemplative tools has really been helpful.

Jay Shetty 26:50 Mm, absolutely.

Jay Shetty 26:51 Yeah, I, I love ... You just reminded me of making that point about the system that you quoted there reminds me of years, years, years and years ago, I was a s- when I was a student in London and I remember walking through, you know, like a department store and there was a big advert that said, "Get the natural look." And then [laughs] it was like all these things that, products that can help you get the natural look. And just that idea of purchasing a natural look is, is fascinating because-

Dan Harris 27:18 As if you weren't born with one.

Jay Shetty 27:19 Yeah.

Dan Harris 27:19 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 27:19 Exactly. And, and, but it is that voice, right? Saying, okay, well, even to get a natural look. And again, you know, I think there are pros and cons. I mean, yeah, I'm a, I'm a big fan of so many products, so many services, so many things, and so it's not to say it's all bad. But there is a need in mindfulness to, I think what you're saying, is to differentiate and have the ability of discernment between is this voice me or is this something outside of me, whether it's a system or a person or whatever it may be. And I think that's the quality that we need because it isn't necessarily saying, "I'm just gonna shut everything off and nothing matters," it's this idea of can I tell.

Dan Harris 27:59 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 27:59 Can I tell that when I'm listening to the voice in my head as to whether it's truly mine or whether it's been picked up or nurtured by some other external force?

Dan Harris 28:10 Another fascinating question is, what is me?

Jay Shetty 28:14 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 28:15 Close your eyes and look inside. Can you find some core nugget of Jay? And spend some time with that question.

Jay Shetty 28:21 Mm.

Dan Harris 28:21 That'll pop you out of, uh-

Jay Shetty 28:22 [laughs]

Dan Harris 28:23 ... uh, ruminating about lots of other unhealthy things.

Jay Shetty 28:26 Where has that question taken you?

Dan Harris 28:28 I think you c- I think, I think you come more out of the Hindu tradition.

Jay Shetty 28:31 Yes.

Dan Harris 28:31 And I come a little bit more out of the Buddhist tradition, um, even though I, I don't look like it. But, um, you know, that's, that's where I've spent the last 15 years of my life, really doing a lot of study. Um, and one of the things they say in Tibetan Buddhism is that the not finding is the finding.

Jay Shetty 28:50 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 28:51 'Cause there's nothing to find.

Jay Shetty 28:52 Mm.

Dan Harris 28:53 There ... I, yes, I mean, on, on the, on convention, on the level of consensual conventional reality, I'm Dan and that camera's taking a picture of me, and yes, that is true. But on the deepest possible level, if I look for some core nugget of Dan, there's nothing to find.

Jay Shetty 29:09 Mm.

Dan Harris 29:09 And that not finding is the answer. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 29:12 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 29:13 And if ... Can you stay with that ambiguity? There is something healing about that. So how, how do you take that out of the esoteric clouds into your actual life? Well, one little linguistic trick. You ki- you kind of teed me up for this before 'cause you, you used the phrase I am, like I am-

Jay Shetty 29:29 Mm-hmm

Dan Harris 29:29 ... so and so. What if you just, and ag- uh, this is, I want to give credit to the person who came up with this. It's Joseph Goldstein, who's a great meditation teacher. But he often advises his students of, to say instead of I am fill in the blank, there is fill in the blank.

Jay Shetty 29:45 Mm.

Dan Harris 29:45 There is hunger right now. There is anger in my mind right now. There is sadness in my mind right now.

Jay Shetty 29:51 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 29:52 There's no you to find. The adding of the you on top of it is just adding, um, insult to injury.

Jay Shetty 29:59 Mm.

Dan Harris 30:00 Right? The, you don't ... That's extra. But the, it's true that hunger or anger or sadness can be here right now, but if you can take the I am out of it and to the there is, well, then it's workable.

Jay Shetty 30:10 Mm.

Dan Harris 30:10 Right? You can do something with it.

Jay Shetty 30:12 Mm.

Dan Harris 30:12 You can let it pass. You can observe it. You can try to work with it. Um, but if you add in a whole story about how I Jay or I Dan am incurably fill in the blank, well, that, that's much, that's a much bigger problem. Nothing can happen- Until you identify the problem. If I am dismissing something out of hand, it's usually something I should listen to.

Jay Shetty 30:32 Mm.

Dan Harris 30:33 And if I'm getting defensive, it's because there's something I know I should hear that I'm unwilling to hear at that moment. Meditation is a great way to, like, pound this stuff into your neurons.

Jay Shetty 30:42 It's interesting though, isn't it? Because it feels like we're all so obsessed with identity in our stories, and almost what you're proposing is this idea of recognizing that there's somewhat of a distance between us and our identity and story. Yet everything we've been discussing today, whether it's social media, whether it's the system, whether it's the story your parents laid out for you, all, all of that, there's, there's stories to be lived, crafted, told, and almost we're all living our own stories in our own mind. And so

Jay Shetty 31:14 yeah, how are you able to operate as Dan Harris, the teacher, the guide, the, you know, podcaster, et cetera, and then also have the, the balance of this recognition that actually there is and-

Dan Harris 31:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:27 ... there is no I am?

Dan Harris 31:28 Well, ca- can I turn it around on you for a second?

Jay Shetty 31:29 Of course, yeah.

Dan Harris 31:30 Okay. Well, like my last retreat was six to nine months ago. I've got one coming up, so I'm, like, further and further away from sanity. Uh, but you are much fresher, like you've just come out of a retreat. How do you balance that?

Jay Shetty 31:44 There's an understanding of the needs and interests of the different vehicles in which I live. So the body being one vehicle, and the body has certain needs in order to operate and in order to function, and then the mind has certain needs and awareness that it will easily be a support, or an, as the Gita says, "The best friend or the worst enemy." So recognizing, again, as you said earlier, the, the befriending of the mind requires an awareness. And then at a deeper level, looking at our emotions, looking at our spiritual or consciousness connection. And so to me, it's the outlining an awareness of the needs for that specific vehicle, but not falling into the trap of believing the vehicle is me.

Dan Harris 32:41 Hmm.

Jay Shetty 32:42 And the balance comes from recognizing... Using there is is beautiful actually, but recognizing that there are needs for each aspect that need to be taken care of, but that one should not accept each of them to be oneself. And I think for me, that comes in the form of having to remind myself of that which is beyond the physical self, because it's easier to get connected and identify with the physical self than it is with the non-physical self. Because the non-physical self is intangible, it's unseen, we're unaware of it. We don't live in a society that reminds us of it. I was thinking about this while I was actually at the monastery. So the monastery doesn't have mirrors, and that was something I've talked about before, where you lose your sense of your physical self. Like, while I lived there, I didn't really... I forgot deeply what I look like. And so if I was out on the streets, when I was traveling, I would always try and look at my reflection in a, you know, in a shop window, whatever it may be. And when I was back this time as well, I was having that realization that the number one thing I do in the morning when I wake up back at my home is I look in the mirror.

Dan Harris 33:50 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 33:51 And so I'm already, from the moment I wake up, living in my physical self. I'm now living believing that I am this body and this is all there is. And so that automatically sets me up on the opposite end of what I'm trying to practice spiritually. And so I've found that the balance is kept by making that reminder, that first thought of the day, of recognizing whether it's in your language, the, you know, that which is not or, or that which is unseen, and, and in the, the Hindu tradition, the accepting of us being pure, eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss as consciousness, identifying with that before I identify with anything else. And that to me is what helps the balance, is not falling into the easy identification. I don't know if any of that made any sense, but-

Dan Harris 34:36 Well, I, I, it does.

Jay Shetty 34:37 Yeah.

Dan Harris 34:37 I think-

Jay Shetty 34:37 Yeah

Dan Harris 34:37 ... well, you're aware through your own practice that there's more than just the Jay you see in the mirror, and y- yet you live in a busy world, and you're actually, like me, you're, you're kind of building a business around-

Jay Shetty 34:52 Yeah

Dan Harris 34:52 ... the small version of yourself, like the, the physical, corporeal version of yourself that presents here and now, smaller than the sort of vast, infinite, mysterious, we don't know what that is. Somehow it li- it lives in your mind. And the way that you balance it, I heard, is just engage in the messy business of trying to remember to the best of your ability.

Jay Shetty 35:14 Yeah. I can't, I can't... I don't need to remind myself that I'm Jay, this physical version [laughs]

Dan Harris 35:19 No

Jay Shetty 35:19 ... because I'm reminded of that-

Dan Harris 35:21 Yes

Jay Shetty 35:21 ... every day. But I have to remind myself of that which is beyond this-

Dan Harris 35:24 Yeah

Jay Shetty 35:25 ... because otherwise, it's so easy to lose touch with it because we are living with the bodily needs as the prime focus. And I think that's why retreats and experiences are so supportive, where the bodily needs somewhat become a background priority, and the needs of the deeper self rise, and the connection with that self is more prominent. And I find that starting my year off that way helps. I was actually just... I was talking to someone who was mentioning they came to one of your s- retreats at Omega.

Dan Harris 35:54 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 35:55 And they were saying what a beautiful experience that was. They said it was the only retreat they've ever been on, but they plan on coming on more. And it was for that same reason, of to be reminded, and I think that's why we do anything, right? I think we, most of what we do is to remind ourself of something that we care about and something that's meaningful to us, like whether it's spending time with our family or why we celebrate the holidays. Like, so much of, I think, the most beautiful things in our world are reminding us of what truly matters.

Dan Harris 36:21 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 36:21 And I think spirituality and meditation, to me, meditation is my daily practice-

Dan Harris 36:25 Yeah

Jay Shetty 36:25 ... of reminding myself of what truly matters.

Dan Harris 36:27 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 36:27 Yeah.

Dan Harris 36:27 I mean, I, I think the biggest problem- In my experience, the biggest problem in whatev- again, like I don't know what to call this, personal growth, spiritual development, whatever it is, the biggest challenge is forgetting.

Jay Shetty 36:39 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 36:39 Because you hear a great podcast, you h- see a great Instagram post, you read a great book, you go to a great retreat, but then everything about modern life pulls you back into the, "I'm gonna get satisfaction from the next thing. Oh, no, no, the next thing. I'm gonna keep scrolling. I'm gonna, uh, get that next sip of a latte. I'm gonna get the next promotion." And again, I'm not saying these are bad things, but they won't do it for you, right? There's a reason why you keep wanting more, um, bec- because the way the human animal's designed is it w- w- natural selection didn't want us to be satisfied because then we'd stop, you know, having babies. Um, and that wouldn't be good for, for the species. So you, you need to wake, you need... This is a urgent mission. You need to find as many ways as possible to wake back up, and you just described, you know, meditation is a great way to like pound this stuff into your neurons. It's probably too aggressive of an analogy-

Jay Shetty 37:33 [laughs]

Dan Harris 37:33 ... but it gets it into your molecules in a way.

Jay Shetty 37:36 Yeah.

Dan Harris 37:36 And another thing you also described earlier is having good friends.

Jay Shetty 37:41 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 37:41 You know, if you can surround yourself with people who are also taking this thing seriously, that is a great way to wake yourself back up. And it also, by the way, is a great way to get you out of your attachment to the sort of, I don't know if this is the appropriate term to use, but the sort of smallest, most superficial version of yourself.

Jay Shetty 38:00 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 38:01 The brand of Dan, the brand of Jay. Well, if you're foc- if you're talking to your best friend and he's got a problem and you're helping him with it, I mean, another word for that would be generosity, right? If you're being generous in some way, that's gonna get you out of your head. That is a form of letting go.

Jay Shetty 38:15 Mm-hmm. I like that. Yeah. Uh, that, that, that really, that, that struck a chord there of like how, again, going back to that being, when, when we're being a, I guess in that case you said generous, there's an element of us not living in the system. Is, is... Would you say-

Dan Harris 38:36 Yeah

Jay Shetty 38:36 ... that feels

Jay Shetty 38:37 right?

Dan Harris 38:37 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 38:37 Why, why is that? Why, why do you think that breaks the system in that sort of-

Dan Harris 38:41 It's, it's a little line that I have, which is impolite, but, um, the view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass.

Jay Shetty 38:48 [laughs] Yeah.

Dan Harris 38:49 And, you know, if you're being generous-

Jay Shetty 38:51 Yeah

Dan Harris 38:51 ... your head's out of your ass.

Jay Shetty 38:52 Mm.

Dan Harris 38:52 Even if you have ulterior motives, which I think we unfairly demonize. Like, it's okay to give because, you know, you have some, there's something in it for you. By the way, there is something in it for you. The brain is wired to, to experience intense reward, uh, in the act of generosity. That's cool. But you're still more of your bandwidth focused on the benefit to somebody else than there would be if you were, like, mindlessly scrolling or binging or eating or whatever it is.

Jay Shetty 39:21 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 39:21 And it is just fundamentally getting your head out of your ass in whatever form you choose. And it doesn't have to be giving money. It can be holding the door open for somebody. Like, I, I sometimes ask people to do this little mental, very easy mental game of like pay attention the next time you hold the door open for somebody. What does that feel like? Feels good if you're paying attention. That feeling is infinitely scalable in a way that the pleasure of Instagram or ice cream is not.

Jay Shetty 39:48 Mm.

Dan Harris 39:48 And-

Jay Shetty 39:48 Mm

Dan Harris 39:48 ... uh, I just... You can ride that insight.

Jay Shetty 39:51 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 39:52 Not that I do it perfectly.

Jay Shetty 39:53 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 39:54 Uh, [laughs] if at all. But you can, if you're so inclined, ride that insight all the way to a significantly greater levels of happiness.

Jay Shetty 40:02 Yeah. Wow, I love that. I love that. That's so interesting that after all these years, you can still open a door for someone [laughs] and, and it still feels great, and it, and, you know, whether, whether the other person responds or not. But the endless scrolling on social media is kind of, yeah, loses its taste very, very quickly.

Dan Harris 40:21 Yeah. It doesn't mean-

Jay Shetty 40:22 Yeah

Dan Harris 40:22 ... you should never do it. I just-

Jay Shetty 40:23 Yeah

Dan Harris 40:23 ... it's just the endless part that you should lose.

Jay Shetty 40:25 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I guess that's one of the things I loved about, in this book when I first came across it, your book, 10% Happier, uh, which is, you know, a huge bestseller, huge success, led to the podcast also.

Jay Shetty 40:39 One of the things I loved was this whole idea about without losing your edge.

Dan Harris 40:43 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 40:44 And I really appreciated that because I think it's what we've both been talking about here. Like, I enjoy operating and building and creating. Like, I do, and I've always been... I, I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I've given myself permission to be all aspects of myself. And up until this stage in my life, I was just collecting different parts of myself, and so I felt like I collected s- I mean, when zero to 10, probably didn't do anything, but 10 to 20, I collected things. 20 to 30, I collected things, and now I'm in my 30s, I feel like I'm connecting things. And that collection to connection has been primarily through the uncomfortable process of accepting and giving myself permission for the paradoxical and contradictory things that live in, within me. So as much as I love being fully present and mindful and deeply purifying myself, I also really enjoy building and creating and learning and being curious and outward. And those two things coexist, and I actually find that one feeds the other.

Dan Harris 41:49 Yes.

Jay Shetty 41:49 So I find that the further I go outwards, the more I want to go inwards.

Dan Harris 41:52 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 41:52 And the more I go inwards, the more I want to go outwards, uh, in a positive sense. And, and that cycle continues, and it's a cycle. It's not a, um... And, and I think both of us having studied Eastern traditions, the East is fully cyclical and not linear in, in all of its practices. So the growth journey looks like this, and, and the Western growth journey generally is, is portrayed as that, even though, even though it may not be.

Dan Harris 42:15 There's a way in which you can assume that sitting and meditating or even going to a, "Can you believe this dude went to a monastery for 10 days a couple of days ago?" Like, that's not gonna help him with his edge. But actually, it does help you. It does help you. Do you want to be less emotionally reactive? Do you want to be more focused? Do you want to have better relationships with your collaborators? Okay, do you think going to a monastery is gonna help or hurt with those things? It's gonna help with all of those things, and those are the things we need to be successful. We've been sold through hustle culture this idea that, you know, thank God it's Monday. I've gotta rise and grind, and all of that stuff. But that, that is, in my experience, a great way to burn out. When in fact, the, the cycle that you just talked about of, uh, retreat to advance [laughs] kind of, you know, you, you take some... It, it, you don't have to do it... It doesn't even have to be a retreat.

Jay Shetty 43:03 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 43:03 It could be just five minutes of meditation every day. That that is filling your tank in a way that allows you to engage in the world more effectively. And so these, these two things are not in opposition, in my experience. And you're a walking example of that. Like, you spent time being a monk, and that has helped you build a business that helps other people, that helps you do more inner work. Boom.

Jay Shetty 43:27 Yeah, no. And, and of course, and, and I love what you said there because, yeah, we've talked a bit about [laughs] retreats. And I don't want everyone to think they need to disappear for a week or a year or whatever it may be. All of this can be done in the microcosm of five minutes. I want to

Jay Shetty 43:39 ... Dan, walk us through your daily meditation practice. And I'm sure you've done this a million times, but I'd love for people to hear it because I'd love for people to hear how accessible some of these ideas are on a daily basis that we're talking about and, of course, in a way that they can start practicing it as well. So what does your-

Dan Harris 43:54 Sure, sure

Jay Shetty 43:54 ... daily practice look like?

Dan Harris 43:55 I'm actually ... I'm, I'm excited. I'm, we're ... You're interviewing me right now.

Jay Shetty 43:59 Yeah.

Dan Harris 43:59 But in, in, like, uh, two minutes-

Jay Shetty 44:01 [laughs]

Dan Harris 44:02 ... we're gonna turn this around, and I'm gonna interview you. And I, I ... Because we come from different traditions, so I actually come into my discussion with you with a lot of curiosity about what your meditation is like.

Jay Shetty 44:11 Yeah.

Dan Harris 44:11 But so f- i- from a Buddhist standpoint, um, it's, for beginners, really not complex. And, uh, a lot of people w- worry that it's gonna be, you know, esoteric or impossible, but it, it really isn't. There are really three steps for beginning mindfulness meditation. And by the way, I, I do use ... I keep talking about Buddhism, but this meditation that I'm talking about now is secular. Um, there's no religious lingo or metaphysical claims. It's just a, it's a very simple secular kind of exercise for the brain. And the first step is just to sit or lie down comfortably, close your eyes. Um, and the second step is to bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. For some people, um, the breath is, can make you a little anxious if you're focusing on that. And if that's you, then you just pick something else, like the feeling of your body sitting or lying down. So that's step number two. First, get into a comfortable position, sitting or lying down. Second, pick something to focus on, like, um, your breath or the feeling of your body. And then the third step is the most important because as soon as you try to do this, your mind is likely to go into m- mutiny mode. You're having all these random thoughts and urges and emotions. And at this moment, the voice in people's heads often swoops in and tells them this whole story about how they're failed meditators. I mean, you were talking about this earlier. But that voice is wrong. The whole goal in meditation is just to notice that you've become distracted and to start again and again and again. And the waking up from distraction is not proof of failure. It's actually proof of success because the whole goal here is to get more familiar with this inner conversation that we're all having, this inner narrator that is chasing us out of bed in the morning and is yammering at us all day long. You just wanna get more familiar with this-

Jay Shetty 45:57 Mm

Dan Harris 45:57 ... cacophony so that it doesn't own you as much. And so it's really that simple. Pick one thing to focus on, usually the breath. Then in a few seconds in, you'll start having random thoughts about, like, what kind of bird was Big Bird or, you know, where do gerbils, gerbils run wild, whatever. All these random thoughts. As soon as you wake up from those thoughts, blow them a kiss and go back to the breath, back to the breath, over and over and over again. And that's like a bicep curl for your brain, and that's what we see on the brain scans of people who meditate. The, the area of the brain associated with attention or focus changes in a positive way. Meanwhile, the area of the brain associated with stress shrinks. And this is the, an exercise that anybody can do. I will say small asterisk, if you have significant mental health challenges or trauma, it might be good to do it under the supervision of a mental health professional. But other than that, it really is universally accessible. Doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are or if, like me, you're an agnostic. This is simple secular exercise for your brain.

Jay Shetty 46:56 Yeah. And I love what you said there is that we're really just trying to get attuned to that inner voice that is basically telling us what to do all day and, and pushing around in every direction. I find that

Jay Shetty 47:11 that voice has often led us to achieve incredible things. That voice often leads us to achieve things and still feel unfulfilled. That voice has almost become such a friend in so many ways and sometimes a toxic friend. It's almost a toxic relationship we have with the voice inside of our head where we listen to it, but we don't always like it. But sometimes it helps us win, and sometimes it, you know, sometimes it helps us get one up on someone. And then other times it lets us down, and it's, it's doing all of this. It's almost like, I think, like a toxic relationship. We're scared of letting go of that voice.

Dan Harris 47:45 Yes.

Jay Shetty 47:45 Because it's almost like, what do I replace it with?

Dan Harris 47:47 Yes.

Jay Shetty 47:47 I'm just gonna be alone.

Dan Harris 47:49 It ... Well, a c- couple things to say about that. One is there are many voices. You ha- I mean, the, one of the theories of modern psychological series, uh, theories is called the, the Modular Model of Mind, that we have these modes. I kind of think about it like, you remember, um, magic eight balls?

Jay Shetty 48:04 Yeah.

Dan Harris 48:04 You shake one up and-

Jay Shetty 48:05 Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I still have those. Yeah.

Dan Harris 48:07 And, and, uh, and the tiles compete for the top space that you, that ... And then it'll send you a message or whatever. So we have a bunch of tiles in our head, and they're all-

Jay Shetty 48:16 Mm

Dan Harris 48:16 ... competing for that little, for, for the steering wheel, right?

Jay Shetty 48:20 Yeah.

Dan Harris 48:20 And so I've got a jealous mode, an angry mode, a fearful mode, a self-critical mode. And I think often the self-critical mode is the one with the steering wheel.

Jay Shetty 48:28 Mm.

Dan Harris 48:29 But you have a wise mode, a generous mode, a compassionate mode, and they're often just not getting, uh, that much air time.

Jay Shetty 48:37 Mm.

Dan Harris 48:37 And there are ways through meditation, through therapy, being in nature, uh, exercise, that can bring- ... the healthier tiles to the surface.

Jay Shetty 48:49 Mm.

Dan Harris 48:49 And so that's just o- one thing to say. Um, a- and, and then the other thing to say is that, um, yeah, it's true that this self-criticism, it's, it's ... We're, we're scared that if we let it go, that we'll be on the couch eating ice cream-

Jay Shetty 49:03 Mm

Dan Harris 49:03 ... until the end of time.

Jay Shetty 49:04 Yeah.

Dan Harris 49:04 And that's just not what's gonna happen.

Jay Shetty 49:06 Yeah.

Dan Harris 49:06 Uh, the w- back to Tibetan Buddhism, and I'm not an expert in it, but they have this expression that [laughs] my t- I have a couple of colleagues who are sitting on a couch over here who've heard me say this a million times, but I really love this. This, I ... There's the, the Tibetan word for enlightenment, as far as I understand it, roughly translates into a clearing away and a bringing forth.

Jay Shetty 49:29 Mm.

Dan Harris 49:29 You clear away the noise. All of our, all of our demons, our unhelpful demons. What can come out is what is already there in, in all of us, which is the good stuff. You know? I ... You might use the worded, the loaded word love.

Jay Shetty 49:48 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 49:48 And I think of love as, like, sort of an overarching term that encompasses things like generosity, compassion, kindness, patience, uh, um, ethics. And that is in us. Of course, it's in us, because back to evolution, as a social species, we needed all that stuff in o- in order to cooperate and collaborate and become the apex predator on the planet. And when you turn the volume down on the, you know, shittier aspects of our nature, the good stuff will come out, and it's, it's ... It has an edge.

Jay Shetty 50:18 Mm.

Dan Harris 50:19 It has the edge that you want. It, it does wanna create beautiful and important things in the world. It does wanna take care of you, too, as well as it wants to take care of everybody. It, it does, um, it does wanna stand up to injustice. It does wanna be tough, but not motivated by hatred. Instead, by the good stuff, which is, like, giving a shit, caring. Um, anyway, that's, that's all my experience-

Jay Shetty 50:43 Yeah. Yeah

Dan Harris 50:43 ... of how this goes.

Jay Shetty 50:44 Absolutely.

Dan Harris 50:44 And, and you're not ... I'm not perfect at it by any stretch.

Jay Shetty 50:48 Yeah.

Dan Harris 50:48 But I mean, w- I've been, I made a reference to the ... Liz and Tony are sitting in the room with us. Like, give them the mic. They'll tell you.

Jay Shetty 50:54 [laughs]

Dan Harris 50:54 You know? 90% still a moron, absolutely.

Jay Shetty 50:57 Yeah. No, no, no. But I, but I love the idea of how we're simply reconnecting with and reawakening something we've forgotten. So it's almost like we're associating with that angry mode, that envy mode, that jealousy mode, that ego mode every day.

Dan Harris 51:11 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 51:12 And so we've started to accept that it's our reality and normality, whereas you said we do also have a wise mode. It's just that we haven't experienced it either outside of us or inside of us for so long that we've forgotten it's there, but it is there.

Dan Harris 51:25 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 51:26 It is accessible, and I think that is not only true based on the wisdom traditions we've studied, but it's also empowering to recognize that this isn't something new you're having to figure out or develop. It's an ability that almost exists within you already that has just been buried and covered over by all these-

Dan Harris 51:44 Yes. Yes

Jay Shetty 51:44 ... other layers of identification-

Dan Harris 51:46 Exactly

Jay Shetty 51:47 ... and impurities.

Dan Harris 51:48 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 51:48 You've been

Jay Shetty 51:49 so vulnerable a couple of times to mention this thing inside of you as an anger mode. You were saying earlier you have two modes, and one of them was anger. And I wondered if it's okay to kind of, like, kind of hone in on that because I think that's something we've actually never really discussed on the podcast in, in all the guests we've had. And I think it's something that often is something people are scared of talking about. It's a taboo topic because of the connotations that anger is associated with. And I was wondering, how has meditation and mindfulness, what have they shown you or helped you understand about anger? Because I think, I think our mind often goes to, "Well, I wanna stop being angry," rather than, "I wanna understand anger." And I think this is so true for so many things in society where like, "I wish that would just stop." And it's almost like, well, before it stops, we may need to get to know it a bit better and understand it and befriend it, going back to the high five point you made earlier. And so I thought, let's start with anger for that.

Dan Harris 52:51 Sure. I mean, the, uh ... There's this great ... I, I know you know who he is, but there's this great Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, and-

Jay Shetty 52:57 Yeah, I love Thich Nhat Hanh

Dan Harris 52:58 ... he, he has this, um, this expression about, like, holding your anger like a, like a baby. I, I don't love that because I'm such an anti-sentimentalist, and I, you know-

Jay Shetty 53:09 [laughs]

Dan Harris 53:10 ... I, it, it, I find it, like, somewhat annoying, um-

Jay Shetty 53:13 [laughs]

Dan Harris 53:13 ... even though I ... He's completely right. Um, he's a genius or was a genius. He passed recently. Um-

Jay Shetty 53:18 Yeah

Dan Harris 53:18 ... there's something to that. First of all, the anger is trying to tell you something.

Jay Shetty 53:22 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 53:23 Um, in my case, it's like some infantile usually desire to, uh, protect myself. Um, and, um, often it's, um ... Sometimes anger has been described as a secondary emotion, so it's an emotion that's covering up for another emotion. And for my case, it's usually fear.

Jay Shetty 53:46 Mm.

Dan Harris 53:46 So I'm a guy, uh, and, uh, we don't like to admit fear. And often if I look closely, if I hold the anger like a, like a, a crying child, if I get over myself and do the thing that the wise person has mentioned that we should probably do, I actually see, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There ... I'm scared of something here.

Jay Shetty 54:07 Mm.

Dan Harris 54:07 And that's really helpful because then I can, I can respond-

Jay Shetty 54:11 Mm

Dan Harris 54:12 ... wisely-

Jay Shetty 54:12 Mm

Dan Harris 54:12 ... to the thing that's making me angry-

Jay Shetty 54:14 Mm

Dan Harris 54:15 ... slash scared, rather than reacting blindly.

Jay Shetty 54:18 Mm.

Dan Harris 54:18 There's a difference between healthy anger and destructive anger.

Jay Shetty 54:22 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 54:23 Again, this is not my insight. This is the way in psychological circles they talk about it. Healthy anger is ... that can get you off the couch to do something about a problem.

Jay Shetty 54:31 Mm.

Dan Harris 54:31 And I ... And, and it's, it's clarifying. It, it can help ... Healthy anger can help us see clearly where somebody's full of shit.

Jay Shetty 54:38 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 54:39 Although there's a reason why we talk about anger as seeing red, because it can also be, you know, blind with blind rage. Um, and so that's the destructive anger which, um- Where that's an anger fueled by hatred, fueled by bias, bigotry, um, and it can get us into endless conflict. And that's what you want to avoid.

Jay Shetty 55:02 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 55:02 That's what I've failed to avoid for too many times in my own life.

Jay Shetty 55:07 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 55:07 And I still screw that up, you know, regularly. Um, but it's ... Nothing can happen until you identify the problem.

Jay Shetty 55:17 Mm.

Dan Harris 55:17 You talked about this earlier. You know, like one of the things that meditation does for you is it helps you be aware of stuff so that you can work with it.

Jay Shetty 55:23 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 55:24 And so yeah, this is one of my big things that I have to work with.

Jay Shetty 55:28 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. No, I, I, I really value that understanding of, A, the difference in the two angers that you just mentioned there, but also, yeah, just, just being able to recognize the fear that sits beneath it. And I, I can ... When I get agitated or irritated, it's always because there's something I'm fearful of, and it's often it's even the fear, fear of messing up. You know, it's, uh, for me, I'm, I'm thinking of when I'm asked a question and I feel like I don't have any, enough time to solve it, and then I'm like, "Oh, no," just, you know, whatever. Like, that kind of agitation, that irritation comes out. And really, it's a fear of, I'm like, "I wish we had more time. I would be able to solve this. Like, I don't want to mess up. I don't want to give ... " And, and so s- and it's so interesting that what is actually well-intentioned, of a desire to want to get things right, turns out to be experienced as that. And like you said, and like you mentioned Thich Nhat Hanh said, of being able to hold it as a baby or being able to ... Yeah, it's almost like ... It's so interesting, though, what you said about the skep- not the skepticism that you have, but the, you know, y- you were saying the overly sentimental version [laughs] of holding a baby. And I think often that is the perspective people have of these ideas, right, with mindfulness, with meditation, that, oh, it's sentimental, it's a bit fluffy, it's a bit woo-woo. And we know there's science behind it now, and those, those days should be gone, but they're not, because there's still a skepticism and cynicism around the idea of like, "Oh, yeah, my fear is like whatever. There's no fear." Right? Because that in and of itself is trying to protect [laughs] us from or trying to protect us from our fear.

Dan Harris 57:06 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 57:07 And so how have you seen in others, and how have you in yourself been able to catch yourself double-bluffing yourself, or when you're almost, you know, you're, you're finding that way around doing the actual work?

Dan Harris 57:20 One of the biggest and most reliable sources of feedback for me is, um, defensiveness or dismissiveness.

Jay Shetty 57:29 Mm.

Dan Harris 57:30 If I am dismissing something out of hand, it's usually something I should listen to.

Jay Shetty 57:35 Mm.

Dan Harris 57:36 And if I'm getting defensive, it's because there's something I know I should hear that I'm unwilling to hear at that moment.

Jay Shetty 57:41 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 57:41 And, uh, I almost never catch it.

Jay Shetty 57:44 It's a great answer.

Dan Harris 57:45 I almost never catch it in the moment. Like, I almost [laughs] never catch it in the moment. But it's usually when I feel embarrassed the next day.

Jay Shetty 57:52 Yeah.

Dan Harris 57:52 You know, it's like it, it's just, I keep coming back to this. You know, I'm so pissed that this person said this thing. It's like, ah, shit, they're probably right.

Jay Shetty 57:59 [laughs]

Dan Harris 58:00 Um, and so I actually got an email the other day from ... I won't say her name because she didn't give me permission, but from a great meditation teacher who was talking to me about something. And she ... I didn't recall her getting defensive, but she recalled herself getting defensive about something, 'cause I was pushing her on something. And then she wrote me an email the next day. She's like, "I woke up thinking about how I was defensive, and that means that there's something I really need to listen to there. So I'm gonna go in that direction-

Jay Shetty 58:24 Yeah

Dan Harris 58:25 ... you push me in." That's, that's usually how I get past the double bluff.

Jay Shetty 58:29 Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Yeah. I think for me, it comes out in if I'm judging someone.

Dan Harris 58:34 Mm.

Jay Shetty 58:35 So I find that if I'm judging someone, that there's a sense of truth that, that exists within me somewhere. And so I need to explore that, that which I'm judging in someone else, and I've-

Dan Harris 58:45 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 58:46 ... been working on that one. Uh, and that's the hardest one. And-

Dan Harris 58:51 It's the most embarrassing too, because it's like you-

Jay Shetty 58:53 [laughs]

Dan Harris 58:55 It feels good to point at the other person.

Jay Shetty 58:57 Yeah.

Dan Harris 58:57 "You're such a schmuck," or whatever.

Jay Shetty 58:58 Yeah, yeah.

Dan Harris 58:58 But, like, of course.

Jay Shetty 58:59 Yeah.

Dan Harris 59:00 You're seeing it so clearly.

Jay Shetty 59:01 Yeah.

Dan Harris 59:01 And, and you're, you hate it so much because it's, it's in you.

Jay Shetty 59:05 Yeah. And it's so funny because when you see it in them, you're like, "How can they not be aware that they're like that?"

Dan Harris 59:11 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 59:11 And at the same time, you're talking about yourself, and that, you know, yous recognize you're not, you're not even aware when you're like that. And I think that's where I notice where I'm ... where it's easy to double-bluff myself, and I have to be conscious of that. Goes along your lines too. It's like you're building a story to support your view without evidence and without research and without looking at all of the facts. And, you know, you've, you've created a story that makes sense to you in order to fulfill your, your desire, whatever that may be, and then you're not forced to actually look at yourself.

Dan Harris 59:47 Yes. There's a great expression. Uh, if it's hysterical, it's historical.

Jay Shetty 59:52 [laughs]

Dan Harris 59:53 You know, if, like, you're getting hysterical about something, there's some, it's some deep programming.

Jay Shetty 1:00:00 Mm.

Dan Harris 1:00:00 And yeah, I hate admitting that.

Jay Shetty 1:00:02 [laughs] Yeah, I think we're both, we're both going back and forth admitting all of our-

Dan Harris 1:00:07 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:00:07 ... admitting all of our flaws and challenges and, and, and issues. But, but that's what

Jay Shetty 1:00:12 meditation does, right?

Dan Harris 1:00:13 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:00:13 It just, it-

Dan Harris 1:00:13 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:00:13 ... that this is actually what, what's transpired without, without intention or maybe with intention. But actually, this is the benefit of [laughs] practicing mindfulness and meditation, is a really healthy relationship with all of your imperfections.

Dan Harris 1:00:32 I mean, you interview all sorts of people, but you interview a lot of, like, great folks from the meditation world. And, and so do I. And so in my experience, the common n- denominator among all of the great, like, spiritual masters, right, i- if that's a term that you're okay with.

Jay Shetty 1:00:48 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:00:48 The common denominator is- They all have a sense of humor.

Jay Shetty 1:00:51 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dan Harris 1:00:52 Because how can you look at, at this mind-

Jay Shetty 1:00:55 Yeah

Dan Harris 1:00:55 ... without laughing after a while?

Jay Shetty 1:00:56 Yes, yes.

Dan Harris 1:00:57 The word that my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, uses most frequently is ridiculous.

Jay Shetty 1:01:03 Yes, yes.

Dan Harris 1:01:04 Because we're ridiculous.

Jay Shetty 1:01:05 Yeah.

Dan Harris 1:01:05 We're ridiculous.

Jay Shetty 1:01:06 Yeah, the mind.

Dan Harris 1:01:07 And, and it's just, it's so healthy to see that and laugh at it.

Jay Shetty 1:01:10 Yeah, definitely. Yeah, our, our teachers would obviously always talk about the monkey mind.

Dan Harris 1:01:14 Yes, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:01:15 And although that's somewhat of a alien analogy to some degree, at least when you've grown up in England or in the US, because you're not seeing monkeys all the time, but when I have gone to certain spiritual sites in India that are, you know, infiltrated with monkeys, it will only make you laugh.

Dan Harris 1:01:33 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:01:33 Like, I've seen monkeys, uh, you know, rip bags to steal fruit. I've seen monkeys steal people's sunglasses and then trade it back for food.

Dan Harris 1:01:43 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:01:43 I've seen, I've seen monkeys, uh, steal credit cards, like, and, and know how to barter for what they want. Like, I've seen, seen monkeys put on sunglasses. Like, all you need to do... I mean, me and my wife went to Bali this year, and we went to the monkey forest there, and the monkeys are just hilarious, and ridiculous is, is the word. And it's almost like when you start seeing the habits of the mind as a monkey, it's so easy to laugh at it because you just realize how ridiculous it is and how, how hilarious they are and how uncontrollable they are, as opposed to looking at it as this thing, like, almost like a Rubik's Cube-

Dan Harris 1:02:20 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:02:20 ... which we sometimes see it as.

Dan Harris 1:02:21 Yes, yes.

Jay Shetty 1:02:21 And you get frustrated trying to figure it out. As opposed to when you look at a monkey, you go, "Well, a monkey's gonna be a monkey."

Dan Harris 1:02:26 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 1:02:27 So I'm not surprised when my mind-

Dan Harris 1:02:28 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 1:02:28 ... is ridiculous.

Dan Harris 1:02:29 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 1:02:29 I'm not expecting my mind to be this... You know, you're never looking at a monkey expecting it to be sitting there meditating on top of a rock.

Dan Harris 1:02:37 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:02:37 You're expecting to see a monkey jump from branch to branch and swing and, you know, whatever else it may be. And all of a sudden, when you can... And you have to have had the real experience of that in order to even have that really sit. And like, if I hadn't seen... And then a couple of years ago, I went to Rwanda, and we trekked with gorillas, and we saw the little baby gorillas, who were just playful and silly, and the sound of their laugh and, and just what they were like. And you just start to recognize you need to... This is why what you just said earlier,

Jay Shetty 1:03:05 you, you mentioned it passively, but observing nature is such a beautiful way of understanding ourselves. And again, going back to your earliest point, our disconnection from each other and nature means we're only seeing systems and machines.

Dan Harris 1:03:20 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:03:21 And the way systems and machines work, and now our expectation of our mind to work the same way, i.e., I wanna turn my mind off, and I wanna turn my mind on. Because we've seen the system of on and off on a light switch to a phone to a tablet for so many years now, that we've lost the idea of, wait a minute, the sun sets and the sun rises, but it doesn't sun off and sun on. And we've lost that concept of there is no instant on and off, and there is no instant switch. There is only nature doing its cycle and its phases and its, uh, rituals almost.

Dan Harris 1:03:57 To pick up on the instant part of it, you know, it ki- it kinda takes me back to the first question you asked around stress, and we talked about some of the contributors. I think one of the contributors is that w- we live in a world that doesn't have enough friction.

Jay Shetty 1:04:10 Mm.

Dan Harris 1:04:10 That, uh-

Jay Shetty 1:04:11 Mm

Dan Harris 1:04:11 ... we've created a world for young people, and to me, you're a young person, but, um, because I'm in my 50s and you're in your 30s, but I have a nine-year-old who's a-

Jay Shetty 1:04:19 Mm

Dan Harris 1:04:19 ... much younger person. And we, you know, there's a way that older people can blame younger people for, for their, um, oh, this generation or kids today, whatever. But we, this is a world we've created for them-

Jay Shetty 1:04:31 Mm-hmm

Dan Harris 1:04:31 ... where there isn't a lot of friction. You can get everything you want on demand.

Jay Shetty 1:04:34 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:04:35 Um, and as a consequence, people are intolerant of discomfort. And that is creating a lot of anxiety because life is uncomfortable.

Jay Shetty 1:04:44 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:04:44 And there are gonna be stressful and, uh, scary situations, and your ability to thrive is gonna be directly correlated to your ability to handle this. And if we don't get comfortable with discomfort, we're gonna suffer. And there are ways to work with this. One of them is, um, this thing, uh, that, it's a psychological term, opposite action. You know, when you... Oh, I'll give you an example. Um, I have intense claustrophobia.

Jay Shetty 1:05:11 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:05:11 Uh, and when your, uh, colleague Jordan came to pick me up, uh, in the lobby of the hotel in which we're doing this interview and, uh, take me up the elevator, I said, "I have to ride alone."

Jay Shetty 1:05:22 Wow.

Dan Harris 1:05:23 Because I didn't wanna have a panic attack in front of her.

Jay Shetty 1:05:25 Wow.

Dan Harris 1:05:25 Um, but I got on the elevator.

Jay Shetty 1:05:28 Yeah.

Dan Harris 1:05:28 I didn't want to. I thought about walking 30 flights.

Jay Shetty 1:05:30 Wow.

Dan Harris 1:05:30 And I've done that before.

Jay Shetty 1:05:32 Wow.

Dan Harris 1:05:32 Um-

Jay Shetty 1:05:32 Sorry, I feel terrible now. I wish we'd have known that.

Dan Harris 1:05:35 [laughs] Again, how'd you set this up, dude?

Jay Shetty 1:05:36 We could've... No, no, no.

Dan Harris 1:05:37 What are you doing to me?

Jay Shetty 1:05:37 I feel terrible.

Dan Harris 1:05:38 Uh, no, I, I, I-

Jay Shetty 1:05:39 Yeah

Dan Harris 1:05:39 ... it, but the, the, the lesson here is that-

Jay Shetty 1:05:41 Yeah

Dan Harris 1:05:41 ... I need to get on elevators-

Jay Shetty 1:05:43 Yes

Dan Harris 1:05:43 ... regularly.

Jay Shetty 1:05:43 Yeah.

Dan Harris 1:05:44 That's the way out of this.

Jay Shetty 1:05:46 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:05:46 It's opposite action. I need to do the thing I'm scared of. Carefully, I don't wanna give myself a panic attack, although there are some people who argue that that is a, a way through this. But for me, I just kind of gently expose myself to the stuff I'm afraid of. And so I actually look, I relish the opportunity to get on an elevator or to take a subway ride. I just have to do it in the right circumstances. So-

Jay Shetty 1:06:06 Mm

Dan Harris 1:06:07 ... I didn't inflict it upon Jordan.

Jay Shetty 1:06:09 [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:06:09 I just took a different elevator. And I actually think this is one of the, this is one of the ways out, one of the ways out of the epidemic of stress and anxiety that we began this conversation with, which is to, in whatever way in your own life, to just dose yourself carefully and gently with some discomfort.

Jay Shetty 1:06:28 Mm.

Dan Harris 1:06:28 To take the opposite action, do the opposite of what you want to do, which may be to, you know, hide from the discomfort. Go to that party. Accept the invitation. Uh, ask that person out for a cup of coffee. Um, uh, press like on that Instagram post. You know, little steps like that will, will equip you and arm you to move through a world that is largely out of your control.

Jay Shetty 1:06:52 Dan, thank you so much. It's been, uh, such a joy talking to you today, and I've really, I've really enjoyed how You know, this conversation turned into the benefits of meditation without listing the benefits of meditation [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:07:05 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:07:05 But the, uh, but the acceptance of the benefits being a deeper awareness of who we are, what we need to improve, and doing that with love, with kindness, with gentleness, as opposed to hate, pressure, and stress that we often place on ourselves.

Jay Shetty 1:07:23 But we end every episode with a Final Five, and these Final Five have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum each. And so Dan, these are your Final Five. The first question is, what is the best advice about mindfulness that you've ever heard or received?

Dan Harris 1:07:39 Just start again.

Jay Shetty 1:07:40 I like that. Yeah. Beautiful. What is the... Uh, second question is, what is the worst advice about mindfulness or meditation that you've ever heard or received?

Dan Harris 1:07:48 Clear your mind.

Jay Shetty 1:07:49 It's so bad.

Dan Harris 1:07:50 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:07:51 It's so bad. It's so bad. Uh, and it was almost marketed like that for a long time.

Dan Harris 1:07:59 Yes, yes.

Jay Shetty 1:07:59 Yeah, for a long, long time.

Dan Harris 1:08:00 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:08:00 Yeah. Question number three, how would you define your current purpose?

Dan Harris 1:08:05 Make awesome shit that helps people do their lives better.

Jay Shetty 1:08:08 Hmm. I love that. Uh, question number four, a thought that you'd like to repeat more often.

Dan Harris 1:08:17 Well, I got a tattoo recently. Uh-

Jay Shetty 1:08:19 Oh, nice

Dan Harris 1:08:20 ... um, it's an acronym, F-T-B-O-A-B. Uh, it's way off-brand for me in terms of like, uh, it's cheesier than I like to be. But, um-

Jay Shetty 1:08:28 [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:08:28 ... it stands, it's a Buddhist phrase, for the benefit of all beings.

Jay Shetty 1:08:31 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:08:32 Um, and we talked about my anger habit, but one of my other habits that I also mentioned that I, I don't like is a kind of selfishness or greed. And so I really try to remind myself as much as possible, like, no, the... I'm, I'm answering this in more than a word, sorry [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:08:46 No, it's brilliant. It's a great answer. It's a great answer. Please continue.

Dan Harris 1:08:49 But, but I try to remind myself, yeah, this is for the benefit of all beings.

Jay Shetty 1:08:53 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:08:53 And the A, the all, uh, I'm included in that, so it's not like I can't make a living or-

Jay Shetty 1:08:57 Yeah

Dan Harris 1:08:58 ... whatever. But, but, uh, i- having it right here next to my watch, I, I'm trying to put that thought in my head more frequently.

Jay Shetty 1:09:05 I love that. That's a beautiful answer. Uh, fifth and final question, which we ask to every guest who's ever been on the show, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Dan Harris 1:09:20 How long do most people pause? 'Cause I'm thinking.

Jay Shetty 1:09:22 You, people take forever.

Dan Harris 1:09:23 Okay.

Jay Shetty 1:09:23 And, and, uh-

Dan Harris 1:09:24 Okay

Jay Shetty 1:09:24 ... we-

Dan Harris 1:09:24 That's why you picked up the book. You're like-

Jay Shetty 1:09:25 We either-

Dan Harris 1:09:26 ... "I'm gonna read a chapter."

Jay Shetty 1:09:26 No, no. [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:09:27 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:09:27 Yeah. We either, we either allow, we either allow people to edit it out or they can have their thinking time in the edit, whatever they prefer.

Dan Harris 1:09:35 Okay. Um, what law?

Jay Shetty 1:09:38 And take your time. It's a fun question, so I prefer it when people think about it.

Dan Harris 1:09:42 And I, I don't think this is something that you can, uh, legislate. Um, so I wouldn't want to force it, but it would be like a, a strong suggestion, which is around kindness, which is that, um, maybe I'll use this phrase from the Dalai Lama that I like better than kindness, 'cause kindness can sound very bland.

Jay Shetty 1:10:04 Mm-hmm.

Dan Harris 1:10:06 Wise selfishness. That, uh, if you want to do selfishness correctly-

Jay Shetty 1:10:13 Mm-hmm

Dan Harris 1:10:13 ... you will be thinking about the benefit of all beings-

Jay Shetty 1:10:16 Hmm

Dan Harris 1:10:16 ... to the best of your ability.

Jay Shetty 1:10:18 Hmm.

Dan Harris 1:10:18 Because that is how you will get happier.

Jay Shetty 1:10:21 Yeah.

Dan Harris 1:10:21 Um, and if we lived our lives, all of us, with that as a North Star, which again, I don't know if I could make it a law, but I could make it a strongly held policy. I think that would change a lot. I think that would change... I'm not a utopian. I don't believe that we can create a perfect world, but I think that we can create a much better world if, a- a- if we play to people's self-interest in a way that really is in their self-interest instead of the fleeting dopamine hits that we're selling people on now. That actually your abiding happiness is gonna be found in, um, in kindness, and I, I wish there was a less cheesy way to say that.

Jay Shetty 1:10:59 No, that's a great answer. I love it. Everyone-

Dan Harris 1:11:00 More than a, more than a sentence. Sorry.

Jay Shetty 1:11:02 [laughs] It's perfect. It was perfect. Uh, the 10th anniversary edition of Dan's book, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works... A True Story, is available right n- now, of course, with the 10th anniversary edition. That's amazing. Congratulations.

Dan Harris 1:11:19 I'm-

Jay Shetty 1:11:19 That's really beautiful

Dan Harris 1:11:20 ... so much grayer now-

Jay Shetty 1:11:21 I, uh [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:11:21 ... than when the book came out.

Jay Shetty 1:11:23 And, and of course, subscribe to Dan's podcast, Ten Percent Happier, as well. Uh, Dan, thank you so much for coming on to On Purpose.

Dan Harris 1:11:29 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:11:29 Uh, this was such a refreshing and really, really beautiful organic conversation, and I appreciate you going there with me because that's kind of the space I've been in on the show recently of wanting to get lost with someone.

Dan Harris 1:11:41 Right, just to go into a flow.

Jay Shetty 1:11:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Harris 1:11:42 It's so interesting to meet you because, I mean, uh, uh, this is a long way of saying thank you. Um, it's just so interesting to meet you because I've seen you from afar for a million years, and then just to like w- walk into this hotel room, you're like this dude who just shows up, "Hey, how you doing?" Like you're way more casual and down-to-earth than I might have expected, and so it's really fun to like put an actual person to the name.

Jay Shetty 1:12:04 Thank you. That's very sweet. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And, uh, maybe we're doing a terrible jo- terrible job at the branding if [laughs] that's not how I come across.

Dan Harris 1:12:12 [laughs] No, it's-

Jay Shetty 1:12:12 So it is [laughs]

Dan Harris 1:12:13 ... my own paranoia. It's my own paranoia.

Jay Shetty 1:12:15 No, no, it's so funny. It's, uh, I'm like, I'm like, "Oh, the guys are gonna get it together." Uh, no, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Dan Harris 1:12:21 That's usually when you, when I, I, you, I meet a... I've met a lot of well-known people in my job, um, as a journalist, 'cause I, it was my job to interview them, and, uh, it's rare that I like people more after meeting them based on their public persona. And so that's what I was trying to say.

Jay Shetty 1:12:38 Thank you. That's very kind.

Dan Harris 1:12:39 Clun- in a clunky way.

Jay Shetty 1:12:40 That's very kind. It's, uh, that's, I really appreciate it. Thank you. I, I, I receive that deeply, and I think it's really hard. I've, I've definitely struggled with this. Like we're just, I can only be fully myself with someone I'm in person with.

Dan Harris 1:12:54 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:12:54 It's, it's impossible to... I, I find it impossible to be your whole self on a 30-second video or a, you know... If someone listens to the podcast, I feel they know me because they're hearing, you know, full conversations of an hour each week, so, or every day some people listen to it. Like I feel if someone listens to the podcast, they have a deep, deep understanding of me, or if they've read the books. But if someone's just seeing something on social media, they have such a limited view, and it's so hard, uh, to, to portray yourself in that way or in your, in your true self. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dan.

Dan Harris 1:13:27 Thanks for having me on.

Jay Shetty 1:13:27 It's been a real treat. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

Speaker 1:13:48 You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months, and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of expected it, and you would've been disappointed if it didn't happen