10% Happier with Dan Harris

Plus: The "hard yes" list, the intentional pursuit of being bad at things (and how that opens doors you didn't know were closed), being "on intimate terms with catastrophe," and optimism as a daily practice. From How To Be A Better Human. Today we're sharing an episode from another show we love: How to Be a Better Human, hosted by Chris Duffy. In this conversation, Chris talks with actor Yara Shahidi — known for Black-ish and Grown-ish, and now host of The Optimist Project podcast — about what she's learned from building a career and an identity at the same time. Yara explains why she thinks of optimism as a daily practice rather than a fixed personality trait, how a "year of no" eventually led her to build a "hard yes list" of things that reliably bring her joy, and why she's been deliberately pursuing things she's bad at — cartwheels, crochet, the glockenspiel — as a way of staying curious and connected.

It's a thoughtful conversation about purpose, identity, and how to keep growing once you've already achieved the thing you thought you wanted. If you like what you hear, check out How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts.

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The legendary dharma teacher on self-acceptance, the two-sentence trick she uses on her own anger, and what actually makes her happy after 90 years of living.

Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, LCSW is a co-founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre California and the author of five books on Buddhism, Mindfulness, and particularly That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why turning 90 makes the Buddha's teachings on impermanence feel real instead of theoretical
• The line Sylvia repeats to herself that's become the antidote to ill will and anger
• Why "there's always a hand to hold" might be the whole point of being alive
• The four (or three) noble truths, reworked in Sylvia's own words
• A grocery store treat that turned into an unexpected lesson about where happiness actually comes from
• What she says to people who are dying, and why it's not a lie
• And much more

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An MIT/Harvard negotiation expert on the two types of "no," the FBI hostage negotiator trick you can use with anyone, and the rhetorical move that improves outcomes for women.

John Richardson teaches negotiation at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and previously at Harvard Law, and was an associate at the Harvard Negotiation Project. He was coauthor with Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp of Getting It Done and Negotiation Analysis with Howard Raiffa and David Metcalfe. He is also a graduate of the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. His latest book is Never Settle, co-written with Attia Qureshi.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why lying in a negotiation is tactically stupid, not just morally wrong
• The "give them a sandwich" trick FBI hostage negotiators use, and how to steal it for everyday life
• The difference between healthy manipulation and the harmful kind
• A simple word that can pull someone's brain out of fight-or-flight mode mid-argument
• Why knowing your alternative matters more than knowing your ask
• When saying no is actually the smartest move in the room
• And much more

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Move on from the inner critic and beat perfectionism without lowering your standards.

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist who helps people calm their anxiety and be their authentic self. She serves on the faculty at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) and is the author of HOW TO BE ENOUGH: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists and HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. You can find her on Substack at How to Be Good to Yourself When You're Hard on Yourself. This episode originally aired in 2025.

In this episode we talk about:

• The relationship between perfectionism and anxiety
• The definition of perfectionism––and why the word is actually a misnomer
• Dr. Hendriksen's own struggles with perfectionism, and how they manifested physically
• The difference between healthy perfectionism and unhealthy perfectionism
• Changing your relationship with your inner critic
• Shifting from rigid rules to flexibility
• Keeping high standards while making room for mistakes
• Overcoming procrastination
• Navigating social comparison
• And much more

Related Episodes:

• Strategies for Social Anxiety | Ellen Hendriksen
• The Voice in Your Head | Ethan Kross
• How To Move Into The Future With Optimism Instead Of Anxiety | Frederik Pferdt

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Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here! To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Plus: How your envy can be useful, why you're an unreliable narrator of your own life, and why you keep choosing partners who echo the unfinished business of your childhood.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over three million copies and has been translated into over 30 languages. In addition to her clinical practice, she writes The New York Times "Ask the Therapist" advice column and is co-host of the popular "Dear Therapists" podcast and the advice podcast Since You Asked.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why insight alone doesn't change anything, and what "idiot compassion" gets wrong
• Whether you actually need to like your therapist
• Why there's no such thing as a hierarchy of pain
• How to spot a help-rejecting complainer, including in yourself
• What envy is actually trying to tell you
• Why a real boundary is a bid for connection, not a cutoff
• Why we're all unreliable narrators, and how to edit the story you tell about yourself
• Why we keep choosing partners who echo our unfinished business

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Additional Resources:

• Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook
• Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Journal

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here! This episode is sponsored by: Function Health: Join at functionhealth.com/happier or use the gift code HAPPIER25 for a $25 credit toward your membership.

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Why optimization is a joy blocker, how to find the 'yes' inside the 'no,' and why that restless ache you can't shake is actually your compass.

Kate Bowler, PhD is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and an Associate Professor of American Religious History at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we're capable of change. Her newest book is Joyful, Anyway.

In this episode we talk about:

• The dangerous difference between joy and happiness
• Why optimization and self-mastery are quietly killing your capacity for delight
• How to find the "yes" inside every "no" (even when things are genuinely terrible)
• The ache and restlessness you can't shake—and why it's actually your compass, not a problem to solve
• What grace actually looks like when control disappears
• How to stop trying to improve your way into joy
• The "assignment" that changes how you show up for other people
• Why survival isn't the point—living is

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Additional Resources:

• Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved)
• No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear)
• Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here!

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

This episode is sponsored by: BetterHelp: Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at www.betterhelp.com/happier. Gusto: Try Gusto today at gusto.com/HAPPIER, and get three months free when you run your first payroll.

What a fake guru discovered about genuine connection, why ancient wisdom survives even the most rigorous skepticism, and the real reason humans crave spiritual authority.

Vikram Gandhi is an award-winning and boundary-pushing director of fiction and non-fiction film and television. Vikram most recently co-directed The Man Will Burn — a five-part HBO Original Documentary Series on the full arc of Burning Man, from its countercultural roots in San Francisco to the 80,000-person desert event it's become.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why an experiment built to reject capitalism ended up swimming in it
• What playing a fake guru taught him about how belief actually works
• Why people are often more comfortable opening up to a stranger than to those closest to them
• What religion, cryptocurrency, and Burning Man all have in common
• How to find meaning in ancient wisdom without needing to belong to anything
• And much more

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This episode is sponsored by: Jiyu Skin: Our listeners can now get an additional 20% off plus free shipping with our code HAPPIER at jiyuskin.com. Tonal: Right now, Tonal is offering our listeners $200 off your Tonal purchase with promo code HAPPIER. Rosetta Stone: Ten Percent Happier listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. Visit rosettastone.com/happier to redeem your 20% off.

Simple practices for not believing everything you think, becoming less reactive, and handling whatever life throws at you.

Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Barre, Massachusetts. He is the author of many books including, most recently, Dreamscapes of the Mind.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why your thoughts have so much power over you — and how to take it back
• A surprisingly funny technique for dealing with self-judgment
• Why trying to get rid of an unwanted thought often makes it worse
• The difference between recognizing an emotion and actually being mindful of it
• Why sadness and unhappiness aren't the same thing
• And much more

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Plus: combatting loneliness, turning down the volume on social comparison, and why mattering to a few people beats outperforming everyone.

Gordon Flett is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University where he has served as the Director of the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research. Dr. Flett is most known for his influential research on perfectionism in health and mental health and his more recent work on the psychology of mattering.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between perfectionism and healthy striving
• How perfectionism functions as a coping mechanism for unmet needs for love, belonging, and significance
• What "mattering" actually means
• Antimattering (and our fear of not mattering)
• Why feeling like you matter to others can loosen the grip of perfectionism
• Why people consistently underestimate how much they matter to others
• Practical ways to help others feel like they matter
• Why helping others feel like they matter boomerangs back and boosts your own sense of significance
• The fear of not mattering in the age of AI

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Additional Resources:

• Gordon's books: The Psychology of Mattering, Mattering as a Core Need in Children and Adolescents, and Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here!

This episode is sponsored by: Quo – Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/happier.

BetterHelp — Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/happier

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The time the Dalai Lama went bowling in their basement, the time a stranger showed up with exactly the $15,000 they were missing — and more behind-the-scenes stories from 50 years of IMS.

In 1975, a handful of young Americans fresh back from years of intensive practice in India and Burma pooled together $150,000 they didn't have and bought a former Catholic novitiate in rural Massachusetts. Fifty years later, the Insight Meditation Society has become one of the most consequential institutions in the history of Buddhism in the West — the place where Jon Kabat-Zinn had the idea that became Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and where, as one longtime yogi put it, the whole thing has run for half a century "without any adult supervision whatsoever."

For IMS's 50th anniversary, Dan sits down with four of its founding teachers — Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jacqueline Mandell — along with Steven Schwartz, who helped get the organization built in the first place. Together they trace the founding story, the early years of $25-a-month stipends and "window wars," the accidental birth of the mindfulness movement, and what they hope IMS looks like 1,000 years from now.

For more on the Insight Meditation Society, including how to support their new retreat center, you can visit dharma.org.

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Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

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