10% Happier with Dan Harris

You don’t have to slow down and sit to be mindful. You can be busy and get things done while still growing your mindfulness muscles.

About Jay Michaelson:

Dr. Jay Michaelson is a Senior Content Strategist at Ten Percent Happier and the author of seven books on meditation, including his newest, Enlightenment by Trial and Error. In his “other career,” Jay is a columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a professional LGBTQ activist for ten years. Jay is an ordained rabbi and has taught meditation in secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Meditate While You’re Busy.” 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

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Aparna Nancherla is a writer, stand-up comedian, and actor. Her new book is Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself and Impostor Syndrome. You can hear Aparna as the voice of Moon on Fox's The Great North, or have heard her as the voice of Hollyhock on Bojack Horseman. She's also appeared on The Drop, Lopez vs. Lopez, and Corporate. She's written for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and Late Night with Seth Meyers, as well as Mythic Quest on Apple+.

In this episode we talk about:

• How impostor syndrome relates to anxiety and depression
• Procrastination and how she sometimes feels it sets her up to do good work, even though she hates it
• The difference between standup and therapy in her life
• How she feels about the word "no"
• The sometime-burden of representing South Asians in entertainment
• What it feels like to finally put this book out into the world

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/aparna-nancherla

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

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How rethinking these often twee concepts can change your life and maybe the world.

Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy was released in 2022, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023.

In this episode we talk about:

• What got Ross interested in the subject of delight
• How noting delight can be a tool for counter programming against our negativity bias
• Why Ross argues that there is an ethical component to delight
• The benefits of writing by hand
• How both using a smartphone and rushing can be delight blockers
• The difference between delight and joy
• What he means when he refers to the "offenses of joy"
• And the connection between grief and joy

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ross-gay

Dan sits down with his friend Kelly Corrigan at the Aspen Ideas Festival. A few of the topics they break open: uncertainty, humility and practices to keep us connected.

You can learn more at https://www.kellycorrigan.com or listen to the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks to our many friends at the Aspen Ideas Festival for making this conversation possible.

This was recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike.

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

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Wilkens talks about the stigma around substance abuse, potential alternatives to abstinence, and the role of meditation in recovery.

Carrie Wilkens, PhD, is the Co-founder, Co-president and CEO of the Center for Motivation and Change: Foundation for Change, a nonprofit organization with the mission of improving the dissemination of evidence-based ideas and strategies to professionals and loved ones of persons struggling with substance use through the Invitation to Change approach. She is co-author of the book, The Beyond Addiction Workbook for Family and Friends: Evidence-Based Skills to Help a Loved One Make Positive Change and Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change.

In this episode we talk about:

• The stigma around substance abuse
• Defining terms: addiction vs. substance use disorder and why it matters
• How substance use disorder affects our brain
• How to diagnose a substance abuse disorder
• Whether there is an alternative to abstinence
• How we all need to be thoughtful about the relationship we want with substances
• How and why a substantial percentage of people naturally recover without going to treatment
• The strategies to use if you have someone in your life who you think is on a destructive path
• What positive communication is and how to practice it
• How we live in a quick fix society and recovery from substance abuse disorder is a slow process
• What actually makes people change
• The role of meditation in recovery—for the patient and the family
• And the importance of taking care of yourself so you can take care of others

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/carrie-wilkens

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

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Duncan Trussell is an American actor and stand-up comic. And he doesn't like being called a Buddhist comedian. It makes sense… that label unfairly pigeonholes him in two ways. First, because he's a legit, successful, hilarious comedian, no matter what his spiritual leanings. Duncan has written and appeared in sketches for two seasons of Fuel TV's Stupidface, Showtime's La La Land, Comedy Central's Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, and both seasons of HBO's Funny or Die Presents. His television credits include MADtv and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

And when it comes to the spiritual stuff, he's not just a Buddhist. This guy is spiritually omnivorous. And he knows his shit. He has practiced extensively. And on his podcast, The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, he interviews meditation teachers like Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. In fact, Netflix turned his pod into a cult favorite animated TV show, called The Midnight Gospel.

In this episode we talk about:

• Depression, anxiety, death, and Duncan's interpretation of God
• How meditation helps him handle the insanity of Hollywood
• The Buddhist hell realms as psychological states
• Spirituality and psychedelics
• If having a contemplative practice can hurt our job, form of expression, or ambition
• Karmic and samsaric patterns – and enjoying your ego while you have one
• If we're all capable of love

Related Episodes:

#603. Why Dwight from The Office (Rainn Wilson) Is Calling for a "Spiritual Revolution"

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

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/duncan-trussell

Find freedom from obsessive loops of fear by getting grounded in the body, dropping the stories, and bringing some kindness to the struggle.

About Sebene Selassie:

Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Loosening the Grip of Panic.”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode from The One You Feed podcast, Dan sits down with host Eric Zimmer and discusses his original skepticism of meditation and the benefits he discovered from developing a regular meditation practice. Listen to The One You Feed for more compelling interviews.

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

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Feiler also discusses why we no longer live linear lives, letting go of the idea of having a career, and redefining success.

Bruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including Life Is in the Transitions, The Secrets of Happy Families, and Council of Dads. His three TED Talks have been viewed more than four million times, and he teaches the TED Course How to Master Life Transitions. His latest book is called The Search.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Feiler went from being a guy whose early work focused on spirituality to now focusing on work
• How historically work was something that was supposed to make you unhappy. And how Millennials and Gen Z have helped change that
• What is a workquake?
• Why the majority of us actually have 5 jobs— what those are and why they matter
• What is a meaning audit?
• The best single question you can ask yourself to write your own story of success
• And the historical figures who helped define how we think about success

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/bruce-feiler

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

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These seven rules illustrate a middle path between completely stifling your emotions and bringing your whole self to the office.

Liz Fosslien is an expert on emotions at work and is also on the leadership team at Atlassian's Team Anywhere and previously served as the head of content and communications at Humu. She has been featured by TED, The Economist, Good Morning America, The New York Times, and NPR.

Mollie West Duffy is also the head of Learning and Development at Lattice, and was previously an Organizational Design Lead at global innovation firm IDEO, and a research associate for the Dean of Harvard Business School. She has worked with companies of all sizes on organizational development, leadership development, and workplace culture.

Liz and Mollie are the co-authors of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work and Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay

In this episode we talk about:

• Why not acknowledging your emotions can lead to worse outcomes
• How to understand the data that comes from emotions
• The importance of psychological safety
• And how to recognize burnout before it's too late

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/Liz-Fosslien-and-Mollie-West-Duffy