Cultivating resilience in the face of whatever comes up.

Ethan Nichtern is the author of Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds and several other titles, including the widely acclaimed The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path. A renowned contemporary Buddhist teacher and the host of The Road Home Podcast, Nichtern has offered meditation and Buddhist psychology classes at conferences, meditation centers, yoga studios, and universities, including Brown, Yale, and NYU. He has been featured by CNN, NPR, the New York Times, Vogue, and Business Insider and has written for the Huffington Post, Beliefnet, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and more. He lives in Brooklyn. Visit him online at http://www.EthanNichtern.com.

In this episode we talk about:

• Authentic vs performative confidence
• The line between humility and confidence
• A Buddhist list called the Eight Worldly Winds
• A slew of little practices you can do in order to boost your confidence (or resilience or equanimity)
• The meaning of self-confidence in a tradition that argues the self is an illusion

Related Episodes:

• A Buddhist Approach to Money Worries | Ethan Nichtern
• The Dharma of the Princess Bride | Ethan Nichtern
• How To Get Ahead At Work, Buddhist-Style | David Nichtern
• #574. Do You Feel Like an Imposter? | Dr. Valerie Young (Co-Interviewed by Dan's Wife, Bianca!)

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Sometimes perseverance is overrated. An argument for strategic quitting.

Julia Keller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and playwright. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from The Ohio State University and has taught at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She was the chief book critic at The Chicago Tribune for many years before quitting the world of daily journalism to write books. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The history behind why quitting gets such a bad rap 
• What happens in our brains when we quit 
• Why we don’t give enough credit to quitting
• The myth of perseverance 
• How to talk to our children about healthy quitting
• The power of having a community of quitters

Related Episodes:

• The Myth of the Dream Job | Simone Stolzoff
• How To Find Meaningful Work in a Rapidly Changing World | Bruce Feiler

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Our ability to focus is not lost, it’s just changing. Here’s what we can adapt.

Here’s a horrifying fact: the average attention span has now declined to just 47 seconds on any particular screen. 47 seconds! How did this happen? How can we get anything done this way?

Today we’re going to meet the scientist who’s done this research, find out what’s driving this, and what we can do about it. And the good news is we really can do things about this.

We're experiencing a fundamental shift in how we think, work, and focus. It shows up in our blizzard of notifications, zoom fatigue, task switching, and burn out. 

Dr. Gloria Mark is the Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. She’s written a book called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

In this episode we talked about:

• Four myths about attention and technology
• The problem with frequent task-switching
• The surprising (to me) value of rote or mindless activities
• How to recognize when we are most distracted 
• How to design your day based on your attentional resources
• How practicing forethought can help boost our attention and focus 
• And Her thoughts on digital detoxes 

This episode is part of the latest installment of an occasional series we do, called Sanely Ambitious. If you missed last week's episodes, go check them out. We talked about the science of optimal performance, and also the science of failure, meaning how to fail well. Coming up on Wednesday we’re gonna talk about what the research says about when to quit, not just your job, but any endeavor. We will put links in the show notes.

Related Episodes:

The Science of Optimal Performance—at Work and Beyond | Daniel Goleman

The Science of Failing Well | Amy Edmondson

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A Harvard Business School professor discusses how to get good at “intelligent failure.”

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Her latest book is called the Right Kind of Wrong. Her research examines psychological safety and teaming within and between organizations.

In this episode we talk about:

• The problems of shame, perfectionism, and social media
• How not to get caught up in analysis paralysis 
• The importance of self-compassion and a growth mindset
• The benefits of worrying with someone else
• Why redundancy is your friend
• How to discuss failure without assigning blame
• Why accepting your smallness can be freeing
• Taking the time to learn from failure
• The cognitive framework: stop, challenge, and choose
• How to have a healthier relationships with anxiety and failure
• Creating a culture of psychological safety
• Recognizing that not everybody in society has the same permission to take risks 

Related Episodes:

Self-Compassion Ain’t Always Soft | Kristin Neff

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How to boost productivity, empathy, and focus, while reducing burnout. From the godfather of Emotional Intelligence. 

If you have any degree of ambition, one of the things you probably think about is how to perform at your best, or somewhere close, every day. How to keep your energy up. How to get into flow. How to stay focused and productive. How to play well with others.

Daniel Goleman— his friends call him Danny—-has been thinking and writing about optimal performance for decades. He’s perhaps best known for his book, Emotional Intelligence. He’s a Harvard trained psychologist who also wrote in the New York Times for a while. And in his youth, he spent many years studying meditation in Asia, alongside many of today’s most intellectual meditation teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg.

He’s got a new book called Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day, co-written with Cary Cherniss.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to train your mind for optimal states
• How to reduce burnout
• How to develop and deploy empathy in a work setting
• How to give feedback
• A productivity hack that involves only doing the easy stuff
• The 4 parts of emotional intelligence—and how to get better at each
• And the future of EI in a world of AI

This episode kicks off the latest installment of our occasional series, Sanely Ambitious. Over the next two weeks, we will be posting episodes on: how to focus in the midst of a pandemic of distraction, how to fail well, and when to quit. It’s a great lineup. 

Daniel Goleman’s online Emotional Intelligence Program

Related Episodes:

A Radical Approach to Productivity, Self-Compassion Series | Jocelyn K. Glei

#494. How to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker

The Science of Emotional Intelligence | Daniel Goleman

#523. A Masterclass in Handling Yourself When Things Suck | Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman

#436. Brené Brown Says You're Doing Feelings Wrong

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The author/podcaster talks about her nonnegotiables at a delicate time in her life.

Glennon Doyle is an author, activist, and the founder of Together Rising. She hosts the We Can Do Hard Things podcast and wrote the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed, a Reese’s Book Club selection, which has sold nearly three million copies. 

Photo Credit: Alexandra Hedison

In this episode we talk about:

• The concept of embodiment
• Undoing harmful deep conditioning around hustle and diet culture
• The role of Internal Family Systems in Glennon’s life

Related Episodes:

• You Don’t Have to be Miserable While Doing Important Work | adrienne maree brown
• How To End The War With Your Body | Sonya Renee Taylor
• The Anti-Diet | Evelyn Tribole

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Plus, provocative and practical ideas about actually enjoying exercise, the real relationship between weight and health, the problem with weight loss, the morality of food, feeding your kids, and who "the real bad guy" is.

Virginia Sole-Smith is the bestselling author of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture and The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America. She also writes the Burnt Toast newsletter, hosts the Burnt Toast Podcast, and frequently contributes to The New York Times and other publications.

In this episode we talk about:

• The actual connections between health and body size
• The severe limitations of many of the most popular approaches to weight loss
• Nuanced strategies for disentangling from diet culture
• How to exercise without a hidden agenda of trying to wrench your body into a specific shape
• The idea that food doesn’t have a moral value
• The relationship between men, exercise, food, and diet culture
• How our kids are getting caught up in diet culture, and what parents can do about it
• What Virginia's smartest critic would say about her contentions
• Her take on Ozempic

Related Episodes:

• Dharma teacher Cara Lai on mindfulness and exercise
• Jud Brewer on “The Hunger Habit”
• Evelyn Tribole on “The Anti-Diet”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/virginia-sole-smith

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Dr. Jud breaks down how habits work and how to change them. Plus, insights on stress, boredom, mindfulness, pleasure, satisfaction, and contentment.

Judson Brewer M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally renowned addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist and a bestselling author. He is a professor in the School of Public Health and Medical School at Brown University. His new book is called The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop.

In this episode we talk about:

• The scientific evidence behind Dr. Jud’s approach 
• The difference between satisfaction and contentment
• The difference between hedonic and homeostatic hunger
• Why changing behavior may not require you to dig into your past
• “Unforced freedom of choice”
• The “bigger better offer”
• The “pleasure plateau”
• Habits vs. addictions
• “The hunger test” 
• The Buddha’s advice on eating
• Whether or not we can still eat gummy worms

Related Episodes:

• Dr. Jud’s anxiety Q&A
• Dr. Jud on anxiety as a habit
• Dr. Jud on addiction and bad habits
• Evelyn Tribole on intuitive eating

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jud-brewer-hunger

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A personal program for working with election-induced anxiety.

We’re dropping a special/experimental pod today, because we know a lot of you are freaking out about the election — so Dan’s going to talk through some strategies he is personally using to keep it together during this turbulent time. 

Additional Resources: 

Podcast episode with Bill Doherty (Braver Angels)

Feedback form: let us know what you think!

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Have you already bailed on your resolutions? Where are you on your other life goals? This episode is a master class on sticking with it, no matter what.

Bryan Stevenson is a public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Alabama—an organization that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, as well as reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row. He is the author of the bestselling memoir Just Mercy, which was made into a feature film, and the subject of an HBO documentary, True Justice. He is also a MacArthur “Genius,” a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a recipient of over 50 honorary doctoral degrees from institutions like Yale, Princeton, and Oxford University.

In this episode we talk about:

• Bryan’s “non-negotiables,” including exercise, music, and mindfulness
• The necessity of “proximity”
• How he manages fear, anger, and hatred
• How he cultivates hope and faith in the face of overwhelming odds

Related Episodes:

• Father Gregory Boyle on Conquering Hatred with Love
• Other guests in our “Non-Negotiables” series, including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Esther Perel, and Bill Hader

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/bryan-stevenson

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Chödrön also talks about how to deal with difficult people, set boundaries, and keep a sense of humor in the face of our human foibles and failings.

Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York City. In her mid-thirties, Ani Pema met and studied with Lama Chime Rinpoche, becoming a novice nun in 1974 in London. She received ordination from His Holiness the Sixteenth Karampa during that time. Pema first met her root guru, the teacher with whom she had the most profound connection, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972, and she studied closely with him until his death in 1987. In 1984, at the behest of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Ani Pema moved from Boulder, Colorado to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. She currently teaches throughout the United States and Canada and continues her studies and meditative retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to deal with difficult people and set boundaries
• Having a sense of humor about our own foibles and failings 
• Keeping a sense of ok-ness in the face of whatever happens 
• Why coming from a place of love doesn’t preclude us from getting angry or standing up for what we believe in
• Keeping a sense of humor when we’re setting intentions or taking a vow so we don’t set ourselves up for failure
• The actual language of the Bodhisattva vow and why admitting how vast and impossible it is to achieve can actually be empowering
• Why putting others first doesn’t mean leaving yourself out of the equation 
• How healing yourself can affect your relationships with other people and create a virtuous circle 
• Taking a "one person at a time" approach to suffering

Related Episodes:

The Dalai Lama’s Guide To Happiness

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/pema-chodron-2024

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Kabat-Zinn on the nitty gritty practicalities of starting a practice, being fully present with no agenda, and letting go of “the story of me.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Back in the 1970s, he came up with something called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, which is a secular way of teaching Buddhist meditation. He’s written many books, including Full Catastrophe Living; Wherever You Go, There You Are; and Coming to Our Senses. His latest book is called Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief.

In this episode we talk about:

• The nitty gritty practicalities of starting a practice
• How he’s learned to be more relaxed about his practice—including advocating for meditating in bed  
• How to practice being fully present with no agenda 
• How investigating your motivations—something most people don’t do— can help you be more mindful 
• How to practice letting go of “the story of me”

Related Episodes:

Tripping Out with a Legend: Jon Kabat-Zinn on Pain vs. Suffering, Rethinking Your Anxiety, and the Buddha's Teaching in a Single Sentence

Jon Kabat-Zinn | Meditation as a Love Affair

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

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The star of SNL and Barry discusses how he channels his anxiety into his work. Plus, an imitation of Joseph Goldstein.

Bill Hader has made the transition from being a master of stand-out characters and impressions on eight seasons of Saturday Night Life to becoming a true multi-hyphenate by creating, directing, writing, producing and starring as a burned-out assassin trying to break into Hollywood as an actor in HBO’s award-winning and critically lauded dark comedy, Barry.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Bill deals with anxiety
• His panic attack on live television
• His love of directing and the importance of having the right collaborators

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/bill-hader

Additional Resources:

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

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The renowned psychotherapist talks about the importance of accountability in generosity in her own life, and the one thing you can do right now, today, to make yourself happier.

Esther Perel is a psychotherapist and bestselling author. She has a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her TED Talks have garnered more than 40 million views and her books, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, are huge bestsellers. Esther is also the host of the hit podcast Where Should We Begin?

In this episode we talk about:

• How to get around the obstacles that hinder connection with other people 
• The role of conflict in relationships and why we shouldn’t be afraid of it
• Ways to get better at experiencing anxiety or discomfort so that you can better handle the ups and downs of life
• And the simple thing you can do right now to make yourself happier 

Related Episodes:

Can Anxiety Be a Gift? | Dr. David Rosmarin

Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness | Dr. Robert Waldinger

How to Keep Friendships From Imploding | Esther Perel

Mating in Captivity | Esther Perel

Love in the Time of COVID | Esther Perel

Esther Perel: Turning Conflict Into Connection

Esther Perel on the Other A.I.: Artificial Intimacy (SXSW 2023)

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A leading behavioral psychologist reveals practical strategies to help you actually make the changes you want to make this new year (and beyond).

Hal Hershfield is a professor of marketing, behavioral decision-making, and psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and the author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. His research on future selves has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, as well as the Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What he means by a future self, and why thinking about your future self will help you make better decisions
• How to think about your future self without neglecting the present moment
• The importance of commitment devices, and what they are — including some which you can even adopt right now
• The importance of breaking down big goals to make them achievable
• How to reframe commitments so that you actually stick to them
• The role of mental time travel to help you actually do what you say you want to do

Related Episodes:

How to Change Your Habits | Katy Milkman

Atomic Habits | James Clear

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

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Tackling one of the best known contemplative clichés: being in the present moment and “inhabiting the now.”

Matthew Brensilver, MSW, PhD, teaches retreats at the Insight Retreat Center, Spirit Rock and other Buddhist centers.He was previously program director for Mindful Schools and for more than a decade, was a core teacher at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. Each summer, he lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center on the intersections between mindfulness, science and psychotherapy.  Matthew is the co-author of two books about meditation during adolescence and continues to be interested in the unfolding dialogue between Buddhism and science.

In this episode we talk about:

• What being present actually means 
• What to do when Buddhist teachings or meditation instructions feel out of reach
• What to do when a memory arises in meditation, especially a difficult one 
• The brain's, at times, exhausting, evolutionarily wired tendency toward constant prediction
• The benefits of going on meditation retreats
• Distinguishing between true alarms and false alarms

Related Episodes:

Why Self-Hatred Makes No Sense | Matthew Brensilver

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A slew of evidence-based, ready-to-try-today interventions we can use to “complete the stress cycle.”

Emily Nagoski is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. She has a MS in counseling and a PhD in health behavior, both from Indiana University. She’s also the co-author of Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle.   

Amelia Nagoski holds a DMA in conducting from the University of Connecticut. An assistant professor and coordinator of music at Western New England University, she regularly presents educational sessions discussing the application of communications science and psychological research for audiences of other professional musicians, including “Beyond Burnout Prevention: Embodied Wellness for Conductors.” She is the co-author of Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle

In this episode we talk about:

• The three characteristics of burnout
• The difference between addressing stressful circumstances in our lives and dealing with the actual physical experience of stress
• What they call the “real enemy”
• How to create a “bubble of love”
• The evidence-based interventions you can try right away 

Related Episodes:

Optimizing Your Stress | Modupe Akinola

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Cara Lai has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker, and therapist before becoming a full time meditation teacher. She teaches teens and adults at Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and Ten Percent Happier.

To find out more about what Cara does, you can go to her website, www.caralai.org – where she’s got some online meditation classes, including one called Meditate Your Face Off. She also has a monthly class for parents, co-led by Ofosu Jones-Quartey and Jess Morey, both of whom have been heard on this podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, Cara also co-hosts a podcast called Adventures in Meditating (For Parents), along with Jess Morey and Jon Roberts.

Cara will also be a core teacher for a 14-week residential semester program for youth ages 18-32 this Fall in Marlboro VT. The program is called the Contemplative Semester, and there are many folks who will be teaching who have been in the TPH orbit, including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jessica Morey, Kaira Jewel Lingo, and more. You can find more info at www.contemplativesemester.org

Related Episodes:

The Upside of Desire | Cara Lai 

Can You Get Fit Without Self-Loathing? | Cara Lai 

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How to stay focused, fight distraction, and function at your peak.

Dr. Amishi Jha is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co-founded in 2010. Dr Jha is the author of the national bestseller, Peak Mind. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What peak mind is
• Why meta awareness is important to practice and achieve peak mind
• The suite of mindfulness-based attention training practices
• Why humans developed attention in the first place
• Using the flashlight and floodlight metaphors to help us understand different types of attention
• The mental pushup for attention: focus, notice, and redirect
• The attention benefits for high stress populations who engage in contemplatives practices
• Multitasking vs. monotasking
• The real life and death consequences of confirmation bias
• Part of the reason why we may be experiencing a crisis of attention 
• Giving our mind the freedom to choose where it goes next

Related Episodes:

Why You Can’t Pay Attention - And How to Think Deeply Again | Johann Hari

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Understanding the Buddhist concept of “the five aggregates.“

Pascal Auclair has been immersed in the study and practice of Buddhist teachings since 1997. He has participated in retreats in Asia and America with renowned masters from both monastic and secular backgrounds. Pascal completed four years of teacher training with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Pascal teaches mainly in North America and Europe. He is one of the founding members of True North Insight, where he teaches and acts as a mentor.

In this episode we talk about:

• How the five aggregates got Auclair hooked on Buddhist practice and philosophy
• The five aggregates as a way to work with difficulty
• Living with the non-negotiable prospect of dying
• Paying attention to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feeling tone
• Meditation training as a way to understand that experiences are conditional

Related Episodes:

Seven Buddhist Ingredients for a Happy Mind | Pascal Auclair

Dharma Seed

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/pascal-auclair-rerun-2023

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The interview that changed the way Dan relates to food. 

Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD,  CEDRD-S is an award-winning registered dietitian, with a nutrition counseling practice in Newport Beach, California. She has written ten books including the bestsellers Healthy Homestyle Cooking and Intuitive Eating (co-author). Her newest book is the Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food.

In this episode we talk about:

• How meditation practice and intuitive eating are similar
• The difference between mindful eating and intuitive eating
• Why gentle nutrition is the last principle of intuitive eating
• How to rethink negative body image
• Why you can’t tell how healthy a person is by looking at their body
• Why it’s important not to talk about food in moralistic terms
• How to make peace with and rethink our relationship with food

Related Episodes:

How to Embrace the Anti-Diet | Christy Harrison

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/evelyn-tribole-rerun-2023

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A comprehensive strategy for setting and maintaining boundaries—and respecting other people’s boundaries.

Nedra Glover Tawwab, MSW, LCSW, is the author of bestsellers Drama Free and Set Boundaries, Find Peace. She is a licensed therapist, and sought-after relationship expert and has practiced relationship therapy for 15 years. Tawwab is the founder and owner of the group therapy practice, Kaleidoscope Counseling. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The definition of boundaries
• Leading with love when it comes to boundary setting
• Tawwab’s taxonomy of boundaries
• How to summon the courage to set and maintain boundaries, even when it's hard
• How to respect other people's boundaries, even when they aren't clear about what they might be 

Related Episodes:

How to Handle Family Drama | Nedra Glover Tawwab

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/nedra-glover-tawwab-2023-rerun

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Next year marks the fifteenth anniversary of Gretchen Rubin’s #1 New York Times bestselling book, The Happiness Project. To celebrate, she’s leading a one-time, one-year course called “The Happiness Project: Revisited.” In this bonus excerpt from the course, Gretchen and Elizabeth explore the lessons Gretchen has learned over the years, talk about her plans to do a new happiness project in 2024, and discuss how other people can do their own happiness projects. 

You can learn more and sign up here—plus, get 30% off through December 31st with code THPR30DEC.

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Frequent guest Sam Harris discusses life after quitting Twitter and the metaphysics of meditation along with special co-host and brother Matt Harris. 

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author of five New York Times best sellers. His work covers a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, political polarization, rationality—but generally focuses on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. His books include The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and Waking Up. Sam hosts the popular Making Sense podcast and is the creator of the Waking Up app, which offers a modern approach to living a more examined life, through both in-depth mindfulness training and secular wisdom. Sam has practiced meditation for over 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

In this episode we talk about:

• The psychological benefits of quitting Twitter
• Vipassana meditation vs. Dzogchen
• The practice of looking for the looker
• Sam’s views on the metaphysics of meditation and psychic powers

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/sam-harris-2023

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What the ancient Greek philosophers discovered about how to do life better.

Tamar Gendler is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. Her Open Yale course “Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature” has hundreds of thousands of views. An updated version of this course will be available on the Coursera website this spring. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The tension between our animal nature and our spiritual/intellectual nature
• How to define concepts such as “virtue”, “morality” and “the soul” 
• Whether living a moral life actually makes you happy 
• The similarities and differences between ancient Greek philosophy & Buddhism 
• And how Tamar has applied all of this to her own life

Related Episodes:

• How (and Why) to Hug Your Inner Dragons | Richard Schwartz
• An Ace Therapist Gives Dan A Run For His Money | Dr. Jacob Ham

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A Harvard professor on how to elevate everyday activities in order to lift your mood, improve your relationships and rise to new challenges.

Michael Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He has studied human behavior as it relates to love and inequality, time and money, and happiness and grief. He is the author of The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The difference between habits and rituals
• How rituals impact various spheres of life, including creativity, grief and politics - and how not all rituals are beneficial 
• how to transform your everyday activities into rituals and how they can inject meaning into your life and give a boost to your relationships
• How to introduce rituals into your workplace without falling back on cliché (like trust falls)

Related Episodes:

What Science Says About Money and Happiness | Elizabeth Dunn — Ten Percent Happier 

How to Benefit From Religion, Even as a Nonbeliever | David DeSteno — Ten Percent Happier

How to Change Your Habits | Katy Milkman — Ten Percent Happier   

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

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The longtime TV host and actor talks about working onscreen with her husband, her fear of public speaking, and what she does instead of sitting meditation.

Kelly Ripa is one of the most powerful voices in media with a career at ABC spanning over 30 years. She's the author of the NY Times Bestseller, Long-Winded Short Stories and the host of her new podcast "Let's Talk Off-Camera" on Stitcher Podcasts.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it’s like to work with her husband 
• The value of marriage counseling, even when you’re not on the cusp of divorce
• Her resistance to meditation, and what she does instead
• The upsides of anxiety
• Her surprising fear of public speaking
• Menopause and the whole idea of “growing old gracefully,” whatever that means

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/kelly-ripa-690

Additional Resources:

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

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One's a legend, the other's a phenom. Together, they offer practical wisdom for maintaining your daily meditation practice, handling conflict, connecting with community, and understanding the limits of the mind.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. He is the author of 16 books which have sold 2 million copies, and the co-founder of Cloud Sangha.

Diego Perez is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name, Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over 3 million people. Diego’s books are Inward, Clarity & Connection, Lighter, and The Way Forward.

In this episode we talk about:

• How and why to maintain a daily meditation practice
• The importance of community
• The limits of the thinking mind
• How to handle conflict
• How to love without being attached

Related Episodes:

• Jack Kornfield talking about forgiveness and uncertainty on the pod
• Yung Pueblo’s past appearance on the pod
• Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker on effective communication

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Further resources:

• Diego's latest book: The Way Forward 
• Diego’s Newsletter
• Diego’s Instagram
• Wisdom Ventures 
• A note on Cloud Sangha: Jack Kornfield is a co-founder of Cloud Sangha, where you can turn your challenges into compost for growth and change. Come use your real-life experiences to rehearse living mindfully so you can be the best version of yourself, more often. Join us online to navigate the ups and downs of life together, and find inner freedom along the way. Use the code "TENPERCENTHAPPIER" to receive 30% off.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jack-kornfield-and-yung-pueblo

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A counterintuitive way to become more clear, creative, and persistent, via a writer who calls himself a “human guinea pig.”

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, podcaster, and human guinea pig. His new podcast “The Puzzler” is produced by iHeart and is in the Top 20 Apple Podcasts. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. Among his books are “The Year of Living Biblically” and “The Know-It-All.” He has told several Moth stories, has given several TED talks that have amassed over 10 million views. His latest book is “The Puzzler,” which Booklist called “ridiculously entertaining,” and The New York Times called “a romp, both fun and funny.” 

In this episode we talk about:

• The “puzzle mindset” and how it can change the way you approach your problems 
• Creating a puzzle that will take billions of years to solve
• How puzzles can help us during dark times
• The dark side of the puzzling world
• How his gratitude project made him better at talking to himself
•  Learning to appreciate everyday objects and people he sees all the time
• How pretending to be a good person helped him actually learn to be one – most of the time

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Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/aj-jacobs-688

Additional Resources:

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

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Buddhist strategies for navigating tumult— and even becoming a node of sanity amidst it all.

Oren Jay Sofer teaches meditation and communication internationally and has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1997. He holds a degree in comparative religion from Columbia University and is a Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for the healing of trauma. Born and raised in New Jersey, he is the author of several books, including the best-seller Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication as well as his newest book, Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.

In this episode we talk about:

• 26 qualities for both navigating and positively impacting a chaotic world
• What inspired the title of his newest book 
• Why the cultivation of attention and aspiration can be transformative tools
• How mindfulness isn’t just about feeling good
• Why joy can help us to persevere through challenges 
• And How to reframe the concept of devotion so that it can apply to your everyday life

Related Episodes:

• Oren Jay Sofer, Practicing Mindful Communication 
• Why Buddhism Is Inherently Hopeful (Despite All the Talk of Suffering) 
• Rethinking Your Relationship to 'Stuff' | The Minimalists + Oren Jay Sofer

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/oren-jay-sofer-new-heart

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This guest says you can thrive with anxiety. And the trick is learning to get comfortable with discomfort.

Dr. David H. Rosmarin is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, a program director at McLean Hospital, and founder of Center for Anxiety, which services over 1,000 patients/year in multiple states. His most recent book is Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between anxiety and stress
• How anxiety and distress can, paradoxically, improve our relationships with ourselves and others
• Why he’s a proponent of exposure therapy
• How anxiety can be transmuted into love
• Why we often use anger to cover up fear and anxiety
• And the spiritual benefit of thinking the worst

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Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/david-rosmarin

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Practical tools for regulating your nervous system in stressful times.  

Deb Dana is a licensed clinical social worker, clinician, and consultant who specializes in working with complex trauma. She is the author of Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.

In this episode we talk about:

• What polyvagal theory is
• The case for understanding our nervous system
• The practical tools and exercises for changing our nervous system and learning to become more regulated
• The fact that our nervous systems aren’t simply isolated, self-contained phenomena – they are social structures
• Our responsibilities for our own nervous system and the nervous systems of others

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/deb-dana-rerun

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We deal with difficult people over holiday meals, at work, and online. This guest says there is only one answer.

Father Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, the White House named Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the author of The Whole Language, Tattoos on the Heart, and Barking to the Choir. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How Homeboy Industries began 34 years ago
• Boyle’s practices for working with stress 
• What he means when he says you have to put death in its place
• Motivating people through joy rather than admonition
• How to catch ourselves when we’re about to demonize or be judgmental 
• How to set boundaries
• How to dole out consequences without closing the doors to anybody
• And, Father Boyle’s expansive and inclusive notion of God

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Today we are dropping down our feed a conversation that I listened to recently that had a huge impact on me. It's from a great show that I'm sure many of you have heard of, On Being with Krista Tippett. It's been around for decades, and it explores the question of what it means to be human, how to do life better, how to live with each other in complex times.

Krista Tippett is a recent friend of mine, somebody who I have long admired and really, like – she was on the show just recently. They've got a new season of their show going right now, over on the On Being feed, which I highly recommend you check out. They're doing episodes on the intelligence of the human body, what AI might be calling us to as human beings, and much more. 

They've also got a 20 year archive of conversations with people like Mary Oliver, John O'Donohue, and Desmond Tutu, which is pretty extraordinary. And this conversation, which, as I mentioned earlier, has had a big impact on me seems unfortunately quite relevant. It's about conflict and how to do it right: the difference between healthy conflict, which is an unavoidable part of life, and high conflict, which we see all around us these days, but which is avoidable.

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How getting your sh*t together can make you a better leader in your own personal orbit. It can maybe even change the world.

Jerry Colonna is a leading executive coach who uses the skills he learned as a venture capitalist to help entrepreneurs. He is a co-founder and CEO of Reboot, the executive coaching and leadership development company, host of the Reboot Podcast, and author of Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, and Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to avoid the pitfalls of virtue signaling and self-righteousness
• The term, “reunion” and how it relates to the stories of our ancestors 
• What he means by, “the longing to belong”
• How we can learn to “do our first works over”
• The difference between equality and equity 
• And his framing of, "content and container" to help guide good leadership

Related Episodes:

• Jerry Colonna, 'CEO Whisperer' and Reboot.io Founder
• The Art of Growing Up, Jerry Colonna

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jerry-colonna

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Plus, what happens if you don't repair, whether it's ever too late to repair, what "boundaries" actually are, and a helpful little tool for avoiding fights called the "MGI."

Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and mom of three. She is the author of Good Inside and the host of the podcast Good Inside with Dr. Becky. Her new TED Talk is called “The single most important parenting strategy.”

In this episode we talk about:

• How to repair damage after a fight
• What happens if you don’t repair
• Whether it’s ever too late to offer a repair
• Whether “good inside” is a thesis for all of humanity
• Whether punishment is ever appropriate
• Dr. Becky’s definition of “boundaries”
• A handy hack for avoiding fights called the “MGI”
• Whether or not Dr. Becky follows her own advice

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/becky-kennedy

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The meditation style that changed Dan’s entire practice.

Alexis Santos, has been practicing meditation for twenty years and was a student of a highly influential Burmese monk by the name of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Alexis is also a core teacher in the Ten Percent Happier app and the lead teacher of our On The Go course. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/alexis-santos-rerun

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Nirvana is a culturally confusing and freighted term. It’s the name of the best rock band of the 1990s and also the name of smoothie joints, vape stores and yoga studios. There’s a vape place near me called Nirvana. 

Nirvana’s been fully co-opted and sometimes corrupted by the culture… and yet it is also the clearly stated goal of the Buddha’s teaching. So what does it really mean?

We cover all of that today in what is an experimental episode for us. Not only because the topic is so unusual, but also because this is our first podcast recording of a live show. We recorded this at the Armory in Boston in front of a sold out crowd who did not know in advance that premier teacher Joseph Goldstein would be the guest. We would love your feedback, because if you like this, we’ll do more.

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

PS We’ve been trying to do a bunch of experiments here on this show, and our latest is a weekly newsletter, which you can sign up for here!

Related Episodes:

• The Mental States That Steal Your Calm | Bhikkhu Bodhi
• The Words of the Buddha | Bhikkhu Bodhi
• Joseph Goldstein On: How Not To Try Too Hard in Meditation, Why You Shouldn't "Waste Your Suffering," and the Value Of Seeing How Ridiculous You Are

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

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How to spend your money in ways that will really boost your happiness and a look at the state of happiness research. 

Dr. Elizabeth Dunn is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Dunn conducts experimental research examining how time, money, and technology shape human happiness. She is the co-author of “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending” with Dr. Michael Norton. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, Time, CNN, and more.

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Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes

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A former nun explains how to deal with doom-scrolling, despair, and rage in the face of world events.

Kaira Jewel Lingo spent fifteen years as a monastic in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition. She is now a lay dharma teacher and is the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to stop doom-scrolling and what to do instead
• Why it’s more important, not less, to take care of yourself in times of crisis
• How to take concrete action that reduces suffering
• Stories and lessons from the life of Thich Nhat Hanh

From Plum Village:

• An open letter to President Biden, guided meditations, and other resources 

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/kaira-jewel-lingo-news

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Plus: Why Lama Rod is "no longer interested in being a good person," why we need to let go of perfectionism, and the selfish case for sainthood.

Lama Rod Owens is making his fifth appearance on Ten Percent Happier. He describes himself as “a Black Buddhist Southern Queen” and is an authorized lama in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism with a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard. His new book is The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors.

In this episode we talk about:

• What Lama Rod means by “New Saint”
• Why he is “no longer interested in being a good person”
• Why it's so important to let go of the ideal of perfection
• The practices and characteristics of a New Saint
• The questions you should ask yourself about your beliefs
• His experiences with what he refers to as “unseen beings” and his exploration of the “unseen world”

Related Episodes:

• Meditation Party: Magic, Mystery, Intuition, Tattoos, and Non-Efforting | Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren
• Lama Rod’s first appearance on Ten Percent Happier

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/lama-rod-owens-new-saints/

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The two practices that helped turn this self described scowling, sarcastic skeptic into an expert meditator

Since 1999, Devin Berry has been a dedicated meditation practitioner, his practice is deeply rooted in the metta and vipassana teachings of the Insight Meditation tradition. He spent nearly five years in silent, intensive retreats, cultivating his practice and understanding. Devin is deeply committed to the personal and collective liberation of marginalized communities, believing that integrating reflection and insight leads to clarity and wisdom, which in turn fosters wise action.

Devin is a dharma teacher at Spirit Rock and the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), where he serves as a guiding teacher. He also shares his teachings through Sounds True and at various sanghas and centers across the country.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why mindfulness alone is not enough
• How metta is part of four related mental skills, called the brahma viharas—and how to practice those
• The story of how and why the Buddha invented the Metta practice.
• The role and practice of Dana – generosity.
• Devin’s year long Metta/Dana experiment 
• And lastly, how these practices can help us on and off the cushion

Related Episodes:

Sharon Salzberg Takes on the Cliches: Authenticity, Love, and Being Your Own BFF

Mike D On: The Value of Failure, the Addictive Power of Adrenaline, and How a Beastie Boy Got Into Lovingkindness

Everything You Wanted To Know About Meditation Retreats But Were Afraid To Ask | Spring Washam (And Dan’s Close Friend, Zev Borow)

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Understanding the difference between ‘normal’ forgetfulness and actual memory loss, practical ways to stave off Alzheimer’s disease, and meditation’s role in brain health.   

Lisa Genova has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels including Still Alice—which was adapted into a film starring Julianne Moore who won the 2015 Best Actress Oscar for her role as Alice Howland, Love Anthony, and Every Note Played. Her first work of nonfiction is Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Genova’s first TED talk, What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's has been viewed over eight million times and her most recent TED talk, How Memory Works--and Why Forgetting is Totally OK was the sixth most watched TED talk of 2021.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between ‘normal’ forgetting and actual memory loss
• The difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease 
• Meditation’s role in brain health
• What the Memory Paradox is 
• The best foods and types of exercise for staving off Alzheimer's
• The three things happening in your brain while you sleep that are helpful for memory 
• Why brain games (like crossword puzzles and sudoku) don’t actually improve memory
• The first necessary ingredient for creating a memory 
• How memories are formed
• And the relationship between memories and music

Related Episodes:

Ten Percent Happier Podcast Sleep Series

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/lisa-genova

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We’ve been trying to do a bunch of experiments here on this show, and our latest is a weekly newsletter, which you can sign up for here!

To celebrate this new endeavor, we’ve put together a whole episode about risk taking and experimenting. We thought this would be helpful and educational while also giving you a fun peek behind the scenes (and also allowing us to be blatantly self-promotional in the process—a win/win!). In fact, this episode itself is experimental in its format, because we don’t have a typical guest.

I sat down with the show’s Senior Editor Marissa Schneiderman—who has been collaborating with me on the newsletter—to talk about how we’ve been putting into practice the wisdom from some of our best guests, including Brené Brown, Adam Grant, Rick Rubin, Sarah Cooper.

You can sign up for Dan Harris’ Newsletter at:

https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast

It’s a weekly roundup of life hacks, cultural recommendations, pod news, and upcoming events.

Related Episodes:

• Adam Grant on the Science of Potential and Achievement
• Legendary Record Producer Rick Rubin On: Creativity, Habits, Self-Doubt, Intuition and Meditation
• Comedian Sarah Cooper On: Humiliation, Perfectionism, and Taking Chances
• Vulnerability: The Key to Courage | Brené Brown
• How to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/take-risks

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One of our most frequent and popular guests talks about how to develop the character skills to discover your hidden potential.

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. His books have sold millions of copies, hisTED talks have been viewed more than 30 million times, and he hosts the hit podcastRe:Thinking. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021. He has been recognized as one of the world's ten most influential management thinkers.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why character skills are so important and how to develop them
• What we learn from seeking discomfort
• The concept of scaffolding as a way to overcome obstacles
• The value of acceptable mistakes
• And How to see the hidden potential in others and champion them
• Take Adam’s Quiz: Which skill could unlock your potential?

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/adam-grant-hidden-potential

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The host of On Being shares lessons learned from 20 years of interviews, including: how to live with open questions, counterprogramming against your negativity bias, and getting over the God question.

Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, a National Humanities Medalist, and a New York Times bestselling author. She grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, attended Brown University, and became a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin. After studying theology at Yale Divinity School in the early 1990s, Tippett launched Speaking of Faith — later On Being — as a weekly national public radio show in 2003. She has published three books: Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living; Einstein’s God, drawn from her interviews at the intersection of science, medicine, and spiritual inquiry; and Speaking of Faith, a memoir of religion in our time.

In this episode we talk about:

• Getting over the God question when it comes to contemplating religion
• Why Western culture has such a dearth of ways to talk about love
• Why she thinks the core of relationships is not about agreeing but about navigating differences
• Tuning into our generative agency
• Her definition of a wise life as distinct from a knowledgeable or accomplished on
• Why she believes it is as important to know what you love as it is to know what you hate
• Learning to love big open questions instead of rushing to answers
• Why the things we get paid to do may not define whether we're living a worthy life 
• And getting our intentions straight and then trying not to tie them too tightly to our goals

Other Resources Mentioned:

Krista Tippett’s TED Talk: 3 practices for a life of wisdom

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/krista-tippett

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Our friend Dr. Michael Gervais at the Finding Mastery podcast is a renowned sports psychologist who found meditation by happenstance. We wanted to share this conversation he had with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn about the mind/body interactions for healing and clinical applications for mindfulness meditation training. 

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where in 1995 he founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and in 1979, its world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic.  

Order Dr. Michael Gervais' new book here: https://findingmastery.com/book/

Listen to the Finding Mastery podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-mastery/id1025326955

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The difference between ADHD and human distractibility, and strategies for managing ADHD that can improve your focus, even if you don’t have it.

Today’s guest is Dr. Mark Bertin, a developmental pediatrician who specializes in ADHD and developmental disorders. He’s the author of How Children Thrive, Mindful Parenting for ADHD, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Teen ADHD, and The Family ADHD Solution, which integrates mindfulness into pediatric care. For more information, please visit his website at www.developmentaldoctor.com.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between ADD and ADHD, and the subcategories: hyperactive and inattentive.
• Whether ADHD is a new condition brought on by the distractions of a modern world, or one that’s always been around. 
• The difference between being human and distractible, and having ADHD.
• Strategies for managing ADHD that can be used even if you don’t have ADHD.

Episodes Mentioned:

Kryptonite for the Inner Critic | Kristin Neff

Self Compassion Isn’t Always Soft | Kristin Neff

The Scientific Case for Self Compassion | Chris Germer

Join Dan: LIVE!

Dan will be in upstate New York at the Troutbeck hotel on Sunday, November 17 — it's a Q and A and live guided meditation, and it's gonna be a great time. You can buy tickets and get more details here: https://troutbeck.com/culture/troutbeck-x-dan-harris/ 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mark-bertin 

Additional Resources:

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

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Here's what might be preventing you from making better decisions and how to know what's even worth wanting.

Shane Parrish is the entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnam Street and the host of The Knowledge Project Podcast. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to position yourself to make better decisions
• Shane’s decision making process
• The difference between decisions and choices

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/shane-parrish

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One of the most prominent western meditation teachers talks about how to take gauzy concepts and operationalize them in your actual life.

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Finding Your Way: Meditations, Thoughts, and Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

In this episode we talk about:

• What Sharon means by “an authentic life”
• Learning to be your own BFF
• How the notion of self-love squares with the Buddhist notion of emptiness
• Why it can be harder to receive love and help than to give it

Related Episodes:

- Sharon Salzberg, “Real Love”

- Losing Your Patience? Here’s How to Get It Back | Dr. Kate Sweeny, Dr. Sarah Schnitker, and Sharon Salzberg

- How to Stay Politically Engaged Without Losing Your Mind | Sharon Salzberg

- Sharon Salzberg Makes Me Feel Better

- Sharon Salzberg On: Openness, Not Believing the Stories You Tell Yourself, and Why the Most Powerful Tools Often Seem Stupid at First

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/sharon-salzberg-finding-your-way

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