10% Happier With Dan Harris

Then he got put in charge of a losing team, and he turned them into winners. Dan Quinn is Head Coach of the Washington Commanders. He was fired from the Atlanta Falcons back in 2020, then signed up for a “360 review” where he solicited feedback from former players, peers, and bosses. He then brought all those learnings to his new job at the Commanders, where last year (his first year with the team), he created a very interesting culture. They had a surprisingly great, headline-making season last year, and their opening game of this season is today, September 7.  In this episode we talk about: How to solicit and handle tough feedback How to give clear feedback without being a jerk Secrets for getting the best out of people Strategies for recovering from defeat and other varieties of setbacks   Related Episodes: How To Stop Worrying About What People Think Of You | Michael Gervais Dr. Michael Gervais, Sports Psychologist The “Performance Whisperer” George Mumford Has Deep Strategies for Flow and Succ

The creator of somatic experiencing shows Dan how to heal trauma through the body.   Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., has spent the past 50 years developing Somatic Experiencing. He holds a doctorate in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology from International University. His work has been taught to over 30,000 therapists in over 42 countries. He is the author of the new book, An Autobiography of Trauma. Content warning: This episode includes discussions of rape and violence. In this episode we talk about: How to do somatic experiencing. You’ll see Dan play the role of guinea pig + make weird sounds The difference between somatic experiencing and talk therapy Somatic experiencing practices we can implement into our lives Why some people feel horror/terror at the thought of re-occupying the body and how to overcome those fears What the research says – and how these practices around body awareness have gone from the fringes to entering the scientific mainstream And how to move through ancient wounds

An expert trauma therapist offers a master class in resilience.  Linda Thai LMSW is a trauma therapist specializing in cutting-edge brain-and body-based modalities for complex developmental trauma. As an educator, she adeptly communicates on trauma, attachment, and the impact of oppressive systems. Passionate about healing trauma, Linda is redefining what it means to be wounded and whole and a healer. In this episode we talk about: A primer on your nervous system  Stress, distress, traumatic stress and burnout  The relationship between stress and digestion  How to figure out if you’re stressed, burned out or traumatized Practical tools for resetting your nervous system Related Episodes: The Art and Science of the World’s Gooiest Cliche | Barbara Fredrickson Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel   On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditation Center in NYC as they lead a workshop

How to reduce negative thoughts, get deep rest, and improve cellular health.   Elissa Epel, Ph.D., is an international expert on stress, well-being, and optimal aging and a best-selling author of The Telomere Effect, and The Stress Prescription. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is Vice Chair of Psychology and directs the Aging Metabolism Emotions Center.    In this episode we talk about: What telomeres are Why chronic stress  accelerates our rate of aging – and how to reverse it  How we have way more control over aging than we think Small, consistent lifestyle changes we can make to promote longer telomeres  The role of existential stress Meditation retreats as a reset for the nervous system How even 5-minutes of daily meditation can help Breathing practices that increase vagal tone  Deep rest, and other states of mind that are crucial for cellular repair and growth  How to counteract the impacts of stres

We’re in the midst of an exciting evolution of the overall 10% Happier project. In our quest to make this podcast more actionable – to help you operationalize all the game-changing ideas you encounter on this pod – we’re now offering guided meditations to accompany each full episode of the show, available to paid subscribers at DanHarris.com. For the month of September, those meditations will come from Vinny Ferraro, a Buddhist teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition.  In this bonus episode, you’ll hear our head of content, DJ Cashmere, in conversation with Vinny, who shares his backstory: a tough kid from Brooklyn who found the Buddhist tradition to be the most helpful thing in his life.  Related Episodes: A Radical Buddhist Approach To Making This The Best Year Of Your Life | Vinny Ferraro Three Buddhist Practices For Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny Ferraro   On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditation Center in NYC as they lead a wo

Practical learnings from Dan and his CEO on: focus, feedback, self-talk, and expecting adversity. 10% Media head honcho Toni Magyar joins Dan for a candid conversation about how to reset after a professional setback, navigating some tricky transitions, and how self-compassion and clear communication can make it all a bit easier.  In this episode we talk about: Celebrating the one-year anniversary of our new business, independent of the app company that Dan co-founded How acknowledging that change is constant helps us live with uncertainty What it means to operate with self-compassion and why that’s different from lowering your standards Some of our big plans for the next year, including more live meditation and Q&As with Dan and the Teachers of the Month   Related Episodes: I Just Went Through A Career Earthquake. Here’s What I Learned About Anger, Insomnia, and Bouncing Back | Dan Harris   On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditatio

What to do when the voice in your head is an asshole.   Sebene Selassie is an author and meditation teacher. She writes the popular newsletter remind me to love and her first book is called, You Belong.    Jeff Warren is an author and meditation teacher. He writes the popular newsletter Home Base and is the coauthor, along with Dan, of a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. And he is the co-host of the mind/bod adventure pod. Aaron Schultz aka DJ DRM has crisscrossed the globe for decades playing his own unique brand of dance music. Aaron is also a longtime meditator and Dharma practitioner in the Dharma Drum lineage of Chan Buddhism, and is a passionate devotee of GuanYin Bodhisattva.   In this episode we talk about: How to relate to sticky stories and emotions  How to face unpleasant feelings  The 5 hindrances (that’s a Buddhist list of the main problems that arise in meditation) and how sneaky they can be  The potential pitfalls of a “good sit” The role of right effort in meditation  How expectati

You talk all day. Here’s how to do it better, according to a professor from Harvard Business School. Alison Wood Brooks comes from the Harvard Business School, where she teaches a course called “TALK: How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life,” which she has now turned into a book, called TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. In this episode we talk about: The evolution of conversation  Why conversation is a skill — not just a natural talent  How to develop conversational skills, including common conversational pitfalls to avoid Granular, tactical pieces of advice on how to have a conversation The science behind conversation that may surprise you Listening tips  Conversational repair strategies  How kindness can go pear shaped  How to handle difficult moments in conversation  The difference between focusing on other people and people pleasing  How to integrate these incredible learnings into your life  How soft skills are becoming increasingly more valuable with the rise of AI  Joi

What to do when you're in the grip of grief, anxiety, or overwhelm. Our Teacher of the Month, Kaira Jewel Lingo, has some suggestions for finding your way through.    Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel   On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditation Center in NYC as they lead a workshop titled, "Heavily Meditated – The Dharma of Depression + Anxiety." This event is both in-person and online. Sign up here! Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more at eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025. To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

We’re bringing you some of our favorite gems from the archives, as chosen by our staff. This week, we’re hearing from dharma teacher Vinny Ferraro, as chosen by our producer Eleanor Vasilli. Vinny explores the concept of “alignment” and how you can actually choose your own attitude – and choose your own adventure.  Full Episode: Three Buddhist Practices for Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny Ferraro Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditation Center in NYC as they lead a workshop titled, "Heavily Meditated – The Dharma of Depression + Anxiety." This event is both in-person and online. Sign up here! Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26t

The highest form of self compassion (is seeing there’s no self in the first place).   Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher who blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach, drawing from her eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She's authored two books—The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together and A Kids Book About Mindfulness. Caverly is also the Founder and Lead Contemplative of two nonprofits—Peace in Schools, creating the first U.S. semester-long credited mindfulness course in high schools, and Realizing Freedom Together, dedicated to making practices that lead to liberation for all, accessible to all. Learn more at caverlymorgan.org In this episode we talk about: How to move past a constricted view of the self  Relative vs absolute truth  Joseph Goldstein tips on getting a glimpse of no self  The perks of meat and potato dharma  More practices to help supercharge our practice How love and self-compassion factor into all of this Join Dan’s online community h

How it can help with stress, anxiety, and panic. Dr. David Spiegel is Willson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford School of Medicine. Standing on a lifetime of research and clinical experience (nearly 50 years), he is a world renowned expert on hypnosis and has treated more than 7,000 patients with it. He founded the Reveri app to make his methodology accessible to all. In this episode we talk about: What hypnosis actually is — and how it does or doesn’t differ from the mainstream conceptions (ie stage hypnotists) The types of people who are — and aren’t — hypnotizable. And why.  We go over the steps of self-hypnosis, so you can do it at home We talk about the differences between hypnosis and a flow state The difference between hypnosis and meditation  What happens in the brain during the hypnosis And what hypnosis is helpful for, including stress, anxiety, and panic (sidenote: Dan agreed to do the interview because he really wanted to see if hypnosis could help him with his ongoing claus

All this month, we’re sharing custom guided meditations from our teacher of the month, Kaira Jewel Lingo, exclusively available at DanHarris.com. Like any good drug dealer, the first taste is free – so today, we’re giving you a sample of what you can expect for the rest of the month. This meditation is about learning to sit with discomfort.  Related Episodes: Are You Overcomplicating Your Life? Meet August's Teacher of the Month, Kaira Jewel Lingo   Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more at eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025.   Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel   To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

It’s good to apologize when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings, but there’s more to “making up” than simply an apology. We’re bringing you some of our favorite gems from the archives, as chosen by our staff, and this week we’re hearing from parenting expert and psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy about taking the next step when you’ve made a mistake. Full Episode:  How to Repair the Damage After a Fight | Dr. Becky Kennedy The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy | Becky Kennedy | TED   Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more at eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025.   To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10Hap

How to (constructively) lower the bar on your meditation practice.   Ofosu Jones-Quartey is a meditation teacher, hip-hop artist, and author based in the DC area. He’s a certified teacher with over 20 years of experience bringing mindfulness, self-compassion, and creativity to people of all ages. His stage name is “Born I,”, and his new book is called Lyrical Dharma: Hip-Hop as Mindfulness.   In this episode we talk about: The definition of open-awareness meditation  How it differs from classical concentration practices (such as focusing on your breath, or loving kindness phrases) Why Ofosu chose open-awareness meditation (in direct response to his struggles with OCD) How you can practice open-awareness meditation  The benefits of a technique called “mental noting”  The “practice self-assessment tapes” that we run in our mind Self-compassion and “lowering the bar” in your meditation practice The relationship between  neurodiversity and meditation in general How to  depersonalize the experience of suffering A

An expert in failure shows us how to find success in the most counterintuitive way.   Manu Kapur is currently the Director of the Singapore-ETH Center, and Professor for Learning Sciences and Higher Education at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he also directs The Future Learning Initiative (FLI). Manu is also the Founding Chair of the ETH Zurich – EPFL Joint Doctoral Program in the Learning Sciences. In this episode we talk about: The definition of Productive Failure (a concept Manu developed that allows you to design for and harness failure for deeper learning) Why we learn more from failing than from succeeding The difference between desirable and undesirable failure  The neuroscience of curiosity Practical ways to incorporate productive failure into your daily life How to get into your “failure zone”  Cool concepts like the looking back and moving the Gold posts How to normalize failure and create environments in which other people feel safe to fail  The role of psychological safety and a growth mindset

Sharing an episode today from our friend Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, Happier. Gretchen and her sister Elizabeth Craft discuss the idea of the “familect” and why it might be fun to create a  dictionary for our own familect. They also talk about a hack that makes it easier to use a smartphone, and they share dozens of listeners’ thought-provoking  “Secrets of Adulthood.” Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here!   Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel   To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

We’re bringing you some of our favorite gems from the archives, as chosen by our staff. This week, we’re hearing from therapist Dick Schwartz, as chosen by Mani Chandy from our Substack team. Schwartz is the founder of Internal Family Systems, a way of looking at all of the various “parts” that we have inside ourselves, and how they can work together or make things harder for us.  Full Episodes: How to Handle Your Demons | Richard SchwartzHow (and Why) To Hug Your Inner Dragons | Richard Schwartz Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here! Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

An avalanche of practical advice and brief (but powerful) life lessons.   Gretchen Rubin is a New York Times bestselling author and happiness expert who explores human nature and habits. She’s a highly acclaimed writer, host of the podcast  Happier with Gretchen Rubin and the founder of the award-winning Happier app.    In this episode we talk about: What aphorisms are, and why they’re useful  How to make decisions that lead to a “bigger life" Why you should pay special attention to anything you lie about or hide  The argument against task-sharing  The dangers of being indecisive  Why offering emotional validation can often be more powerful than offering solutions Why you should pay close attention when people repeat themselves over and over And much more Related Episodes: The Happiness Project: Revisited  How To Use Your Five Senses To Reduce Anxiety, Increase Creativity, and Improve Your Relationships  Small Ways to Improve Your Everyday Life Right Now  Outer Order, Inner Calm  'The Four Tendencie

A conversation with a Cornell professor who is attempting to rebrand the concept of defiance. Dr. Sunita Sah started her career as a physician but then switched over to organizational psychology. At Cornell, she conducts research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. She is the author of Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. In this episode we talk about: How Dr. Sah defines defiance  The costs of compliance  The five stages of defiance How to make defiance a practice The upside of tension  The importance of knowing your values — how to articulate them, and how this relates to our biology, specifically our hormones  The gender components of defiance  Join Dan’s online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel  To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris Sponsors: Smalls: For a limited time only, get 60% off your first order PLUS free shipping when you head to S