Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 30: Jesse Israel

Episode Date: August 17, 2016

A few years ago, Jesse Israel was a sophomore film student who had just signed an up-and-coming college band to a record label he co-founded out of his dorm room. Israel built that record label into a successful company -- then he decided to walk away from all of it and looked into ways he could "bring people together through shared interest." After toying with a few ideas, Israel came up with a plan to start a community for young adults to meet, meditate and "share quiet," he said. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

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Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. When I wrote my book, I kind of thought of it as an argument dressed up as a memoir, and the argument was you should meditate, and I assume that the big point I'd have to make is that meditation isn't as weird as you think. It's a little weird, but not as weird as you think.

And what I've come to realize in the last couple of years since the book came out is that in some ways I'm fighting the last war that in fact there are a lot of people especially younger people who don't think meditation is that weird I'll give you a story. I was recently at Colby College Which is where I went to college I went up to give a talk about meditation and I showed up and the room was packed and it was a big room It was like overflow people had to go in other rooms and watch it on TV. Mind you, I couldn't even get a date when I was at Colby and this room was completely packed.

Now, I did learn as an aside that a lot of people were there because they were getting some course credit to be there. So that was it. That took some of the fun out of it. But anyway, my point is that people were really into the whole meditation thing. And in fact, during the Q&A section, after I gave my talk, we did Q&A. And there was this guy got up, this like big guy looks like he's probably in the football team,

really good looking guy, and said that he was captain of the mindfulness club at Colby. And they meet every week in the chapel and everybody should come. So I was just blown away. And I just have, you know, I've just found that as I've gone out in the world and talked about meditation some of the most receptive audiences are high schools uh... and i'm not and i've got to have to have you know fancy pants high schools uh... suburban york but also in inner city uh... high schools and and uh... i'm really impressed by the extent to which young people are totally into meditation

uh... which is really cool and which brings me uh... to my guess this time who's jesse israel which is really cool and which brings me to my guest this time who's Jesse Israel who is a himself a young person 31 years old a proud millennial and is the president president founder what's your title co-creator co-creator that's a very millennial term of something called Medi Club which we will go into detailed but about it nor Jesse will is active here in New York City and I believe some other cities are mostly just New York right now just New York so many club is a place where and he'll talk about it at greater length

where a lot of young people but anybody really uh... comes and and meditates together all over the city and then they put on something called the big quiet in uh... central park in two thousand people came and meditated and this is these are like hipsters that they were like man on ironic man buns very strategic facial hair This is this is this is serious hipster action going on. I felt very old and uncool So all of which to say that somehow meditation is really taking off among young people and make and it really makes me realize It's some of my stick which is trying to convince people that it's not for freaks, is not just for freaks, is maybe outdated anyway.

So a lot of things to talk about with you, Jesse, but thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. So before we get into all the things you're doing now, can you just tell me how and when and why you started meditating? Sure. So I got into meditation in my early 20s,

and the reason why is because I'd started a record label when I was a sophomore at NYU a band a college band that we had signed started to take off which was MGM to you. Yeah great band I'm glad you like that first record was amazing I have to say and maybe people are gonna get mad at me They kind of lost me with the later records, but that first record was amazing. That first record is a special one Yes for sure So you know we, we were young guys, sophomores at NYU.

How did you look up with these guys? How did you, I mean, I was a sophomore, I could barely get to class. I was so hungover. How are you starting a record label? Also hungover at class. My sophomore roommate, a gentleman named Will Griggs, his cousin was students with the two creators

of MGMT at Wesley in college. So we learned about their music, we actually heard an MP3 of the song Kids that they had created in their dorm room at Wesley and that's how we learned about it and we just saw an opportunity and believed in him and we didn't know what we were doing. I was a film student, but we went for it. Nice. So to get some meditation, move forward a couple of years, you know, I was like maybe 23, 24 and I was overwhelmed. I was essentially running a record label full time while also being a student, graduated, jumped right into it, got the office space, had the studio, signing lots of bands, going to concerts, and it was overwhelming. And I was looking for tools to manage stress. That's really what hooked me in was stress

management. So that's how I initially got into it and then it sort of evolved from there. I should just say that for those listening, we're recording a video camera, but I suspect a lot of the people who are consuming this podcast are listening only, so those who can't see you, Jesse is a very tall, good-looking dude, the kind of dude who would probably have shoved me in a locker when I was in high school. So also, just further to my point that meditation is a lot of cool young people are into it, which just boggles the mind from me, but I think it's great. So anyway, what kind of meditation were you doing when you got into it? So at the time, there were, there weren't a ton of sort of public, say, millennial facing options like there, you were starting to see now in New York and other major cities.

So this is like 2006? No, it was, it was because I graduated in no way. It was probably around 2010. Okay. Yeah, probably 2010-ish. So So the only place I could find at the time was the Shambhal Institute. And I remember rolling up to their intro course and it was kind of sleepy. And I learned a practice that wanted to be very powerful for me, but I didn't feel like

that was sort of my place to practice meditation and the people that were also in the class that I didn't really feel like I could relate to. So it kind of became a personal journey for the next eight or nine months while I just sort of practiced my own chambala techniques. So you had kind of an entrepreneurial itch when you walked into that room like, oh, I get it. I felt it then, but I hadn't experienced it yet, so I didn't know the power of it at

the time. So let's unpack that for a second. So, Shambhala is a, I think a, definitely very active all over North America, maybe globally. It was founded by a guy named Tibetan guru by the name of Chogam Trump Rinpoche, who was no longer with us, but his son is, I think, running the thing. And he was a really interesting guy, somewhat controversial too. He embodied what's known as crazy wisdom, because he was a little bit crazy in some of his behavior,

but also, I've never met the guy, but everybody I've spoken to, who knows him, said he's apparently really smart and inspiring person. But anyway, and he's a Buddhist, so this is Buddhist meditation, what was the practice that you learned? The practice I learned at Shambhala was an eyes open practice. It was relatively in specific, in specific in regards to how long we could practice for. I remember the instructor kind of be like,

see what works for you. I think maybe around 10 minutes, what was suggested. So I was sitting upright without back support, gazing down at the ground, sort of a soft gaze, and bringing your attention to your breath. It was pretty straightforward. And what did it do for you? It was very powerful.

I got into it and the first thing I realized was that even 10 minutes was going to be unrealistic for the way that I was living my life. So I kind of created my own routine around how to build habit for meditation. And I actually went up reading the power of habits several years later and I was like, oh, I kind of did this. And for me, it was what's realistic to make happen every morning. So I was like, oh, I kind of did this. And for me, it was what's realistic to make happen every morning. So I was like, after I'd brushed my teeth

and I'd leave the bathroom, I would just sit down for three minutes and practice. And after about a month, I was able to move it to 10. And then I just sort of had this routine in place. So I had probably a 30 minute practice happening every morning. And what I saw was that I was leaving my apartment, walking to work, almost kind of feeling like I was

floating to work, just feeling super calm. And whatever was coming at me, there was a little high stress period for me. Whatever was coming at me, I was able to sort of look at, consider before I'd react to. And the emails that used to come in, like those, the bad emails that kind of get you in the stomach

weren't really getting me in the stomach as much. I was kind of like, you know, I was like bad news, good news, just news. And it was happening in a matter of months. So I was, I was, I was kind of hooked early on. It's a great way of describing it. And I'm just curious just to go back though for a second to the habit. What did you do right there and then how did it expand from three to 30 minutes? So quick, quick, quick rundown on what Charles speaks about in the power of how Charles do Hig New York Times reporter who wrote the power of habit. Right. He looks at essentially identifying a cue. Oh, God, I'm not going to get the words right. Don't worry about it.

Okay. Anyways, essentially what I was doing was I had my cue every morning, which was when I leave the bathroom, I always will sit down for a period of time and have my practice. Routine, it was cue. Cue is leave the bathroom. Routine was sit down for three minutes is leave the bathroom. Routine was sit down for three minutes and practice the Shambhala technique and then my reward was, which is the third piece of the habit loop, was I had an app where I would sort of tally every day I did it in a row. The app that I was using was

called Chains and it allowed me to sort of maintain regularity around a practice. And the more days in a row that I was able to plug into this app, sort of like the more colorful and big this chain with you. I see. Cool. So I just sort of built a habit loop for myself. And then after probably a couple of weeks of doing that, my body just started to naturally want it.

That's phenomenal. And so is that what your practice is today still? It's not, no. So after about nine months of doing the Shambhala practice, I met someone named Light Watkins, who's a Vedic meditation teacher. And I got into that and just kind of felt like it was more in line with how I was living my life.

I loved how it was scientific and deeply informational, and that there was room to kind of grow and study the Vedas, which I wound up getting really into. So I'm a Vedic meditator today. So what did you describe for me the Vedic meditation technique? So it's similar to Tiam. I know you guys have talked about Tiam on the show before. Eyes closed, sit comfortably with back support. You're given a mantra that's somewhat specific to the student and you sort of gently and effortlessly say your mantra while your eyes are closed in this comfortable position. And if you catch yourself having thoughts, it's totally cool.

You let the thoughts come and you just return to your mantra. And do you time this saying of the mantra to your breathing? No, you don't. You don't. You kind of learn the rhythm through the course that you do to gear mantra. And how much of this are you doing? I practice Vedic meditation about 20 to 30 minutes in the morning and then anywhere from like 30 minutes to 50 minutes in the afternoon.

Wow, so that's quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say is the impact of Vedic meditation? How is the impact of Vedic meditation different from the Shambhala technique? That's a great question. It feels pretty clear to me and I got out preface it by saying that I only practiced Shambhala for about eight months and I've been doing Vedic meditation for how much longer it's been since then, five, I guess, five years, six years. So, you know, they're weighted. But what I, like I mentioned, what I found from Shambhala was that instantly right after meditation,

I found myself totally relaxed and calm, and very unreactive and sort of contemplative before having an emotional reaction to something. That was like my biggest takeaway. With the Vedic practice, I haven't felt as much of that. There isn't as much of like, I just finished meditating. I feel Zen. I'm going to float around.

I don't really feel that way. But what Vedic meditation has done, which has been really powerful for me, is it's slowly sort of stripped stress out of my body. So over time, stress triggers that have been built up and I've had quite a few of them for my childhood have essentially melted away. So I've been able to have a clearer channel between what maybe I would call your intuition

or your gut and my heart and my brain. So what I find is that it's much easier for me to make decisions based on what feels right as opposed to what maybe logically I think should be right. So I'm able to follow my intuition and feeling into that has been one of the most powerful kind of components the way I live my life and the way that I make decisions in my life. Can you give me some examples? Yeah, I mean, probably the most relevant example I can give, which is relevant to this talk

today, is, you know, I've wind up running that record label for nine years after we signed MGMT, and we built a tech fund and a whole live entertainment piece to the business, and it was an incredible ride. And as the company was growing, there was something inside of me, was really the more I was meditating, the more this was starting to come up, that was saying, this has been an amazing chapter in your life, but it's time to move on and figure out what's next. And there was no logic based around that.

All the logic said, stay at the company, amazing business partners, great so-ho office, company reputation is killer, money is good, but my intuition and sort of my heart was saying, you're meant to do something else right now, and that's all I had, and that's what I gave myself to, and now I'm giving myself to this work. So you walked away from the company?

Yeah, it was a process, but does it still exist? Oh, yeah, it does. So that was somewhat of a, I would imagine, economic sacrifice? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My lifestyle changed. Because you had less revenue. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And when you walked away, what did you walk away to do specifically?

Well, I traveled a little bit. I went off to Africa and kind of did that thing. Did you business partners think you had lost your damn mind? No, they understood. It was a painful process, but they understood. I mean, ultimately what I've found is, if I'm speaking from my heart and pretty much it's coming from my heart, you can't really argue with that.

It doesn't mean that someone may not be hurt or that it won't be emotional for me, but I was coming from my heart And ultimately I find people really respected But it was a challenging transition. It was kind of like like an amicable divorce You know, and it was a process multiple months while I was still in the office And everyone knew I was kind of moving on. It was challenging and I had no idea what I was gonna do next zero so I went on and I traveled for a little while and

I No idea what I was going to do next. Zero. So I went on and I traveled for a little while. And I kind of like about a year before I left the company, I was thinking about other ways I could kind of give myself the passions, just the side projects. And I've always loved community organizing and bringing people together. I had a cheeseburger club that kind of spread and it was a blast. So we had it. Where was the cheeseburger club?

Cheeseburger Club started in New York. This was, and I was out. This was, I guess, the year after I graduated from college. And the Cheeseburger Club, it's called the Burger Boys in New York, retired. But it was 10 guys we'd come together every other week, eat a different Cheeseburger throughout the five burrows in New York.

And really what it was, it was men's group. It was sort of like support for one another as guys in their 20s trying to figure out the world, but cheeseburgers were the reason to come together and kind of talk about what's going on in our lives. After the break, I use emojis in ride escape board. I go through a lot of breakups, I travel a ton, I get exhausted, I get excited, I get sad,

I get inspired, and I meditate twice a day. After this. Hey there listeners. I get excited, I get sad, I get inspired, and I meditate twice a day. After this. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up.

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I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. What's your favorite song? Cheeseburger club sounds just like purely awesome. It was the best. It was like, it was like your best buddy's birthday every other week.

And then it grew. We had a Tumblr presence. We live blogged every burger, we had as a group, and individually. And we had chapters of the burger boys pop up in Stockholm. The burger boys off Stockholm. And then we had chapters on the West Coast. You know, there was something special there. And I was inspired by kind of creating that and building that. So what I was mentioning was that about a year before I left my company, I started to look at other ways I could bring people together through a shared interest, sort of in the name of fun and human connection. So I started a bike club, which was the first ride was me and 18 friends who all had bikes

and we just sort of went on this journey. I didn't really time when we were going and we just crews went to Coney Island, went on the cyclone roller coaster and on the ride back to the Williamsburg Bridge, which is our starting point. We decided we would name ourselves the cyclones. And everyone in the bike club told their friends the next month. We had 40 people show up for the ride and then by the time I left my company, we were a bike club of over a thousand people.

And when people would come together to ride, we'd really, we're taking over five, six blocks. And I was feeling very cold to bringing people together and sort of creating new shared experiences. So when I was traveling in Africa, right, when I left my company, I was at that point thinking about how I could sort of lend more purpose to our bike club and give myself to it because I don't really have anything else to do and that was a really scary feeling because I was running a business while I was a student. I never had something to do. So we, anyways, we wound up creating a bike share program for rural Tanzanian students who were walking up to 20 miles to get the school, essentially bike share program to help students be better students.

And that's how I identify a future. I just loved this sense of purpose, bringing people together. We'd go on these rides, kind of speaking front of the group, rally people up. This is how we're gonna raise money, get involved, let's build this thing. And it really, it had everything to do with the work

that I do today. That's really cool. So then what happened that brought you to organizing around meditation? So at that point, when we did our bike share program, it was November of 2014. So I was like, I don't know, maybe five months since I had any left my company.

And by December of 2014, it was two-color ride bikes. And then I was like, oh, God, I'm faced with the giant question mark of the unknown once again. By the way, probably you probably don't have any income at this point, right? Almost out of my savings. Well, I was getting close. I saw, I mean, it was, it was, it was trickling. Okay.

And, you know, the company I was running and we didn't have any major exits or we had some hits, but like, you know, I didn't, I didn't have a huge savings. It was trickling. Okay. And, you know, the company I was running, and we didn't have any major exits, or we had some hits, but like, you know, I didn't have a huge savings. It was a startup. So I was, you know, kind of limited to begin with. And finances played a huge, it's been a big fear in sort of my story since I left two years ago. Come to an interesting place on it. We could touch on that later if you'd like.

But it was too cold to ride bikes and there was the question mark of what to do and at that point I was asking people what they thought my greatest gifts were and I was just kind of curious to hear about it from people because I was getting really in my head about what to do next because I was getting job offers that were in the music and tech world that were so incredible. And I felt so lucky to be getting these offers, but it was like, I knew it was what I wasn't here to be doing anymore. So saying no to that and not knowing what was next was really, really tough.

There was sort of a lonely feeling around that. I can acknowledge that I'm saying this from a very privileged place. But it was a challenge. And I was asking people what they thought my gifts were from a very privileged place. But it was a challenge. And I was asking people what they thought my gifts were to start to create some ideas around what I could start to give myself to and what people kept saying was, you can bring people together, you have leadership abilities.

I would think to myself, yeah, it's true, but what's the business there? So I would kind of like blow it off. And then eventually I was like, well, I might as well play around with this. I've something I love doing. It's something that people keep telling me that they like when I do. How can I combine it with a passion? And meditation had been this huge piece of my young adult life, as I had mentioned. And it was one of the only consistent components of my life during this period of intense transition. So and I was seeing that lots of young people in my communities from the music industry,

from the tech house, the places I was partying in New York City, you know, these active people that you wouldn't think to be meditating at the time were starting to learn meditation. So we hosted our first Medi Club in December 2014 about a year and a half ago And I sent an email and that email has been turned into a blog post Which is the extent of our website? We actually don't even have a website just a Medi Club blog post and it pretty much said You know, I'm a young guy party. No, I have it right here. I'm gonna read it It says this is great All right. All right.

It says, this is great. I'm 30. I stay out late in party. I start my own businesses. I use emojis and ride skateboards. I go through a lot of breakups. I travel a ton. I get exhausted.

I get excited. I get sad. I get inspired. And I meditate twice a day. That was your call to action. That was it. And people responded. Well, as I went on in the in the thing we've I

can paraphrase it if you like. By the way, you got to stop it with the emojis. No more emojis. We have to remember this was this was a year and a half ago. And I've shifted the way I use emoji. Okay, well for the rest of the two not using. I actually have I've actually de-evolved to using the emoticons. Oh, I see. Right. So I'll use the hyphen with a parenthesis. Yeah, that's that's my side. I think I think you just got to go cold turkey, man. I know you're young. I respect you for it, man. I respect you for it. I'm trying to bring back the emoticons. You are. All right. All right.

We can agree to disagree. So so you you you post this and what what happens next? Well, in that there's a call to action which essentially says let's get together and Share quiet We'll meditate we'll talk about meditation. We'll talk about what's going on in our lives We'll have a little party with quiet and I emailed it to maybe 40 people that I knew we're learning meditation But didn't have place to practice meditation together, or with quote unquote, like-minded people. And I think we had about 23 people show up to the first Medi Club.

And at that first one, I was like, I saw the thread. I was like, we had about this many people for the first bike ride. We had a small group for our first cheeseburger meeting. I kind of was starting to feel the potential right at that first gathering. And Emily Fletcher, who's a Vedic meditation teacher, kind of gave me some support, encouraged to get a go in. So she helped me organize that first one. And people just liked it.

People, I think, weren't used to, people that are used to seeing each other in a work context or a social context. We're definitely not used to people that are used to seeing each other in a work context or a social context. We're definitely not used to sharing quiet. And you know, we took a risk with the first Maddy Club where I decided to share about my process, my career process, and sort of some of the fears I was having around that transition. And you know, got got real as we like to say and I almost didn't say it because it felt pretty scary to be that vulnerable. I know you can relate to this and After I gave my share the room was totally quiet

I did it right after the meditation room was totally quiet and then one other person shared at the same level of depth and vulnerability and then the room just lit up and you had all these people who from what I can tell weren't really communicating like that very often were sort of doing it with strangers and there was some very powerful there and that has been foundational to Medi Club. We don't just come together to meditate we also come together to hold space for safe conversations around you know the shit that we're going through in our lives as people that live in New York. So I mean it's interesting. I mean I see a little bit of, maybe this is egotistical, but I'll say it anyway. I see a little bit of myself in what your approach is.

In that you kind of saw an opening in the market, you know, as you say, went on to say in your blog post that, you know, there are a lot of people who are really interested in my age group who are interested in meditation, but there's nowhere for us to go. So you really did, and that was my feeling, you know, back in 2009, when I first started getting interested in meditation and started reading all these books that were great, but I realized that somebody like me would never, most people like me would never read one of these books because they're, but I realized that somebody like me would never, most people like me would never read one of these books because they're filled with a lot of language that is off, I found off-putting. And so we both kind of had a sort of an entrepreneurial view on this thing. So after you had that first meeting, what happened next?

The reaction I got from it was moving. And what people expressed to me was that they had been sort of yearning for this type of space and having found it from that gathering meant a lot to them. That was one piece. The other piece was, I kind of stepped back that night and I was like, holy shit, I'm meant to do this. It's bringing people together with a whole deeper purpose. And we did our next Maddie Club, the next month,

the doubled in size and by the third or fourth, the loft that we were using in Soho's, my buddies was lending his space to us, was at capacity. So it became clear that we needed a platform to sort of share this value system of, I guess you could say, a more conscious way of living a modern life. Is it a business?

It's becoming one. How? What's the revenue? Well, right now, it's essentially an events business. So through big quiet, and we haven't actually, we actually haven't, through big quiet, made a profit. All the money we've been making off of BigQuery, we've been partnering with certain nonprofits.

But what we realize is that the opportunity right now as an events business, but we have all sorts of ideas about how to go beyond that. This thing can scale and reach lots of people if we're actually making money and putting a team to it. And we, after a year and a half of testing it and the various components, there's a lot of different things we could speak on if you'd like. We're convinced that this could have a pretty broad reach.

And the way to do it is to turn it into a business. So, there's many club which is small group meetings and then big quiet, which are bigger events. Many club gets together the first Wednesday of every month and it's capped at 150. That's sort of like the max number for a meeting that we feel like is most of the time. But you have many, right?

You have many. So we have that as well. Those are circles. So the core will come together. If you're in town, if you're interested, bring a friend. 150 of us gather the first ones of the day of every month. At those gatherings, we also talk about our circles, which are 10 person versions of Medi Club

that are hosted by members of our community who've been trained by me and a small team to host their own group meditations and sort of safe space conversations to talk about real shit that's going on in our lives in different neighborhoods throughout the city in Brooklyn. And then at Medi Club that core monthly gathering, the 150 person one, we also discuss our plans for the big quiet, which is essentially a collaborative project to celebrate this

value system with now thousands of people in the city. And three pieces. Gotcha. And the big quiet happened, how often? So you were at our one year anniversary, which was two weeks ago and we've had six so far So I guess you know for two to three months and how often did the circles meet? Every Wednesday is interesting to me because when I heard you talking about the circles at the big quiet It made me realize you know

This is the way mega churches operate. Yeah. Did you take that idea from the mega church? I would I would I've been inspired by a lot of different social movements. I've been really inspired by the civil rights movement. I've been inspired by Rick Warren's work and by a handful of community activist tools and protocols. Really what I'm looking at is how do we take our value system and find a way to spread it in a way that is in line with how our generation is living our lives.

And there's a lot to kind of pull from and also kind of keep behind with a lot of the examples that I gave. AA is actually another one that we looked at quite a bit, which I was going with friends to open meetings because I loved the sort of conversation and connection that was happening and found that to be deeply inspiring as well. So the difference between AA and mega church, the civil rights movement and what you're doing is that you're going to make a business. So first, I've got two questions about that. One is how does it become a business? I'd love to just hear a sense of, to the extent you're willing to talk about it,

like what the business plan is. And then two is there because as I was, like two or three questions ago, when I was talking about how we both the mutuality here around us both having sort of an entrepreneurial itch as I said when at various moments in our exposure to meditation. I started hearing some of my Buddhist friends say, well, hey, man, this is, you know, in my year in my head saying, you know, this isn't supposed to be about turning a profit. This is, this is really supposed to be something bigger and grander than that. So those two questions you can take them and whatever order you want. Okay. I totally respect that opinion in regards to meditation, not being something to charge for. You know, the way that we're doing it right now, And you probably saw this from the big quiet, it's not just meditation. We're taking over incredible spaces,

we're booking incredible talent. And I actually have a team that I'm paying now sort of out of my own pocket, more or less, to create these experiences. Yeah, but by talent, you're talking about the musicians. Yeah, we have musicians at all of our events, except for the circles.

We now have musicians or we'll have guest speakers. It's a celebration, not only of meditation, but of culture, and that's kind of how we present the experience. It's a party with consciousness. So yeah, there are elements of that that people don't like that we charge for, and I totally respect it.

It's probably not for that person. What, it's probably not for that person. What we're creating is not for that person. But there are a lot of people who are very happy to support the growth of our values and to enable the experiences that are happening. A lot to the point where we're having growth issues because we fill up all the spaces that we organize in, which is awesome.

But I thought, you know, a decent bit about what it would look like if we didn't charge, we actually started without charging. And it didn't feel right to me. It didn't feel like we would be able to do it in the way that we feel like we need to do it and at the scale that we're ready to do it at to, if we weren't charging for it. So it's definitely a new thing, although we're seeing lots of different for-profit businesses

around meditation in New York. But I'm a co-founder of New York. Yeah, right. I'm not getting breachy with you. But yeah, so that's something that I plan on sticking by. So what is the, I guess, of the two questions, let me turn to the first one. Well, I describe for me how you see it becoming a going concern. Sure, sure.

There are, so I think it's probably best for me to speak to what it looks like right now. And I kind of allude to some of the bigger stuff, but I don't have it all figured out right now. Sure. You know, so very much in the process of figuring it out with an incredible group of mentors and also from a lot of support within members of our community. But right now it's essentially an events business. Everything that we do from the circles to our monthly Medi clubs to our big quads, there is an exchange in price for.

And what we do is we create tiers of pricing for people to contribute what works based on their means to a certain extent. So the lowest price point for any of our gatherings is $10. And we've had some gatherings for the highest price point, like when we did a big quite early consent, or the highest price point if you wanted to contribute was $55.

So there is sliding scales based on the events. So people are essentially paying to come to our experiences and those experiences happen multiple times every Wednesday. Like I mentioned, and then they happen on a larger scale when we did the big quiet that you were out two weeks ago. I wanted to give back to the City Parks Foundation because they allowed the first big quiet to happen as an opening act at Summer Stage in Central Park. So for the big quiet two weeks ago for when you're in aversary,

we actually went out of headlining and taking over the whole space for the night. And we took all the profit that we made from that event, which is about 20K, and gave it back to the parks. And that's because we charged $25 per ticket to come to that event. It allowed us to pay off the staff, it allowed us to pay off the team, it allowed us to pay off talent, and it was allowed us to turn a little bit of a profit. So we're trying to find that sweet spot for events right now,

which is not a huge business, but it's enough to allow us to grow and to keep sort of spreading this thing. What I'm really interested in right now is refining what we're doing in New York before we bring the big quiet or many clubs or our circle models to other cities. But my concern is your older Jewish uncle is, how are you eating, like how are you surviving? So I've got my resources, you know,

like I have a side business, which is a production company that I started when I was a student at NYU that is still generating enough income for me to stay alive in New York. Video production. Video production, yeah. That's one piece to it.

I'm able to pay myself a part-time salary from the current work that we're doing. I have one full-time person on staff and two part-time people on staff at through Medi Clubb and Big Quiet and I pay them through the money that comes in through the Big Quiet Medi Club through our events. The commitment that I've made has been to give myself to this project and really do it right, really refine, test, iterate, really nail it here in New York and have faith that as this community builds there will be meaningful ways to make money that also work with how our

community wants to give money because that's a really important piece to it. This is a conversation we have a lot with our community. So I've adjusted my lifestyle so I can do that right now. I moved out of my my loft in Williamsburg to a much different style apartment with roommates for the first time in a while Which actually been great, but that's you know saved me thousands of dollars so I can really continue to test What I can see is this people are very appreciative of what we're creating and Very hungry for it and my belief is that if we can continue to grow this and work with our community and

here at our community and continue to find scalable models to give people what they're hungry for, that there will be ways to support myself, to support a team, to support a global team eventually. And there's a decent amount of blind faith that's going into it, but that's how the whole thing started. A lot of great businesses start this way. Yeah. And I really respect the question. You said before that, you said before that finances were something that had been on your mind, I suspect that making this sort of change in your lifestyle, all that stuff,

it's not something you do lightly. Yeah. It was, it was, I was tormented by it. I left a company and I was living a certain lifestyle. Actually, that wasn't as challenging as the job offers that I was getting. That were really cool. I mean, some of my dream offers, like a couple years ago, a couple years back earlier on in my company, the kind of things that always sounded awesome. But like I had mentioned, there was this sort of intuitive

calling to keep exploring and testing. So with that, I had to make this choices. Like my lifestyle is going to change, and it's going to be different than the way a lot of my best friends and peers live their lives. And you're talking to a privileged guy who grew up on the West side in Los Angeles and I was kind of raised in a certain way

and always kind of felt like I would have lots of money always and by no, look, I'm good. I got a roof over my head. I'm in a good situation. It was very different than the way a lot of my peers are living their lives the way I maybe would have expected. I'd be living my life at this age. And that was just a really tough thing to, you know, sink into.

The biggest thing at first, probably the first four months of leaving my company was the comparison to all of my peers and just watching them all kick ass because I run with a very talented inspiring group of people. That was really challenging for me and I had to kind of learn to just drop the comparison story and be like, I'm on my own path. Comparing mind in the Buddhist world, we talk about comparing mind when you're comparing yourself to other people, it's very painful. Very painful.

It's ultimately wasted energy. And I felt to a certain extent, I think, I started interrupting you, because I think a little bit of comparing mine can actually be very motivating. It's motivating, yeah. But when you, you got a mindfulness is very useful to help you draw the line between useful comparing mine

and useless comparing mine. It gets useless pretty quickly. Sure, I agree with that point. Yeah, I guess the way that I was jumping into comparison at that stage in my life, it was just like instant torture. And I had to just drop it, or else I would go into these patterns, these holes, or I would totally lose sight of how exciting

this new phase of my life was, where I was actually able to give myself to explore and what I felt like I was really here to do Your vision your grand vision is that many clubs circles and big quiet big quiet's plural will be Having in every city totally all over the planet. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean we've received It's been a year to be doing the big quiet. we've received, it's been a year since we've been doing the big quiet, and we've received these host requests. We had this thing on our website where people could sort of suggest places for us to bring it and offer it to help create the experience.

They're like, over 150 cities and countries, and this has happened very organically. We don't really push this stuff. We have a splash page. We don't even have a website for a Medi Club. So the demand is there. And I can see it, especially right now, I feel like people are sort of extra hungry to come together and share experiences like what we're talking about. And my belief is that this can work on a very large scale. And I think that the gatherings can get bigger. I think they can happen in more places. And I think that the gatherings can get bigger.

I think they can happen in more places. And what's really important to me is creating the intimacy while something like the big quiet gets larger. I think we'll do big quiet at places like Madison Square Garden. And as we get larger in that way, I move to other cities. I want to make sure that we still have 10 person circles and peer to peer support that's happening regularly in the same cities that big quites exist

because that level of connection is, to me, just as important as that big mass shared experience of connection. Let me ask you some questions about my experience at big quites. So, I mean, look, it's undeniably awesome from my point of view that have thousands of people like voluntarily, not only voluntarily coming together to meditate, but pain to do it,

you know, I mean, they're really motivated. But it was interesting watching my own mind during it because I'm such, I can't, I'm not allowed to swear on these things, but I'm such a, start to the A and end to the E. Just in reflexively a little bit judgmental, and it got me thinking, first of all, like I was like, I had so many things to say, I'm like having trouble saying any of them, but it's very earnest.

The your group is very earnest, and I was saying before, like man buns and, you know, and flower crowns and, you know, like it's a very sort of, it's like a combination of hip kids and like the new age in a little bit. And, you know, instead of clapping,

you're kind of snapping and all that stuff. And so I found myself as like a crotch-dier guy, like a little bit like, oh my god. I'm rolling. Right. So, am I a horrible person? Or like, how do you respond to my admittedly cell? I'm a little, I'm not proud of my judgmental nature,

but it is what it is. So how do you respond to my response? It's such a good question, and it's one that's very relevant right now. Because up until about a month ago, I was very concerned with you. I was very concerned about making sure that the snappers and the man buns and the crown wearers

and the Dan Harris' would all love the experience. And I was tormenting myself. And you know, it's like, you try to create something that's gonna work for everybody. And I think you have sort of an impact. And if you're willing to really stand for something and do it in the way that you believe in, you can have a real impact, but you may not appeal to everybody. So, you know, I think we have a pretty good balance, like considering what the event could be. It could be real, Iroly. And there's a line to it.

So for me, I want to create enough space for people to connect. So we will have games where there's things like make your own handshake with someone you don't know or snap instead of clap and just kind of get break people out of the intensity of their own world and everything has got to be so right and so cool in New York and just kind of loosen people up but without going too far.

So I try to just stay true to what feels good to me and sort of the other people in our community like that you saw on stage and we build an experience that feels right to us and they're gonna be people that don't like it or roll their eyes and I'm learning to be okay with that but it's tough for me. No, I think you're right and I, you know, as I was berating myself for being kind of judgmental about it, I started thinking a little bit about generational differences. I'm 14 years old and I knew that's not like a ton, but I'm from Generation X, your generation Y, right? And I was wondering, in many ways we're very similar.

Like I, notwithstanding the age difference, you know, I grew up in a very privileged Jewish household and on the East Coast instead of the West Coast and, you know, I went to NYU Film School, I went to Colby, but I did a semester at NYU Film. Like we have a lot of similar similarities in our background and if I was your age, we might have been even in the same friend group. But the way you talk is very different from the way I talk. Like you talk about what you're meant to do here on the planet or you unself-consciously talk about your heart. Like I would never talk that way. I grew up and I was raised on Seinfeld, you know, like irony and you know this sort of like nihilistic sarcasm and uh, so I wonder is that is the and from what I can tell with from working with a lot of millennials on the staff at nightline and is that actually like being heartfelt and earnest and

sincere is actually sort of okay in your uh peer group. So do you think there's something to what I'm saying? Absolutely. And I actually think this is an important point and particularly in regards to how we explore this. As a generation, there's definitely, I guess you're calling it a level of being earnest. I think that we see that, you know, this is what a lot of research points do and from what I can see, it's a lot of this is pretty accurate. Millennials are driven by purpose and mission.

We're more willing to speak vulnerably, we care about authenticity and transparency. And what I've seen is that it's great to go right into that. It's great to be able to have a conversation and talk that way, but sometimes I see people going to that space so quickly that it would instantly turn someone who's not from the same mindset off from the conversation. And what I'm really interested in is how you and I can have a conversation if we maybe

don't speak the same way, or I can still be true about how I feel and how I speak without making you go, I roll the whole time we're talking. You haven't made me I roll the whole time we're talking right now. And I think the millennial emphasis on authenticity is very interesting because millennials, for example, really embraced Bernie Sanders, not close to their age, right, much older than obviously any millennial. But you know, barely comes his hair, true to the same beliefs he's had since he was 25 or whatever,

and you know, the millennials really loved him for that. And I've found that even though I am not a millennial, I'm significantly older than a millennial, just the fact that I kind of own the fact that I'm a judgmental jerk at times, That is in and of itself a sort of authenticity and that's that that actually, you know, I went, spoke, I spoke at wanderlust, right? So this is like actually that they're not just millennials, but they're super earnest and super into their yoga poses and all that stuff.

And I went there and got, I made fun of them for drinking kombucha and wearing flower crowns, stuff like that. And they were totally into it. They're totally fine with it. And so authenticity seems, authenticity seems to me to be the coin of the realm here. Like as long as you're, as you said before, keeping it real, being real or whatever, then it's okay, as long as you're,

and being respectful. So I actually have no disrespect for I've actually An enormous amount of respect for what you guys are doing. It was only on the edges on the stylistic part where I Found myself being a little bit like oh my god, but still I felt badly about being like oh I love the self-awareness within the crotch That's beautiful example. It's this crotchety mindless for me within the crotchiness. That's beautiful example. It's this crotchety mindfulness. For me, it's really just about meeting people at the level that they're at. And this boils down to emotional intelligence.

It's like to what extent, all right, you're in a millennial, you care about purpose, and what feels right in your heart. To what extent do you just go right into talking about that and lose someone that you're trying to have a conversation with and to what extent do you have a sense of, okay, I understand where this person's at, their value system may be a little bit different.

I'm going to communicate in a way so we can stay in sync with how we're talking. That's something that we think a lot about at our gatherings actually. And if you ask me, I actually feel like we skewed a little bit too far to the side of that last bit quiet. And which head? To a little too far to the side of that last bit quiet. And which head to a little too far to the earnest side. Yeah. Because I'm really interested in right now I'm really interested in in being able to celebrate this and share this with a lot of

people. So if we go too far to the earnest side, then we start to lose people like you. And look, ultimately, like I said before, got to stay true to what feels right to us, but I am very interested in understanding how to meet people where they're out. So I think there's sort of a refined way to go about being authentic that doesn't push people away. I don't have it mastered,

but it's something that I'm really interested in. I'm thinking about the same thing, you know. I went to the big quiet with this woman who's just signed on to do marketing consulting for the 10% happier app. And she invited me and we went together and I turned her in the middle. I said, we have to figure out as a company,

how do we not turn this crowd off while continuing to reach who, you know, the broad mass of civilians out there? And it's an interesting challenge. Yours is kind of like the diametric opposite. Yeah. It is a very interesting challenge. But as you said, and I think what you said before,

though, is at the end of the day, the right approach, if you do something that's designed to just make everybody happy, you'll probably do something mediocre. So you kind of have to figure out what your gut tells you and go with that on some level. Right. And I will say though that I have, I have a sensitivity to be, to be, to be in too far in the earnest because it actually pushes me away as well. So, you know, I, I actually have a level of eye roll and sort of crotchetyness as well. Maybe more so than you would think for what I do for a living.

And that just doesn't speak to me. So, but I like this stuff. I'm willing, I can go there and I'm willing to go there in a way maybe more so than other people. Like to go. So you're talking right now. So it is ultimately a balance. And I think that has lots of do with the success of our growth

is that I'm trying to stay true to that balance, not too far on either side, because that is really what's most meaningful to me and a lot of people in our community. Fair enough, I like the word balance. I think that's a good goal. One of the things that you do, and I wonder if you think this has been part of your success, is that you are, and this is your term, practice agnostic. People come to Medi Club, but you're not actually dishing out one kind of meditation. Now we share a technique that people can use if they're new to meditation.

We encourage you to practice whatever you want. We encourage you to talk to other people and learn what they're up to. We have a resource page that has tons of different ways to learn meditation, but what was happening was people were showing up to Medi Club having never meditated before. And then you sit in silence and you leave and they're like sucks. So we give a four-minute technique that people can use if they like to. The other thing you emphasize is that you want to make meditation relevant to things that are active in people's lives, like creativity, sex, and business life balance.

Can you talk to me a little bit about how meditation has been useful for you in those areas? Yeah, sure. So I've spoke quite a bit about how it relates to business. It's given me clarity. It's allowed me to refine intuition to make decisions that feel right. So that has lent itself in a major way to business, and it's also lent itself in a major way to how I show up in relationship. Although you say you break up a lot. Yeah, definitely. I've been through a handful of breakups.

But how you go about the breakup and being able to know when it's time to break up, these are things I'm still learning. But meditation has played a really big role in how I show up, as a lover, as a partner, as a romantic partner, as a business partner, and as a creative person. So much of what we're building right now, like you've referenced some of the sort of other movement examples we spoke about those earlier, but in many ways what we're doing hasn't really been done. So there's a lot of creativity that's required to allow this thing to grow and it comes from a lot of collaboration, a lot of, you know, other meditators within our community are helping play roles

and make this thing happen. So without meditation, I'd have a very different relationship to all those components of my life. And those are pretty important components of life. And at the end of the day, this is what we're talking about at MediClub. And when I mention that we have this conversation component to our gatherings, we're touching on topics

that matter to us, sac, dating, relationships, money, career purpose, social media, comparison, stuff that we're all kind of going through, but not usually speaking about. What I see is that people that are meditating have been more inclined to want to go and talk about that stuff with strangers. So we celebrate that, and we're looking to kind of make that safe and cool. Bravo at all of that and I certainly, you know, I, I, you're in one of your many insights here is that practicing together actually has a real power. And I think that's just undeniably true. So let me just, you've been a great guest. Let me just, one of the final things I just want to ask you is out of curiosity. Do you have a goal for your own meditation?

Like, do you try to become enlightened? What does that, and what does that even mean to you? I don't know. The enlightened terms seems like, like, like some kind of like a media term. It's not a media term. We're like, like, ancient religious term. But, but, but, but, But the way that I relate to it,

is it sounds like a media term in that it feels like a thing that people say to reach enlightenment. It feels confused and sort of misrepresented in our world. And I would agree with that. Yeah. And that's honestly how I associate with it. I'm like, it sounds like someone who's playing the role of a yoga teacher in a movie. That's just how I relate to it. No, I'm with it. I'm like, that sounds like someone who's playing the role of like a yoga teacher in a movie.

That's just how I relate to it. No, I'm with you. Yeah. So, I don't have a goal with my practice. Like, what I was taught for my teachers was when I'm closing my eyes and doing my practice, whatever happens is perfect. If I'm thinking the whole time, if I'm going, you know, quote unquote, deep, if I'm experiencing benefits, if I'm not, if I'm hitting a plateau and I'm like, is this working?

It's all perfect as long as I'm sitting down and practicing. And that's really what I've kind of stuck with. Nice. That's a good place to end. I actually have one question for you. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So one of the things that really drew me to you,

when I first learned about you maybe a year or so ago, was that you, in a very public way, got vulnerable about your own life. And as I mentioned, vulnerability, creating space for vulnerability is an important piece to what we do. And we're seeing how powerful it is. Do you feel like being vulnerable in the way

that you were has a lot to do with the way that people have sort of latched on to your message and sort of follow the work that you're doing. You know, there's no data in the publishing industry. So I know how many books I've sold, but I don't know why people are buying them or who's buying them or what they like about it. So I mean, it's all anecdotal.

And it's interesting to me, I hear, I mean, I'm sure a bunch of people hated my book, but I don't really hear from them much, but what I hear from people who do like it. And so some of them say, at least tend to be the older people, like my age and older, it's the skepticism that really worked for them. If I figured if you could do it, anybody could do it.

So that was kind of when I talked about the last war, in some ways, I wrote the book in the mindset of everybody thinks meditation is weird. I needed to make it seem less weird. And now I'm realizing that not everybody thinks it's weird. Other people, I think, related to the book because of the vulnerability, because I talked about having a panic attack, I dealt with depression, anxiety, panic, the trifecta, drug abuse, so everything. Although, too, like you, I have a very privileged background. I don't want to hide the ball in that at all.

So I think it's kind of a mix. And you know, it's really kind of in my head now because I'm working on my next book. And I'm trying to think like, what did I do right last time? Because I didn't even know what I was doing last time. I'd never written a book before. And it was a mess. The process was a mess. So that's a long way of saying I don't really know.

Right, I don't know. Well, I commend you for doing it, man. It was inspiring to see how you put yourself out there to get that story across. Thank my hunch is that it probably inspired a lot of other people. Thank you. You know, it's funny. I don't know if I've talked about this in the podcast before. I've talked about it publicly, but to the extent that my book was a success actually was

humbling on one level, which was that I realized I spent an enormous amount of time while writing the book, freaking out about what people were going to think. Am I going to lose my career because I did a lot of cocaine or you know like my mother begged me not to publish the book and it was a whole thing I was freaking out and here's what was humbling I realized when the book came out nobody really cares about me like it was mildly amusing to hear that this guy wears a tie and seems put together on TV so this like sea level network news guy freaked out like that's mildly amusing what people cared about was what do you,

Harris, have for me that could be potentially useful? And that was actually hugely liberating. Because I, I don't know, walking around under the false impression that people really care about me. What they care about is can I, can I deliver something useful? And that's been great. That's been great.

So, and I think it's just like changed the way I am in the world because I was burdened by a lot of narcissistic self-obsession that I realized actually I didn't need to be burdened by. Sure. And you broke a mold in regards to how to get a message across and it proved to be really meaningful. Thank you. So, that was cool to see. And I'm a fan of the podcast, too. All right, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you like it,

I'm going to hit you up for a favor. Please subscribe to it, review it, and rate it. I want to also thank the people who produced this podcast Josh co-hand Lauren Efron Sarah Amos and the head of ABC News Digital Dan Silver and Hit me up at Twitter Dan V Harris. See you next time Hey prime members you can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.

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