Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 38: Eileen Fisher, Fashion Icon
Episode Date: October 5, 2016Eileen Fisher weaves mindfulness and social consciousness throughout her multimillion-dollar clothing company and in her personal life. After being in business for over 30 years, her collecti...ons are sold in 65 EILEEN FISHER shops across the country, as well as department stores, and her company backs several initiatives focused on using sustainable fabrics, human rights for garment workers and EILEEN FISHER employee health. But even with the daily stress of managing a clothing empire, Fisher still begins each day with meditation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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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.
Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes.
Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts.
So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety,
we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes.
Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better,
we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes.
That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all
one word spelled out. dot com slash playlist singular.
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.
So I invited Eileen Fisher on,
you're gonna hear from her.
I'll introduce her in a moment.
She's a huge name in the fashion industry.
And in many ways, I thought to borrow a phrase
that I used in my book, I thought that this interview was going to be kind of like a two animal species trying to talk to
one other who are like not of the same species like like a lizard trying to talk to a goat because
we're so different. But she's incredibly interesting and I learned a lot and I think you'll hear
learned a lot and I think you'll hear some huge areas of overlap. So here you go, here's Isleen Fisher.
From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
I'm gonna start with a question that I ask everybody at first, which is how when,
where, why did you start meditating? Oh great, love that question. Okay, so I think I'm a person who's always been kind of a seeker.
I'm not that I'm a little different type than you're sort of targeting maybe.
I'm the sort of tree hugger down.
You mean, you kind of mock a little bit, so I'm kind of...
You mean I make fun of people like you, is that a trick?
I think we're right probably.
But I still love people like you. I make fun of...
I try to do it with a loving...
I know you do, you're hysterical.
I adore it. Anyway, so I do my things. I started doing therapy years ago and journaling
and all kinds of different sort of seeker, you know,
ways to know myself. I'm always trying to know who I am and what I'm doing and why I'm doing it
and you know what's impacting me and all those kinds of things. So I think around 15 years ago,
I went probably on my first yoga retreat and I hadn't really done yoga before that and while I was
doing yoga, we started always with meditation
for a half an hour every morning.
And I was just kind of taken with how blissful I felt.
I didn't know what was possible to be free of the chatter
in my mind.
And so I was loved that.
But then I went home and I committed to five minutes every day.
Can I stop you right there for a second?
Because most people, their initial experience of meditation,
is not bliss.
It's like torture.
Because you're just really seeing how crazy you are.
So what is your mind like that?
That was awesome for you.
All right.
Well, keep in mind I was on vacation in Mexico.
So that contributed to it.
And we were meditating overlooking the water and you
know so it's particularly gorgeous. And then I did yoga right after that. So it was this kind
of and then we went swimming and you know beautiful meals and all those things. So it was kind
of a whole package and it was later and when I got home and I tried to do the five minutes
that I got in trouble and that I was not able to follow through, you know
and I tried, I went back another, you know, for five years and I, I tried really hard to anchor at least a minimal five-minute practice and for five years and
wasn't very successful. And I think for exactly the reasons that you're talking about is that I would face myself and my own mind that was pretty chaotic.
It's a collision with reality.
Right, exactly.
You really see how crazy we are.
Crazy.
Crazy.
I still, you know, even after years of meditating, I still wake up every morning, crazy, feeling
crazy.
And I have to sit up and meditate or my mind will get the better of me.
So it's the first thing you do in the morning.
Every morning.
Well, to your...
But I didn't finish how I got into it then,
how I actually, but go ahead keep it.
But I just wanna say in your defense,
if you didn't wake up a little crazy.
I would be really crazy.
Yeah, given the size.
Or a weird that I was crazy.
Right, right, I mean given the size of the organization,
you're running.
I mean it's got, I just, the amount. But I have so many good people, you know, it's right on sure
But when an issue reaches you, it's probably a problem. That's true. That is true
So anyway, just I just I just have to be made of course, so I just wanted to say that in your defense
But anyway back to your story
acknowledging that load that I carry. Yeah, it is
It is overwhelming. I'm sure it is. Yeah, it is. It is overwhelming.
I'm sure it is.
I want to ask you about that and what
whether meditation helps.
But anyway, you were telling me, so you did it,
you tried five minutes a day and you started.
Right, and I tried over a five year period,
I kept going back to that retreat, I do yoga classes,
and I tried meditating, and I couldn't, I'd do it at classes and I tried meditating and I couldn't, I
do it at night or in the morning.
I couldn't, I couldn't sort of anchor it.
And then I ended up at the Chopra Center about 10 years ago.
And I did a program called Emotional Freedom
because I knew that I was, like, I was triggered to easily
buy things and emotionally kind of hijacked too often in my life.
And so, like, a problem would become some thing in my mind.
And so, I wanted to get free of the emotional chaos that I was in.
And so, that's why I went to this program, but of course,
what they taught was meditation.
So, basically, what they said that really worked for me was get a meditate first thing in the morning.
They gave me this phrase, rise, pee, meditate.
And it worked.
It worked.
That may be the only Deepak Chopra catch phrase that I like.
Yeah, probably.
No, I mean, that would work.
Yeah, no, no, actually, that's probably unfair to Deepak.
He probably says a lot of things I like.
But I also like to make fun of him a little bit. Yeah, no, no actually that's probably unfair to Deepak. He probably says a lot of things I like but I also like to make fun of him a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah
So that worked for you and at that point it's stuck it's stuck and I've been doing it ever since and
What is your how long do you go? So I go between 10 minutes and 30 minutes depends on what else I'm doing
So I have to do yoga in the morning too because I really need the physical piece and so I'll do yoga for a minimum
10 minutes and I'll meditate for a minimum of 10 minutes. But if I have more time
I try to do 30 but many days I don't do 30. I do 10 and 10 usually. And what is
what is the actual technique you're doing when you meditate? Okay, that's good.
So, when I first started at the Chopra Center, I got, I started using a mantra, and you know,
just kind of repeating the phrase.
I don't remember what the phrase is.
And then I got involved with kind of Buddhist meditation and doing, I went on a seven-day silent retreat,
probably seven, six, seven years
ago.
Wow, where?
In Colorado at Red Feather, Shambhala Center.
Okay, yeah, Shambhala Center.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know that place specifically, but the Shambhala Center was founded by Chogam
Trumpa, who's famous and infamous at the same time.
Right, exactly. Tibetan monk who, I guess, took the robes off and lived a lay life, but has a big following
that remains to this day.
I have a lot of friends who are active members.
Oh, good.
So do I.
Yeah, that's good.
I have to compare notes.
Yeah, we actually do that on Sunday mornings, we have a group that meets in our office in
Westchester.
Oh, so it's a Shemala group that meets in our office in Westchester.
Oh, so it's a Shimala group.
It's a Shimala group.
It's a Shimala group.
Well, the guy who profiled you for Mindful Magazine, Barry Boy, who's a close friend and
advisor of mine, and he's an amazing guy.
I call him like the beat reporter for Mindfulness.
He really is like a guy you would meet covering City Hall
and Dayton in some ways, in some ways. But he knows everybody in the mindfulness.
He's actually his hometown is Pennsylvania, where my ex-husband is from.
Oh, really?
So, town in Pennsylvania.
So, he has a working class vibe to him, like a working class journalist vibe to him, but he's also as our almost
all working class journalist, I've met really sharp, really smart, really plugged in.
And he's a long time Shambhala practitioner.
Yes, definitely.
I think I've taken us astray narrative.
No, no, that was a fun article to do with him.
Yeah, I liked him.
I recommend it to everybody.
You can find the PDFs online.
I read it.
It's one of the many things I read in preparation
for this interview with you.
Great.
And Mindful Magazine.
It's a great magazine.
Yeah, yeah, it's good.
I believe you were on the cover?
Yes.
You're a cover girl.
Oh, God.
Any magazine that's putting you on the cover,
it's a good thing.
Especially since the mindfulness, now I'm getting into a real tangent here, but mindfulness
hasn't had a sort of a house organ.
You know what I mean?
Like a central repository for information.
And Mindful Magazine has really done that quite well.
And brought it out more in the secular world.
Absolutely.
Made it accessible.
So you started doing Shambhala meditation?
Is that what you still do?
Yeah, I do.
Basically, it's just following my breath
and trying to keep bringing my mind back to following my breath
because even now, after many years, my mind back to following my breath because even now after many years my mind as you know
is it just constantly needs to be
pulled back and
So that's what I do and I also do a loving kindness meditation some mornings
Those mornings and is that is that something you learn through Shambhalla or elsewhere?
No, I actually learned it through Barbara Fredrickson.
Sure, yes.
She's a scientist.
Or a researcher of some sort.
Yeah, some sort.
Yeah.
I've heard her name.
I think.
He loved 2.0.
Her book is what I read that was fantastic.
She, I think, now I'm speaking from ignorance here, so I just want to be upfront.
I think she's done some work with Sharon Salzberg, who is really a major proponent in the meditation world for loving kindness meditation.
That's right. Yeah, love. It's all about love, isn't it?
You know, I have to say, as a lifelong, you know, nihilistic skeptic and sarcastic wise ass,
I, and I've talked about this in the podcast before.
I mean, I am a real believer in love and kindness meditation, which is this practice where
you visualize people and systematically send them good vibes.
And I often make the joke that it initially it sounds like Valentine's Day with a machete
to your throat.
It's just really like enforced
gooeyness, but the science shows it works and it works in interesting ways. It has health benefits so it lowers the release of stress hormones and things like that, but it can change behavior.
And so for example, children, preschoolers who are taught how to do this kind of meditation
are more likely to give their stickers away to kids they don't know.
Oh, how sweet.
It's really sweet.
And as the father of a one and a half year old, I need to get around to teaching this kid
because he won't give me anything.
Well, I can say for myself, I can find myself welcoming people in a more warm way.
You know, even people that I maybe don't feel comfortable with
or not sure if I actually like,
but I can feel, you know, sort of energetically
that I feel that I'm more able to be warmer with people.
What do you think that is?
Is it, is it?
I think my mind got tricked into saying,
I don't know.
I don't actually know.
I think it's practicing that particular meditation that I do.
I think it shifts something. It makes, it's sort of like you trick your mind. It's like laughter,
yoga or something. They say that it actually you start to feel happier. Or I noticed you interviewed Amy Cutty.
Yeah, yeah. All that, that you change your body.
Power poses.
Yeah, you change your mind.
If you change your mind, you change your behavior.
I think, I think it's almost like tricking ourselves.
Is that strange?
Or you could say training yourself.
Training, that's better.
I like that better.
Yeah.
It may be a mix of the two.
But I wonder, you know, sometimes when it it as it pertains to mindfulness, excuse me, loving kindness meditation and behavior change is it?
Obviously, you're training the part of the brain that is compassionate, but there's a cognitive component too, right?
So like when you see somebody and I'm sure in your line of work, you see a lot of people some percentage of them are gonna be difficult people for you
Is there some of us in all of our lives? Of course, of course, but percentage of them are gonna be difficult people for you. Is there some-
Well, us in all of our lives.
Of course, of course, but your life-
I have a whole difficult person's my son, therefore.
It's not just that work.
Fair enough, how old is your son?
27.
Okay, well.
It's a good age.
Difficultness.
I have a son too, so I could get some-
No, no, don't you?
I have a little one, but he's,
I have, let's talk about that too,
at some point, parenting.
There's a cognitive component too, because you can see, and maybe this is kind of what's
drummed into us through doing the practice and reading about it and learning about it.
You see that even if this person is difficult for you, they want the same thing you do, which
is to be happy, not to suffer. And that is just a useful
intellectual reframing of the thing.
Right. That's good. I like that.
What other impacts did this doing this mix of mindfulness meditation and love and kind
of have on your life? Because you have a son, you have an
ex-husband, you also run this Goliath of an institution. So, how else did you find it
useful? Well, look, I mean, I run... It's all relative.
I have a structure in my life so that nobody reports to me, so I don't run anything. So,
sitting here with somebody who has 1200 employees, that
seems like a goliath of an institution to me at least.
Yeah, it is. I guess the impacts that I see is that I think I'm different. I think I'm
able to kind of show up in a little more whole way. And I think that it's affecting the work.
I think the work I care more about the work itself and not just a product that we create,
but the whole of the work from the way people work together, the way we treat each other,
the way we try to help create an environment where people can grow.
And also the way we treat the workers and the way we care about the planet, I think that
all of those things have sort of shifted.
And I don't, it's not, I mean, I meditate, but I think it's more than that.
I think we actually, I don't know if you know, but in the workplace, we ring the bell
and we have a moment of silence before meetings.
Did you hear about this?
I did hear about that.
Yes.
Did that really scare you?
No.
Oh my God, that's so weird.
No, no, no, no.
I mean, look, if you would tell me to take years ago, I would have thought it was weird because
that was before I was meditating.
Did you have a cult or something really weird going on over there?
Maybe, maybe, but now I think, you know, I debate it because I have meetings.
I have a little company that teaches people
how to meditate through an app.
And we don't do that at the beginning of our meetings.
And I think it's partly because culturally we're trying.
We're trying to position ourselves as, you know,
meditation for people who are not weird, right?
We don't think they're weird, right?
It's skeptics, I like it.
Yes, and.
It's for anyone, really. It is for everyone.
I love what you're doing.
I think it's really good.
I appreciate that.
It's really important, because I think
to take it out further and to let people know how helpful
it can be.
And I want to say one other thing about the work situation,
because it's, say as much as you want.
Well, I think what's really interesting,
and I think it is this kind of idea of stopping and
having a little space and creating awareness of what are we doing and why are we doing
it and how are we doing it and how can we do it better.
I think it's the kind of reframing that needs to happen in the whole world of work.
I think that we can make a much bigger difference in the world world of work. You know, I think that we can make a much bigger difference
in the world through the workplace if we change our level
of consciousness so that we actually can tap into the energy
that everyone has and the positive energy,
rather than the negative in the crazy minds
that we can bring to things and all our weird patterns and
past and I have this consultant. He says that 90% of what we bring into the workplace is
our childhood patterns. And so we're always acting out and being triggered by people and
all kinds of weird things. But if we could free that up and we could get that other 90% of energy from people, then we could really, you know, we could really use the energy of people in
the workplace to really make a big difference.
Like what you're doing.
Well thank you.
I think what you said is a thousand percent true.
I guess the question goes back to what we were discussing before.
How do you introduce it in a way that it doesn't seem weird, right?
Right.
Well, actually, probably when we did it,
it might have seemed a little bit weird,
but we have a culture that, you know,
we've drawn in kind of, I think maybe the kind of clothes
we make, the kind of, the way we work,
we've drawn in a certain kind of employee
that tends to care about well-being and these kinds of things,
so it's not so weird in our environment,
but we have these consultants who have been working for us for many years and they
now take the practice out into other organizations and they don't call it
meditation or even mindfulness. They just say it's a moment to pause before
starting a meeting. Just take a moment to pause. And you know we need to gather, you
know we need to let go of where we came from, the last meeting we're in, and worrying about whatever else we're worried about,
and just be present to this meeting and to this moment.
Yeah, I mean, you could call it a sanity break.
Right. And a lot of people do. Well, you know, people do different things.
I have a skeptic in my office. He says, I count to 60 every time we do that.
And that's okay, you know.
Absolutely.
And it's still, you know? Absolutely.
And I think it still gives you a little break.
And other people say, oh, God, we forgot to ring the bell.
We need a moment.
Or sometimes in the middle of a meeting, wow, that was a really important idea.
Or that was an important thought.
And someone will say, let's just take a moment and I'll ring the bell.
But how to do it?
And so it's not weird.
And so that moment of pause or that sanity break, let's take a moment and I'll ring the bell. But how to do it and so it's not weird and so that moment of pause or that sanity break let's take a sanity break or sometimes a stretch break
like what people do that that be weird we do that too. You're all in you've done it all you've
got massage therapists walking around the office. I think it's easier for you you set the tone
of for culture in the company.
It's the company's name, after you, people are drawn to you.
Yeah, people think it's weird. They don't come over first.
Probably not, probably not. But for other employers, I think it's trickier.
And then you get into the whole issue of secularity.
Right.
And are you enforcing something on people?
Right. Right. And we're trying to actually, I'm not helping you with your goal here, but we're trying to actually go get people to go deeper, you know, to actually really work on their other night, the 90% that hold us back, you know.
How do you get them to do that? But the idea is that people go off-site and work on purpose and embodiment is something
I'm interested in.
What do you mean by that?
I mean, like how do we show up fully in ourselves, in our bodies, and how do we notice
what we're feeling and thinking and how do we keep referencing ourselves, our
own bodies in the midst of whatever else is going on?
So how do I know, like, oh, I'm a little intimidated in this conversation or I'm a little uncomfortable?
Please tell me you're not intimidated.
I'm not intimidated, but often, you know, I'll find myself in a situation where I become
aware that I've just shut down or I'm not listening, really hearing what's happening
or I'm not bringing my full self to the,
I'm not responding.
Like one of the things, maybe this is,
that I have this problem, I shut down
and I, like I can't hear or I can't speak sometimes
because I can't bring my voice to the situation
because something has scared me or something.
So I'm learning to notice my pattern.
It's a childhood pattern for me of shutdown.
That's how I coped with all kinds of difficult situations in my family.
Just shutdown, hang out with myself.
So learning about that and actually learning that I can stop and I can make a different choice.
Oh, I can actually show up. I can actually speak up here. I can actually listen better. I can
actually ask that person to repeat because I just, and sometimes I'll just say, well, I just
missed that. Could you just repeat that? Could I, I just really want to hear you and just realizing that I, you know, as I become more aware of what
I'm feeling and noticing inside that I can make different choices. And then in doing
that, I show up differently. I can't even, I can make different decisions. Like I told
this story recently, I, we're in the midst of shifting around our leadership group and hiring a few
new key executives.
I was interviewing marketing people and I found myself noticing, like being able to step
back and notice, whoa, I'm shutting down, I'm actually uncomfortable. I'm afraid of this person.
And so she's really smart.
She really has a lot of background.
I don't even know how to ask questions.
And so I caught myself doing that.
And I was able to go, whoa, to myself,
I missed a fair amount of that interview.
She's pretty interesting.
But in the past, I would probably go like, no, I didn't really connect
with her or something, didn't feel right.
And then I realized, no, that was me and that was my fear
and that was me shutting down.
And so afterwards, I said, I think maybe we need
to interview her again, because I don't think I fully
heard all of what was happening.
And so now I'm not going to finish that whole story,
but I think we've created a whole new path.
Of, for me, I'm more open to people
that I might have actually not let in to the company.
So I think it's going to be a huge win for the company,
because I'm able to kind of reference myself
and open up more.
You know what strikes me sitting here talking because we set up the you said in a very
charming way at the beginning that you think that you're maybe the type of person that I kind
of make fun of once well, but we're saying the exact same thing.
We just use different language.
I wouldn't probably say embodied, but it is a super-legitimate idea.
If you're feeling, we call them feelings for reason.
You feel them in your body.
If you're stuck in your own head, and you're not in touch with whatever is happening in
your actual body, you are going to miss stuff.
And you will get trapped by all of your conditioning, all the stuff in your past, all the stuff
you're worried about.
And so what you're talking about right now is completely common-sensical.
Right.
But I'm saying it in language that's a little less accessible.
So that's very interesting.
No, to me, but I'm just one person, man, which I think it's going to be incredibly
accessible to lots of people. I don't think this was not a critique at all.
This was just more like, I think we have very similar reviews on these issues.
It's just a matter of we may just say it differently.
Yeah.
Back to the embodiment topic though, the exam really fascinated.
The language is really important.
Barry talks about that.
And when he, you know, Barry Boyce from Mindfulness,
Mindful Magazine talks about the right language
that makes it accessible.
Some more people are invited in.
So we're not shutting people out.
He had me do a joint column with him,
something like seven ways to talk about meditation
without being annoying.
So they're like, that's great.
So yeah, it is, it is a trick.
It is a trick.
Yeah.
And you may have said, if I ask you to put more about it,
but it's okay.
No, please do.
Please do, because then I have a follow-up question after that.
Okay, and I'm trying to remember what I was going to say.
Well, I'll ask you the question if you get to it,
then that's fine.
I'll ask you the question if you get to it, then that's fine.
You said you were trying to get,
you said you were trying to get in the direction
of getting your employees to go deeper.
And one of the things that in the lab
that you talk about is embodiment.
That's how we got to embodiment.
That's an unlearning level.
That's embodiment.
Exactly.
Leadership.
And so how do you draw,
how do you as an employer draw the line between being
the employer and being like psychotherapist,
and Nanny, and all that.
But you're providing people with things
that most employers don't and might see as like
beyond the purview of an employer.
So, right.
Right.
Well, I guess the way I see it is that if people get freed up
and we can sort of get this other part of energy that's actually held
in their, that gets in their way, the obstacles, all of that.
If we can free that up, then it's good for business.
Okay, see, now you're talking like me, yes, it's all connected.
And it's not the full intention, and for, it's deeper because I really care that if we fully engage people in deeper ways,
they're going to do deeper, more interesting work.
They're going to bring much more to what they do.
And I think that's what our company wants, and I think that's what the world needs.
So there's no mutual exclusivity here.
Motivation is an interesting thing because we can be there a lot to level.
I like the frame and see I wasn't thinking about that word but that's exactly right.
We I feel like you know if I think about think decisions.
To get a project together that would be fun.
Let's do a project here.
Re-language it and yeah.
Absolutely.
I think about things and things that I'm working on or decisions I'm making or it and I always think
there's like a spectrum of motivations.
So sometimes it'll range it from crass to really high-minded.
Right.
You know, like my book.
Feed the monster.
We got to feed the monster.
Well, there's that true.
Feed the beast.
Of course, feed the beast is part of every business.
Certainly in, in, um,
Well, we could argue that, but let's talk about it.
No, that's a different conversation.
We'll have a minute.
No, no, no, we'll talk about that too.
There's so many things I want to ask you.
Um, but feeding the beast, um, in our, in my line of work and journalism,
really means that we have these shows,
two hours of morning for good morning America,
and a half hour of our world news tonight,
and a half hour of our nightline,
and we need to feed that beast.
We need to feed the beast.
We need that content for those shows.
And so you can be really focused on getting the content
for every night's show, but then sometimes that can create a tunnel vision.
Right, right. That's good.
But in terms of internal, same with close, same with close.
Of course, yeah, full line, spring line.
We got to do it. And the customers want to know what's next.
And so we got to do it. But at the same time, you know,
how do you have a larger room?
You get lost in, you know, so how do you keep the quality and the
content the
way you want it and not compromise and at the same time, you know, get the work done
and meet the deadlines and do what you need to do to keep it moving.
Yeah, feed that beast while also having the large enough vision to envy you to say,
oh, we need to set up a learning lab
or we need to do these other things for our employees.
Right.
On the issue of motivation, I just,
what I was gonna say is like,
even if you take writing my, I wrote a book.
So where, so, so what was my motivation?
I wanted, on one level, it was pretty high-minded.
I wanted to make meditation accessible to millions
of people who would otherwise not like it.
The other hand, you know, it built my personal brand in some ways, right?
So there's a, some of that is not, some, part of my motivation for doing that isn't stuff
that I'm super proud of, right?
But some of it is.
And that is, you know, when you talk before about why you're doing this kind of deep work
with your employees, it can range from, hey, I want to.
Let's go for business.
It's good for business to these are people I care about.
They're around me every day.
Right.
Want them to be happy.
Exactly.
It's all, yeah.
Yeah, it can be win, win, win.
It can kind of get it all.
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The other thing you do in your business. I want to also ask you about the 10% happier concept. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead.
Okay, and then you can tell me more about my business. So I was thinking about 10% happier,
and I wanted to ask you, are you 10% happier? My view now is, first of all, it was a joke.
It was a joke, but my view now is that the 10%
compounds annually. Yeah, you know, you can get happier and happier. Of course. I'm terrible at math,
but I kind of think about it geographically, that there's an x-axis, you know, that runs horizontally,
I think. I can't remember, but anyway, so we have this happiness set point, right?
The psychologist say that, you know, if you think about a graph and whatever's running
horizontally, if they think it's X-axis, good things happen and we tend to go above the
set point, the number of cycles.
But then we revert back to it eventually.
And then bad things happen, we go below,
and then we come, but we get over it,
we come back to the happiness set point.
I sort of feel like what meditation is done for me
is it's made to high higher, but not in a manic way.
It's just that I'm not so busy thinking about what's next,
that I actually enjoy it.
Yeah, like having a kid, there's a lot of stuff
that's really enjoyable about having a kid.
And then on the lower stuff that I feel like it helps
My with me make the trough shallower because I'm more resilient less prone to useless
Rumination about my problems and then what it also does is it moves
The happiness that point up. That's cool. I like that
So one of the things I've observed is also that I noticed that though I'm happier, I'm
also sadder when I'm sad.
Because you're actually feeling the pain.
Because I'm actually feeling it.
Yeah.
So, that's an observation that's interesting to me.
It can also be.
It's also true.
I feel like there's an adolescent stage of practice, which I'm definitely in, where you see how
crazy you are.
And like, you're seeing it more.
You know, you're seeing it more than you used to, because before you were, you know, hiding
it, and that's an awkward stage.
You're letting yourself see it.
And that's absolutely.
So it's not for the faint of heart, this meditation at certain point.
It takes courage.
Yeah.
I think it does.
I think that's why it was those first five years hard to do those five minutes, because it
takes a certain courage just to be with yourself and the weirdness that we are, you know?
I mean, the chaotic mind and the strange things.
I mean, I still like I was telling it earlier.
Still wake up every morning with this kind of anxiety and strange thoughts, worrying about
problems and until I sit and meditate. and strange thoughts, worrying about problems,
and until I sit and meditate,
I can't kind of get a handle on it.
And it's not like the meditation makes it go away.
No, no, no.
That's why I was saying about 10% happier.
It doesn't make it go away,
but you can handle it better.
You can be with things that you might not have been able
to be with, I think.
Like I often talk about my mother. She was lived with depression, you know, and it was really
hard to be around her. Seven kids, I don't blame, right, I've been depressed too. But,
you know, she always believed that the only way to cure her depression was to get to the
doctor and get the medication right. And if the medication wasn't right, then she was
going into another depression. It was always worried that that big black cloud was going to descend on her again.
So she never felt she had any choice in the matter.
And so for me that's what's most interesting about meditation is that it gives us that
opportunity to choose, to say that I don't have to live in this state of depression.
I have a tool that's powerful.
I can do this or I can do yoga or I can eat differently
or I can change my relationship if it's not working or you know I actually have a choice.
And that's powerful. I understand the your mother getting frantic about that stuff because when
that depression I mean I've had it, I've had it, it's bleak and you do anything to avoid it.
But your your mother just didn't have the tools.
Nobody offered her anything else. I'm guessing. That's true. That's true. Shock treatment,
drugs. That was it. Well, she was in the dark. Back to the seven kids. Yeah, of course. Of course.
So we were tired. I didn't mean to change the subject.
No, no.
You've, you're like batting a thousand.
Everything you're saying is interesting.
I just wanted to make, I wanted to get back
to you running the business.
Business, all right.
Yeah.
Because the other thing you do, aside from it,
sounds like a great place to work.
Because as I said before, you have got meditation rooms.
You've got people come around, give them massages.
You have all this profit sharing.
Oh right, profit sharing and ESOP,
we, you know, 40% owned by the employees.
Oh really?
Yeah, yeah.
I read something about at least 10% of the aftertax money
went back to employees.
25.
25 now, yeah.
Okay.
So aside from being very generous to do your employees,
you've done a lot of work on the supply chain,
on the conditions.
The planets, the sustainability, that.
Absolutely, yes, yeah.
Now I see the why this makes sense
from a global perspective,
but doesn't make sense what you're doing
from a business perspective.
Well, I think it depends on how long-term you think about business.
So you could think of it just straight from a business standpoint that we need to protect
our brand and our image if you're just crassly thinking about it from that standpoint that
we don't want to be called out for situations in our factories that are not consistent with the way that we present ourselves.
So that alone, just PR reasons, is a business reason to do it. That's not what motivated us in the first place.
I think it really came from, again, the kind of people that we draw into our company that just are more willing to
open their eyes and see in a bigger way and you know didn't like things that they saw
in the factories and that you know whether it was the way people were treated or you know
just things fair pay, health, things of that nature that you know we wanted to make right.
And the same for sustainability we have probably, I don't even know how many people in the
company across the company
across the company, there are probably 50 people who are regularly involved in our sustainability
efforts. And actually what it does in terms of business is those people are actually more motivated,
you know, if they're a sustainability ambassador or if they're, they feel that, and it's true,
that their work is more meaningful, that they're not just producing things that are
hurting people in the way they're being made or that are hurting the environment.
So they can feel, they feel more meaningfully engaged and like they're actually making a difference.
And so they really care to teach that farmer how to, you know, grow the sheep, how to,
how to, I'm, I work with the sheep differently or work the organic farmers or the die houses that always
Looking for ways that we can make things different and better
But but isn't it wouldn't it be a cheap for business? I got it would know would it be cheaper would it be better for your bottom line?
If you didn't take all of this care
um be better for your bottom line if you didn't take all of this care. I don't know. I think totally in the total long term, no, would be my answer.
Yeah, I think, well, I think you can look at it in certain ways, certain things are more
expensive, like organic cotton, cost 15% more, things like
that, it does cost more.
But the loyalty, I think, that the customers bring, and they look at a garment, they want
it, and then they realize, oh, that's kind of expensive, oh, that's organic.
I can justify that, that's something meaningful.
And maybe at first they didn't care.
And they're beginning to more and more be drawn in and care
and feel proud of supporting a brand that's
trying hard to make things right.
So I think there's a long term.
I'm lucky to be privately owned.
Because if I had to report quarterly earnings all the time
and justify,
these kinds of expenses might be harder.
But the employees, we had a meeting a number of years ago talking about the water crisis.
We had a couple of different employees at Stubben said, take my profit sharing.
What can we do?
Can we donate it to support the water crisis?
I mean, I think they really care
That's pretty amazing
But you've you've had moments real tough moments in
In business the recession hit you hard you were hit hard by hurricane
Sandy which destroyed a lot of your inventory like one void five million dollars and stuff like that. Yeah, did you?
In moments like that did you rethink some of your do-goodding?
No, never, never.
I mean, there were moments that we had, I remember there was a moment, and that was 2008, but
we had to pull back on our wellness benefit.
We give $1,000 a year to every employee for additional kinds of wellness besides the
regular medical benefits.
So that's where the massages and yoga classes and all those kinds of things come in.
So we had to pull back.
I think we gave only half.
And we, of course, couldn't give profit sharing if there was no profit, that kind of thing.
But our social consciousness work, I don't think we ever pulled back.
We did pull back on some of our charity work. And one of the interesting things that happened because we were giving, I don't think we ever pulled back. We did pull back on some of our charity work.
And one of the interesting things that happened
because we were giving, I think we give 5%,
I don't know exactly what percentage we give,
but at least that to support women and girls
and the environment and different charities
and that kind of thing.
So we had a lot of charities, we cared a lot about,
and that was 2008.
And so we ended up out of this, creating this recycle program
as a way to get resources to support some of these organizations
that we had to pull back on a little bit
that we felt really uncomfortable about.
And so we created this, this is, I love these problem solving
win-win things that happened.
So we created this recycle program.
We created it originally through the foundation
with the idea of giving to those women's organizations.
And then the recycle program grew so much. I mean, today it's it's employing, I
don't know, at least 30 people, maybe more, just totally, you know, refurbishing
the clothes and reselling them. And we sell, I don't even know, I better not
quote the number, but a lot of recycle clothes.
And that's taken us to another whole place. Now we have a mounds of recycle. I don't
want to, but what I'm saying is that I think the commitment to the work, to the good work
is an important part of who we are. So we don't stop that. But we do have to, you know, it's always,
there's certain business decisions,
and sometimes, like I was saying around the charity piece,
we had to pull back, but it created another whole program
that's been really meaningful.
And so I think there's, you know, just different ways around it.
That's great story, because basically,
the intention remained to operate as an ethical business.
And so when the resource picture shifted, it just found another outlet.
Exactly.
So what would you, I would love to get your advice on a few things.
So I'm now oddly enough a small businessman.
I want to be clear.
So I have that there's this company, this 10% happier company.
I'm not the CEO. there's an actual business person,
a young guy who's the CEO.
So no, I don't run the thing.
But, you know, I would love to hear your advice as a,
we have this lean little startup,
we're trying to survive, we're trying to make it,
how much energy should we be putting toward making sure
the employees are taken care of, and making sure we're doing good in the world?
You know all the things that you're now doing as a mature company.
Oh
Goodness. I'm trying to remember how it was when I was small.
And there was a moment in time I started giving 10% of the profits and that was when there was extra profits.
So you know if you're at that place where there's enough extra profits
that you could share 10%, that would be a nice thing to do.
Yeah, I can't imagine us having any profits, but anyway.
Well, I can relate because I'm also starting the learning lab.
And I'm in that same kind of place with the learning lab.
It's not profitable yet.
So there's not no profits yet to share.
So, but still, well, let's see,
what do we do? We still ring the bell. What can you do? I think that, you know, the way
we conduct meetings and the way we care about the people, and I think it probably, when
you're really small and you're close to people, I think it's pretty natural.
I'm guessing.
Yeah, no, the people.
Being with people in a way that, you know, that you care.
It's when you start to get another step bigger that things start to get.
Nope.
Is that?
I think that's probably exactly right.
I think that's pretty natural, that you're like a family and people care about each other
and there's those basics.
They're based up in Boston, so for a bunch of reasons that are not going to be interesting.
But it's a very small group and the vibe for lack of a better word is extremely positive.
You know, there's a unity of purpose and all of those things.
But I can-
Because they meditate every day.
Everybody's serious meditative.
It's so nice.
It's great.
I don't monitor their practice.
You got it there.
You don't have to do anything.
It's all there. It's there in a way, but we practice. You don't have to do anything. It's all there.
It's there in a way, but we need to make sure.
What else, what else, go ahead.
We need to make sure.
I don't know because I don't run anything before.
So I don't know how much attention I should I be paying to making sure that there's some
sort of emotional care and feeding of these people, rallying of the troops.
I don't know.
This is also new to me.
Yeah. Rallying of the troops. I don't know. This is also new to me. And there is a way in which when you're new and just trying to survive in a crowded marketplace that you can
really be focused on that stuff and not focused on the things that you now spend a lot of time focusing on.
Yeah. Well actually, I don't personally
focus on them either. I have people in culture, people who focus on those kinds of things.
But you've made it a priority for the company. Yes. And that is a form of focus. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, I'm trying to think, well, I'm thinking in the organization, the kind of organization that you have,
that you probably wouldn't need things like coaches, you're probably not having problems where people
are mistreated. No. Unaware of how they're impacting others having the problems where people are mistreated. No.
unaware of how they're impacting others in the way they speak and treat people.
Maybe but I'm not aware of those.
I'm probably the problem.
I'm not doubted.
I was kidding but maybe I was true.
Well it's weird because we don't always know how you can't get people.
No you don't know.
It's like I was thinking, I probably shouldn't tell the story but my daughter was working
for this guy. This is probably terribly unrelated story,
but it's just pointing out the unconsciousness that is in places where we don't
know, I should probably tell more of a story myself. But anyway, my daughter was
working for this man, fairly young man, who was kind of putting his arm around her
and treating her in ways it felt like he was kind of acting like he was her
girlfriend. She was his girlfriend and she's getting really uncomfortable. And so one day she just sat down with him and said, you know, kind of putting his arm around her and treating her in ways it felt like he was kind of acting like he was her girlfriend.
She was his girlfriend and she was getting really uncomfortable.
And so one day she just sat down with him and said, you know, this is making me really uncomfortable.
And he was like shocked.
It was like, oh, wow, I'm sorry.
I didn't even know.
I didn't even think about it.
And she said after that, he was completely different.
And they continued to work together and it was okay.
But it was, it was like, he really honestly didn't understand how he was impacting her and that
there was anything inappropriate about it.
So I was a prodiver.
But I'm just saying, I think that that was a kind of an extreme example maybe, but I think
I do a lot of things.
I had somebody tell me that I'm too critical one time.
Or people give me feedback that, you know, like, I lean you, I'm asking them
now, you kind of, I lost you in that meeting somewhere, where did you go, you kind of
spaced out or something.
I'm asking people to give me feedback, like, tell me, that's one thing you could do.
Yeah.
Give me feedback.
So I could say to the folks in the company, just make sure you tell me what I could do
better on a regular.
Ask them regularly, what can I do better?
Yeah, that's good.
Ask them one on one, too.
That makes them feel safer, maybe. We can ask them in the what can I do better? Yeah, yeah. That's good. Ask them one on one, too. That makes them feel safer, maybe.
We can ask them in the group, too.
No, I think you'd better.
Tell them that you want to ask them,
and that you'll, and that you could think about it.
And then follow up.
Yeah.
I like that.
Yeah.
OK, here's my other area of advice.
You have how many kids?
Two.
And they're in their 20s?
Yeah.
So obviously, we're at different stages of the lifecycle
mindset, one and then something
Um precious place be there as much as you can. I'm trying my advice
Absolutely. Well, that's what's my failure if I have any regrets boy
It's back to their infancy their little childhood years and I wasn't as present
Because you were running this business. Yeah, and I was
Always pulled in by it and I always thought those problems and that work was more important.
So I, anyway, that's my advice.
Are they mad about that now?
I think they've gotten over it.
But I think that it wasn't helpful, you know.
And then I ended up in a nasty divorce and it was really complicated.
I think it was, you know, really hard.
That was the hardest.
I think about these issues all the time because the most precious resource is time.
And if you're busy, you were very busy.
Right.
And you are very busy.
And I'm very busy.
You know, you've got this kid and you've remarried and you want all that to be
Right, you want to be there for it
But you also don't want to screw up all the things that you're trying to do. Yes, it's a very tough balance
Yeah, don't you think meditation helps absolutely? Here's why I think because it's not so much about quantity of
This is going to sound like a super cliche thing say, but it's it's it's not about much about quantity of, this is gonna sound like a super cliche thing to say, but it's not about quantity of time.
Yes, it is.
I mean, you have to be there for enough time,
but when you're there, you gotta actually be there.
Not on the phone.
Just be there, exactly.
And I used to read reports and watch them play on the floor,
rather than be there when I was there.
I think that's the important thing.
So I try to do a little bit of that.
If I'm in the room with him,
really get on the floor and hang around with him
until he gets annoyed with me.
And then I can read my phone or something like that.
But I'm trying to toggle back and forth
between taking care of business
and making sure that I'm a father.
Yeah, that's good.
Or leave the phone aside.
He's 20 months.
Oh, so he's still really young.
So you're not at the place where you can teach him
a little yoga or meditation and you can hang with him that way.
I mean, good luck.
Not yet, no, no.
Oh, we maybe four.
He knows his numbers and letters and stuff like that.
That's, and I'm basically trying to teach him not to kill
the cats or throw his food at his mom.
We're basic stuff.
Yeah, that's good.
I think when he stops pooping his pants,
I can teach him a meditate.
That's probably where that's the goal.
It's a great time, though.
It is great.
It's phenomenal.
And just like, I think your advice to yourself,
just be there when you're there is the most important.
The frustrating thing about being a parent for me as somebody who's built a part of
his career on fighting against cliches is that every cliché about parenting is true.
It's the best and the worst simultaneously.
You'll never love this before.
It goes so fast. All of those things there. It's all incredibly true
And if you're and if you're
Reflexively pushing that stuff away you're gonna miss some important advice. I was stuck struck when I
I can't help it. I post pictures of him all the time on social media because I think he's really cute
And when I when he was, I posted a few pictures
and thousands of people were saying the same thing.
They were saying enjoy every moment, right?
And I thought, okay, this is just a boilerplate thing,
you say, but actually, there's something there.
There's signal in the noise.
Well, I'm so happy for you,
but you have that opportunity to make that choice now.
Like when my kids were young, I didn't have the wherewithal or the tools to actually know
that I could make that choice, that moment to moment choice.
Well, let me make a devil's advocate argument.
What you said right there, you didn't have the wherewithal or the tools.
You can't go back in time. But you have the wherewithal or the tools. You can't go back in time.
But you have the wherewithal and tools now, and so you can use it in the best ability.
So I'm doing the best I can.
But I'm really struggling.
But that's a different story, my son in particular.
Is the meditation helpful?
To me?
Oh yes.
Oh my God.
I couldn't do what I'm doing right now and in the way I'm trying to be with him
without it. I don't believe I could.
How do you think he would react if you said before every discussion we're going to ring a bell?
Well, sometimes I light a candle.
I get close.
How does he react to that?
I don't know if he, how does he react?
I don't know, he's used to it.
Yeah, it's just mom.
It's just mom being mom.
Maybe for a 27 year old, the thing to do is open a beer and give it to him.
Yeah, maybe. I'll try that one.
Trying to channel my 27 year old stuff.
Okay, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast.
If you liked it, please make sure to subscribe, rate us.
And if you want to suggest topics we should cover or guess we should bring in, hit me
up on Twitter, at Dan B. Harris.
I also want to thank Hardly, the people who produced this podcast and really do pretty
much all the work.
Lauren, Efron, Josh Kohan, Sarah Amos, Amos Andrew Calp Steve Jones and the head of ABC News
Digital Dance Silver.
I'll talk to you next Wednesday.
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