Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 62: Hannah Hart, Creator of YouTube's 'My Drunk Kitchen'

Episode Date: February 22, 2017

Hannah Hart is best known for her bubbly personality and boozy cooking mishaps on her mega-popular YouTube series, "My Drunk Kitchen," so many fans were surprised to learn about her life-long private struggle of dealing with her family's mental health issues, as detailed in her memoir, "Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded." Hart said she turned to meditation while she was fighting to get conservatorship of her mother, who suffers from psychosis. (( Links and more info below... )) 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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I'm Dan Harris. Hey everybody, my guess this week is One of the biggest YouTube stars there is her name is Hannah Hart you Probably know her from a hit YouTube show called my drunk kitchen in which as the title suggests She gets hammered and cook stuff but she There's a lot to this to this person. A lot of fans were surprised to learn

about what has happened behind the scenes in her life, throughout her life in her new memoir, called Buffering Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded. And not for nothing, she's also a meditator. So here we go, Hannah Hart. Thank you for doing this, really appreciate it. It's really cool to meet you, especially after, I listened to the book, I didn't read this. Really appreciate it. It's really cool to meet you, especially after I listen

to the book. I didn't read it. Oh, yeah. Oh wow, awesome. And I was actually in a hurry. I was late, so I listened to parts of it on like double speed. So listening to you now is a little trippy. Is it because I'm not talking like a chipmunk?

Yes, exactly. That's what I'm talking about. I didn't even know that you could listen to a book on double speed. I learned this because a lot of people told me they listened to mine on double speed. And first, I was a little offended, to be honest. But over time, actually, as I've become, because I have to do this podcast all the time and I need to, you know, listen or read people's books,

I need to do it quickly, I do the double speed. Wow, I have to say that reading your book, I don't think I could listen to it on double speed because it would stress me out. There's a lot that happens. Yeah, there's a lot that happens. So a lot of that happens to your book, actually. And I want to talk about that in a second, but let me just ask you the question I always

asked first, which is, how did you come to meditation? Oh, okay. An app called Headspace. My sister, obviously I was familiar with meditation in the casual way in that your friend drags you to do a yoga class and at the end of it, they're like, and now you're gonna clear your mind, blah, blah. And I was always like my favorite part of the class, but not something that I found to be really sustainable.

It's like I couldn't return to that moment unless I was in a dimly lit yoga studio after working out, you know. But my older sister became a really... So Naomi? Naomi, yeah. Naomi is a huge fan of an app. Even on double speed, I remember that. Naomi, yeah. I love my sister.

She's a huge fan of an app called Headspace, which has been, I mean, it's brought meditation into my daily life. It's amazing. And I've really, I've learned so much from it. And it's so easy to use, it has no like, you, has no religious bias, which I know turns a lot of people off in terms of like spirituality, that it approaches it from a way that I think even the biggest skeptic

would be able to benefit from. And I'm by no stretch of the imagination a skeptic of all things unknown, but I feel like that really opens doors for people who wouldn't normally gravitate towards meditation. What kind of impact does it had on you in your life? Positive one. I would say.

No, it's like, you know the metaphor about you're either a ship on top of the waves or you're like cruising through the ocean. It's like, it helps with my reactivity, you know? On the outside, I'm always seeming pretty like calm unless I'm super happy, but on the inside, I can get really anxious really fast, and meditation has kind of helped me control that, but not in an active way. It's so hard to talk about meditation because when you talk about it, you use all these

active verbs, but it's really, it's passive. You know, it's not controlled. I'm not forcing myself to calm down. I just have more calm in me. Like my body knows more how to create space between action and reaction. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, maybe well, at least to me.

Yeah, so I hope you meditation expires out there. Get that. The funny thing about headspace though specifically is that they have this 10 day challenge, which is can you meditate for 10 minutes a day, 10 days? It took me one year to complete it. And after that, I got like really in the groove. It's interesting, you know, actually,

I'm friends with the guys who do Headspace, they're phenomenal human beings. I am partial to a newer app called 10% happier, available in the app lots. But we find that too that people dance around it, they kind of, they dip their toe in, they go away, they come back, and I'm fascinated by this. What is it that stops people from getting started? I mean, the same thing that stops people from putting on their shoes and going to the gym, you know? It's like, it's just, it's just getting there.

It's resignation. You know, I woke up this morning and I found myself immediately diving in to the same like thought patterns that kind of brought me down yesterday. And I had this thought, which was like, okay, I don't have to think like yesterday today. Like, I was looking so forward to tomorrow,

and that tomorrow is here. So I'm just gonna change the way I'm thinking about today. It's like you just fall into what's familiar, and it's more familiar to not go to the gym than go, you know? Absolutely, so it's overcoming inertia. Yeah. I mean, I've outed her on this before, but my wife does not meditate. And I don't lecture her about it because I know that would be, first of all, she would

give me a smack. And second, it would be the shortcut to her never meditating. But I think her, she's into it. She's not as skeptic. She likes that her husband's less of an idiot than he used to be still plenty Plenty there not to like but and she's a scientist so she really sees the sciences and is and is into it Just can't get started Is it okay for like let's say you have a partner who doesn't it was not interested in meditation

Do you think it's cool to be like, Hey, why don't we meditate together for like 10 minutes and you can try it out and see how you like it? Yes, I've done that with her. We've done that many times. She's, her problem is just starting a daily habit. But I don't think I'm really wary of proselytizing. I mean, I have a, if you want to listen to podcasts, that's up to you. And if you want to read my book, that's up to you. And if you want to listen to me, give a talk sometime fine, I don't talk about it unless somebody asks me. Because it's a shortcut to getting really annoying. Actually, there was a cartoon in the New Yorker a couple of years ago, I had two women having lunch. And one of them says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week, and I'm already anointing.

And I think that really applies to meditation. But I think you're absolutely unsafe ground, if you're with somebody and they're not a meditation, you say, hey, you want to try it together, where I would, I don't know if you're talking about your own experience, but where I would put up a red flag would be, if the person is resistant, I wouldn't bring it up again.

Mm, got it. God, man, resistance. I'm doing that pack right now in headspace. I mean, 10% have it. I have it. I have not. No, I mean, I'm strong. I am massively pro meditation wherever you do it is fine.

And those headspace, if you're doing headspace, you are in good hands. Those guys are great. Well, I just did, I did the acceptance pack. Pack is there. They do like a little, Andy, the guy on headspace who I want to have on this podcast soon, does themed meditation sequences, that's what they call them packs. Yeah, and I was, so I was doing the, the pack on acceptance when I was working to conserve my mom and what was so to conserve, to conserve her conserve her, I'm sure we'll get on that later. But I was doing the acceptance pack

and what was so fascinating to me is I did not expect it, I did not expect the question to be, what are you resisting? Like what is it that you're resisting? And that's really that question of force. I've always used a whip to motivate myself. I've always used like a whip to motivate myself. I've always used guilt or obligation or force or just like, come on Hannah, like,

let's go to try and motivate myself. But just as simple as being like, what are you resisting about getting up? Is such a different question than why aren't you getting up? It's a brilliant question. My meditation teacher, this guy Joseph Goldstein, who I've been studying studying for a while, talks about, like, within meditation, when you're actually meditating, he talks about struggle as

a feedback. If you're struggling, that's an important source of feedback, and you should look for, what are you struggling against? What are you not accepting? What are you resisting? And then you hone in on it and try to... About a Bing-Bing boom. Yeah, not be so uptight about it.

I mean, it's not that easy. No, it's not easy. Especially when you're working with some, as you've alluded to, some maternal issues that are pretty profound, which let's get to. I want to come back to meditation because I want to hear how you found that it's useful on two of the main issues you talk about in your book, buffering. Yeah, buffering. Unshared tales of a life fully loaded.

In fact, it shocked 15-year-olds across the nation. It did because of the things you revealed in there that they would not have expected. Well, you know, that's kind of my joke. Because YouTubers, you know, I'm a YouTuber and YouTubers get this big old stereotype of having like teenage girls as their audience. And, you know, fortunately, I've always had like an older group of people drawn to the kind of work I do. Well, you don't want 15 year old kids getting drunk.

No, absolutely not. But I do think that I'm a healthy example of moderation and inspiration. It's a very family-friendly program. Watch it with your parents. It is family-friendly. It is, and people, and the book is family-friendly, even though you're dealing with some dark issues.

Yeah, thank you. I feel that exact same way. But it's so interesting to me because, this is just an anecdote real quick. At the end of one of my signings on tour, I see this like small child, like under 10, single digit holding my book. And I'm like, and like it's clear that they just wanted to celebrate you to sign a book and I look at the parent and I'm like, oh, what drew you to this book?

And, oh, I'm, are you a big fan or, and you know, and the dad was like, oh no, she just loves YouTube. So we figured, you know, we just wanted to get her the next YouTuber book. And I like, I stopped him and I'm like, you should really read this before you let your daughter read this. And I was just so dead serious. And it's not that I believe that we should really like put an age on books, but I do think that if the parents need to know what kind of questions are getting themselves into. Oh, yeah.

I mean, these are, these are, I mean, as a parent, these are tricky issues. But you and we're dancing around it here, but you raised some really serious stuff. I think you do it in a totally forth, right way. And if I had a 15 year old, which I don't have a two year old, I would, or a 14 year old, maybe even a 13 year old, I would totally let them read this. 100%. 100%. Maybe two.

No, I think single digits is a little too young, you know? It's like, it's a post puberty book or a midst of puberty books. Yes, for sure. So I was just going to say the reason why I want to come back to meditation eventually is because there are two sort of main themes in the book. One is really profound family issues. The other is career stuff and anxiety around career. And I want to hear a little bit about how meditation helps you deal

with both of those. But let's just get to the actual book. So in the book, you talk about stuff that I think a lot of people who know your shiny, happy, veneer on YouTube might never have been able to into it. And so I'll let you tell a story. It sounds like you had some serious challenges as a kid. Yeah, turns out, you know, when I grew up, the book is mainly focuses about like the stigma surrounding mental health and how a lack of awareness and a lack of education and a lack of structure in our society as a whole really creates more harm

than good in families that suffer from mental illness. You know, my mother has psychosis and it just got worse and worse and worse as we got older. It's really hard to explain this in a nutshell, which is why I wrote the book. By the way, you don't need a nutshell here. You can go as long as you want. Oh, lovely. So the book really deals with my mother's descent, eventually culminating in homelessness, eventually culminating in me, trying to provide care for her. And my journey from a child to an adult, trying to provide care for this person that I love, love deeply, and coming against a system that literally told me, there's nothing you can do. And I wanted people to read this book because I want people to become aware of the fact that you know, we're walking our children by homeless people on the street. We're teaching them, oh, they failed at society.

But the truth is society failed them. There's this giant gap in our healthcare, in our mental healthcare, that lets people who are non-violent, non-violent people who suffer from psychosis, meaning, you know, we don't share the same reality 100% of the time. Nonviolent people end up homeless because if they're violent, they end up in jail, which is horrific. And so you have this huge margin of people that are just ignored. And this is a result, you know, for any mental health enthusiast, you'll know this is the result of the LPS Act of

1960-something, which isn't in 60s. They were like, oh no, these, you know, we're doing terrible things with their mental health care. Where housing them in mental institution? Exactly, and then the regular came and they were like, shut it all down. And it shut it all down, but there was no solution put into place. The system isn't broken, it's missing a part. Anyway, so I talk about that and all the issues that stem from it, you know. To me, some of the most poignant stuff was because I was relating to you as the character, you're my, I obviously have an enormous amount of compassion for which your mom's gone through but you're the narrator and so i really focused on i mean

i think the reader focuses a lot on your experiences a kid in a household your dad's gone and has joined uh... uh... uh... the jojo was witnesses uh... with which you have a few who with whom you have a few quarrels and uh... and then your mom uh... is not a reliable parent in many ways. And the household was not safe. Yeah. And it's sad because I opened the book with a quote from my mom that says, there are no

bad guys in the story. And I think my ability to have feel compassion for another person has been a great blessing in my life. And it's something my mother's taught me. My ability to have great optimism is something my mother has taught me. But at the same time, she hasn't been the most reliable parent through no fault of her own. And it's interesting because I thought I lived my whole life with

this ability to not blame people. But what I realized as an adult is I was just internalizing all of it. Like any parentalized child. I was, yeah, I wasn't mad at them. It's their fault. They're sick. They're this, they're that. I get it. I get it. But meanwhile, I was developing these really deeply seeded self-hate issues. You know? It's like when you're a little kid alone in the house, like five, six, seven, and you're scared or you're upset, and you spend as much time alone as I did, and you're crying and you want comfort. Eventually, you just stop crying, because there's no one there to teach you how to comfort yourself or know when they're to give you comfort.

So you just have to stop. And that carried into adulthood and manifested in a number of ways. What ways? I don't know. You know, it's a lot easier to write about the talk about. Yeah, yeah. Bufferingbook.com, available in stores everywhere. Well, just talk a little bit about,

I mean, just I have a two year old and so now I'm a little bit more sensitive to the issues of what it's like to be a kid. And you know, you were, as you said, alone a lot in a house that was not sanitary. It wasn't clean. And you know, I loan a lot in a house that was not sanitary. It wasn't clean. And you know, I didn't really realize how horrible that was until I got older.

And it feels like such a judgy word to use the word horrible. And anyone that grew up in the kind of environment that I did, yeah, our house wasn't clean. Like, you know, the animals went to the bathroom inside. It was definitely declared uninhabitable a couple of times. CPS would come by a couple of times a year and be like, make this fit for human habitation. And I guess I really, really, really didn't realize

that that wasn't normal for a long time. Like, what is normal anyway? But I really didn't realize that it was like that, you know, because everybody's got issues. And it's like when you get into high school and middle school and people start talking about, oh my mom is crazy. We're like, oh my family's got this.

And like, oh you don't even know. I was like, yeah, oh my God, this sounds so horrible. But then I would go to their houses. And I'd be like, huh. You know? They have food. They have food. They have food. But not to diminish any of those real traumas

that people endure. Everyone's trauma is different. But it really took me a long time to realize that, and I still kind of amend denial, I guess, that it wasn't, it was more abnormal than normal. How's your mom doing now? Great, love her a lot. She's doing well. She's your mom doing now? Great, love her a lot. She's doing well.

She's really working hard on everything. She's taking medication. We're working with a great group. As I go into embuffering, I was able to use, well, no spoilers. But what I did, conserving my mother, is not something that happens. Designed conserving.

When you conserve someone, so there's two forms of conservation. There's probate, conservatorship, and LPS conservatorship. Probe is what you do with your aging parent. You know, your aging parents no longer able to care for their finances, so you take on their financial stuff. If they have dementia and Alzheimer's, you're able to help provide them care, get them into a home, et cetera, et cetera.

It's literally what we do with our parents when they become older. Probe conservatorship, it's. It's literally what we do with our parents when they become older. Probe conservatorship, it's great. They can choose to do it. The issue is, is that if you have someone who suffers from psychosis, which is the only group that falls into LPS, you then and LPS conservatorship are able to help get them care whether or not they're willing to.

And that's like, there's a wonderful, wonderful book called, I'm not sick, I don't need help. And the issue with someone's reality is that when you look at someone and say, hey, you know what, the sky's blue, and if you can't start going along with the fact that the sky is blue, this is causing some real issues. You're going to terrify that person because that's their reality. That's really real to them. And so LPS conservatorship allows you to medicate someone,

to be informed the second they get hospitalized, to be able to make decisions on their behalf in terms of their psychiatric well-being. So what I found that was so shocking is that psych ER and medical ER are different. Psych ER doesn't have to notify any family. Psych ER wouldn't let us in because they're like, oh, she's not requesting you. And it's like, she's not requesting me.

She's not talking about anything. She's saying nonsense. What do you mean she's not requesting me? You know? That's frustrating. So where is she, you know, safe place? She's in a safe place. She's in one of the very, very, very, very few facilities that help that work with the family and with the person to rehabilitate them, to whatever extent they can be

in society. What in you, you came out of a childhood that was, as we've pretty firmly established, had its pretty serious challenges, you ended up going to UC Berkeley, which is one of the best schools in the world. What in you? It's in arguably true. And what in you gave you this strength to apply yourself in school, get into this place, do well there, and do all that you've done subsequently, given, I mean, I think a lot of people would have been crushed

under the weight of what you were dealing with. I, for as little food there was in the house and as much feces there was on the floor, we all loved each other a lot. And I was given a lot of encouragement. And I was, whether or not it's rooted in reality, I was told I was smart and special and I could do anything I wanted. And I was just really encouraged. And that's pretty much it.

And I didn't believe it. You know, I was a really grumpy teenager. I was like, I'm not going to get into anywhere. But I don't know. I just, my teachers really believed in me. It's weird because I still to this day believe that it's the encouragement That got me where I am But I can't understand what that encouragement comes from. It's like to say that the encouragement stems from my actions or behavior feels wrong

I'm just like people have just blindly encouraged me all my life for absolutely no reason. I still feel that way The serious kudos kudos to your mom because fighting through the fog of psychosis, she was still able to transmit that message to you. Yeah, but you know, and it's like in her own way, like, you know, we didn't have like pencils or binder paper. You know, she wasn't able to help us, like wash our clothes, you know, but she loved us. And that message came through. It's, and you know, it's so interesting. My mom's read the book now and she was like,

you never asked for anything. I was like, mom, five year olds don't ask for you to do their laundry. Five year olds put on, they're like, oh, pants. Like, you know, but I love my mom. She, she's an incredibly kind person who was never given the tools to understand that her suffering is not her.

You know what I mean? And so, yeah. I just, just for the people that don't know anything about LPS versus probate conservatorship, it's really important I stress the fact that LPS conservatorship, the conservatorship to help a mentally ill family member never happens. Everyone who I worked with in this told me this is not going to happen, this never happens. To the day that when I finally won my case as a wealthy, educated, white, famous person,

when I walked out of the court, the conservatorship case worker was like, this never happens, Hannah, like you've done an amazing thing. And I was like, this has to happen more. It can't just be that me who's literally, basically at the top of our social food chain, still has to really wedge and struggle for eight years to get this done.

And that's, I can take time off work anytime I want and still get paid because I run my own business. How's anybody going to be able to do this? No, fair enough, fair enough. Ah, yeah, ah, get me, get me really incensed. It sounds like we need to think about some serious change here. There's no question. I mean, there's also no question

that met the health system in this country is jacked. Yeah, jacked better word than I would have come up with. Seriously, Jack, and it's what we have to have somebody think to say about mental health. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle. And we're the host of Wunder's new podcast Disantel where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup why it happened and the repercussions what does our obsession with these feuds say about us the first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn

Spears when Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow disenthal wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. I was just going to ask, did you have any reluctance talking about this stuff given your perfect, your career and the image you've projected into the world? Was this a pretty big bomb to drop on folks. I can say with total sincerity that the only reason I pursued entertainment was to spread this message. I'm really lucky that I'm funny because it gave me a platform to do this. It's weird though now with buffering out and me being in this career.

I'm like, oh, well, I did the thing I wanted to do. What do I do now? What's motivating me? Mom's okay. Okay, mom's okay. You're successful. Why do I want? It's weird.

It's a weird moment. And so this is what you are. Yeah, it's done, check. Got that message like this. Oh, I see. So what do you want now? I'm in limbo. Really?

I'm in total limbo. You have a lot going on though. Yeah. I do. And I'm really excited. You're excited to do all of it, but you just don't know why you're doing it? I don't know why I'm doing it anymore.

Yeah. You know, it's like when you're really motivated by family or by specific goals, which is, I don't want my mom to die covered in cockroaches in a shack. Without that, and now I'm like, good, check. I feel, I don't know what's driving me. I've lost my whip. Let's work on this for, but before we do,

go back and for those who haven't watched any of your stuff. How did my drunk kitchen get started? Well, it's a delightful tale. So as you mentioned, I went to UC Berkeley and I studied English literature and Japanese language. So with my two degrees, when the market crashed in 2008, 2009, all when my generation graduated, we were the overeducated under employed. How old do you know?

I'm 30. I just turned 30. Happy birthday. Thank you. Life gets better in your 30s just for the record. It's absolutely true. 20s were tough, man. No, they are.

They're the worst. They've aged me. Yeah, the 20s age you. They've aged me. So when my generation graduated, you know, I saw everyone around me, people who had studied rhetoric and molecular cell biology and really like things that were destined to go places, just nobody got jobs, nobody got entry level, there was nothing. So everybody's struggling.

And I have always wanted to make sure that I was making practical decisions with my life. So I pursued proofreading, copy editing work. My secret heart of heart stream was always to be in a creative industry, but that pursuing entertainment was not practical. And it's too risky, then there's no safety net. So I would never do it. So I had an opportunity to take a proofreading job out here in New York for a company that I was working for part-time in San Francisco.

It was a part-time job here, and I moved from San Francisco to New York. And my roommate, who at the time, my former roommate in San Francisco suffers from chronic depression, and we always lifted each other up by making jokes. And so one day we were talking on G-Chat, because my sister had just gotten me this new laptop, and she was really bomb, and she was like, dude, I just, I miss you so much. Like, I wish we could just hang out and like get drunk and cook, and I was like, dude,

I'm not gonna get drunk and cook for you right now. So I made her a video and posted it on the internet. It was called Buddy Ocean at the time, and then a bunch of strangers saw it. And I was like, qual? And this is March 2011. Nobody has any idea what YouTube is,

least of all me. The people have been doing it since 2006, 2008. Yeah, they knew. But I had no idea what I was doing. I was like, what? Why are hundreds of thousands of people watching this? And the comments section was saying things like, this is my new favorite show on YouTube.

And I was like, show on YouTube. What? But then part of me was like, oh my god, what if this is my chance? What if I could work in entertainment? And so, a couple weeks later, I posted another video, a couple weeks after that, I posted another video, went back and changed all the names to my-

A lot of drinking. Well, I mean over the course of a couple weeks. I mean, you're 20s, you're resilient. I'm also 5'3 and like 120 pounds, so I get drunk fast. As much as I don't want to admit it, I get drunk really fast. Yeah, I'm one of those people that thinks they can drink a lot, but then it's like after two glasses

of wine, I'm the person at the dinner party that's like, listen to this, guys. And they're like, God, she just had two glasses of wine, I'm the person at the dinner party that's like, listen to this guys. And they're like, God, she just said two glasses of wine. And I'm like, did I? Pfft. Anyway, so I posted three videos, changed the names all to be my drunk kitchen something.

So it was like establishing a brand. And then at that moment, I did not want to be labeled as this drunk person. So I made a different video called Advice from the Heart. Because I noticed that so much in the comment section was not about people thinking drunk people are funny. It was about people wanting to spend time together. And that was something I could do. I couldn't be a drunk, but I could spend time with people. So you diversified in a number of ways, right? How many shows do you have now?

I mean, being a YouTuber's mainly just about posting content. At first, I wanted to have like flagship stuff. Like I did my drunk kitchen. I did a show called Toon's Day, which is like an interview series where you improvise, music, you sing, your answers over royalty-free tracks. So it's somebody asked you a question like, what's your favorite part about summer? Maybe like, I love summer,

cause you get to wear a bathing suit, you know, like whatever, it's much better than that. It's called Toon Stay, check it out. I do that and you know, right now YouTube for me has become just a place where I post my video content. Videos I wanna make. Any video.

Any video. So I'm a 45 year old crotchety per you know elderly Human and so I'm not I'm not in the I'm not in the demo for this stuff So give me a sense of like who are your peers? How competitive is it? What are the right what are the numbers? You're aiming for? So the reality is is that YouTube has become a space, you know there's working in news. How well do salacious headlines do? Very well. Very well.

So our headline equivalent is a title of a video. And so there are people that write stories because they want stories to be told. And there are people that want you to know how to lose your butt in 30 days. You know what I mean? So YouTube's kind of the same thing. It's kind of, from 2011 to now,

it's literally evolved from an independent and an independent artistic space to mainstream entertainment. So on my little humble channel of 2.5 million subscribers. It's a lot. My philosophy, so I don't stress myself out and try and play a game. I'm not interested in winning.

Is I just post content that I still think is interesting. The other day, I made a recipe for the red wine hot chocolate thing. You know, I just wanted to make it. Try it out. It was delicious. So is that a my drone kitchen? No, I just did it. I just did it. My just did it. Right. My most recent video is literally taste testing different types of apples. I saw that.

Yes. Fun. It's funny, right? So you good clean content. Do you, can you make a living doing this? Is 2.5 million subscribers enough to like make a living? YouTube AdSense is not a substantial form of that. AdSense, the ads that you that you can sell through there.

It's not, nor has it ever been a substantial form of that. So how do you make, what is the substantial form of income for what you do? Well, what I did in 2011 was I started selling t-shirts and started selling merch. And every person that bought something from me in those years, those first early years, literally, they were sustaining me.

And you diversify. I mean, I want it to be a writer. I wrote and published a book. I've made movies with my friends. You take opportunities and you try and capitalize on them, but you need to stay consistent to what your core values are. You're hustling. Yeah, it's exhausting.

You're working really hard. And you have these intense obligations that you want to fulfill, which is posting content. Right, you're in order to sustain your user base, you gotta keep posting, but that's not how you sustain your livelihood. Life. So how do you do it?

What are the sources of income for you now? What are your, what are the various projects in your universe? The various projects in my universe include, I recently partnered with Food Network for my very first TV show, which I'm really excited about. Yeah. I can't tell you anything about it, except that I'm very proud of it, and it'm really excited about. Yeah. And you can't tell me anything about this. I can't tell you anything about it, except that I'm very proud of it. And it's the right time.

And I'm happy that I ignored. I'm happy that I waited till we had the right team of people with us to go out and sell a TV show. Everybody wanted my drunk kitchen to be a TV show. And I was like, why didn't you want to do that? Why would I want to? Like, because you don't want to be pegged as the drunk girl.

Because I couldn't get drunk for 30 minutes on a studio set with the hot lights. It's like, or, you know, if I ever win an Oscar, I wanna go home and shoot an MDK for the people that got me there. And what? An Oscar, and the case my drunk kitchen. Okay, you can.

I wanna be able to have that freedom to post and say and do whatever I want. Television in a lot of ways, you know, is a, you have to work with a bigger partner. And my drunk kitchen is just for me and my friends. Two point five million of them. So food network show. Yeah, oh man, food network has been the best. I, you know, I'm so, so happy.

I'm really excited about it coming out. 2017, keep your food network. Stay. Don't cut your cord. Don't cut your cords. Stay tuned. It's gonna be coming this 2017 and I'm really proud of it. And I'm proud of it. And so if people don't end up watching it or liking it, at least it's something that I think is really good. So back to what you were saying before that you're kind of in limbo. Tell me more about that. Spiritual limbo. Spiritual limbo or professional limbo. Professionally, everything is good. Yeah, except for if you've lost the wind

to keep you motivated. Well, the good news is that I think it's weird. It's like, I guess that I'm walking without weights, and I've never done that before. So I'm still walking. I just feel weird, you know? It's like, I feel like I have more space in my head, and I'm going to use this time right now, because I really enjoy the work I do and I'm really excited about the projects that are coming up.

On the professional level, everything is great. I know how to manage those things and I'm excited to do them. In my private time, my private life, I think I'm going to take this time and really go pay attention to the issues that I haven't been able to resolve, like heel in the ways I haven't been able to heel. That, heel in the ways I haven't been able to heel. That's kind of my 2017 goal. I think buffering, my confessional, my russet, my like, this is like, let me just get this all off my chest.

By making that all public, it now has afforded me enough space to go back and take care of that kid in that house. Cause I still am. Yeah, no, she deserves some love. She does. How do you go about doing that? I don't know.

My therapist wants me to do EMDR. What's that? EMDR is like a type of like PTSD recovery therapy thing. I'm supposed to start it. Could you go further into meditation? Probably. I'm scary. It's like, I have a lot of resistance.

I don't know. I'm worried that I'll fall apart in a lot of ways, you know? But I know I won't. I guess it's like, I have to believe, I have to know that I won't, because I don't. I've never fallen apart. I've never dropped the ball. But I have this idea about myself that I will.

Maybe you should for a little bit. Now. I mean, not in that way, but I think that I just need to trust myself enough. What would dropping the ball look like? I don't even know. What would dropping the ball look like? I guess it's like, it's an irrational fear. I guess I've worried...

I'm worried about something that I've already proven isn't true, which is that I wouldn't... I would abandon, well, I'm like having a revelation right now. I'm worried that if I allow myself to process these things to the fullest extent, I'll manifest them. But I'm not that person. Like, I'm worried that I'll be unfit and be incapable of taking care of the things around me. But I... Explain the logic there.

Why would you manifest them if you... Because it's kind of like when you're a kid what version of adults you see. And so it's like, if you... My version of adulthood was my mom. And so I think in some ways I'm scared that if I let myself fully process things I'd become my mom, which is irrational. Yeah. Yeah, but that's probably what I'm afraid of.

That's irrational. You're well, that is a big revelation then. Yeah, I'm gonna have to talk about this more next week with my therapist. Man, I have so much, yeah, like I don't wanna do, it's like funny because I'm really a dancer, like I dance around everything. Like I can, I really, I'm really, really grateful

for my relationship with my therapist right now because, you know, I do CBT, which is a very specific. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah. Which by the way works very well with meditation. They often combine it, MBCT, mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy. She does tell me.

Yeah, exactly. And it works really well because it really is kind of like, you can't dance from yourself. And that's like I think one of the most beautiful things about meditation is that I've cried during meditation, just out of nowhere. Like I'll be sitting there, being like, I'm meditating. And then all of a sudden, I'll be like,

blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'll be like, I'm like, oh, why am I crying? Should just let it happen. Oh my God, why am I crying? Should just let it happen. I'm like, oh, I'm crying. Shhh, it's okay. Well, one of the mistakes I think people make about meditation is they think it's supposed to,

you're supposed to be calm. And that's not the point. The point is to feel whatever you're feeling clearly so that it doesn't yank you around. Yeah, I just have to. Yes, I'll take the witness. Yeah. And so if you're crying,

that's, you're doing it right. Yeah, it's shocking to me. Almost every single time I meditate, I meditate a lot on planes, I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms. Almost every single time I meditate, I realize that I have all this, like, you know, when you go through

like the body scan moments, I realize that I have all this, like, you know, when you go through the body scan moments, I realize that I have all this anxiety in my chest, and every time I forget that I carry that there, like right now in this room, I'm not aware of it, but if I was to close my eyes and meditate, I'm probably pretty sure I'd be feeling it right in the center of my chest. And what I do is I visualize,

I visualize that it's like a big threaded ball of, for lack of a word like energy, like a big threaded ball of energy that's like a specific color. And then in my mind, when I'm doing my 20 minutes of like relaxing, I kind of am pulling pulling at little threads and letting them go and kind of like unwinding it, you know?

But not like this. Oh no, no, no, no. Forcefully, you're just, yeah. Yeah, right. Just kind of like, just kind of holding it and letting it come and go. And when I was doing the audiobook, I didn't notice it, but my director pointed it out

when I was recording the audiobook, I was holding myself like this. I literally had my hands in front of my chest to keep myself in that space where I could convey the emotion without having a cathartic experience. Because if I broke down and started crying while reading, I'm taking that away from the listener. So it's like, you just stay, you hover right in that space. You say you're a dancer, but you're also kind of a bulldozer because you've survived and you've thrived in the midst of adverse circumstances.

And of course, part of the way you've been able to drive that bulldozer is by not maybe forthrightly facing some of the horror. Yeah. Big time. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a mental health professional, but it all sounds like completely justifiable to me that you don't want to look at it. Yeah, but you know, from the mindful perspective,

I'm always looking for reason and value. And I actually think that stems from my religious upbringing. I've had this big belief in my life that if you do good things, you deserve good things. Like this is back to your dad being a Jehovah's Witness. Yeah, like that literally life is tit for tat. Everything is pursuit of perfection, action-based, very value oriented, very moralistic. That's probably where the whip came from, you know, which was good. It was kind of like two brutal ends of the spectrum. And sometimes good things happen for no reason.

And sometimes bad things happen for no reason. And that is such a hard fact to accept, because it takes away power, takes away control, you know? Well, maybe the power isn't accepting it. Whoa! I did hear it, ladies and gentlemen! If I had a mic that wasn't tethered, I would drop it. I wish you had a DJ, little button to go,

DIRD DIRD DIRD! River revelation. I like that. I think you should, if you weren't so busy, I would hire you as my hype person. Thank you. That'd be awesome. That's all I want to do.

If people want to learn more about you, where can they go? Where should we send them? Well, if you want to learn about me, you can go to bufferingbook.com and grab a copy of my book, Buffering on ShareTales of a Lifefully Loaded. If you want to come along with me on this journey, you can find me on YouTube at H-A-R-T-O, at Twitter, at HARTO, Harto. Instagram, Snapchat, they're all Harto, HARTO. Come hang out, it's a good time.

Anything else I should've asked you, but didn't? Oh, question to you, Dan. Do you still struggle with inertia to meditate? Yes, yeah, that's just the same. You use the perfect analogy for me, at least. It's like home to the gym. It, that's just the same. You use the perfect analogy for me at least. It's like going to the gym. It's a pain in the butt. And I don't want to do it.

Simple as that. But I know what it feels like when I don't. You know, I've had the trifecta. I've had depression, anxiety, and panic. And I was born on third base. I didn't have any Of the issues that you my parent I had to loving compass mental parents And I've had all these things and so I know that if I don't exercise and meditate

My life's gonna be harder, so I just do it so hard though even when you know it. Yeah, my sister says it's like brushing your teeth It's like yeah, you can skip it in the morning because sometimes you're gonna feel kind of grossed. Yes, absolutely. And it's mental floss, for sure. Mental floss. Both of those things, you know, for me, both of them are really important. And I just think it's like, you gotta find the pain point. It kind of brings us back to what we're talking about before.

Like, what is it, my fascination with, what is it prevents people from doing this thing or is a new friend of mine from who is in charge of getting people at Google to meditate is like we know the medicine works we just can't get compliance and so what are there are I think there's a whole constellation of factors but this sort of inertia that we're discussing now is a huge one and I think it's about you have to see enough the pain of not doing it. You know, if I go without exercising or meditating for a couple of days,

you know, like the voice in my head is just much meaner and I'm less happy and I just have to repeatedly have my face rubbed in the poop like a puppy and that's what gets me back on the wagon. I also wonder for the question of agency, which is to meditate or exercise daily, but to meditate daily is to admit how much you're responsible for in your own happiness and well-being. Absolutely. I think, I mean, this is one of my primary arguments, and it's one of the things that got me the most interested in the subject, is that, you know, happiness is not contingent upon, I mean, it's not necessarily entirely contingent upon the brute facts of your life,

like the quality of your childhood or your marriage or your romantic life or your work life. Those things are really important, but when it comes down to it, happiness is a skill and you can train it just the way you can train your body. And that's huge, that's like a major headline, that's why I've like,

like, diverted my whole career to focus on this because I think that's just a huge thing to learn. But you're right, it's kind of a tough thing to face too because if you're unhappy, there's a certain amount of responsibility in that that you have to deal with. That isn't to say, however, that we should be blaming the victim.

If you've got depression, or if the circumstances of your life truly are by any objective measure, or by your own internal feelings about them bad or difficult, we don't necessarily need to blame the victim, but you do have to wake up to the certain amount of agency we all do have. I think that if you're in a certain tax bracket, you have a moral responsibility to society, to go to therapy and start meditating, so you don't take out your daddy issues all over our political system.

So it's like a sort of a mental health trickle down. Yeah, it really should be, but also it's like people with money have power. So if you're gonna have power, you better be accountable and like you better spiritually progress. You can't just move up one form of the food chain. You know, I live in Los Angeles. There's a lot of rich, sad, angry people.

And they're just, it's just like they just won't take care of themselves. Anyway, on that note. You're a delight. Thank you very much for coming by. I really appreciate it. Really nice to meet you. Really nice to meet you too.

Thanks so much. 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 to people who produce this podcast and really do pretty much all the work. Lauren, Efron, Josh Cohen, Sarah Amos, Andrew Calp, Steve Jones, and the head of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver. I'll talk to you next Wednesday.

Hey, 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 add free with Wondery 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. you