Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - NPR’s Rachel Martin On: Surviving The News, Making A Huge Career Pivot, And Hosting A Metaphysical Game Show

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

The radio stalwart addresses life’s biggest questions.Rachel Martin is the co-creator and host of the podcast Wild Card, an interview game show about life's biggest questions. She invites notable guests to play a card game that lets them open up about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped their lives.Martin spent six years as a host of Morning Edition, and was the founding host of NPR's award-winning morning news podcast Up First. She previously hosted Weekend Edition Sunday. She served as National Security Correspondent for NPR, where she covered both defense and intelligence issues, and also worked as a NPR foreign correspondent. Martin also previously served as NPR's religion correspondent. In this episode we talk about:How to survive the newsHow to make a huge career pivotWhat it’s like to become an orphan as an adultInsomnia and meditationHow to decide what matters in your lifeWe play the game Wild Card!We talk about how good we are at being wrongAnd lastly, something light… mortality and the infinite universe.Related Episodes:3 Buddhist Strategies for When the News is Overwhelming | Kaira Jewel LingoHow To Find Meaningful Work in a Rapidly Changing World | Bruce FeilerWhy We Panic: A Journalist Investigates Anxiety, Fear, and How To Deal With It | Matt GutmanSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/rachel-martinSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, how we doing? We got a fun one today, although we do end up talking about some pretty deep stuff, but in a fun way. We are, to say the least, in the midst of a very difficult news cycle. So what better time to have the NPR stalwart Rachel Martin on the show?

In this conversation, we talk about how to survive the news and also about how to make a huge career pivot, which Rachel recently did. We also cover insomnia, meditation, how to decide what matters in your life, what it's like to become an orphan as an adult, and much more. A little bit of background on Rachel.

She spent six years as a host on NPR's Morning Edition. Before that, as a reporter, she covered such beats as national security, intelligence, and religion. And before NPR, she and I worked together at ABC News, where as an anchorman, I had the pleasure of reading the intros for some of Rachel's stories. And just as I walked away from my big job on the anchor desk a few years ago, Rachel recently decided to abandon what was once her dream job as one of the hosts of NPR's Morning Edition, their big morning show.

Now she is the host and co-creator of a brilliant new podcast called Wildcard, which is described as an interview game show about life's biggest questions. Alternately you could think of it as a metaphysical game show. Toward the end of this interview, you will hear Rachel and I play the game together. Rachel Martin, coming up. But first, some blatant self-promotion. This will be quick. One of the biggest problems that many of us face in terms of keeping our meditation habit going is that we don't know other people who do it.

And actually having that social support can be a huge, huge deal, which is the operating thesis behind the meditation party retreats that I've been throwing with Jeff Warren and Sibene Selassie. We've got another one coming up on October 11th at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. You can do it in person or online. BIPOC scholarships are available. Go to eomega.org for more information. Meanwhile, I want to put in a summertime pitch for the 10% Happier app. Whether you're soaking up the sun or gearing up for fall, the library of over 500 guided

meditations can help you stay relaxed and present. Download the 10% Happier app right now, wherever you get your apps. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds,

new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall wellbeing. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible originals, all in one easy app. Enjoy Audible anytime while doing other things, household chores, exercising on the road,

commuting, you name it. My wife, Bianca, and I have been listening to many audiobooks as we drive around for summer vacations. We listen to Life by Keith Richards. Keith, if you're listening, I'd love to have you on the show. We also listen to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. And Yuval, if you're listening to this, we would also love to have you on the show. So audiobooks, yes, audible, yes, love it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Love to have you on the show. So audio books, yes, audible, yes, love it.

There's more to imagine when you listen, sign up for a free 30 day audible trial and your first audio book is free. Visit audible.ca, audible.ca. Alice and Matt here from British Scandal. Matt, if we had a bingo card, what would be on there? Oh, compelling storytelling, egotistical white men and dubious humour. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you will love our podcast, British Scandal,

the show where every week we bring you stories from this green and not always so pleasant land. We've looked at spies, politicians, media magnates, a king, no one is safe. And knowing our country, we won't be out of a job anytime soon. Follow British Scandal wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rachel Martin, finally, welcome to the show. Dan Harris, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I've been trying to get you on the show for a long time.

We did it. We did it. We did it. All right, so I have a million to get you on the show for a long time. So we did it. We did it. All right. So I have a million questions for you, but let me just start with you. You and I really relate to this. You made a huge career pivot six years. You were at what I would consider to be the pinnacle of radio, the pinnacle of audio, frankly, of NPR's morning edition.

And you walked away. And so I'm just curious why. Well, I was done. And honestly, I did think a lot about you through that transition, because you had done something similar. When all the stars are aligned and you're doing this work that you've always longed to do, that you dreamed of doing, and you get the job, and then you're in the job, and it's great and it's meaningful, and they were very meaningful, important years to have done that particular job, right? It was December 2016 when I took that job. Trump had just been elected. I took that job, Trump had just been elected.

The news was coming in a fast and furious manner. COVID happens so many things and it felt very urgent what I was doing and meaningful. And then I needed to stop doing it. And I know that's an insufficient answer, but it was just in my gut. I was psychically exhausted. And I don't think we talk enough about, maybe in some corners, about how exhausting the news can be. And I have such respect for my colleagues who have been at the tip of the spear, so to speak, in these news jobs for decades. And I had been a reporter for many years before that, a correspondent in and out of horizons as for you,

but I could always then go away and recuperate and think about something else. When you're in the host chair or the anchor chair, day in and day out, it came to occupy my mind and my body in a different way and I could not turn it off. And I was worn down. COVID did a lot of things to all of us, but I also, in that particular time, found my curiosity diminishing, and that's like a red flag for a journalist, right? Like that's sort of our bread and butter. That's what gets us up every day.

That's what makes us excited to do the work and to talk to people and to learn things. And when I found that starting to subside, I was like, Whoa, that feels like something in me is leaving me. That's not good. I got to change something. And also the hours, the hours are real bad. You know, I had two young kids at the time and trying to manipulate my bedtime to coincide with theirs and seeing my spouse and getting up at three in the morning is just wasn't

sustainable. So that's a long answer. It's a confluence of a lot of different things. And I finally woke up one morning. It really was like, you know, you and I always ask, what was the moment? And some people are like, there is no moment. I got a moment actually. It was the midterm elections, 2022. It was the day after and we were in live special coverage. And the news we were reporting, there were no big dramatic storylines, actually.

It was all sort of incremental. And I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't have the fire in my belly anymore. And that's not a service to our listeners either. They need someone who's got the fire in the belly still. That very day I called the head of news at NPR and I said, it has been a dream and it was an honor and now I have to pivot. I got to do something else. It's so counter-cultural, not only for the larger culture, but also for our

micro culture in journalism, you know, once you've got the chair to give up that real estate, people are usually carried out feet first from these jobs. Your whole identity gets wrapped up into it, right? And your ego gets really wrapped up into it. And you're situated in the culture in a particular way that feels good and within your organization. For about a year, I'd been weighing this, right? It wasn't until that moment that it crystallized.

But I went through all of that. I was like, who am I if I'm not this thing? And to be honest, I really liked going to dinner parties and like saying my name and maybe someone would recognize my voice. And then I'd be coy and be like, oh, surely no. You listen to me. And, you know, feign modesty, but secretly like, yes,

I'm public radio famous, which is not the same as TV famous, but within a certain circle of people, you know? So giving that up and being able to close the door on that part of my career and to look back at it and be proud of the things I did, it's really hard because there are other stories that haven't happened. I mean, the war, October 7th happened and the Hamas attack into Israel and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza.

And that was the first big story that has happened since I left. And I was not professionally obliged to read, think, or broadcast that story. And it felt a little strange in the beginning. But then I turned on the radio, I listened to my colleagues, they're doing a supreme job, other news outlets. I'm like, it's okay. It's okay. So no FOMO. In that one moment, there was some, but I have to say with the presidential election ramping up, I don't want to cover that again.

I actually, as many of us did, have covered this exact election with these same candidates. So I have zero fomo related to that at all. And every once in a while there are things MPR does that are particularly great and it creates space for certain kinds of conversations that are tethered to the news. And that's the stuff that I miss being able to do. I still get to have that kind of emotional, existential, meaningful conversation within the context of this new show, but it's not tethered to issues. And that was by design. But sometimes I miss that. I had an experience recently where the day the verdicts came down in Donald Trump's criminal trial, a friend of mine texted me and said,

do you miss it now? Hmm. Then did you? Nope. Yeah. I had the, a very similar experience to you where the fire just went out in preparing to talk to you. I was reading some interviews you've done recently and you said something that I

really related to that you were never quoting you here, not verbatim, but you said you were never a breaking news junkie. For you, it was all about the intimacy of the interview, of the connection to the subjects in the story. I really related to that. I wonder if you could just say a little bit more about that. Oh, yeah, which is why I was never a great beat journalist, because to be first on a thing that felt sometimes very important, but I mean, they are important stories, but everyone's going to get it eventually.

Everyone's going to get that story eventually. I wasn't in it for the race of that. The feeling of being first to a thing wasn't enough to get me going. That's the stuff that garners a lot of attention. It's a reflection of deep reporting. I don't want to dismiss the people who do that so well, right? A real beat reporter has spent years cultivating sources and where would we be if we didn't have important breaking news and scoops that were delivered by brilliant journalists. But it was never why I went into it in the first place. I was in Iraq a couple different times during the war. There were a lot of breaking news stories there. And I was there in the summer of 2007. It was a surge. We had a big whiteboard in the NPR bureau to just keep track of the civilian deaths from the car bombings. and just another number, another number, another number. And the monotony of the

death toll was numbing for me. And so I started talking to the Iraqis that I knew about that idea, about death and how you have to compartmentalize your emotional reaction to it when it's happening with such frequency, not necessarily to the people in your immediate circle, but to just people in your neighborhood. And that to me is the story that I'm most proud of and remember the most from my time in Iraq. It wasn't such and such car bombing or the trial of chemical Ali or being embedded in Fallujah with the Marines and the Sunni awakening. It's that one story about everyday Iraqis who are just processing this relentless pace of dying. Any opportunity for me to get to that super intimate place with a person inside their mind

to get a peek into their own interior life and how they see the world. That was the stuff I always wanted to do. Yeah, I really relate to that. When I think back at my time in Iraq, I can't remember any of the headlines I covered. I just remember the experiences I had, the relationships I had. Just, you know, even sitting here, these funny little anecdotes are coming up in my mind. Being first to a story or getting some access to some general or some visiting dignitary

or some Iraqi figure, none of that. I mean, we did do that, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. This story that's coming up in my mind, this is totally random. It's not even from Iraq, it's actually from Gaza. When I was in Gaza in 2002, during the second Intifada, we had a local fixer, his name is Sammy, S-A-M-I.

Sammy was very funny, kind of roly poly guy. And we were covering a firefight. We're hiding behind a stone wall while there was a firefight going on. And Sammy turned around to me and said, let me give you a piece of advice. Never. And I mean, never, ever get married. And he just started laughing and it's like, it's such a surreal experience. And like, that is the shit I remember.

I don't remember like what the story of that day was. Was Sammy married? Yes, he was. Oh my God. Yes, he was. Oh my God. Yes, he was married. Did his wife hear that? He must've had a bad morning. Yeah.

It may be the case that you and I are unusual among journalists because I do think a lot of our colleagues are really focused on the incremental forward motion of stories and who got there first and all of that stuff. And I think some reporters are kind of more in it for the experience or the interpersonal connection or the adventure or whatever it is. And maybe those are the people like me and you who burn out and go do other stuff.

Right. Well, I will say also, if you spend your time in journalism, having those kinds of conversations with people and, like, seeking that stuff out, it is emotionally exhausting. If you spend your time in journalism, having those kinds of conversations with people and like seeking that stuff out, it is emotionally exhausting after a while. It's a lot easier to just be like,

I need to break this new on here and I'm doing this and I'm doing this and it feels utilitarian in a way and you don't have to, I don't know, connect to someone's vulnerability all the time, you know? Then maybe you have more staying power. Not to say, I know many journalists who can have a foot in both worlds and I admire them for that. But for me, it just got to be too much. I had to change. Well, one thing you didn't mention in discussing this career pivot you've made is the death of your father, but as I've

read and I think I'm tell me if I'm reading this correctly that that actually did play a role. Totally. My mom died 15 years ago of cancer. It was a long death that many people understand. And my dad was super healthy. My dad was like lifted weights. He was a very fit person. And he had no health issues and he was the parent who was supposed to live a long time. So when he had a aortic dissection, it's like this heart condition,

and he died from complications from that, quite suddenly, it was a real shock. Up until like a couple days before they had to intubate him in the hospital, he was practicing law. So he was a tax and estate lawyer who dealt with small family farms or bigger ranches. And he was very much a counselor to people and took his work very seriously. So in the hospital room, his law partner has driven up to the hospital from the next town over and they're sitting in the hospital room and my dad is telling him, giving him directions about this estate needs this and

this client needs to be called back on this and this. And I'm watching this transpire and I'm thinking, okay, one, good for you, dad. You're super responsible. That's great. You're like the best lawyer ever. And then number two, I'm like, God, I hope I'm not doing that when I'm in the hospital maybe dying. I just don't want to have that level of stress. And he was always stressed.

He was always, always stressed. I know he got great meaning out of his work, but for me his passing was just this massive fire alarm going off in my head because I'd already been unhappy for the last year or two. Like, oh, this has to stop now. Who knows what could happen tomorrow? I need to wake up to the rest of my life because I was not in a good place, Stan. I was, what I didn't say was that I was very depressed, you know? And I wasn't getting dressed. COVID kind of gave us this permission to just wear our pajamas. And I would find myself in this rut.

My curiosity was numb. I wasn't awake in life. And so when my dad passed, I was just like, this is done now. This is done. I have gotten to do this dream job. I feel very honored that I got to do it. And now it's time to not do it anymore because I'm not healthy in it. And I just, I want to be healthier. I want to be emotionally healthier, psychologically healthier. I want to be physically healthier. I want to take care of my body. I want to get good sleep. I want to be awake for my children. I want to be physically healthier. I want to take care of my body. I want to get good sleep. I want to be awake for my children. I want to be present in their lives.

And I don't want to always be obsessing about my sleep, sleep, sleep. And I was, I was obsessed about it. And when I wasn't well rested, when I had been sleep deprived for days on end, I was the worst version of me, to be honest. I was a bad partner. I was a bad parent. I wasn't a good journalist and I wasn't a good colleague. So my dad dying was definitely the last kick

that I needed to just say, it's time to change. I feel like protective of you. I kind of want to come in, counter program against some of the stories you're telling yourself about being a bad parent and a bad partner and a bad journalist, because I suspect that none of that is really true. But that's the way you felt.

That is the way that I felt. And I think it is true in so far as I can judge that against who I am now. I am just a happier person. When you feel better about yourself, when you feel like you are where you need to be in your life, then that's what trickles out of you. And that's what emanates into the world.

That's what you are putting out there. And my kids are the people who are around me, who are most directly affected by whatever vibes I'm sending out into the world. So I think they're better now. I think my vibes are better. But thank you for being protective. Tell me if I'm hearing this correctly. So I think there are two things going on

around the career pivot. There was this depression that you're very bold to discuss openly. And then also I've heard you say that becoming an adult orphan and that's the way you've described it, having lost your mom 15 years prior and then having just lost your dad, created and these are your words, an existential void.

And so it sounds like it was a confluence of these two that led you to make this pivot. And you have a new show now, but there was actually something in the interval between this new show and a morning edition. And it was a series you did called, Enlighten Me, which you basically co-opted your professional perch in order to explore these issues that were coming up

out of this existential void. Am I describing all of this correctly? Completely, completely. So we rewind that conversation I had with the head of news saying, I can't do it anymore. I need to pivot. But it was like, what's the pivot? What's the thing that I'm going to do? I didn't want to go back and be a reporter.

And NPR didn't know either. So they sort of said, here's some real estate on the radio, like on Sunday evenings. Here's like 15 minutes and do what you want. I was actively grieving my dad. But then the second layer to it was this existential crisis sounds so negative, but I was just locked in that existential place. And it was a spiritual component for me because both my parents were deeply, deeply spiritual people. My dad was an institutionalist. He was a tax lawyer, but my dad really thought that he should have been a minister. And he was always the substitute minister in the first Presbyterian church in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

And then he would write his sermons out on this yellow legal pad and he would give them to my mom and myself and my siblings the day before and practice them. That's really where he felt most himself. And then my mom was like an anti-institutionalist. She was just like a spiritual omnivore. She believed in reincarnation, but maybe she also believed in heaven and Jesus and Buddha and the power for your internal energies to cure your physical ills. She was just open. She was one of these people who was like, why not all of it? These people seem to have gotten something right and these people seem to have gotten something right. I mean, if you pressed her, she would say she was a Christian first and foremost, but she had a more expansive definition. Or at least to me, the Christians I

knew growing up lived in a very narrow definition of what that meant. And my mother's definition of what Christianity meant was she just had a bigger lens on what that word was and what that faith was. So between the two of them, I had a very religious slash spiritual upbringing. We went to church on Sundays, I sang in the church choir, I went to the church youth groups. It was the center of our social life. My dad was always giving me religious texts to read. My mom was giving me tic-nock Han to read. So I had it all coming and going. When they died, I've described it this way before. It's like they had built this scaffolding for my own spiritual life, but then they expected

me to build it up, finish the construction, so to speak. And I just never did because when they were alive, I could just kind of lean on them. They were my spiritual identity. They built my spiritual home and I could just visit it whenever I needed to. So now they're gone and now I'm just left with this shitty little tent, the scaffolding with no interior because I never found a tradition that was a fit for me and I never needed to. So this radio project of mine turned into me actively looking for that. And I just talked to a lot of different people who I respected who came from different religious traditions and no religious traditions.

I just wanted to understand from people how they had conducted this search in their own lives and what answers that they had found. And it was really liberating. I also felt this pressure, like I have these two young kids and part of my upbringing was this spiritual doctrine that was handed to me, this inheritance. And I felt like I didn't have one to hand my kids. And was I supposed to have one? I didn't know. Is it enough to just say to them, this is just how to be a good person? It's not grounded in any kind of theology? That was foreign to me. So it was a really self-serving project and thank God NPR was interested enough to let me do it, I learned so much. I had such wonderful conversations with people. I talked to you as part of that too. And I don't know, I feel like you're

about to ask me, did you find any answers? And if I'm preempting your question, this is what happens when an interviewer interviews an interviewer. But yeah, I did. I guess my answers were that it is okay that I have found a different way to live in the world than my parents did. It is okay that I'm not a Christian. And I don't know that I've actually said that sentence out loud before, and that feels strange to say. I guess I'm still a cultural Christian because I still want to go to church on Christmas Eve and I find great meaning from Christian church services and the music and the prayers I've said my whole life. But I don't feel this urgency or this need to indoctrinate my kids the same way.

I want them to make their own choices. I want to give them a lot of different tools. I want them to be curious, basically. I want them to have spiritual curiosity. And that was the answer that I found. I've also heard you say that one of the answers that you landed on after having done this kind of existential tour of duty is that, you know, it's okay to make your own meaning, like to figure out you get to decide what matters. We get to decide, we get to decide.

I did this interview with Catherine May. Have you ever talked to Catherine May? Oh my God, you would love Catherine May. She's this British writer. I talked to her for a previous book called Wintering. And then I interviewed her for a subsequent book. Then, of course, now I can't remember the name of her most recent book. But Catherine writes very beautifully about how we make our own meaning. And this is not like some profound idea that other people haven't said. Enchantment! Look at my producer! So good. In her book Enchantment, Catherine May writes about this idea that we get to create the meaning. That's not like a wholly original idea, but you know how sometimes you hear the same thing

from a lot of people and just something this one time, this is the messenger and this is the time that this idea really sinks into you. And for me, it was hearing her talk about this particular well, this pond attached to this well that she believed to be this sacred space. And why was it sacred? Because she decided that it was. And I was like, oh my God, that's such a powerful idea. And it doesn't diminish it. Human imbued sacredness is not any less than some kind of divinely imbued sacredness. Ultimately, it's our choice. Do we decide that this is a sacred experience or not? Being awakened to that power that every human has, that we get to walk through life in meaning about whatever we choose. You can manifest gratitude and appreciation with every step,

with everything that happens in a life, in a day. That felt so wise to me and practical. It felt very practical and like a thing that I could also teach my kids to do. So what have you imbued with meaning? I think it's the really quotidian stuff. When I find myself in a day, and it still happens, where I feel a little rudderless, maybe a little FOMO sneaks in about the news career that was, the accolades that did or didn't come, that's how I get through that day is deciding how do I make meaning in the time that has been laid out before me today? What is sacred in this day?

And it's little things. And then it starts to sound like really precious and cheesy, but like right now I'm looking out my window and I have the most beautiful backyard. I never thought I'd get to live in a place like this with trees and in this nice neighborhood. And I got this ugly trampoline out there too. But that is sacred in its own way because that is a thing that we bought for our children. And I imagine

them jumping on it and laughing on it. And now I'm crying about a trampoline, but then I extrapolate from that and I'm like, I got to have kids, Dan. I got to have kids. I didn't think I was gonna get to have kids, you know? What an amazing thing that is. So I guess I just try to do it all the time. In our previous encounters, you've always interviewed me and in those encounters, we've

always come around to like your struggles with establishing a meditation habit and I'd be interested to get to that eventually. But I do want to say that what you're describing is a practice. You are training the mind away from FOMO, envy, the background static of discontent, and toward gratitude, meaning, and mattering. You can call that a kind of meditation. Totally. I mean, I'm not just shining you on.

I've read your books, Dan Harris. I've listened to your stuff, and I'm sort of taken to it. Other people have come out in my life over the past couple of years who keep saying this thing about the meditation. Did you ever talk to Roland Griffiths? You know, I wanted to talk to Roland Griffiths, and I know you did for Enlighten Me, and he's no longer with us anymore. And just for the uninitiated, he was one of the lead researchers on the impact of psilocybin

and other psychedelics on the mind. And he specifically looked at the minds of meditators and what could be learned from giving that molecule to them. I really wanted to talk to him, but I missed the moment. He was an amazing person. I didn't know him well, obviously, but I had this conversation with him. Yes, it was about his research on psilocybin and then it was about his own cancer diagnosis, but really it was about the power of meditation and the power that all of us have wrapped up in our own head.

And so he was another person that came into my life for this little moment with this message. I was like, oh, I need to keep going. And yeah, it ebbs and flows, and I will get into a pattern where meditating is easier for me to make time for and when I'm really doing it and engaged and then something will happen. It'll usually be like my sleep is still not great

and so it'll be like me feeling selfish about my sleep and so then I don't get up and then that window closes and I can't make the time for it again. It's still a work in progress for me, but it feels more like a touchstone than it ever has before it was kind of this amorphous idea that other people said was just going to make me better or 10% happy or whatever. And now it feels like a real, like I made a real place and I can go back and touch that place.

Yes. I don't know if this is helpful, but sometimes for me, meditation is what I'll do when I can't fall asleep. I've tried that. I do like a body scan. Is that the same thing? Yeah, absolutely.

That's a form of meditation. For me, my insomnia often manifests in a physical restlessness. And so what I will do is get up and do walking meditation. And I find that exhausts both my mind and my body and then I can fall asleep. I always have a problem with what I'm supposed to be saying in my mind. So I'll give you a practice you can try. There's a phrase that comes straight from the Buddhist teachings that my teacher Joseph Goldstein likes to use a lot and I will

just preface this by saying I did not like this phrase when he first told it to me, but the phrase is there is a body. And that sounds to me like something you say at a crime scene. Right. But there is a body. You just drop that phrase into your mind. You can do it in your daily life, but in the meditation practice, you're walking at any speed at night, you can't fall asleep until you get up and walk slowly,

but it doesn't have to be crazily slow. There is a body that brings the mind below the level of thought to the physical sensations of the movement. Inevitably, you'll get distracted. You don't need to make a big deal out of that. You can, as my friend Jeff Warren likes to say, you can think about distraction and waking up as kind of like a natural rhythm, almost like the crashing of waves on a beach.

Don't get too wrapped around the axle about distraction. There is a body. And then if that's not getting you concentrated enough, you can drop little notes into the mind, like moving or thinking or seeing or hearing just that it's a skillful use of thinking to direct you to your actual physical sensate experience. That's a version of the practice I do when I can't sleep. Where do you walk? Like around your apartment? Yeah, well, so we live in a house now because we moved out of the city.

But I used to walk around the apartment and now I walk around the house and sometimes my wife has videos that I should put on Instagram actually of me walking around the house very slowly with a very embarrassing, I get picked up on the ring cam sometimes and I'm wearing, my cousin Deb, shout out Deb Berman, she got me one of those blankets that you can wear. I think it's called a snuggie.

Yeah, it's a snuggie. It's got this crazy hood on it. So I'm walking around the house with the hood on. It looks very, very strange. So yeah, that's my life. Very sexy. I mean, if someone saw you and heard you, they would think that you, yeah. Well, I'm not saying there is a body out loud just for the record. Very sexy. I mean, if someone saw you and heard you, they would think that you, yeah. Well, I'm not saying there is a body out loud, just for the record. Okay, oh right.

Okay, good, yeah. Inside voice, meditation voice. Okay, okay. I'll give it a go. I know you're supposed to get out of bed when you can't sleep. Yes. And it is so hard for me to do

because it feels like I'm giving up. It feels like the second I get up, then I'm just gonna to be more awake. No. And then if I just keep trying hard, if I just lay here and keep trying harder to sleep, that surely, surely it'll happen. In doing that, you're training the brain that the bed is a place of struggle. I mean, I really do need to break this problem because it's still it feels that way to me every night that I go to sleep.

I'm like, what's it going to be? What's going to happen tonight? I have that too. And here's what I do. I basically put my hand on my chest. I'm like, dude, whatever happens, it's going to be cool. First of all, if you get no sleep, you've had that experience a million times. So you'll be fine tomorrow. And second, just get your ass out of bed and do some walking meditation. And even if that doesn't work, although it usually does, you're getting some meditation in. No lose scenario. Do you set a timer? No, I just stop when I'm good and tired.

Okay, I am gonna try that next time. Sometimes if I'm like really pissed off, which is not unusual, and I'm anxious, because usually anger is like compensating for the fear. I have to do it a couple times before I fall asleep, you know? Like I get back into bed and I still thrashing, and I just get back out of bed. And sometimes I do give up and just work for a while, you know?

Like, I've really learned to make peace with insomnia. I think the most powerful thing you said was to remind yourself that you've been here before, it's going to be okay. You don't need to panic about this. It's like any anxiety or fear that you struggle with. It's like this unwanted friend or this annoying friend. Don't be angry. Just acknowledge it. I guess that's what you do in meditation. Like I see you thought, I see you insomnia, and now I release you. And friend is the right word because it's just the organism trying to protect itself. It is trying to help you, but in a fucked up way that's not actually very helpful.

But aggression will make it stronger, whereas friendship will defang it. Okay. I'm gonna walk. Do you walk in a circle? Do you walk in a line? I don't have a very big house. Walk in a circle. Yeah. Walk in a circle. That doesn't matter. The how of the logistics of it matter way less. You notice how I'm getting fixated on this, like looking for reasons like it's not going to work in my house.

Sorry, Dan. Doesn't work. I love it. Okay. Please do try that. I want to hear how it goes. Coming up, we play the game. We also talk about how good we are at being wrong and the advice that changed the course

of our lives. Keep it here. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankenpem. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we are revisiting the life of Cecil Rhodes. From sickly child to diamond tycoon to leading colonialist in South Africa,

he was a bastion of British imperialism. Over the past few years campuses around the world have been met with students chanting Rhodes must fall. His legacy has been completely transformed. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr Eleanor Yoniga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades.

Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. in the not too distant future, you can sign up at eomega.org. Also over on the 10% Happier app, don't forget there are more than 500 guided meditations in the library there that can help you stay relaxed and present in the waning days of summer. Download the 10% Happier app wherever you get your apps. I want to get to the main event here because you have a new show. So you were at Morning Edition for six years. Before that you did lots of interesting stuff that we haven't even talked about but morning edition for six years that you didn't like me for about a year just as a brief aside if anybody wants to go back and listen to all those episodes where and how would they be able to do that. Thank you for that put in your search engine of choice enlighten me with rachel martin and PR tag onto. with Rachel Martin and PR if you want to tag that on too. I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

And so you did that and then you came up with this brilliant idea for a new show. I've listened to it, it's awesome. It's called Wild Card. Can you just describe how you came up with the idea and what it is? My producer and I, his name is Lee Hale. He's wonderful, an amazing collaborator.

He and I created Enlighten Me. He swims around in those same existential waters. We wanted to preserve kind of the heart of those Enlighten Me conversations, but also some of those can be real heavy, right? Some of them are downers. It's a lot about grief and hard things. And I accept that people don't always

wanna live in that space. And it's also not representative of the emotion or thoughts that I want to put out into the world either. The world is heavy enough. There's a lot of stuff going on to be sad about. And I really did want to make a show that made people feel light. I wanted it to make people feel seen and heard

and understood and less lonely, and also lighter, more joyful. We were trying to figure out a way to tackle these soul searching kind of questions, but to do it within a more playful architecture. So we came up with this idea for a game. Now, game, I mean, we call it like an existential game show. It's a device to have a meaningful conversation.

We came up with a deck of cards. They've got these big questions on them. And with each guest, we hold three at a time up and they get to pick one card to answer. They can't see what the question is. And I adhere to their wishes. I pick the one that they have selected randomly. I love that because I get to surrender agency in this too. It's genuinely a surprise for me. And sometimes I'll be looking at these cards, I'll be like, oh God, please pick three, three so good. And they'll be like, two. so good and they'll be like two. Ah, two, but I like two too.

I just didn't like two as much as three, but there's a serendipity to all of it. Not to get too woo woo, but at the end of the thing, we had the conversation that we were meant to have. It could have gone a different way. And I sort of love that. There's just a randomness to it and surprise that I didn't get to do as a news interviewer.

I had to have control the whole time. You know, it's my show, it's my interview, and I am holding you to account and this is how it's going to go. And also we developed within the context of the game a way to put me into it because people will be more likely to be more vulnerable. If I'm also in it in that way, right? It's only fair if I'm asking people to show up in this way that I also show up in that way. So people get a skip. If one question isn't speaking to them, they can just be like, skip. And the guests get a flip. If they want, they can put me on the spot. I answer it first. They still have to answer it, but it buys them a little time. It's been really cool because the guests have come out of it telling other people that they

really appreciated the experience and the feedback's been great. People have been appreciating what I love about it and that's really affirming that it is this joyful, inspirational place where people can be real in a way that they're not often allowed to be. It really works. I mean, this is the highest compliment. I'm a little jealous of it. Thanks.

I hosted a game show, a brief game show, yes, on prime time on ABC. It was the best job I've ever had other than delivering pizza, which I also loved. And it was just so easy and lucrative, and I loved it. And my point is that you're so right that this area of whatever you want to call it, meaning,

existential questions, et cetera, it's, it almost definitionally gets very, very heavy, but it doesn't have to be. No. In Taoism, they talk about the thousand sorrows and a thousand joys. Like we often miss the whole upside of the situation. And so the, and the whole thing could just get morose and self serious and self righteous. And so the fact that you've gamifiedose and self-serious and self-righteous and so the fact

that you've gamified it so successfully is awesome. Thank you, I appreciate that. I'm having a good time, genuinely am. I hope other people are too. So you wanna do it? Yes, let's do it. Yeah, okay. So you just heard me say the rules.

I'll just give them to you quickly again. You get one skip, Dan Harris. If you don't like a question, you can say skip and then I'll replace it with another from the deck. You get one flip. You can flip it on me if you want. You don't have to use these tools, but they're there for your usage. If you so choose, we're dividing it up into three rounds.

Okay. But a couple questions in each round, Memories, insights, and beliefs. And there's a prize at the end because it's a game. So I hope you win, Dan Harris. But it's cool. It's cool. So you ready? Yes. Okay. Let's do it. Here are your first three cards. Memories, one, two, or three? Three, because you said before you liked three, even though this is a different three, I'll just try not to hook you up.

You're just going with three. Yeah. What's a place that shaped you as much as any person did? Flip. You just flipped right out of the gate. Yeah, I need some time. Okay, yeah. It's the first answer that comes to my mind, which I don't know

if it's particularly illuminating, but it's the town I grew up in because I think a lot of the things I ended up seeking in my life were in reaction to that place. And I wanted the opposite of that place in a lot of ways. I had a wonderful childhood. So many near and dear friends who still live in this community. It's beautiful. It's in Southeast Idaho. It's a lovely place to grow up. But I found it very constricting and narrow. And I didn't fit in there, and I didn't know where I fit in. I just knew that there had to be a different place. So the place that shaped me is the place

that I really desperately wanted to leave, actually. It's funny because now all I want to do is go back there because life is so simple and it's really pretty. And I live in a city and I always dream about going back to this place on the river and the cottonwood trees. But man, did I want to leave. It was a really conservative culture. It was a very, very religious

community. And I wasn't in that religion either. I was from a really religious family, but the dominant culture was LDS, was Mormon. And my dad liked to joke that we were persecuted religious minorities as Presbyterians. It's a particular culture and the culture did not feel like home to me. It shaped me because all my choices after leaving, I just wanted the opposite of everything and it led me to perhaps some riskier behaviors that I probably should have thought twice about. But I tried to live a life that in my 20s at least, I wanted everything that was the opposite of that place, everything that was the opposite. I think I came down somewhere in my twenties, at least, I wanted everything that was the opposite of that place, everything that was the opposite.

I think I came down somewhere in the middle, in middle age, you kind of recalibrate and you take the things that the good of where you came from and the upbringing you had, and you marry it with the other life experiences that were in juxtaposition to that place. And that's who I am today. That was a long answer.

I bought you so much time, Dan Harris. You did. It was a great answer. You know, it actually, it led me to my answer, which I think the place would be my childhood home. Now I lived in three places when I was a kid. The first I don't remember, it was our first two years in Falls Church, Virginia. I don't remember any of that.

Oh, really? That's not too far from me here. And then we in Falls Church, Virginia. I don't remember any of that. Oh, really? That's not too far from me here. And then we moved to Newton, Massachusetts. We lived in this little house and then we moved again in eighth grade to the house next door. And I'm going to pick that second house. Okay. First of all, cause that's where all my childhood memories are.

But also I had a very idyllic childhood. At least what I remember is quite idyllic. My parents were very loving and they loved each other, I had a very idyllic childhood, at least what I remember is quite idyllic. My parents were very loving and they loved each other, but they were very frugal. They can't buy it honestly. Their parents had come up during the depression and so I remember them not like putting the heat on very high in the winter and having to wear down jackets. Yes, put on more clothes, Dan. Yes, exactly.

And also, Newton's an interesting city it's right outside of Boston it has public housing projects and it also has like Subner Redstone lived there the guy who founded Paramount Viacom whatever so it has the full spectrum and I remember really as I got into junior high it was very unhappy about the fact that we lived in a very small house my parents were academic physicians so they're doctors, but not the kind of doctors who make a lot of money. And I sort of had a, much of my twenties and thirties were really reacting

against what I thought was this sort of limiting frugality, cheapness of my parents. And so we moved because I really bullied them into buying the bigger house next door. And they actually like let me do that, which is very interesting to think about now that I have my own child. Right. Yeah. Be careful. I mean, exactly.

It's gonna be like, exactly. This Ford hatchback is not sufficient dad for my 16th birthday. I will be having the Ferrari. They had a Chevy Chevette, which was like a hatchback. I remember the Chevy Chevette. That was a great car. And then they had like a poop brown Plymouth Valiant. And I remember like being really embarrassed

and my parents had what I thought were crappy cars. I mean, I had friends who were from the housing projects. A lot of them, most of my friends were like not the wealthy ones, but I was comparing myself upwards economically and it was making me miserable and I think I probably made my parents pretty miserable too. Did that govern your life choices early on? Yeah. In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. Like if I was really motivated by money, like I would have become an investment banker or whatever. Well, I'm not good at math, so I probably wouldn't have been able to do any of that. But I mean, I picked journalism, which for some people,

and I got very lucky, I got jobs that were very well compensated, but it's not by no means guaranteed when you go into the news business. Most journalists don't make that much money. So I don't think it governed my choices like I was determined to be rich no matter what. I definitely still have a lot of irrational anxiety

around financial issues. When I can't sleep, it's usually that. The math doesn't support it, it's just this irrational fear that I have that I think comes from those winters of wearing the down jackets, which by the way, we didn't need to do, they could have afforded to turn the heat up,

but it's just this psychology, you know, and that gets handed down. So when you can't sleep in the middle of the night, do you call your parents? You're like, hi, this is because of you. Turn up the damn heat. My parents are not, they're alive, but they're not like, my dad had a stroke, so he's not callable.

And my mom, yeah, my mom, I could call my mom, but we've definitely moved into that stage where I'm not an orphan, but I'm the parent. I'm definitely playing the role of parent, which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Okay. Next question.

Still in memories. One, two, or three? Go with one. One. What's something someone told you that changed your trajectory? I want to come up with something Buddhist because that's on brand, but this is just what's coming up in my head. Yeah, yeah. In college, I did a bunch of internships in TV news because I was really interested in TV news.

And one of them was at public broadcasting, what was then called the McNeil Lair News Hour. Shut up! Yes. Really? Yes. And now it's called the PBS News Hour, hosted by Omno Nawaz, who used to be at ABC News, he was a wonderful person, and Jeff Benito, I don't know. Who used to be my editor at Weekend Edition Sunday at NPR. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wonderful show. So I was the intern one summer for business and economics correspondent, Paul Solman. It was great. He was amazing. And he had this producer named Laurie Cohen, who was also amazing. And this was the summer of 1991. And I just learned a ton from them and really kind of fell in love. But they were great storytellers. They would do these long form stories about businesses or economic issues. And Paul was just a great explainer of stuff. He was a great role model. And I remember when I graduated from college a couple of years later, I didn't

know what I was going to do and I kind of thought maybe I'll be a paralegal. Yeah. And I was on the phone with Lori and she was like, don't be an idiot. You like TV news, go to some small town and get a job on camera. Yeah. And it utterly changed the trajectory of my life. If I had not had that phone conversation, I would probably be an unhappy lawyer right now.

Oh my God. Can I tell you, I had, you and I are like the same in so many ways. The thing, you didn't flip it on me, but I'm gonna tell you mine anyway. Because the thing is- I thought I only got one flip, that's why I didn't flip it.

We're pretending that you're on my show and I'm just taking the steering wheel. Because the thing that changed my life We're pretending that you're on my show and I'm just taking the steering wheel. Because the thing that changed my life was when I was living in San Francisco and I was working at the public radio station, but I thought still maybe I should be a lawyer because my dad was a lawyer. My lawyer dad had said, go interview these other people I know in San Francisco who are lawyers and see if they like their jobs.

Smart. And this one guy I talked to, God bless Steven Kravitz, because he looked at me after this hour long lunch and said, if there is literally anything else that you'd like to do, go try that thing first. Before you go to law school. And I was like, I sort of, I kind of dig journalism. I have zero experience, but anyway, then I did a bunch of stuff and got internships and jobs.

But yes, so I too, I mean, there are a lot of journalists who almost were lawyers. Yeah. Phew. Bullet dodged. Next round. This is insights, okay? Stuff you're working on learning now.

Three new cards. One, two, three. Two. How comfortable are you with being wrong? Increasingly comfortable with being wrong. I think this is actually one of the things I've matured into and feel very passionate about, which is intellectual humility.

I have gotten in the past, the feedback, the very accurate feedback that I had a verbal tick of saying i might be wrong but dot dot dot and then launching into several paragraphs about how not wrong and so i really. Taking that when i see that coming up in my mind as like a interesting bit of feedback just because what is joseph goldstein sometimes says, like certainty is not an indicator of truth. And often the certainty is compensating for some sort of doubt. There's like a subtle pain to dogmatism and just tuning into that as I've gotten older has been really interesting and has very much improved my relationships because yeah, I could just be obnoxious and arrogant and self-assured, which was of course covering up for all of insecurity, et cetera, et cetera.

Kudos to that person who gave you that feedback. You know what I mean? I don't know who it was, but the person was like, hey, you need to know that this is what you're doing and it's not awesome. It was anonymous feedback. It was a part of a 360 review that I got, which is the source, the subject of my next book, actually this 360 review that was panoramically humiliating. So that was just one piece of tough advice. I love that though.

Okay. We're still in insights. Okay. One, two, or three? Three. Three. What makes you arationally defensive? When somebody says something that I interpret as pointing to me being a bad person,

because I suspect that I'm a bad person, and so that when people say things like, oh, well, that was an insensitive comment, or even worse, if it was somehow bigoted in some way, I can go through the roof. This is another thing I've really worked on. There's a great concept from a friend of mine named Dolly Chug, who I actually just had dinner with last night.

Dolly is a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, and she has written several books. One of them is called The Person You Mean to Be or something like that. Anyway, sorry, Del, if I'm screwing up the name of your book, but she has a concept called good-ishness. And it's great because if you think of yourself not as a good person or a bad person, but as a good-ish person, which is what we all are, we're good-ish. We're pretty good, but we make mistakes. Then when somebody points out that you've made a mistake, it doesn't challenge

your identity as much. Because of course, if you're good-ish, the mistakes are baked right in. Yeah. I've been trying to plant this seed in the minds of my kids. So, like I said, we don't go to church, but every once in a while on a Sunday, I'll be like, okay, it's Sunday school, and we'll sit on the couch, but every once in a while on a Sunday, I'll be like, okay, it's Sunday school, and we'll sit on the couch, and I feel obliged to still like read the Bible verse. And, but then I try to make up a lesson or something.

And what we've been talking about recently was that idea that people are not good or bad, that people are both. And at different points, one of those will be more present than the other. And I worried that this was too complicated to tell kids, but they need to learn these are the good things to do, these are the bad things to do. But then I was like, oh, right, I don't know. That's not real. What's real is that all of us are both things. One is more at the fore than the other sometimes. And that helps us, like you're saying, not judge ourselves too harshly. We've still got to hold ourselves accountable for

mistakes and bad behavior. But it allows us to move on and not be defined by that mistake or that error and to be more forgiving of other people. When you realize, oh, that guy's such a jerk. This kid is bullying me at school. I can make up a whole story about how they're just like, this awful human being, and they must just love torturing me at school and taking my water bottle every time. It's a different way to teach empathy, I guess,

is just thinking about a person as having both of those qualities simultaneously. Do you think for you, this nuanced view of human nature has been bolstered by being a journalist? Yeah. You've gone out and interviewed people that you might have reflexively rejected if you were a civilian bystander.

Totally. And I think now not to get on my political soap box, but I do think it is what is broken. I think it's a big thing that is broken in our culture right now is the vilification of other people and the inability to recognize the duality in all of us and the good and the bad or the mistakes we make or the views we hold and somehow not be able to see the good in one another. And I don't care if that sounds like Pollyanna-ish.

I don't care because it's just a sad, broken way to live if you cannot look at a person with whom you disagree or a person who has made grave mistakes, a person who has perhaps hurt you deeply, and to be able to also see good in that person that maybe they didn't show to you in that moment, but it is there. And I just think we don't do that. I just think we've lost the capacity to do that in a way that I think is dangerous. We're heading into what is likely to be and is already a hellscape, a dumpster fire of a presidential election in the United States.

What do you recommend for people in order to survive the news given everything you just said? I think it gets back to Appreciation because it's about people too It's not just I'm appreciating my backyard right now and I'm appreciating the fact that I got seven hours of solid sleep And I'm appreciating my kids It's like learning to appreciate people. It's learning to appreciate their backstory. It's learning to appreciate where they came from. What were the influences that helped shape them? How they see the world?

It's not the same as me. Different forces shaped them. And the forces that shaped me aren't any more legitimate than the forces that shaped them, you know? Seeking that kind of understanding and empathy is crucial in an election year in particular. I totally, oh, I'm sorry, I interrupted you, please go. You interrupted me just because I want you to know

you're not off the hook. I literally want to know your answers to these other questions. I was just gonna say, I really agree with what you just said and I think it can ease the pain of consuming this news story or any other news story that's contentious. If you can just view it with some subtlety, it seems like it's gonna be satisfying

to view the world in black and white and good guys and bad guys, but it actually makes everything more painful, and it is counter-intuitively more easeful to sip from the cup of empathy, I think, and to understand that if you came out of the womb of the person whose behavior you're disapproving of, you might exhibit that exact same behavior. Right.

Right. Totally. I think it's comfortable. It's easy. It's a little lazy, if I'm being honest, to exist in that kind of binary of the good and the bad, the good and the evil. And this person's right and this person's unequivocally wrong. And I think that doesn't do us any good as a people.

Coming up more wild card and something very light, we talk about mortality and the infinite universe. Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s***, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar. So here's how this show's going to work, okay? We're going to run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like No Offense. No offense Travis

Kelsey, but you gotta step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter. Is it Brandon Iuke, T Higgins, or Devonte Adams? Plus on Thursdays, we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery Plus, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday Night Football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in.

Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. In April 1912, the luxury ocean liner RMS Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England en route to New York. Spirits were high, but as the ship sailed into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, danger was lurking. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast American History Tellers. We take you to the events, times, and people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. In our latest series, we'll take you to the early hours of April 15, 1912, when the Titanic

strikes an iceberg, 2,200 passengers and crew are left scrambling for the lifeboats and their lives. Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge this season of American History Tellers on the Titanic early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Last round, beliefs. Okay.

I know it's your show, but right now it's my show. One, two, or three. One. So boss two, or three. One. So bossy. One. Have you made peace with mortality? Definitely not, although it is a goal of mine.

In fact, last summer, my wife and I went and got tattoos. Neither of us had any tattoos, and so we each got something that we wanted to be reminded of regularly, tattooed on our left wrist Right near our watches. So she got the expression which comes from a Buddhist monk right now It's like this which is a recipe for equanimity which is that you're giving yourself permission to feel whatever's happening right now, but to know that It's only for right now and that will everything changes for better or worse. And I got an acronym FTBOAB for the benefit of all beings, which is kind of off brand in its earnestness, but it's a reminder that my job really is, if I'm doing my job correctly,

it is to be useful. And that is actually the mind state in which I feel the best. And yet I am wired for a sort of fear-based acquisitiveness. It's nice to have this right next to my watch because I see it all the time and it's so helpful. And so to answer your actual question, Bianca now wants to get tattoos on our right arms and I was trying to think of what it would be. And there's a phrase in the Buddhist teachings that Joseph Goldstein uses a lot, which is, I'm not exempt. And the Buddha said this a lot, which is, there's aging and illness and dying all around us, and you're not exempt. We feel like somehow we are, but to remind yourself every day that you are not

exempt from nature, you can compute it in a morbid way, but actually it wakes you up. Totally. I think about death a lot, like more than the average person, but I don't think people would describe me as someone who lives in like this morose, macabre state. I think it is the other side of that coin of appreciating and creating meaning and imbuing things with a sacred quality. When you're thinking about death, like what form does that take?

Is there a practice or is it just kind of, it comes up every once in a while? Well, it does get a little grim because I, my imagination can go wild. I imagine dying. Like, okay, if I were to die and I imagine the grief of the people I left behind, but then I think to myself, they're going to be okay. They're going to be okay. So I don't know, I play these little games with myself. Just to think about worst case scenarios, it drives my husband absolutely mad because

he's fine. He's fine. And all of a sudden I'll be like, but what if this? He's like, oh my God, I hadn't thought about that. And I'm like, but it'll be fine. I've made my peace with that. And now I'm back up here. And he's like, oh my God, I hadn't thought about that. And I'm like, but it'll be fine. I've made my peace with that. And now I'm back up here and he's like, but now I'm here and this is so bad.

Yeah, I don't know. It is just a reminder of the ephemeral nature of the whole experiment of living and how lucky we are to get another day. I think it's not sad. This is your last question. One, two, or three. These are still in the big picture beliefs thing.

Two. Does the idea of an infinite universe excite you or scare you? Probably both, but more exciting. It's just so interesting to think like, so if it's infinite, does that mean every possible permutation of this conversation is playing out somewhere else? Or would that require a multiverse? Fascinating, brain breaking stuff,

which is very cool to think about. And then of course, there's the thing of, if it's indeed infinite, why have we not seen any signs of life? You know, there are all sorts of theories about this. They're here, but we're not seeing them or that's what the UFOs are all about. Or I've also heard the theory that there have been many intelligent life forms on other planets. But what happens every time is they invent AI and it destroys them. And that's why we haven't seen them. And

it's about to happen to us. And so I have no idea, but it's all fun to think about. What do you think? There is a world in which it freaks me out a little bit and it's disconcerting because I lose perspective about who we are. Like who am I in this big, big thing of which there is no end?

If it just keeps going and going and going, who am I in that? Immediately leads me to questions about death too and whether or not any part of us lives on in the infiniteness of it all afterwards. Issa Rae told me this in a conversation with her. She doesn't like the idea of forever of anything. And I was like, Oh, I don't know. Like I promised to be married forever. But I really understood what she said. Like just the idea of an infinite universe is sort of disconcerting the idea of. If you subscribe to the idea of an afterlife, some kind of heaven construct

that you're just going to be like there forever. Like what if it gets old and you just need to change the scenery? I always needed to change my jobs on earth. Like I need change. What if you can't get out of that? I don't know. I choose because we've been talking so much about how you get to choose things and we're all in charge of our own meaning. I choose to be enthralled and excited about it and I choose not to be afraid of it. And that's the same with death too and the infiniteness of that inevitability. All we can do is appreciate the here and now and not get too twisted up in like whatever the hell is after or whatever the hell is out there in its infinity playing out in the multiverse.

Totally agree. That's my answer. That's a great answer. It's a great answer. This is the cliche, but I mean cliches get to be cliches because they're true. And in thinking about the infinite universe and the threat that might pose to your little ego, and I'm not talking about you specifically one's little ego It's actually like you are everything and nothing at the same time, right? Right because you are an expression of the universe every thought you have is an expression of the universe It's all nature. And so in that way, there's really nothing to you But then you're also

inexorably interwoven into everything. So it's that kind of interesting paradox and others have said it way better and more poetically, but that's, I think the sentiment that I would embrace. I love that though, that we are everything and nothing. It allows you to be the good and the bad. I find that kind of freeing. I want it all.

I wanna be all those things. It's so funny, we came out of a business where like this kind of subtlety is not rewarded with clicks or by the algorithm. The media business does not dig this kind of nuance. Um, so we kind of landed in the right spots ultimately. Yeah, I think so. Okay, we're not done. Because you won. I don't know if you were aware. How does one win?

Everybody wins, Dan. It's like a second grade soccer team. Everybody wins. So your prize, Dan Harris, is a trip in our memory time machine. Okay. I want you to choose a moment to travel to in our memory time machine that you would not change anything about. It's just a moment you would like to linger in a little longer.

I had this moment summer after my junior year in high school, where I went, I was a terrible student in high school. My parents were distraught about this. I had a thriving weed business. Yeah, yeah, I was a bad boy. I got arrested a bunch. Oh my God.

Yeah, my parents referred to my friend group as a brain trust in any very sarcastic way My parents were had been very very academic They were both professors at harvard medical school and so the fact that their son was en route to Gas station attendant no disrespect on my part to gas station attendants This is what my father used to say behind my back that he thought I was going to end up as a gas station attendant So the fact that I started to do a little bit better in high school later on was very encouraging to them.

And I chose to go to summer school the year after my junior year in high school at Harvard, which is not like getting into Harvard, like anybody could get into the summer school, I believe. So this was not- That pop business. Exactly, yes. I mean, something was working for you. I had some spare change. You got into the summer school, I believe. This was not- That pop business. Exactly, yes. Something was working for you.

I had some spare change, yep. It was not a big deal to get into this thing, but anyway, I was surrounded by all these smart kids and that was really fun for me and I realized I kinda wanted to go in this direction in my life and to be a little bit more achievement oriented. Anyway, almost nothing to do with the actual moment that I'm gonna tell you about, which is I was sitting

on the steps one night on a warm evening in Harvard Square, in Harvard yard, outside of some building where I had just taken some really cool course, and I was hit with this big wave of equanimity for no reason. And this happens once in a while in meditation, I now recognize in retrospect the experience,

but I just got hit by a big wave of okayness. Everything's fine. There were no external molecules involved, I was just sitting there. And that memory is in my bones, I just remember that feeling and I've touched it a few times on retreat, meditation retreat that is. And so, yeah it a few times on retreat, meditation retreat that is.

And so yeah, that's what came up in my mind. I'm going to just flip on every one of these now. So please. Now that you said, I mean, whatever, this is how a conversation goes. But when you say that, it reminded me of a moment I actually hadn't thought of in a really long time. I had taught English in Japan after I graduated from undergrad, and I left after a year and a half because I was just very lonely in this very small town. And I came back and did the most American thing ever. I just bought a bright red Jeep Cherokee, like it's a big irresponsible American car. And I moved to Jackson Hole and I lived by myself.

I didn't really know anyone, but I went on a hike and I was just standing at the top of some mountain pass. I don't remember what trail it was or anything, but I do remember feeling what you just described, unprovoked. I mean, I'm in nature, so I guess stuff like this happens in nature. But it was really different. It was a different kind of feeling. It was just like this relief and joy. And it was different for me to feel that with no people around. And I'd come out of this experience being so lonely and spending so much time alone and not being okay with that. It didn't feel good. I wasn't happy with my own company. But somehow in that particular moment, I felt very okay in my own company

in that place. And it was just, yeah, I liked that. It reminded me of that. So I didn't earn the prize. I don't know why you're giving me the prize, but all the rules are reversed in this whole, I'm on your show, you're on my show. But that was really fun. Thank you. It was.

The prize really is that I finally get to get you on my show. So thank you. Thank you for doing this. I genuinely appreciate it. Oh my gosh. I mean, I don't know what to this. I re I genuinely appreciate it. Oh my gosh. I mean, I don't know what to say. I really, really appreciate it.

That's my fangirl moment, but you and I don't know each other that well. Damn. But it's funny because I feel like we do. And I don't know when you made your big job change, I was like, so proud of you, which is a funny thing to say to a person you don't know well. But I just looked at you from afar. I was like, I bet that was hard. I'm so proud of him for choosing that. This is me telling you that I'm still very proud of you.

Well, right back at you. Right back at you. Thank you. Thank you. Can you just remind everybody of the name of the show and where they can hear it? I most definitely can. It is called Wild Card with Rachel Martin. And the cool thing about this, so it's a podcast.

It drops on Thursdays. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. For you radio heads out there, it also is on the radio. There's a shortened version of it that airs on All Things Considered on Sunday evenings. So that's where you can hear it. I can vouch for it. I mean, anybody who's listened now knows how great it is, but I've heard the actual episodes

and they're fantastic, in particular the Issa Rae one. Thank you. Great job. Thank you again. And yeah, I'll be listening. Cool. Thank you. Take care, Dan.

Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Rachel. Cannot stress this strongly enough, go check out her new podcast, Wildcard. Show is great, she's great. Really appreciate her coming on the show. If you wanna support this show, don't forget to give us a rating or a review in whatever podcast app you use,

that actually really helps us. And go to danharris.com if you want to sign up for my weekly newsletter in which I sum up my favorite learnings in the week's episodes and also share some cultural recommendations. Finally before I go, I want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. They really work hard, this team. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our

managing producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. What's up, guys? survey at wondery.com slash survey. What's up guys, it's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest. OK, every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

And I don't mean just friends. I mean, the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on. So follow, watch and and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts.