Self-help for smart people.
No matter how comfortable your circumstances, it’s hard to be alive. The list of potential vexations is as long as the menu at the Cheesecake Factory: stress, anxiety, sadness, burnout, addiction, anger, imposter syndrome, etc.
Fortunately, over the millennia, smart people have been exploring how to upgrade the mind. Many of these ancient techniques, including meditation, are now being validated through modern science.
As the host of the 10% Happier podcast, I spend my time learning from the world’s leading researchers and teachers, then testing their advice in the lab of my own life. I’m both guide and guinea pig.
Here on Substack, I want to take the podcast to the next level by helping you operationalize the wisdom from the show and also by connecting you to a community of like-minded people who take this stuff seriously.
The animating idea of my work is that the brain and the mind are trainable. This, too, is an ancient insight that has been affirmed by modern science. All of the mental states that you want—happiness, calm, and focus, to name just a few—are not unalterable factory settings; they are skills. This is radically good news.
The other piece of good news is that you can do this work without shaving your head, donning a loincloth, and taking up residence in a Himalayan cave. Right in the middle of your busy life, you can make change—messy, marginal, but meaningful change. Hence my whole 10% Happier shtick.
More good news: if you keep it up, the 10% compounds annually. And it can spill out into all aspects of your life, including your mental health, physical fitness, relationships, and work.
What makes this place different:
Skepticism and humor—no bathos or bullshit. One of the annoying but unavoidable facts of life is that all the clichés are true. Or as the comedian Bill Hader once joked on my podcast, “The hippies were right.” If you want to fill the space between birth and death with meaning, the recipe includes ingredients that have become bromides: awe, generosity, gratitude, compassion, love. My job is to find fresh ways to talk about this material without reverting to images of babbling brooks, stacked rocks, and latte foam art.
Non-dogmatism. I am not an all-knowing teacher, preaching one true way. My goal is to use my journalism chops to curate and question the best experts—and then let you choose what suits you. As one of my producers says, we are “relentlessly practical.” Or, to cite the motto of my longtime meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein: “Whatever works.”
Low pressure. There is nothing to keep up with here. No homework. No stress. The goal is not to add another thing to your to-do list. Feel free to miss as much as you want and come back. We’ll keep the light on for you.
In order to make this a sustainable venture, there are free and paid membership levels detailed below. But—if you can’t afford to pay, email me at free@danharris.com and we will hook you up—no questions asked.
Here’s what you get:
Free subscribers:
Short emails from me every Monday and Wednesday with a dose of practical wisdom to start your day.
An email every Friday with my personal recommendations. I’m calling it Friday Fixations, and it will include a glimpse into what I’m watching, reading, and listening to. (NB: These are unlikely to be related directly to self-improvement—and yet, beauty has been shown to be a psychological necessity.)
A curated selection of guided meditations from me and two of my favorite teachers, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren.
Paid subscribers ($8 a month, or $80 a year):
The above emails and meditations.
Bonus content to help you put the wisdom from my podcast into practice. For each new episode (we drop every Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Friday), you’ll get a cheatsheet that summarizes the key takeaways, provides time-stamped highlights so you can revisit key parts of the discussion, and a full transcript.
Interaction: You’ll have the ability to comment on my posts and also to chat directly with me, my team, and the wider community. Sometimes our guests will hop in as well. We’ll chop it up about the episodes and more. Too many of us do self-improvement alone. The research shows it’s best pursued as a team sport.
Along those lines, I’ll do monthly, live, video AMAs (“Ask Me Anything”), in which I’ll guide a meditation then take questions.
Finally, an experimental feature: some days, I will livestream my own meditation practice. You can dip in and sit with me for as long or as short as you like while I meditate at home or on the road. These sessions will be unguided and unplanned, but you can sign up for alerts.
Founding members ($250):
I don’t want to stratify the community with layers of exclusivity, so I have made the considered decision not to offer my founders anything extra in the way of access.
And/but: this founding level is extremely important. I want to be able to both invest in this community and also offer it for free to anyone who can’t afford it. So if you have excess cash and believe in what I am doing, I would massively appreciate the hook-up. Think of it as a karma play.
That said, I’m not a total barbarian; you will also get a tote bag and a hat.
FAQ:
What if I can’t afford this?
I mentioned this above, but I am going to highlight it here as clearly as I can: If you can’t afford to be a member, email me at free@danharris.com and I will give it to you for free—no questions asked. I don’t want money to stand in the way of membership.
So why are you charging for this then?
This Substack is a major undertaking that requires considerable time, effort, and resources. I need to have a sustainable business plan. My team and I have lots of ambitious ideas for future features. Should the email wisdom bombs be daily instead of three times a week? Should we provide guided meditations tailored to every episode? Should we carve our 700 podcast episodes into playlists built around specific subjects such as anxiety, work, and deep dharma? If you sign up, you can get in on the ground floor and help us build this thing.
Don’t you already have a meditation app?
About that…
I am no longer part of the meditation app that I co-founded. I’m incredibly proud of what we built and the impact it had. However, my co-founders and I developed significant creative, financial, and interpersonal differences. Everyone tried their best, but we couldn’t come to an agreement about the future of the company. After a lengthy negotiation, here’s where we landed: I keep my podcast and my brand (10% Happier); my co-founders keep the app, which they have renamed, “Happier.” I wish them the best. They are deeply well-intentioned people who have some cool ideas for the future of the app; I am confident they will continue to help lots of people.
The separation process, which lasted nearly three years, was one of the most wrenching things I have ever endured. It accelerated the graying of my hair, led to stubborn insomnia, and provoked a recurrence of my panic disorder. That said, I am incredibly excited (and a little anxious) about this new thing and would love your support and feedback.
P.S. If you want to hear more about my separation from the app, you can check out this podcast episode I made.
About me:
Some people teach from the mountaintop.
I teach from the fetal position.
I’m not an unimpeachable guru or perfected being. I still have real challenges—as the aforementioned split with my co-founders amply illustrates.
In fact, my whole career as a quasi-self-help-guru began with a coke-fueled panic attack on live TV. In 2004, back when I was an ABC News anchor, I lost the plot in front of 5.019 million viewers of Good Morning America.
That experience led me to meditation. I wrote a book about it, 10% Happier, which then became a podcast. Over time, my interests have broadened well beyond meditation. I now cover all aspects of human flourishing, including work, fitness, relationships, sleep, and more.
In 2021, after more than two decades at ABC News, I retired to pursue the happiness game full time. I live outside New York City with my wife, son, and a rotating cast of rescue cats.
