232. Pause, Don’t Panic: Finding Calm in High-Stakes Moments

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Communication is all about connection. But first, we have to give ourselves time and space to connect. My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. Today, I'm really excited to speak with Dan Harris. Dan is a former national news anchor for ABC News in the United States. He's the podcast host of 10% Happier and author of two books, 10% Happier and Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Welcome, Dan. I look forward to our conversation.

[00:00:39] Dan Harris: Me too. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:40] Matt Abrahams: Yeah. Shall we get started?

[00:00:41] Dan Harris: Yeah.

[00:00:42] Matt Abrahams: Alright. You are very open about an on-air panic attack that you had. Can you tell us about the experience and how it changed you and your approach to life in general?

[00:00:53] Dan Harris: Yeah, this happened back in 2004, so twenty-one years ago, on Good Morning America, where I was anchoring the news and found myself unable to breathe in the middle of my shtick. Actually, if you Google it, just Google panic attack on television it's the first result, um, which is great, uh. 

[00:01:10] Matt Abrahams: You can be reminded of it whenever you want.

[00:01:12] Dan Harris: Exactly. Just the type of thing I want to go viral for. Yeah. It was horrible. And afterwards I learned that the cause of it was my recreational drug use, which had come about as a result of my, having spent a lot of time in war zones as a reporter after nine eleven. And so the whole thing was just a cascade of mindlessness, but the good news is that it landed me in therapy and then ultimately led me to meditation. And then I wrote a book about meditation that came out about eleven years ago. And that, you know, both the practice and writing a book about it, completely changed the trajectory of my life. And it's, in that sense, it's been a blessing. 

[00:01:50] Matt Abrahams: Well, first, I thank you for sharing this story and it's hard to share publicly when bad things happen, but thank you. I first got to know about you through your book and uh, I'm part of this longstanding book club and we read your book and it actually fundamentally changed some of the things that a lot of us do, so thank you. Many of our listeners are working to feel more confident and comfortable in their communication. As somebody who communicated in front of hundreds of thousands, millions of people, what specific tactics and practices can you suggest to help them manage their anxiety around that type of communication? 

[00:02:25] Dan Harris: One of the goals of successful interpersonal communication is to keep the amygdala, the stress center of the brain, offline, and the prefrontal cortex, the locus of reason and rationality, online. And so how are you gonna frame this in a way that, you know, works with the brain of your interlocutor? Uh, and if you do that planning in advance and think through, say, what's my positive intention in this conversation, it really can reduce your blood pressure going into a high stakes conversation. 

[00:02:52] Matt Abrahams: So that attention and intention can really make a big difference. So framing it as a way that you can be focused on the good and the value rather than the triggering of all the anxiety. I'm curious though, when you were doing broadcasting, did you get nervous at all or were you just imagining talking to a camera and not all the people that were behind the camera?

[00:03:11] Dan Harris: Oh, I got nervous every time. I still get nervous every time I have to go on TV. I mean, what the panic attack on television revealed is that I have panic disorder, so, and I still struggle with it. It's very powerful physiological, psychological phenomenon. And yet there's something really surreal about talking to a camera and knowing there are millions of people on the other side of it live, um, but you can't see them. And that in some ways, to me, is even more terrifying than getting up in front of thousands of people live. 

[00:03:42] Matt Abrahams: And in some ways we all do this in our own mini version of it when we are on Zooms, Teams, Meets, and WebExes, although I guess we get to see them. I'm curious, how would you calm some of that if it happened every single time?

[00:03:55] Dan Harris: The number one was planning and practicing and rehearsing. That I, if I knew I had some lines to deliver, I would really practice them and rehearse them in advance. And that's another technique anybody can use, whether you're doing public speaking or, uh, going into a potentially tough conversation with your boss, is to really rehearse, not only to think carefully about what it is you wanna say, but to rehearse how you're gonna say it. Hopefully not in a way that you come across as programmed or robotic, but in a way that you've got the content in your bones, such that you have some measure of confidence going into the conversation. 

[00:04:39] Matt Abrahams: Excellent. Yes. So that practice, that rehearsal helps you feel just more comfortable. So, I one hundred percent believe in the value of mindfulness and meditation, but I struggle to quiet my mind and just be still, uh, I find myself gravitating towards types of meditation where movement is involved. So yoga and, and for many, many years I've been doing Qigong. I am curious, what advice and guidance do you have for people like me who understand the value of meditation, it's just hard to quiet the mind? 

[00:05:11] Dan Harris: Well, two things to say. First, I think you should do what works, and it sounds to me that you've found things that work for you. I'm not a fundamentalist in any way sort of sometimes say that I'm, uh, dogmatically non-dogmatic, so you should do what works for you. The second thing is just to do a little myth busting on the clearing the mind or stealing the mind. That is not the goal of mindfulness meditation. It's really a, a pernicious misconception about the practice. Probably the most damaging misconception about the practice. The goal is not to sit and get all of your thoughts to evaporate or to feel calm or anything like that. The goal is, in fact, not to feel any kind of way. It's to feel whatever you are feeling, clearly, so that your feelings in general don't own you as much. So just to get super granular, if you sit in meditation and try to focus on your breath, for example, and then notice that you're getting carried away, and then you wake up from distraction and start again, and then there's another distraction a nanosecond later, and then you wake up from that and you start again, that is correct practice.

[00:06:13] The thing that's happening that you are telling yourself is a failure is actually success. The whole goal is just to try to focus on one thing at a time, get distracted, start again. And in that moment of getting distracted and starting again, you are seeing something really important and powerful, which is that you have a mind and you are thinking, and that these thoughts are wild and outta control and often negative and repetitive, and you don't have to take them so seriously or personally, you don't have to act out every neurotic impulse as if it was in the words of my meditation teacher, a tiny dictator. So, just to sum up, one, do what works for you. Two, don't be fooled into thinking that meditation requires you to forcibly clear your mind, which is impossible unless you're enlightened or dead. The thing that you're telling yourself is a sign of failure in your meditation is in fact a sign of success. 

[00:07:09] Matt Abrahams: I really appreciate that because that takes some of the pressure off and I am drawn to the language you use there. You said you wake up to. So it's an awareness that you're building. So when your mind wanders, you then sort of snap back to that moment of, oh, my mind was wandering, and instead of what I do, which is punish myself, what you're saying is, okay, now I'm focused again. There's an interesting learning there. And that to me is, is helpful.

[00:07:35] Dan Harris: That is the practice.

[00:07:37] Matt Abrahams: That is the practice.

[00:07:38] Dan Harris: That is the practice. It's not a, a hindrance or something gone wrong or like, uh, I'm gonna tell you how to deal with this problem in your meditation. No, that is the practice. And the waking up is the point because you are waking up to something fundamental, that you have all these wild thoughts. The mind is out of control, it's ridiculous, and you don't wanna be owned by it. And this waking up, starting again, waking up, starting again, does at least two things. One is, it gives you mindfulness, which is the self-awareness to not be yanked around by every random thought that pulses through your mind. And two, that practice of waking up, starting again, waking up, starting again, it's like a bicep curl for your brain in that it changes the part of the brain associated with focus. So in an age where our attention spans are under attack, you are rewiring that. 

[00:08:27] Matt Abrahams: I really like that idea. So the benefit is not just the distance that you get from your thoughts. Uh, there's a very useful anxiety management technique that I often teach my students, which is just to say to yourself, this is me feeling nervous and giving yourself that little distance, and then you can do things. But in so doing, you're also strengthening the, the ability to focus. You've discussed the concept of responding versus reacting in the work that you do. I've learned about this distinction in the martial arts training that I've done over the years. Can you elaborate on the difference between responding and reacting in terms of how you see it, and then talk about what this can mean for how we interact with others or life in general?

[00:09:10] Dan Harris: Yeah, without mindfulness, without any self-awareness, without any distance from your thoughts and urges and emotions, you're, you're like a puppet controlled by the malevolent, puppeteer of your ego. Anything that happens in your mind, you get, anger arises and then you're fully engulfed by, you're in it and you have no distance from it. And then you say and do a bunch of stuff that you later regret, and then you direct the anger inwardly. I mean, we can live a whole lifetime in anger. That's on the extreme edge, but sadly not uncommon. Many of us, you know, we get angry and then we spend hours in it. But, you know, emotions will come and go of their own accord. So anger arises. It's not a monolith, it's a set of physiological and psychological conditions like a temporary coming together, meteorologically in your mind and body, and you can get interested in it from a mindful perspective.

[00:10:06] Oh yeah, my chest is buzzing, my ears are turning red. I'm having a starburst of self-righteous thoughts, or whatever it is. And you can let that come and go, and instead of acting it out reflexively, you can respond wisely on the other side, and that's a superpower available to all of us. It's a birthright. We have this ability to do this, but in the Western context, we're rarely taught how to do it. And so you can imagine how this would root down to the benefit of your interpersonal relationships. And again, you're not gonna be perfect at this, or at least I don't know anybody who's perfect at this. And in my case, I've gotten better, but I still, you know, if I haven't slept enough the night before, I can be more reactive. But now, you know, if I'm in a conversation and, and I feel the urge to say something that's gonna ruin the next forty-eight hours of my marriage, more often than not, I can watch it come and go.

[00:10:58] Matt Abrahams: Right, and that training helps you do that. You articulated well the experience I have with these two concepts where reacting literally means to act again. So you're carrying it with you, you're acting it out in your mind again, and responding is dealing with it in the moment. On your podcast, I've heard you discuss the intersection of mindfulness and productivity. Do you have any hacks or best practices you employ to increase your productivity that leverages the mindfulness that you train? 

[00:11:24] Dan Harris: Yeah, so this is a counterintuitive hack. I was talking once to my meditation teacher, who's this incredible guy, Joseph Goldstein, about to turn eighty-one, and I've worked with him for, I don't know, fifteen years, sixteen years, and I was telling him how I kind of hurdle through my day. There's a kind of forward momentum, a toppling forward, checking things off my to-do list, and often while I'm doing creative work, I can feel kind of a swarm of bees in my chest. I'm nervous and, not all the time, but that, that conditioning runs deep in me, and there's like this inner clench that, that has to happen to get anything done. And Joseph, who likes to make fun of me, said, the good stuff doesn't come from the clench. That's just you being stupid, which, you know, he's absolutely right.

[00:12:19] The good ideas, the thoughtful responses, the solid, careful work doesn't come from rushing, doesn't come from clamping down and bulldozing through your problems. I still do this, but I've learned, with mindfulness, to notice, oh, yeah, yeah. I'm clenching internally. I'm rushing through this and I try to use that as a feedback, a kind of mindfulness bell to wake up so that, you know what, actually the counterintuitive productivity move right now might be to lie down on the ground for a couple of minutes. It might be to go outside and put my feet on the grass, or whatever it is. And again, this is counterintuitive because we believe we need to, and I have this in me in a deep way, that we need to squeeze every moment of productivity out of the day. But that actually is counterproductive in the long run. 

[00:13:09] Matt Abrahams: Two things I heard you say there that I think are really important, for me personally, and hopefully the others listening in, is, is we have to pay attention to what's going on in our body and use it as a signal. It is very easy for me to bulldoze my way through those feelings. I'm tired, so I'm just gonna keep chugging, and listening to those feelings. And then the second is to be open to doing something that might not feel like the right thing to do, that opens up the opportunity for creativity, for inspiration, for connection. And a lot of us, myself included, get locked into this is what success looks like. This meeting needs to happen in this way at this time, and maybe you cancel the meeting or you take it outside or whatever. So listening to ourselves and then being open I think are really important. 

[00:13:52] Dan Harris: Yes. That was good reflective listening. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And we are in a, again, this is another thing that we're not often taught in our culture, kind of just listening to the body. 

[00:14:02] Matt Abrahams: And all of that comes from taking that beat and reflecting, and that's where mindfulness comes in. I'd like to switch gears away from mindfulness and meditation and dive into your expertise, uh, as somebody who is a reporter, as an interviewer, et cetera. Uh, you've certainly interviewed lots of people. Sometimes in very harrowing circumstances, can you share some insights into what makes for a good interview and any recommendations for what makes for good questions and answers in an interview? 

[00:14:28] Dan Harris: I actually personally feel that I've gotten to be a much better interviewer in recent years as a podcast host. And one of the things that I've found that has boosted my ability to be a good interviewer is reflective listening. Which you were demonstrating earlier, which is just listening very carefully to what's being said and then giving the summary in your own words, often very briefly. And I found training that skill has forced me to listen much more closely. It's a service to the audience because I am summing up and often clarifying the answers. 'Cause many of the people I interview are deep dharma practitioners, and often they're using terms that the audience may not know, so I'll clarify that, and then make sure that I understand the gist of what they're trying to say.

[00:15:20] And if I've got it wrong, they'll correct me, and then I will reflect the correction. And so this has really, I use this interpersonally too, this technique has revolutionized my interviewing skills and my interpersonal skills. And I would say, just to go back to the beginning of this interview, we talked about what do you do if you're nervous? Actually, if you're nervous for a big conversation, just going in with a tattoo on your arm to reflect, just reflect, reflect, reflect. It will give you the time to let your nervous system settle. It will really tenderize your interlocutor because people love to know that they've been heard. And then once that other person has, they feel like they've gotten it all out, you've reflected it. You might be relaxed and in the flow at this point. Then you can say what you need to say. 

[00:16:10] Matt Abrahams: I really like the idea that listening deeply is a tool to relax so you can speak better, and that's really, really important. And certainly the mindfulness that you practice and teach is what's required to listen in a reflective way. I will often coach people who ask me, how can I become a better listener? I will say, listen to paraphrase, because when we listen to paraphrase, we listen for the bottom line in a way that's deeper, and as you said, it allows for more connection, which invites more information. So, great, great advice for any type of interview, be it just hanging out with a friend or meeting somebody for the first time. So before we end, I'd like to ask three questions of all my guests. One I create just for you, and then two, I've asked everybody who's ever been on the show. Are you up for that?

[00:16:56] Dan Harris: Sure.

[00:16:58] Matt Abrahams: So one of your superpowers in your communication is your use of analogies and language. I was keeping track of some of the things you said. You talked about puppeteers, biceps for the brain, swarm of bees in our belly. Are you consciously thinking about using tools like that to help people understand? Because you do a very good job on it, not just here in our interview, but in your writing and in the things that I've listened to you speaking on, how conscious of those things are you? 

[00:17:29] Dan Harris: Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. Very conscious, you know, with that, I, I am not a fully trained meditation teacher or a Buddhist master, or a qualified scientific researcher into areas of human flourishing. I don't have any real expertise. The only area where I have some expertise is popularizing these incredibly useful ideas for broad audiences and communicating it to them in a way that, first of all, engages them with some humor and usually an embarrassing story on my side. And then a very clear value proposition for them in their own lives. And then modeling the benefits of that, uh, for them. And so, yeah, I'm obsessed with this idea of like, how can I come up with ways to engage people in these ideas that, I think, can massively improve an individual human life, and frankly, I think could be very valuable for, you know, the species writ large.

[00:18:29] Matt Abrahams: It really does my heart well, that you spend time thinking about this, and I think everybody listening, if you listen to what Dan has done and how he does it, the power of analogies to stick in someone's mind and to help you understand something that might not quite be as accessible if it were explained in a technical way, but using analogy, using descriptive words, makes it more approachable and you do a great job of role modeling that.

[00:18:52] Dan Harris: Thanks. You know, people in every industry learn a kind of lingo that is off-putting to outsiders, even though they don't know that that's what's happening. So that happens in meditation or dharma circles. It happens in scientific psychological research. It happens in the news. We have our own weird way of talking as if like we're kind of robots or something like that. And if you can shatter that and start talking in a way that actually reaches people, it's pretty valuable. 

[00:19:21] Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. The power of translation and accessibility is huge. Let me ask the second question. Who is a communicator that you admire and why?

[00:19:30] Dan Harris: The name that just comes to mind is Barack Obama. Not only for his oratorical skills, but also often through his use of humor. Another, perhaps the most powerful moment of communication I've ever seen from him is when he sang, poorly, at a black church where a gunman had come in and killed a bunch of people. He sang Amazing Grace while speaking to the church. I think it was made even more powerful by the fact that he doesn't sing well. So it took a lot of gumption to do that, and it was very moving and, yeah, so I think as a one to many communicator, he is in his own league.

[00:20:09] Matt Abrahams: Yeah. He has often mentioned for many characteristics, nobody has brought up the gumption and willingness to do something from the heart that might be embarrassing. I appreciate you adding that richness to his description. My final question for you, Dan, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

[00:20:27] Dan Harris: Clarity of message. Warmth for yourself and the other person, and listening.

[00:20:34] Matt Abrahams: Clarity, warmth, and listening. We've talked about, uh, all of these to some extent, but the one thing I'd like to just dive a little deeper in, warmth for self and other. We've talked about for other, talk about warmth for self.

[00:20:49] Dan Harris: If you're going to try to boost your warmth quotient, your ability to love, to connect, to be compassionate, you can't leave yourself out. Love or warmth or whatever you want to call it, is an omnidirectional force. And I'm not saying that you need to love yourself before you can love other people. I think that we all know many people who are really generous and kind and yet quite cruel to themselves, but it, it's harder to do if you're constantly kicking your own ass. And it's easier to do if you can have a balmier inner climate because you're less defensive, you're more available, you're less stuck in your own head, and that improves the quality of your relationships, which will in turn improve your inner weather. Because your relationships are the most important aspect of your happiness, and then your relationships will improve, and then your inner weather will get even better. And that is what I call the cheesy upward spiral. And that's what you wanna be on, as opposed to the, the opposite, which a friend of mine calls the toilet vortex, where you're just, you know, mean to yourself and then you take it out on other people, and then you're mean to yourself even more. And down you go.

[00:21:59] Matt Abrahams: The connection we have with people starts with ourselves and it's bidirectional and the direction you're talking about is the upward spiral. Dan, thank you. This was very enlightening. We covered a broad range of topics, but all fundamentally come down to this notion of being present, making sure you're responding and taking time for yourself so you can be available for others. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[00:22:21] Dan Harris: Thanks for having me. 

[00:22:23] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more about happiness and wellbeing, please listen to our miniseries on these topics in episodes 179 through 182. This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, Aech Ashe, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With thanks to Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter. Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, AMAs, Ask Matt Anythings, and much more at fastersmarter.io/premium.