Digging into the nuts and bolts of Stoicism with one of its best-known modern proponents.

Ryan Holiday is a prolific author, whose books include The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, and Discipline is Destiny. His newest book, Right Thing, Right Now, comes out in June, and is available for pre-order now. Ryan is also the host of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

• The history and theory of Stoicism, and some of its big names (including a former Vice Presidential candidate)
• Premeditatio Melorem, or thinking ahead to the worst possible outcome in order to avoid it
• Memento Mori, or being aware of the inevitability of one’s own death
• Amor Fati, or “loving one’s fate” as a path to acceptance of reality
• Journaling as a key Stoic practice, of talking to oneself on the page
• The four Stoic values: Courage, Temperance, Justice, Wisdom
• How Stoicism and Buddhism overlap – and how they don’t

Related Episodes:

The Dharma of Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Jasmine Wang & Iain S. Thomas

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ryan-holiday

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New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

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Get comfortable with uncertainty and cultivate trust in life, even in the most turbulent times.

About Sebene Selassie:

Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Trust Yourself and Breathe.”

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Death isn’t the most appetizing topic, but contemplating mortality can be a massive source of motivation, perspective, and even stress relief. In this episode, life lessons from a death doula, who helps people at the end.

Description: 

There seems to be one clear bug in the human operating system — most of us do not like talking about death. Yet when we do talk about it, it can genuinely upgrade the quality of our lives.

Our guest today is Alua Arthur, a former attorney who is now what’s called a death doula, which is someone who helps guide people through the end of their lives. Through this work, she has learned some extraordinary stuff about how to live life right now. 

Alua is also the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. Her debut memoir, Briefly Perfectly Human: Making An Authentic Life By Getting Real About the End, will be released on April 16, 2024.

This conversation took place at the 2023 TED Conference in Vancouver, immediately after Alua delivered her triumphant talk, which is out now. 

Special thanks to the TED Audio Collective. You can listen to Alua's talk and other TED talks on the TED Talks Daily podcast. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How death can be a powerful motivator 
• How consistently being aware that you’re going to die can be a “stress reliever” 
• The utility of imagining your ideal death
• Her view on reincarnation 
• How the concept of “healing” can sometimes be used as a weapon against ourselves 
• The importance of not leaving things unsaid 
• How “hope” at the end of life can sometimes be unhelpful
• What surprises her about death 
• How her work helped her out of her depression
• The five steps that you should take when confronting your own death 
• The harm that can sometimes result from too much medical intervention toward the end of life
• The often fraught relationship that vulnerable and marginalized people can have with the medical community 
• The benefits of thinking about what version of yourself you want to meet on your deathbed
• The death meditation that she uses when working with people 
• What to say and do when you are with somebody who is grieving 
• And a practice she calls, “The dying things exercise” 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/Alua-Arthur-archive

Where to find Alua Arthur online: 

Website: goingwithgrace.com

Social Media:

• Twitter 
• Facebook 
• Instagram
• YouTube

Book Mentioned:

• Briefly Perfectly Human: Making An Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Link to Alua’s TED talk
• Link to Dan’s TED talk
• Gail Ruben
• Glennon Doyle
• Atīśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna
• Roshi Joan Halifax
• Larry Rosenberg

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Professor and writer Arthur Brooks on his recent book (co-authored with Oprah Winfrey): Build The Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. Arthur has seen the themes of this book play out in his own life. He started his career as a classical French horn player, then got his PhD in public policy analysis, and went on to run a think tank called the American Enterprise Institute. He is currently a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He also does work with The Atlantic, where he writes a column and hosts a podcast called How to Build a Happy Life. Arthur was formerly on Ten Percent Happier to discuss his book From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Myth busting about happiness
• The three macronutrients of happiness
• The perils of pursuing pleasure
• How to be effectively and wisely ambitious
• How to ascertain if you have meaning in your life
• How to manage your emotions
• The difference between healthy and unhealthy envy 

Related Episodes:

• The Good News About Your Inevitable Decline | Arthur Brooks
• Why Dwight from The Office (Rainn Wilson) Is Calling for a “Spiritual Revolution”
• The Upsides And Downsides Of Living A More Examined Life | Matt Harris

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Get your blood moving, mindfully! You can cultivate relaxation, even when you’re walking at a faster clip.

About Diana Winston:

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center and the author of several books including Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Brisk Mindful Walking.” 

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How our false expectations and misunderstandings about relationships can create an incalculable amount of suffering — and the many problems of the "You complete me" model.

Description: 

This episode was part one of our four-part series where we’re counter-programming against the way Valentine’s Day is often celebrated, and examining different kinds of relationships including romantic, friendship, and family. 

Today’s guest hews a bit more closely to the traditional Valentine’s Day theme and will do some myth-busting around all the things we tend to get wrong when we talk about romantic relationships. 

Myisha Battle is the author of the book, “This Is Supposed to Be Fun: How To Find Joy in Hooking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between.” She also hosts the podcast How’s Your Sex Life?  Much of her public work focuses on the early stages of relationships, but in her private practice, she counsels people at all stages, and in all kinds of relationships. 

Content Warning: Explicit language and conversations about sex. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Five ways to improve intimacy and connection in romantic partnership
• The nuts and bolts of sex, and how we often get intimacy and sex confused in unhelpful ways
• Understanding men’s and women’s cycles to depersonalize issues in sex and relationships
• The myth of finding “the one”
• The orgasm gap
• Bromance
• And if you’re looking, tips on how to make finding a partner easier

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/myisha-battle-archive 

Where to find Myisha Battle online: 

Website: www.myishabattle.com/

Social Media:

• Twitter: @MyishaBattle
• Instagram: @MyishaBattle

Book Mentioned:

• This Is Supposed to Be Fun: How To Find Joy in Hooking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between 

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Alain de Botton’s  you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html">Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person 
• The School of Life 
• #418. How Not to Ruin Your Relationships | Drs. John & Julie Gottman
• #213: Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel
• #464. How to Keep Friendships From Imploding | Esther Perel
• sex-doctors-surgery.html">Half the World Has a Clitoris. Why Don’t Doctors Study It?
• Michael Vincent Miller’s Intimate Terrorism
• Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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Hidden sources of stress — and how to beat them. Also: the myth of normal, the necessity of being disillusioned, and the disutility of comparing your suffering.

Description: 

There’s so much to be grateful for in modern medicine. We can all agree that we would not do as well in a world with no Advil or dentistry. And yet, our guest today, who is a renowned doctor, says modern medicine is overlooking something crucial: the pernicious impact that modern living has on our minds and bodies. In other words, we are surrounded by these hidden societal and structural sources of stress and we aren’t thinking about how to treat and prevent these factors that are degrading our happiness and our immune systems. 

Dr. Gabor Maté is a bestselling author with an expertise on everything from stress to addiction to ADHD. His latest book is called, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Content Warning: This episode has mentions of child abuse, sexual trauma, suicide and addiction

In this episode we talk about:

• What he means by “the myth of normal”
• How diseases, such as autoimmune conditions, are an “artifact of civilization”
• How to begin to tackle what Dr. Maté calls, “the social sources of illness” 
• His definition of trauma and the difference between “big T traumatic events” and the trauma of “wounding”
• How trauma in society is so normalized that we don’t even recognize it
• Whether the term trauma is overused
• Why comparing suffering is a fruitless endeavor 
• What he means by “the necessity to be disillusioned” 
• The power and possibility of psychedelics 
• Why he thinks we should incorporate shamanic medicine into our western medical framework
• And what he means by “undoing self-limiting beliefs” and how these beliefs show up in our everyday lives

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gabor-mate-archive

Where to find Gabor Maté online: 

Website: drgabormate.com

Social Media:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

Books Mentioned:

• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
• When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection
• Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder
• In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction 
• Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

Other Resources Mentioned:

• The Wisdom of Trauma 
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Is Associated with Increased Risk of Ovarian Cancer: A Prospective and Retrospective Longitudinal Cohort Study
• Decrease in depression symptoms is associated with longer survival in patients with metastatic breast cancer: a secondary analysis
• Marital Status, Marital Strain, and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease or Total Mortality: The Framingham Offspring Study
• George Engel
• How spanking may affect brain development in children
• The Trauma of Everyday Life by Dr. Mark Epstein
• IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging by Dr. Dan Siegel
• A. H. Almaas

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The next time you’re in the grocery store, instead of the grind, step into a grateful state of mind.

About Anushka Fernandopulle:

Anushka teaches meditation, works as an organizational consultant, and does leadership coaching with individuals and teams. She has practiced meditation for over 25 years, including four years in full-time intensive training in monasteries and retreat centers in the US, India and Sri Lanka.

Her work is informed by a BA in anthropology/religion from Harvard University, an MBA from Yale focused on leadership and organizational behavior, and certification in coaching from the Coaches Training Institute.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Gratitude in the Grocery Store.” 

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Buddhist strategies for making money and being creative.

Meditation teacher David Nichtern believes that business can be, in his words, an essential spiritual practice. He has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He’s also the author of a book, Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck. And he hosts a podcast by the same name. He began his career as a successful composer, producer, and guitarist. He’s recorded and played with Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, Lana Del Rey, Paul Simon, and others. Recently, he’s become an entrepreneur, founding an online mindfulness based education platform called Dharma Moon.

You can check out the video series based on his latest book, here. And on June 14, David’s leading a 100 Hour Mindfulness Teacher Training. For more info, check out the Dharma Moon website.

Related Episodes:

Duncan Trussell on: Being a Spiritual Omnivore, Whether Psychedelics Are a Bridge to the Divine, and How the Gates of Hell Are Locked From the Inside

A Buddhist Approach to Money Worries | Ethan Nichtern

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/david-nichtern

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Why fear of other people’s opinions (FOPO) holds us back, and what to do about it.  

Michael Gervais is a high performance psychologist and the host of the Finding Mastery podcast. His new book is called The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think of You. 

In this episode we talk about:

• A handy new acronym: FOPO, Fear of People’s Opinions 
• How the evolutionary roots of our desire for social acceptance work against us in the modern world 
• Why caring about what others think is not the same thing as worrying about what others think 
• The difference between a purpose-based identity and a performance-based identity 
• The anti-FOPO power of things like: imagination, journaling, meditation, social support, and considering your mortality
• Why focusing less on yourself can be the greatest bulwark against FOPO

Related Episodes:

• happier.webflow.io/tph/podcast-episode/pete-carrol-michael-gervais-267">Michael Gervais and Pete Carroll
• Michael Gervais in conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn 

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/michael-gervais-returns

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