10% Better?

Todd Henry [00:00:02]:
Picture this. Every morning, without fail, a writer would leave her home at 6am sharp. Her destination was a simple hotel room that she'd rent for the next seven and a half hours. Now, this wasn't just any room. It had to be stripped of all decorations. The pictures removed from the walls. And her tools were minimal but carefully chosen. Just a legal pad, a bible, a dictionary and a bottle of sherry.

Todd Henry [00:00:28]:
No laptop, no phone, no distractions. In fact, she'd even ask the hotel staff to remove the paintings from the walls to create the most austere environment possible. And in this sparse environment, she'd write page after page, day after day, sometimes laying on the bed, sometimes producing 10 to 12 pages, knowing full well that much of it might never see the light of day. Often she'd sit in a straight back chair at a small table, starting her process by reading the Bible, then moving to the dictionary, finding com in the rhythm and flow of words. But there wasn't magic in that sequence. The sequence wasn't the point. The point was showing up, doing the work, maintaining the routine. And the sherry, by the way, wasn't for drinking during writing.

Todd Henry [00:01:16]:
It was for reviewing her work at the end of each session. Although she admits that sometimes she'd enjoy a sip as early as 6:15am now, this is a true story. And it wasn't just any writer. This was Maya Angelou, one of the most influential voices in American literature. During an interview with the Paris Review in 1990, she spelled out her daily routine, one that she'd kept for years. This seemingly modest routine helped her produce an astounding body of work. Seven autobiographies, three books of essays, numerous books of poetry, plays, movies and television shows. But what made Maya Angelou's approach remarkable wasn't its grandeur, but its simplicity.

Todd Henry [00:01:59]:
Her method perfectly demonstrates the power of a 10% better mindset. It's not about dramatic transformations or sudden breakthroughs, but about the quiet power of showing up day after day, of just doing the work. Now listen, not everyone can rent a hotel room like Maya Angelou did. But we can all create small, intentional practices that help us become a little more focused, a little more present in our daily creative practice. We can all do little things every day that compound over time into a body of work that we can point to with pride. On today's episode, we're going to explore how small changes can have big compounding effects. This is Daily Creative, a podcast for creative pros who want to be brave, focused and brilliant every day. My name is Todd Henry.

Todd Henry [00:02:54]:
Welcome to the Show.

Dan Harris [00:02:59]:
I wrote a book called 10% happier, which is about how a skeptical reporter ended up doing the last thing he ever thought he would do, which is becoming a meditator.

Todd Henry [00:03:12]:
That's Dan Harris, a former co anchor for ABC's Nightline. I interviewed him in 2016 about his book 10% happier, and we had a fascinating conversation about how small daily practices had changed his life. Those changes were in response to the overwhelm and the historical stress that Dan had experienced and he didn't even realize was affecting him years later.

Dan Harris [00:03:34]:
So I had a panic attack on Good Morning America Live on, on the set in 2004, a while ago. And after the panic attack in, in working with a doctor, I kind of put, put together the very embarrassing reason for the panic attack, which was that I had, I had spent a lot of time in war zones as a young ambitious reporter. And when I got home from a, from a long trip in Iraq, I had gotten depressed and self medicated with recreational drugs, obviously very, very dumb, and that had artificially driven up the levels of adrenaline in my brain and primed me to have this panic attack. And so when I realized how mindless and stupid I had been, that kind that set me off on a weird and windy journey that I talk about in the book that ultimately many years later landed me in in meditation.

Todd Henry [00:04:30]:
Dan was initially hesitant to try meditation. Well, not just hesitant.

Dan Harris [00:04:34]:
I think the scientific term for my initial attitude about meditation, which was, I thought it was bull. I thought it was only for hippies and freaks and weirdos and people who live in a yurt and are really into aromatherapy and Cat Stevens and, you know, use the word namaste without irony. What happened was that I, I, I started to look around and I saw the, the, that there's an enormous amount of scientific research that's really still in its early stages, but nonetheless very, very strongly suggestive of, of a long list of tantalizing benefits from meditation that, that it can lower your blood pressure and boost your immune system and literally rewire key parts of your brain. So that's what allowed me to sort of get over the hump and do it.

Todd Henry [00:05:18]:
Dan said that the title of his book is A Little Tongue in Cheek.

Dan Harris [00:05:21]:
Well, I mean, the title of the book, which is kind of a joke, is 10% happier. The point being it's not gonna solve all of your problems. We have this $11 billion a year self help industry that promises magical cures for whatever ails you. And, and that meditation is not that. It is, it is something that can enhance your ability to focus, Infuse your life with a greater sense of calm. And here's the biggest thing it which is help you develop this innate ability we all have, but is rarely pointed out to us, which is called mindfulness. Which is the ability, which is the opposite of mindlessness. The opposite of the thing that caused my panic attack, which was, you know, going to war zones without thinking about the psychological consequences and, you know, getting depressed and being insufficiently self aware to even know it and blindly self medicating.

Dan Harris [00:06:10]:
This is the kind of stuff we do all the time. We walk around in this fog of projection and rumination where we're just completely blinded by this nonstop conversation we're having with ourselves. This voice in our heads that chases us out of bed in the morning and yammers at us all day long. It has us constantly wanting stuff and not wanting stuff and comparing ourselves to other people and judging other people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And mindfulness is the ability to kind of step out of the mental traffic and to see the contents of your consciousness with some non judgmental remove and so that you're not so yanked around by this voice in your head, your ego, whatever you want to call it. And how is that valuable? Because it can, you know, stop you from eating the 18th cookie or from saying the thing that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage, or from losing your temper in a workplace environment when it's strategically unwise. It really is kryptonite for the thing in our lives that causes us to do the things about which we are the most embarrassed.

Todd Henry [00:07:17]:
Okay, great. Better marriage, not eating the second piece of chocolate cake or whatever. But you might be thinking, wait a minute, this is a show about work. How does this impact my work? Well, the answer lies in understanding how mindfulness affects our decision making, our creativity, and our leadership capacity. When we're mindful, we're better equipped to notice subtle patterns and connections that often fuel creative breakthroughs. Instead of operating on autopilot, where we're just blasting through our life, we become aware of our thought processes, enabling us to challenge assumptions, to explore new possibilities. This heightened awareness also helps us recognize when we're stuck in unproductive thought patterns or when we're avoiding difficult but necessary tasks for leaders, this mindfulness creates space between stimulus and response. Instead of reacting immediately or just challenging someone, powering up when there's a conflict, we can pause, assess the situation more clearly and respond thoughtfully.

Todd Henry [00:08:18]:
This small gap, sometimes just a few seconds, can mean the difference between a knee jerk reaction that damages team trust and the measured response that builds it. So consider a typical workday scenario. You're in back to back meetings, your inbox is overflowing, and a team member just dropped an urgent problem in your lap. Without being mindful, you might feel overwhelmed and scattered, leading to rushed decisions and missed opportunities. But with a mindful approach, with that pause, you can maintain clarity and focus, prioritizing effectively and staying present for your team. So the key is recognizing that mindfulness isn't about achieving some perfect Zen like calm. It's about developing the capacity, practicing the capacity to notice when you're getting pulled off course, and gently redirecting your attention to what matters most. This skill, just like any other, improves with practice.

Todd Henry [00:09:13]:
That's why we call it practice. And that's where the practice of meditation, as Dan recommends it, comes in.

Dan Harris [00:09:19]:
The thing with me, going to war zones is kind of an extreme example, but it is, it is just an extreme example of what we all go through all the time. We, we have this fight or flight impulse, which is, you know, what was useful when we were encountering saber tooth tigers and things like that. But we now, you know, release all this adrenaline into our brains, you know, in traffic jams or in meetings with our boss or whatever. And so, so we have this epidemic of heart disease and of bad behavior and bullying and whatever, which is all a consequence of this and on, you know, in various ways. And meditation is a really good way to counteract it to, to help you respond wisely to the things in your life instead of reacting blindly. And my advice. So there are a couple things. If you're interested in getting started, there are a couple of things I would advise.

Dan Harris [00:10:19]:
First of all, I don't think you need to make it some big stressful thing on your to do list. I think, you know, starting with five to ten minutes a day is enough. You know, scientists have not figured out the dosage question because everybody wants to know what is the least amount I can do in order to derive all the benefits, which is a completely logical question. And we don't know exactly, but I've asked a lot of scientists and a lot of meditation teachers, and generally the consensus is if you start with five to ten minutes a day and you do it in with some regularity, I prefer daily, but five to ten minutes a day, you know, I don't care if you've got, you know, 27 children and four jobs, everybody's got five to 10 minutes. You can do it right when you Wake up right when you pull your car into the driveway at the end of the day, in the middle of the day in your office, if you have. If you have an office and you can close the door. So that. That's what.

Dan Harris [00:11:09]:
How I would recommend starting. And there are lots of ways to get sort of the basic instruction. It's basically just a form of mental exercise. Use what I call sort of an accordion principle, which is that if you set yourself a modest goal of five to 10 minutes a day, and then you tell yourself that on a crazy day when things are super, super busy, you'll at least do something, Even if it's 30 seconds to 60 seconds, you'll @ least do something then. I found that really helps me never get this feeling of falling off the wagon so that I don't tell myself this big elaborate story about how I'm a. I'm a failed meditator, which is just a story you're telling yourself anyway, right? What prevents that for me is to just do something every day. But even if that's not what, you know, if that's not going to work for you, I think the most important thing is just beginning again. And that's the trick to meditation in any way.

Dan Harris [00:12:04]:
The whole point of the whole game in meditation is to notice when you've become distracted and start over. And that is true of your practice writ large. You know, it's notice when you've fallen off the wagon, give yourself a break, and start again.

Todd Henry [00:12:16]:
It's so easy to beat yourself up when you fail to honor the practices that, that you've set for yourself, whether that's writing a certain number of words each day or making a certain number of calls, or even studying or meditating for a few minutes each morning. The key is to allow yourself the grace of recognizing that this is precisely why we call it a practice, because we're practicing every day, becoming the person, the creative pro, and the leader that we want to be. You can find Dan Harris work, his books and more at his substack, which is@danharris.com and his podcast is called 10% happier with Dan Harris. And it's still going strong. Check it out. It's really fantastic. If you'd like to Hear My full 2016 interview with Dan Harris, as well as all of our interviews here on Daily Creative, Daily Episodes, Q and A segments, courses, and much, much more, you can do so in the Daily Creative app at DailyCreative App Plus. It's just a great way to support the show.

Todd Henry [00:13:15]:
My name is Todd Henry, you can find my speaking, my books and all of my work@toddhenry.com until next time. May you be brave, focused and brilliant.