DAN HARRIS is 10% HAPPIER (and he’s happy with that)
DAN HARRIS SITS UP STRAIGHT on a beige love seat in his thirteenth-floor office, his hands resting on his lap in the cosmic mudra. It’s a posture that might seem, to some, at odds with his job at ABC News. His slightly graying, impeccably trimmed hair is parted on the left side in the classic newsman style. His boyish face is calm, his eyes nearly closed. He’s still dressed in his street clothes, a purple-and-blue-checked button-down shirt and jeans. His Apple Watch is timing his pre-broadcast meditation.
Harris’s quiet office is lined with books, almost all of them about Buddhism and meditation: The Birth of Insight by Eric Braun and Altruism by Matthieu Ricard. Copies of his own book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, surround the spot on his shelf holding his Emmys. There’s a TV mounted to the wall, but it’s currently off. It’s dark outside, but the city lights—particularly the red Hotel Empire sign nearby—twinkle through the window. Soon he’ll put on a suit and head down to the lights, cameras, and action of the Nightline studio broadcast. But for now, a moment of quiet.
It’s exactly this combination of calm moments of practice and high-pressure, broadcasting-to-millions work that has helped Harris to become an ideal lay spokesman for Buddhist practice in current times. He’s written two New York Times bestselling books about meditation for the relatively uninitiated—10% Happier and Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. From there, he built what’s starting to look like a
