Professional Setbacks Happen to All of Us. Here Are Some Lessons From Resetting My Career. | Dan Harris & Toni Magyar

Summary

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10% Happier with Dan Harris

Episode: Professional Setbacks Happen to All of Us. Here Are Some Lessons From Resetting My Career.
Guests: Dan Harris (Host) & Toni Magyar (CEO, danharris.com)
Date: August 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

This candid, in-depth episode features Dan Harris, host of 10% Happier, in conversation with Toni Magyar, CEO of his new company. The pair open up about the professional and personal tumult that followed Dan’s public departure from the meditation app he co-founded, reflecting on the upheaval, lessons learned from resetting a career, and the importance of self-compassion and support networks. They aim to provide practical takeaways for listeners navigating career transitions and resets—timed to coincide with their “Reset” programming throughout September.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Context: Why a Career Reset?

• Background:

  • [00:23] Dan details his very public, difficult, and drawn-out 3-year separation from the meditation app he co-founded.
  • He acknowledges his privilege but stresses the challenge:

    “I own that. And yet it was really hard.” – Dan Harris [01:22]

  • The result: Leaving his “baby” and launching a new subscription service (danharris.com) with over 200,000 followers in the first year.

• Behind the Scenes:

  • Toni Magyar makes her podcast debut after joining as CEO.
  • The episode aims to provide both practical lessons and behind-the-scenes context for fellow strivers.

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2. Navigating Uncertainty and Professional Upheaval

• Facing Uncertainty:

  • The industry landscape felt “existential”—contractions in podcasting, contract ambiguities, and economic precarity.
  • Dan reflects on the anxiety:

    “The word we often used was existential. Things felt really challenging…” – Dan Harris [14:06]

  • Launch decisions had to be made quickly and amidst ongoing negotiations.

• Learning to Live with Groundlessness:

  • Dan shares personal and family anxieties about loss and failure:

    “I just have that kind of primordial... fear in my bones. And so this kind of had echoes of that.” – Dan Harris [16:40]

  • Key realization:

    “You can’t get rid of groundlessness. That is the fundamental truth. And those moments of feeling secure, that’s actually really more the illusion... I heard an expression recently, ‘expect nothing, be prepared for anything.’ And I kind of like that.” – Dan Harris [18:30]

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3. Practical Lessons from Resetting

A. Facing Change

• Accepting Reality:

  “Change is constant. This thing that you’re worried about right now... it’s about to change. It’s not always going to change for the better, but it is going to change.” – Toni Magyar [21:19]

• Self-Compassion vs. Self-Blame:
  • Both Dan and Toni emphasize the utility of self-kindness over shame:

    “The shame and the guilt and the self blame... does not help your business.” – Toni Magyar [22:59] “The more I fixate on what I think my failings have been, the harder I might try to push myself... which isn’t going to happen. Then the harder I’m going to push on other people.” – Dan Harris [23:10]

• The Spiral of Influence:

  "We have two spirals... One is what my friend Evelyn calls the 'toilet vortex,' where you’re hard on yourself and then you take that on other people... And the other—which can often kick off with self compassion—your relationships improve because you’re easier on other people. And then up you go. I call that the cheesy upward spiral.” – Dan Harris [24:14]

B. Leaning Into Support Networks

• Never Worry Alone:

  “Another expression you and I use all the time: ‘Never worry alone.’” – Dan Harris [20:08]

  • Stress is reduced not only by introspection and practice, but by talking with trusted people.

C. Leadership and Team Dynamics

• Chasing Squirrels:
  • Toni describes Dan’s creative idea generation:

    “Working with somebody who chases a lot of squirrels... And we have to decide, and Toni often has to play traffic cop on this, which squirrels are we going to chase and how do we stay focused?” – Dan Harris [13:15]

• The Boss as a Work in Progress:
  • Both reflect on learning to communicate directly, set roles, and not let personality patterns create blind spots:

    “One of the skills... is learning how to be a leader.” – Dan Harris [29:18] “We had a whiteboard... listing everything on your plate, and it was ridiculous... I was like, well, I’m this person’s boss. I have one direct report, and I didn’t even know all of this. I should have known all of this. And so I’ve failed.” – Toni Magyar [38:31]

D. Experimentation vs. Perfectionism

• Iterating in Real Time:
  • Dan and Toni stress the entrepreneurial value of trying new things and being okay with failure:

    “Being willing to fail. It is the opposite of perfectionism. We tried a bunch of stuff... and some of them worked and some of them didn’t. And that’s okay.” – Toni Magyar [43:51]

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4. Building for the Future: Community, Content, Connection

• What’s Working:

  • Live meditation and Q&A sessions (especially with the Teacher of the Month) are the most energizing and effective format.

    “The most energy we feel... is around these live sessions where I’m guiding in meditation and then taking people’s questions. I have the energetic sense and we have some data... that’s where people are most engaged and are feeling the most impact.” – Dan Harris [44:35]

• Moving Beyond Apps:

  • Vision: A next-generation meditation platform emphasizing community (the Buddhist “Sangha”), consistent teacher exposure, and in-person experiences.

    “What no app has done, to my knowledge, really, is build in the community aspect... turning self improvement into the carpool lane is a much more effective way to do it.” – Dan Harris [45:18]

• Hybrid Offerings:

  • Monthly Teacher features, live digital and eventually IRL sessions, cohort-based discussion groups all form part of the new approach.

    “We have a lot of excitement and energy around actual in person work as well.” – Toni Magyar [48:32]

• Ongoing Experimentation:

  • Still testing and learning with customer feedback, but the destination is clear:

    “We are trying stuff now based on real feedback and real intuitions... and we’re going to continue to test and grow with the audience.” – Dan Harris [51:05]

  • The ultimate goal is to “find the best way to knit these tested solutions [meditation, communication skills, self-compassion, etc.] into people’s lives.” [51:58]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Security and Uncertainty

  “You can’t get rid of groundlessness. That is the fundamental truth. Those moments of feeling secure... that’s the illusion.”
  —Dan Harris [18:30]

• On Compassion and Business

  “Sometimes direct communication interpersonally has an edge for you. But like, you’re really good at communicating... to the customers about where we’re going.”
  —Toni Magyar [54:08]

• On Leadership Self-Awareness

  “I feel like I failed. I remember feeling that really acutely and then thinking, alright, well, okay, I failed, but what am I gonna do now?”
  —Toni Magyar [38:31]

• On Experimentation

  “Being willing to fail. It is the opposite of perfectionism.”
  —Toni Magyar [43:51]

• On the Human Side of Professionalism

  “Being a boss is its own kind of psycho spiritual endeavor.”
  —Toni Magyar [39:20]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:23 — Context of Dan’s professional reset and the hard “business divorce”
• 10:53 — The emotional weight and existential fear during the transition
• 16:40 — Living with primordial anxiety and learning to accept groundlessness
• 20:08 — Key tools for handling uncertainty: clarity, self-talk, support
• 21:19 — Toni on self-compassion and spirals of self-influence
• 29:18 — Lessons in leadership and managing new teams
• 38:31 — Toni on confronting her own shortcomings as a boss
• 43:51 — The value of experimentation in building a modern business
• 44:35 — What’s resonating most with users: live/membership experiences
• 45:18 — The vision: community and the “Sangha” as essential
• 48:32 — Incorporating new teachers and building hybrid digital/in-person offerings
• 51:05 — Commitment to ongoing testing and learning
• 52:28 — The big-picture vision for integrating life-enhancing practices

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In Summary

Dan Harris and Toni Magyar offer an authentic, vulnerable conversation about what it takes to reset a career, run a new business, and adjust to setbacks. Their major takeaways:

• Change is unavoidable—learn to expect it and prepare without anxiety.
• Self-compassion and support networks are critical, in both business and personal wellbeing.
• Leadership requires self-awareness, direct communication, the willingness to fail, and the courage to keep experimenting.
• Community transforms personal development from a solo act into a sustainable, joyful practice.

For anyone struggling with career changes or seeking more mindful leadership, this episode provides practical wisdom, empathy, and hope—along with a sneak peek at what's next for 10% Happier's evolving community.

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Transcript

[Dan Harris]

Foreign.

This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

[Toni Magyar]

Hello gang. Okay, I I have a lot to say in the introduction to this episode.

[Dan Harris]

This is a personal episode today, but don't worry, it's also very practical. You're going to hear me talk about what I learned about issues such as focus, feedback, the disutility of shame or self criticism, and the value of expecting adversity. Even though we all want life to be an unbroken upward trajectory of seamless progress, these are all things that I learned, or perhaps more accurately, relearned when I was forced to reset or restart or resuscitate my career last year. Just let me step back for a second and give you some context. Last year at around this time, I went public and announced that I was separating from the meditation app that I co founded. That separation process was among the most difficult things that I have experienced as a grownup. It lasted three years. It brought up all sorts of issues for me, including anger and anxiety and more. And yes, I will fully acknowledge the fact that having a business divorce was one of the most difficult things in.

[Toni Magyar]

My life is proof that my life.

[Dan Harris]

Has been charmed and privileged. I own that. And yet it was really hard. Result was that I left the app that I had long considered to be my baby and restarted a new subscription service over on substack called dan harris.com.

[Toni Magyar]

A huge thank you to all of.

[Dan Harris]

You who signed up for that thing. In the last year we've accumulated more than 200,000 followers, many, many thousands of whom are actually paying, which allows me to pay my staff and pay all the meditation teachers who contribute content. So I'm immensely grateful. And I should add that I'm grateful not only to all of you, but also to the incredible people who work on my team, one of whom you're going to hear from today. This episode is a conversation between me and Toni Magyar, who's the CEO of my little company. I don't think she's ever been on the podcast before, so this should be a treat. She is an incredibly smart, very, very thoughtful person who not only leads our team with a lot of care, but also has the very big and sometimes very annoying job of keeping me in line, which she does beautifully. Toni has a rich background in the media space. She started in traditional book publishing and then moved over to podcasts and now works with me. So this is going to be a behind the scenes conversation where we talk in a very, very candid way about the hard lessons that we have both learned in the year since we launched, it's going to have plenty of behind the scenes content if you're into that kind of thing. But we also made damn sure to center it around the practical things that both Tony and I learned over the past year or so. And of course, practical, operational, actionable wisdom is at the spirit of our entire endeavor. So that just kind of makes sense. I should also say this is the kickoff episode for a whole month of programming we're doing during the month of September. September is a back to school month. It's a time when people reset often. Sometimes in my business we call it like a mini New Year's. So we have a whole month of programming around the theme of reset. We're coming out of summer, we're getting back to our routines, so we're resetting here on the pod. Coming up this month we've got episodes on how to reset your nervous system, how to reset your career, and more. I told you this intro was going to be long. I'm almost done, but I've got a couple of other announcements before we dive into the conversation. First, we're doing some resetting to be a little Cute [e-mail] over the last year we've learned a lot about what our customers want, so we are now offering bespoke guided meditations that come with all of our Monday and Wednesday episodes. Every month we hire a Teacher of the Month who produces these custom guided meditations. The idea is that, you know, we can help you take all the cool stuff you learn in the episode and pound it into your neurons through guided meditations. This month, our Teacher of the Month is Vinnie Ferraro, a fan favorite and a personal favorite of mine. Second thing to say, and this is related, starting September 2nd, we're going to start doing live guided meditation and Q and A sessions every week. This is only for paid subscribers, by the way, the Guided Meditations are also only for paid subscribers. For the last year we've done these live video meditation and Q and a sess once or twice a month. They're super popular and I also really enjoy doing them. So now we're going to do it every week. Every Tuesday in fact, so you can put it on your calendar and you can count on it. Our first one is September 2nd, 4:00 Eastern. It'll be me and Vinnie together. And then after September 2nd, indefinitely, every Tuesday, 4:00 Eastern, we'll do some meditation together. And if you miss it, you can always do it asynchronously on your own time we'll send out the video. Long way of saying we've got a lot of cool shit going on [e-mail]. please sign up as a paying subscriber. As you will hear in this conversation with Tony, these new features, you know, the bespoke guided meditations and the weekly live video meditations, they're really just the beginning. We have some pretty ambitious plans. We'd love to have you in on the ground floor as we build this thing together. Okay, one last thing.

[Toni Magyar]

I promise this is the last thing, this one last announcement that we'll take.

[Dan Harris]

A break and get to the actual episode. If you want to meditate with me in person, I am doing a live IRL event at the Omega Institute, which is an hour or two north of New York City at the end of October, the weekend of the 24th. It's a weekend long event with my friends Seben A. Selassie and Jeff Warren. We call it Meditation Party because it's a mixture of meditation and also hanging out, socializing, community, etc. You can sign [e-mail] eomega.org I'll also put a link in the show notes. Okay, quick break and then we'll be right back with my conversation with the estimable Tony Magyar. I like nice clothes. I wouldn't call myself a fashion plate. My wife is, but I'm more, you know, I'm not like high style. You won't see me on the runways in Paris.

[Toni Magyar]

But I like nice clothes and I like to look good, which is important.

[Dan Harris]

Because a lot of my work is on camera. However, I don't like to spend a ton of money, which is why I really love quints because they've got high.

[Toni Magyar]

Quality stuff, you know, like high quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm.

[Dan Harris]

Weather, all at prices that make sense. Everything I've ordered from Quince has been totally solid. And I order real basics like underwear and socks, but also cashmere sweaters. They've got these really comfy pants that.

[Toni Magyar]

I wear a lot.

[Dan Harris]

You may have heard me say this before, but it is not uncommon for me to be head to toe Quince, especially when I'm like in the city having meetings. If I'm at home, I'm in sweatpants.

[Toni Magyar]

But often I'll be wearing Quint's cozy wear.

[Dan Harris]

So I represent at home and out in the world. Quint's has closet staples you'll reach for over and over, like cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters for just 50 bucks. Breathable flow knit polos and comfortable, lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. Everything from Quint's is half the cost of similar brands by working directly with top artisans when cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markup and Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. Keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Quince.com happier as the proprietor of a small business, I'll tell you what is make or break Getting the right people for your team hiring is crucial. You want to find the right people and you want to do it quickly. We've made a couple hires recently. My guy Manny who's come on board our substack operation, and then my old friend Ben Newman. This is now the third company where.

[Toni Magyar]

I've worked with Ben.

[Dan Harris]

These hires were crucial and have been really impactful.

[Toni Magyar]

In fact, we've got a third hiring.

[Dan Harris]

Process going on right now for somebody in operations. All of which brings me to one of our sponsors today.

[Toni Magyar]

Indeed.

[Dan Harris]

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[Toni Magyar]

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[Dan Harris]

There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job grant credit to get your jobs. More visibility@ Indeed.com happier just go to Indeed.com happier right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com happier terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[Toni Magyar]

You good to go?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think so.

[Toni Magyar]

Okay, so I'll just start. I'll just kick it off.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, why not?

[Toni Magyar]

Tony Magyar, welcome to the show.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks Dan.

[Toni Magyar]

First time appearance?

[Dan Harris]

First time. Maybe the last. We'll see.

[Toni Magyar]

What should we talk about?

[Dan Harris]

Well, we're going to talk about what we've been up to for the last year and where that has led us and where we think we're going.

[Toni Magyar]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

So September 10th, last year, we published an episode on the show. It was just you, no guest. And you told the audience about a career earthquake that you'd just been through and a bunch of things that you learned. But that earthquake was you were leaving the meditation app that you had co founded and you were going out on your own, starting a new business, little team. And that was a year ago. We have done a lot. We have learned a lot. So we're going to share what's been going on behind the scenes a little bit, and then we're going to talk about what have we learned about starting a business. What have we learned about what we should be offering to our listeners and our subscribersanharris.com and then what have we learned about change? You've been through a lot.

[Toni Magyar]

I mean, you. It's not just me.

[Dan Harris]

It's not just you. Yeah, me too. You know, because this whole month on the podcast, we're talking about resets, nervous system, career relationships. So we want to kick off and acknowledge that, like, change is happening all of the time, but for human beings, that can be really hard. So we're going to use some very big changes that we've been through to kind of help tease out some lessons to foreground for this whole month of programming.

[Toni Magyar]

So just to put a fine point on it for the listener, so that we'll start by talking about practical takeaways from a year plus of tumult in our professional and personal lives with the goal of giving people something they can do in their own lives. And then toward the end, we'll pull back the curtain a little bit, do some behind the scenes stuff on what we're thinking about and building towards as a company that. Am I summing that up correctly?

[Dan Harris]

I think that's pretty much right. Okay.

[Toni Magyar]

Pretty much right.

[Dan Harris]

Pretty much right. I was thinking we would actually start by giving the audience a little more background and context. We're not here to spill tea or talk about the breakup, but I think, you know, when you are in the midst of this very long, painful separation process, your career and livelihood was, like, really up in the air.

[Toni Magyar]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

One of the potential titles we've talked about for this episode is how to reset after you blow up your life. And we're not suggesting the audience should blow up their life, but I think it is helpful context, perhaps, just to understand where we were and what we were doing, to understand, you know, where we are now and how to deal with Just the uncertainty of change.

[Toni Magyar]

So the order of operations then is little background, little background, practical takeaways.

[Dan Harris]

What are we offering behind the scenes?

[Toni Magyar]

What are we offering? Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. And maybe we'll let you run free a little bit and talk about some future ideas that we have. We'll see how that goes.

[Toni Magyar]

Just to frame that for the audience. When she talks about maybe letting me run free. One of the hardest parts of Tony's job we'll get into this is she's working with somebody who chases a lot of squirrels. Some of you may have heard me talk about this before, but in that movie up, which I've watched with my son many, many times, it's a Pixar movie, the bad guy has a pack of dogs who chase the good guys. And once in a while, the dogs get distracted and yell the word squirrel and go off chasing a squirrel. And I do that a lot. I've got a million ideas, some of them good, some of them very, very stupid. And they're all squirrels. And we have to decide, and Tony often has to play traffic cop on this. Which squirrels are we going to chase and how do we stay focused? That the correct context to your dry comment earlier? Okay.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, exactly. Okay. So your whole career, your livelihood was pretty up in the air. And there were a few reasons for that. You had left ABC News After 20 some odd year career, and you did that to focus really on 10% happier and the work that you do around meditation and mental health. But I think it was not long after you had made that decision that there started to be some conflict at the old app. Company started heading down the path of, you know, having to separate. At the same time, the podcast industry was sort of like going through, like, convulsions of several kinds of great shows were being canceled left and right. People were losing their jobs. We had a couple contracts that were making it just difficult for us to know what our future was going to look like. Were we going to be able to afford to make this show? What was that going to look like? And we knew it was going to take us some time to figure that out, given the agreements we had in place and just the timing. The word we often used was existential. Things felt really challenging, and for reasons we're not going to go into, we ended up needing to announce your departure from the meditation app a bit sooner than we had anticipated. And we wanted to give the audience a place where they could follow you going forward. And we wanted to offer things that we hadn't offered in the past. More Connection to you, more help remembering lessons to the show. But we also had to do it really quickly. And I'm curious just to hear from you. When we got to launch day and there was a queue of things that needed to happen, a press release needed to go out from the company, and then we could publish our episode. We could launch danharris.com do you remember how you were feeling that day? You seemed super chill. I was like a mess.

[Toni Magyar]

You had seen me in the previous three years be anything but chill. It's not like I was perpetually relaxed. And there were plenty of times that you witnessed firsthand where I really, I don't think, handled it well. It was like the manifestation of my deepest fears, as I've often talked about with you and on this show. You know, I have a great grandfather who took his own life in the family kitchen after losing the family fortune and getting indicted. And I just have that kind of primordial, for me, primordial fear in my bones. And so this kind of had echoes of that. And so I was really, really anxious for a long time. Plus, there was, you know, it was a long process of separating from the company. That was a long negotiation, and you were right there for every step of it. And, of course, we were negotiating to figure out how much money we're going to make on the podcast. And so it, as you said, it felt existential. I think for a lot of that period, I was just on tilt. By the time we got to September 10th of last year, when we announced that I was leaving the app, and that you and I and the rest of this team had decided to strike out on our own, I actually felt reasonably good. One of the things I learned is how to live with uncertainty. There's a story that I was just thinking about this morning that my executive coach, who you know well, Jerry Colonna, who the audience may remember, he's been on the show a bunch of times. He has a story of talking to his shrink several decades ago and just being really worried about money and feeling unsafe. And the shrink asked him how much money would make you feel safe. And Jerry heard himself say, bill Gates money, which, you know, is, of course, totally ridiculous. I mean, very few people other than Bill Gates ever get Bill Gates money. But it speaks to me of how we're never gonna feel solid. We're never gonna feel we can't get there, that we're chasing something that's a mirage, an illusion. And I have to learn this lesson over and over again because I, you know, you and I talk about my desire to turn the volume down on a sense of precarity in my life. But actually I think in my saner moments I recognize that you can't get rid of groundlessness. That is the fundamental truth. And those moments of feeling secure, that's actually really more the illusion. And I hate this fact about reality, but it does seem kind of non negotiable. And so I think over time I've just gotten better at learning how to live with it. I heard an expression recently, expect nothing, be prepared for anything. And I kind of like that. You and I talk a lot about something a guest on the show once said is like, life is not an escalator. So I will not expect a smooth upward trajectory for our company for anything in my life. And I will simultaneously be prepared for anything. This is not like a recipe I don't think properly understood as being hyper vigilant and constantly anxious. It's just the only ground that is available is the confidence that I've trained my mind enough and have a ground good enough team around me personally and professionally to handle whatever shit show might emerge.

[Dan Harris]

And it will. Yes, shit shows will happen.

[Toni Magyar]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

On the regular.

[Toni Magyar]

How do you handle. I mean I. I talked a little bit about just kind of how I handle it. One is just recognizing the truth of it. And two is self soothing by just talking to myself and talking with you. So as I'm talking I'm realizing there are a bunch of things that were said there. One is seeing clearly. In Buddhist speak, Sampajana, I believe it's called just seeing clearly. That groundlessness is the truth. That's one kind of healing modality because you're not arguing with reality. The second is recognizing that talking to yourself, talking to myself about the fact that I can handle whatever comes up. Like I'm scared of it, but like I can deal with it. And I just look back at my history and realize I've dealt with lots of stuff. The third is have good people around you. Another expression you and I use all the time, never worry alone. Those are three practical, actionable tools for the audience. What would you add to that? Like, what do you use to get through all of this topsy turvy stuff?

[Dan Harris]

I would sort of add something we were talking about right before we started recording and I alluded to it a second ago, is just that change is constant. This thing that you're worried about right now, this feeling that you're having right now, it's about to change. It's not always going to change. For the better, but it is going to change. And then I think the other piece of this that you know, is something that I've been working on very gradually is just the self compassion piece. Because for me, and I know I'm not alone here, I tend to over index on shame and self blame anytime it seems like something isn't going well. And so sometimes it's a reminder of being imperfect, being human, needing to make mistakes, to learn, and other times, and we've talked about this in terms of decisions and choices we've made together. It's about knowing we did the best we could with the information we had at the time, the circumstances, the media landscape, whatever may have changed and we may regret our decision, but we did the best we could with the information we had at the time. And there were a lot of factors that weren't, you know, necessarily in our control.

[Toni Magyar]

It's really helpful actually, because the, the shame and the guilt and the self blame and the self laceration does not help your business.

[Dan Harris]

Absolutely not. The more I fixate on what I think my failings have been, the harder I might try to push myself to deny them, overcome them, change immediately, which isn't going to happen. Even if it's unintentional, then the harder I'm going to push on other people. Right. That thing of the thing we don't want to see in ourselves, that we haven't accepted, haven't integrated, it bleeds out into our relationships with other people. So needing to slow down, have more compassion, be a little bit gentler and not be a neurotic drill sergeant is so critical. Because if I'm doing it to myself, it will have repercussions, not just for me, but for the rest of the team and our whole business.

[Toni Magyar]

But I think what you're talking about here is kind of the punchline for my next book, which I was just writing a chat. I was writing the key chapter where I realized this this morning, which is, I believe, what you were just talking about, which is that we have two spirals available to us at all times. One is what you were just describing, which my friend Evelyn Tribolet describes as the toilet vortex, where you're hard on yourself and then you take that on other people and then you feel like. And then you're even worse to other people and then you feel even worse and then down you go. And the other, which I think can often kick off with self compassion, is as you learn how to take care of your own mind, well, then your relationships improve because you're easier on other people. And because relationships are the most important variable in human flourishing, then your inner weather gets even bombier, then the relationships prove even more, and then up you go. I call that the cheesy upward spiral. And people think of business, I think, often as, I don't know, purely commercial, outside the realm of the spiritual, for lack of a better word. But actually, it's a great crucible for practicing all the stuff we talk about on the show.

[Dan Harris]

Absolutely. But over the last couple of years, when I've taken on too much or felt like I made a mistake that was somehow unforgivable and wanted to quit or fire myself, it is true that actually your book in progress and manuscript, as funky as it is right now, as you toil away on your rewrite, has been hugely helpful. And it's one of the things that really motivates me to keep going, keep building this business, because I know the work that you're doing and that we're all doing really can change people's lives. And that's a big deal.

[Toni Magyar]

I would like to finish this book. It has been a tough slog. But just to put a little meat on the bone of what you were saying there, that when you say you're excited about it, one of your areas of expertise really is the business of creating content that will help people. You came up through publishing, and then you went to podcasts. Then you worked in a company that mixed podcasts with a meditation app. And now you're the CEO of a company that's really, really focused on that. And your vision, which I really share, is the book comes out. It hopefully inspires a bunch of people to do the things that I did in the book. And then we then create an infrastructure of courses where people can learn how to do the things that you can watch me fuck up in the book. So it's kind of like you go to a movie and then you go to the theme park afterwards, and we are building the theme park. We're building both at the same time. And that's what you're. From a professional standpoint, that's where you really feel most energized.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. Super excited. And I think we can use that as a segue to like, what is this theme park?

[Toni Magyar]

I do want to just go back to something you said that I. I think is a key learning that we should dwell on. Are you okay with that?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Toni Magyar]

So we. Before, I was listing at least three things I learned in. In the aftermath and also in the prodrome of blowing up my Whole life. One is, you know, the value of mindfulness, like seeing clearly what reality is so that I'm not at war with it. And after a while you start to surrender into it, relax, like, oh, yeah, I can see we're in a world of ceaseless change. That doesn't mean I don't have any agency, doesn't mean I'm going to be resigned, but it means I can learn how to respond wisely to things instead of reacting blindly. Mindfulness can be trained through mindfulness meditation. The second part, I described it as like developing a sense of confidence that you can handle whatever's going to come your way. But I actually think the bigger framing for the second thing would be self compassion. Just learning how to talk to yourself in a way that reduces your own anxiety and makes you more effective and takes out of the equation to the best of your ability. The self criticism, the guilt, the shame, all of that stuff. And I would add back to our discussion around my comportment during this very tumultuous period of time. I think one area of shame reduction for me is being okay with the fact that I'm some sort of quasi guru who fucks up all the time, you know, and like, that's, that's okay. Like in that I think, I hope maybe this is self, what's the word I'm looking for? Letting myself off the hook in some way. But I hope that's good modeling for people listening and watching, which is that, you know, you can do this for a living and still screw up. And I know a lot of meditation teachers who make mistakes in their lives. And then why this, the self compassion matters. I think, really, and this is what I wanted to double click on is I said the third lesson earlier was never worry alone. But I think actually the third lesson is like stress, and we know this from the data is reduced by having people you trust in your orbit who you can talk to about the shit that's going on. But, but as I often say, other people are a necessity. And this is the head fuck. They're a Titanic thing in the ass. And so you need to learn a bunch of skills to handle other people. And so one of the skills that I think is an ongoing work in progress for me is learning how to be a leader. I was an anchorman at ABC News for 21 years and before that in local news. And I never had a direct report. Nobody actually worked for me. I was a leader in some sense, but really I was just kind of doing my own thing. And to the Extent that I was a leader and people were looking up to me. I whiffed on that a lot. I was self focused. So I never really learned how to be a manager. And then now I have my own company and I only really have one direct report. You.

[Dan Harris]

So I'm the guinea pig.

[Toni Magyar]

You're the guinea pig. Yeah. People should not feel envy. But just to go back to something you said earlier that I made a note of that might have been confusing for people, which is that you have had at moments the desire to fire yourself. And that is a real thing. And we had a little moment a couple months ago where you really wanted not to fire yourself, but to demote yourself. And that kind of led to a whole cascade of events that I. My story is. Were positive in the end. But I want to hear you tell the story and then we can talk about what we both learned in that process.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, okay. You know, and I'll just be a little vulnerable here and let the listeners in. Though. I think I alluded to this already. My sort of default mode is not good enough. And so there have been periods over, particularly the last year of feeling like, yeah, somebody would be much better at this than me. I can think of all these different skills or experiences or backgrounds, and they just. They wouldn't make these mistakes and they would know these things. Things, and they would be better than me. And adios, I should get out of here. But of course, I. As we were just talking about. I'm really excited about what we're building. So my brain would start to work on trying to figure out. Because I also love a puzzle. Where can I fit? Where can I still be useful, but not out over my skis? So that had been playing out in the background for probably a year. So we started to work more and more closely together.

[Toni Magyar]

But you didn't tell me this. Really.

[Dan Harris]

I didn't really tell you. I mean, I signaled one time I came over to your house and was like, so, Dan, I think maybe, you know, you said you were gonna like interview for who the person was who was gonna like run this company with you. You didn't really do that. I think maybe you should. Maybe you want like a different kind of person. Like very, like, I don't know, maybe.

[Toni Magyar]

Because I think one of the things that I've learned is where we can get into trouble is when your historical reluctance to just kind of say the hard thing meets my self centeredness. Because you were dropping breadcrumbs, but you never actually really came out and said it. And I Was not attuned to the breadcrumbs because I'm just worried about my own shit. And I think. I think the story you'll tell in a minute, where it really came to a head, I think was a huge wake up, I think, for both of us. I'm reluctant to speak for you, but I've seen you really lean into being more direct in the aftermath of that. And I've seen in myself at least an effort to be more vigilant, not hyper vigilant. For as Jerry Colonna likes to say, like, what's not being said? You know, what's the undercurrent here that people are too afraid to say to me because I have the power.

[Dan Harris]

I agree with all of that. What happened in January? Not to get too far in the weeds. This is when we were having that conversation. Sort of mid to late January. We had finally some clarity on the podcast and the revenue for the podcast. It was the first time in over a year that we had confidence that, like, we had jobs and you were gonna be able to pay your bills. And we'd been looking forward to this conversation because things had been so foggy and our team was waiting for us to be able to give them some news. They were all dealing with a lot of uncertainty too. So we had just enough information to sit down and talk about what are we building towards? What are people's roles? And I went into that feeling unprepared. I'd been really sick for two weeks. But I put together a memo. I was also advocating for where we needed to resource to start building the ecosystem that we would want to have 16 months, 18 months, however long from where we were. And so we were having all these conversations about what we were going to make and what roles people should have. And I didn't even like, consciously tell myself not to raise a hand and say, I don't think I'm in the right role. I just literally forgot about myself. And I didn't remember myself for like three or four days. What I had actually done in this memo and proposal is create my own fantasy job. A new role for somebody else. For somebody else. And it was until several days later, I remember just being like, what have I done? I've just ruined all my future happiness. And I sent you a message and I was like, dude, out of it right now. Like, it's not urgent, but like, we should talk. It's funny, I felt very sheepish about reaching out to you in that way. And then when we actually talked, I think it was Revealing. You were concerned you had done something that upset me.

[Toni Magyar]

Right.

[Dan Harris]

You're like, oh, I didn't fuck up. I didn't do something. And I'm like, no, dude.

[Toni Magyar]

When you said, we need to talk, I. I could feel like I felt like I had a flu. I was like, oh, I fucked up. And so I did something. I'm in trouble.

[Dan Harris]

And then when the.

[Toni Magyar]

When the call. When we started the call, it was clear. It was. That was not what was going on. And I was relieved.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. And then you did a very kind, compassionate, good leader thing, which I think I've tried to model recently is just say, like, that's cool. Like, nothing set in stone. We can set aside some time. We can talk this through. And we did. We sat down in a conference room for the better part of a day, and we talked through what did I really want to be doing. What was I doing that was maybe getting in the way of that? And were we kind of aligned on what you needed, what the business needed, and what I wanted? And we found out we were. I was just kind of poorly doing, like, four jobs at the time. And it was hard for me still in that moment, to trust that the move wasn't put somebody in this role who can do all of these things that I am failing at doing all of them. But you were very. I don't want to say forceful, but you were very assertive in a very kind and generous way of like, nope, you've got this, and you need to pay yourself more. And I remember also feeling some shame about that. But I think a couple days later, I was able to say, like, thanks for advocating for me. I wish I could have done it for myself. But thanks for doing that, because it's pretty rare.

[Toni Magyar]

I remember feeling embarrassed, actually. We had a whiteboard, and we were listing everything was on your plate, and it was ridiculous. It was. There's so much shit. It was on your plate, and so much shouldn't have been on your plate. And I was like, well, I'm this person's boss. I have one direct report, and I didn't even know all of this. I should have known all of this. And so I've failed. I remember feeling that really acutely and then thinking, all right, well, okay, I failed, but what am I gonna do now? And so then we. We just circled all the things on the whiteboard that you wanted to be doing. We took everything else and put that into a category, and there's actually a human being sitting right outside of the studio right now whose first Day it is. And she's gonna do all that stuff.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. Welcome, Taylor.

[Toni Magyar]

Welcome, Taylor.

[Dan Harris]

Shout out.

[Toni Magyar]

Yeah. So to me, wasn't that. Wasn't some, like, triumphant and look at Mr. Compassionate Dan thing. It was like, I learned that I need to be a better boss. And being a boss is its own kind of psycho spiritual endeavor. Right. And the other thing I learned, and this is something we've talked about a lot, is that if you look at the nucleus, the sort of core leadership team in this company, everybody tends toward both introversion and being a people pleaser. And I tend toward massive extroversion. And somewhere, you know, not too deep, but somewhere on the narcissism spectrum, you know, you don't become.

[Dan Harris]

You have to. To do what you do, you have to be.

[Toni Magyar]

You can't be an anchorman for 30 years without, like, wanting to be the center of attention, et cetera, et cetera. And so I. That moment was a huge wake up call of, okay, it's okay that this is the personality mix on the team, but I have a lot of responsibility not to let this go south.

[Dan Harris]

And so where we landed was like, no, you need to focus on the things you want to focus on. You're actually really good at them and get some help for everything else.

[Toni Magyar]

Yeah. Your mean boss was like, I'm not going to let you demote yourself. I'm going to force you to take a promotion and pay you more.

[Dan Harris]

I know. God, you're so, so tough.

[Toni Magyar]

But that was. I mean, it's also. This isn't about, like, what the Tibetans call idiot compassion, you know, catastrophic altruism. It was enlightened self interest. I know you're really good at your job.

[Dan Harris]

It's in my best interest to unshackle you, to let you really run.

[Toni Magyar]

So, I mean, yeah. So I. I don't want to portray myself here as some sort of Dalai Lama type figure. Although the Dalai Lama himself talks about this idea of wise selfishness. That's what I think is kind of like the best of humanity. Like, being useful to other people makes us feel good. And so.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, you told me many times this is in my own self interest. So, like, yes.

Right.

[Toni Magyar]

It reminds me of this thing I heard from some Buddhist monk somewhere that when you take care of your own mind, you're taking care of the world.

[Dan Harris]

I think that's enough lessons. We'll wrap up Memory Lane and some of the lessons learned. But I think, you know, if we could sum them up, it's like anytime you're trying to grow or you're trying to change when you're trying to reset anything. You need self compassion. You need to take it easy on yourself. You need a support network and you need to tap into your meditation practice.

[Toni Magyar]

Yeah, when you put it that way, it's pretty fucking simple.

[Dan Harris]

We'll be back here next year and be like, these are all the things that we fucked up. But we're learning.

Exactly right.

[Toni Magyar]

And there's a lesson in that.

[Dan Harris]

There is. We just keep doing it.

[Toni Magyar]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Looking back can be so helpful. I was also reflecting. You know, it's not just working with you and all the work that you do and our relationship that is helping me grow. Also, I've had an amazing therapist for the last two years. I talked to my husband more. I have a really good friend right now who's always happy to talk to me about work. And so all of these things have helped me. But I can see that it's taking time, but I can see the progress. And so that is motivating. That gives me hope. The technology works, as you say. Okay. So also though, over the course of this year, we went from starting danharris.com to provide this audience a place to follow you after the separation. Wanted to help them remember what they're hearing on the podcast. So we started these regular emails with a takeaway from you related to the podcast episode. Cheat sheet, summaries, transcripts. In the early days, we were having some of our podcast guests in the chats and you started doing some live meditation and Q and A's. Before we get into where are we now and where I think we're going, I'd be super curious to hear from you. What have you learned from some of the experiments we have done over the last year about what really helps people?

[Toni Magyar]

I mean, the first thing to say, and this is not what you're asking me, but I do want to make a case for experimentation. Generally being willing to fail. It is the opposite of perfectionism. We tried a bunch of stuff. You listed a bunch of them and some of them worked and some of them didn't. And that's okay. Super important in terms of the question you did ask me, which is, you know, what have we learned on the level of what's working with the customer and what we think is onward leading as it pertains to what we'll build in the future. To me, the what seems obvious. Hopefully I'll be right about this. And I think you and I agree on this is the most energy we feel as a team. And I feel as A person and customers seem to feel in their response is around these live sessions where I'm guiding in meditation and then taking people's questions. I have the energetic sense and we have some data to back this up. That's where people are most engaged and are feeling the most impact. And I really enjoy doing it. And so I think what we're going to build toward is what you and I often refer to as like a next generation meditation app. You need to have a large body of guided meditations. You need a timer, you need some courses. And we know how to do that. We, we've done that before and we'll do it again. But what no app has done, to my knowledge, really, is build in the community aspect. And community can come off as kind of like a vague anodyne term. But there's so much evidence from millennia of contemplative history and from modern science that turning self improvement into the carpool lane is a much more effective way to do it. Like the Buddha, as you've heard me yammer on about, many talked about the three jewels in what he was building. One was the Buddha, meaning, you know, just like an example of awakening as part of human potential. The second was the Dharma, the teaching of the Buddha about how to do that. The third was the Sangha. And it wasn't like two plus an asterisk. It was three equal jewels. The Sangha is the community of meditators. And, and honestly, I don't even think, as I look at the Buddhist world writ large in America, I don't see a lot of it happening at meditation centers. There's no real structure for people to get to know each other and to do this thing together. And so I think that's a lot of what makes me excited about building going forward. I don't want to spew too many words and I might have said some shit that has got me in trouble with you already, but how is what I'm saying landings thus far?

[Dan Harris]

Great. You're not in trouble.

[Toni Magyar]

Okay, good.

[Dan Harris]

Yet. I'll just add specifically, you know, some of the things that we're thinking about is when we do future courses or little miniseries, how do we create sort of discussion groups or cohort based things where people can really interact with one another further down the line? Future state. We have a lot of excitement and energy around actual in person work as well. In this process of wanting to build something that incorporates a lot of live digital, maybe eventually IRL ways for people to interact with each other. And critically, a lot of really great Teachers as well. So not just you. We have started dipping our toes into the water of incorporating more teachers. So starting in June, during our Get Fit Sanely series, we added guided meditations for every full episode from the great Cara Lai, who also went live with you that week, which was awesome. July, August, we've continued to have guided meditations for every episode, and we kind of call it Teacher of the Month. So every month on the podcast, you sort of get the backstory of a meditation teacher. And if you're a paid [e-mail], you get guided meditations every Monday and Wednesday from that same teacher, so you kind of get to practice with them. And what we're adding now to really further build up sort of the Sangha component is each month, the Teacher of the Month will also be hosting live meditations and Q&As for subscribers.

[Toni Magyar]

So there'll be some sense of continuity. We'll be exposing our customers to our world of close friends of mine and ours who are meditation teachers who are really, really vetted, really, really qualified, and really excited to be working with us. That's really cool.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. And in the future, I hope there's even more of this. But this is the next step, and it is a big step for us. You've talked in the past about having wanted to for so long, really combine the teachings and the podcast with the practice, really make it actionable. So that's what pairing the guided meditation does. But I think giving the consistency of one teacher per month gives people a better sense of some of the different flavors, different styles, helps them find maybe teachers that resonate with them more than others. But then the opportunity to practice, live with that teacher and ask questions, I think will really help deepen a lot of people's practice. And I think it's a big step for us to get to this point and is just the beginning, I think.

[Toni Magyar]

Yes. Just. I made a few notes of things that I wanted to emphasize from your excellent statement of like. Like where things are and where we probably will go. One of the things I look forward to is changing the name and having it be something that speaks to the big tent where I can be MC or ringleader, but we're really emphasizing hooking people up with these great teachers. The final thing to say is that I think you said it really well, that right now, our current state is we've. We've done a ton of work over the last year, and we think we have a lot of very interesting signals. And so we, as of this month, September 2025, we will be doing guided meditations for all of the Monday Wednesday episodes so that you can take the lessons in the show and pound them into your neurons, as I often say. And in the name of community, we're going to do once a week live guided meditations. But we, I think the work, I've been told experimenting is not a good word.

[Dan Harris]

At some point you have to stop experimenting and commit to something.

[Toni Magyar]

Commit to something. Right. But we're, we are trying stuff now based on real feedback and real intuitions on our, our side. And we're going to continue to test and grow with the audience. You know, we're going to be getting real time feedback from the audience and from the teachers and from our team and figuring this out as we go with a grand vision, I think, think. And I don't know exactly how this is going to look and you made a really nice nod at this, which is that I and the rest of the team are really excited about the fact that there are these tools tested, as I said before, through millennia of contemplative history and now modern science that help you do your life better. And it includes meditation, but also communication skills and self compassion and time management and sleep and exercise and the whole panoply, the whole pantheon of no brainers out there that we can teach people how to do through a bunch of modalities like an app or some sort of technological solution that provides both teaching and community. And then over time, hopefully. I don't know what any of this looks like. I just, I can't draw you an exact picture of where we're going, but I have a really strong sense of, of what the impact will be, which is just taking these tested solutions and finding the best way to knit them into people's lives.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, use your megaphone, so to speak, to help draw people in, provide these amazing teachers and keep building on, I think, not just sort of the resources, the content library, but experiences for people. Yeah, that's really exciting. And as you said, we don't exactly have a clear roadmap yet, but we'll keep coming to you here on the podcast [e-mail] to be renamed when legally and otherwise an option. And in the meantime really just want to appreciate our whole team and everybody who listens and everybody who subscribes and their patience with us as we learn and develop. And you know, we talk about launching something new and maybe that being an app of our own. And that's going to mean some change too. Yes, and so just to state, like, we do not want to put our team or this audience through change unnecessarily. Now that we can have a little bit more control over our own destiny, we'll be very good and clear communicators and not surprise anyone and treat this audience really, really, really well. As we build. We're going to take you on this ride with us.

[Toni Magyar]

That is one of your many strong suits is I said before that sometimes direct communication interpersonally has an edge for you. But like you're really good at communicating to the team and to the customers about where we're going. And that's. I've learned a lot from that. And then the other thing that I've learned by watching you is and by screwing it up, frankly, is how important it is to express gratitude to the team, which you did a couple minutes ago. I felt the gratitude and I saw, I think much if not all of what was being done. But over time, really learning how important it is to say out loud that I appreciate X, Y and Z. Yeah. So thank you, Tony. Great job.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks, Dan.

Thanks again to Tony. I think you can hear it in that conversation why she is the exact right person to be leading this team. She's amazing. Thank you, Toni. Don't forget to sign up [e-mail] to become a paid subscriber to reap all of the exclusive benefits that will be raining down upon paid subscribers starting in September. And don't forget, we'll be doing a live guided meditation and Q and A with Vinnie on September 2nd at 4 Eastern and then henceforth live meditation session every Tuesday. And also, don't forget to join me for another installment, a live in person installment of Meditation Party, a workshop we do at the Omega Institute. The registration link is ready for you to click right there in the show notes. Finally, I just want to thank everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Basili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmir is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

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