How I Stopped Kicking My Own Ass (A Memoir With Instructions)

Dan Harris’s first book, 10% Happier became a surprise #1 New York Times bestseller, selling over one million copies and inspiring the hugely popular 10% Happier podcast. Now Dan is back with another hilarious and embarrassing memoir—about how he discovered hard evidence for a supremely soft concept: self-love. It’s not narcissism, it’s not self-indulgence, it’s a scientifically validated skill that reduces anxiety, transforms your relationships, and increases longevity.

Let’s say you gathered sixteen of your closest friends, family, and colleagues and asked them about your strengths and weaknesses. Let’s say you guaranteed these people anonymity, so they could talk trash with impunity. Then let’s say you were handed a thirty-nine-page report filled with blind quotes. How do you think it would go for you? What kind of humiliating things would you learn? Here’s a better question: what kind of moron would put themselves through this?

Dan Harris is your moron.

In 2018, Dan was riding high. He was a network news anchor who had published a bestselling memoir about how an on-air panic attack had led him to meditation. But then he signed up for something called a “360 review,” an anonymous survey of the people in his personal and professional lives.

He wanted tough feedback, but he had no idea how tough it would be. Friends, family, and colleagues described him as self-centered, high-handed, short-tempered, and dismissive. The report was so bad that his wife, who was reading alongside him, got up from the table and cried.

It was the worst day of his life. But it also provoked him to launch a feverish investigation that ultimately led him to the last place he would’ve expected—to the cheesiest cliché on earth: self-love.

Even after years of meditation, Dan was still pushing himself too hard, engaged in the kind of optimization, hyper-productivity, and social comparison that is all too common these days. Many of us believe that we need a harsh inner critic in order to get anything done. But underreported research shows kicking your own ass actually holds you back.

Further, science suggests it is possible to rewire how you talk to yourself, which unlocks an upward spiral of benefits. Self-love reduces anxiety, regulates your nervous system, and makes you more likely to reach your goals. Crucially, it also improves your relationships with other people, which is the key variable for health and happiness.

What to call this process? To use a loaded term…love. Not just romantic love, but your relationships with everyone in your life, including yourself. It’s not weak, it’s not selfish, it prepares you to engage more effectively in a world on fire. And the radical good news is that love is skill. If Dan can learn it, so can you.