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It's the 10% Happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hey, everybody.

I'm popping into your feed today with a little mini episode. You may have noticed that I've been trying to get into the habit recently of doing

short episodes where I sum up everything that I've personally learned to get into the habit recently of doing short episodes where

I sum up everything that I've personally learned on any given subject. And today with Valentine's

Day around the corner, I'm going to talk about seven things I have learned about doing romantic

relationships better. And these are things I have learned the hard way most of the time, frankly.

These are things I've learned either from having conversations right here on the show or from reading books, but mostly these are things I've learned

by making stupid mistakes in my own marriage. So let me start by thanking Dr. Bianca Harris,

my wife, for putting up with me for now 17 years. Just to give you a little preview of what

we're going to cover in this episode,

we're going to talk about how humor can help until it hurts. We're going to talk about the

value of having platonic friends in addition to your spouse or partner. We're going to talk about

a key communication skill that I picked up from the great sociologist and researcher and writer

Brunay Brown, a cognitive reframe that I learned from Esther

Perel, who's a legendary writer and couples counselor, and what may be the most crucial insight of

all, a piece of advice or an insight that has really, really radically altered my life and especially

my marriage. A few notes before we dive in here. As always, this is

a menu, not a to-do list. I'm going to throw a bunch of stuff at you. You can take what you like

...