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

I don't know about you, but there are plenty of areas in my life where I can at times,

but I'm still, even though I'm allegedly Mr. Happiness or whatever, still be a little

tight and locked up where my head is up my ass and I cannot function at my best. I'm talking

about areas such as work or public speaking or writing or social situations. Perhaps nobody

is better at helping people unlock themselves than the Buddhist meditation teacher George Mumford.

This is a guy who taught meditation to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He's also worked with

inmates, police officers and corporate executives. There is a reason why they call him the performance

whisperer. George, who is a friend, has an incredible story. He began teaching mindfulness and meditation

after kicking a serious drug habit, leaving a career as a financial analyst and then earning a

master's in counseling psychology. He's got a new book. It's called Unlock. Embrace Your Greatness,

Find the Flow, Discover Success. His first book was called The Mindful Athletes Secrets to

Pure Performance. If you want to hear him talk about that book, we've put links in the show notes

to his prior appearances on this podcast. But in this conversation, we talked about what he means by

unlocking what it means to be in flow and why many of us may be achieving that state more than we

think. How to challenge negative self-talk, the importance of gratitude, the importance of

service, the importance of making mistakes. As George says, no struggle, no swag. How to recognize

what he calls your hideouts? Why he identifies as an empath and why he believes this may have played

a role in his addiction and his take on often misunderstood terms such as love, hope, and faith.

Before we get started with today's episode, if you've been around TPH land for any length of time,

you've probably heard me name drop Joseph Goldstein. He started out as my meditation teacher,

then became my friend, and then we teamed up to help start the 10% happier meditation app.

...