Harris joins ABC News as a correspondent and moves to New York City at age 29.

Harris travels to the Middle East as a war correspondent and becomes addicted to the adrenaline of frontline reporting.

Harris returns to New York from war reporting and develops unexplained depression and growing anxiety.

Harris suffers a panic attack on live television while filling in as a correspondent on Good Morning America.

Harris confesses his drug use to psychiatrist Dr. Brotman, who confirms the drugs worsened his panic and insists he get clean.

Peter Jennings assigns Harris to cover religion for ABC News, a beat Harris initially resists.

Harris meets Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard and begins to shed his dismissive assumptions about religious faith.

Bianca gives Harris the books of Buddhist psychologist Mark Epstein to help address his anxiety.

Epstein recommends Harris begin meditating and encourages him to connect with meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein.

Harris begins a daily meditation practice using a simple three-step method and notices immediate improvements.

Harris travels to Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California to attend Goldstein's ten-day silent retreat.

After returning from the retreat, Harris coins the phrase "10% happier" to explain meditation's value to skeptical colleagues.

Harris meets the Dalai Lama, who explains that practicing compassion is ultimately an act of wise self-interest.

A new ABC president takes over and Harris becomes passive, allowing major assignments to go to colleagues instead.

Epstein tells Harris that being wisely ambitious means working hard while staying unattached to the outcome.

Dan Harris joins ABC News and becomes a war correspondent, but his relentless drive for success and covert drug use push him toward a public panic attack on live television. After getting clean and being assigned to the religion beat, Harris begins to rethink his assumptions about faith through unexpected encounters with spiritual figures. His wife Bianca introduces him to Buddhist psychology through Mark Epstein's books, and Epstein points Harris toward meditation and teacher Joseph Goldstein. Harris begins a daily practice and attends a transformative ten-day retreat, returning with the insight that meditation made him roughly ten percent happier. After meeting the Dalai Lama and incorporating compassion meditation, Harris faces a career crisis when passivity undermines his professional performance. Guided by Epstein's wisdom about wise ambition and nonattachment to outcomes, Harris achieves a lasting balance between mindfulness and professional drive.

Dan Harris's transformation from panic-stricken journalist to mindful meditator.

Harris begins his career at a small television station in Bangor, Maine, right out of college.

Harris self-medicates with cocaine and ecstasy to combat the depression he develops after returning from war.

Harris and producer Wonbo Woo travel the United States covering stories about religion and the surge in Christian movements.

Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer, leaving Harris without his primary mentor at ABC News.

Ted Haggard is publicly exposed for a relationship with a male escort and drug purchases, and he steps down.

Harris interviews Eckhart Tolle but walks away with no practical method for quieting the inner voice.

Harris moderates an ABC Face-Off debate featuring Deepak Chopra, who dismisses Tolle's work but offers no better answers.

Three followers of self-help leader James Arthur Ray die in a botched ceremony in Sedona, Arizona.

Harris reads Epstein's books and discovers that Tolle's ideas about the ego are rooted in Buddhist thought.

ABC News undergoes major change as Charlie Gibson retires and Diane Sawyer is promoted to head anchor.

Harris learns he did not receive the coveted Nightline anchor position he had been competing for.

Harris breaks down crying during a loving-kindness meditation at the retreat, describing it as the best high of his life.

Harris signs his contract with ABC and begins work as a weekend anchor on Good Morning America.

Harris reports on how General Mills uses mindfulness training to develop more effective corporate leaders.

Harris asks new ABC president Ben Sherwood for permission to write publicly about his on-air panic attack.

Harris's journey begins with humble career origins at a small television station in Maine and takes a dark turn when war reporting leads him to self-medicate with illegal drugs. Covering religion alongside producer Wonbo Woo exposes Harris to figures like Ted Haggard, whose very public fall deepens his complicated relationship with faith and sincerity. Interviews with Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra leave Harris frustrated and skeptical, while the deaths caused by a fraudulent self-help guru push him close to abandoning his spiritual search altogether. Reading Mark Epstein's books renews his interest in Buddhism, and after a major work upheaval and a missed promotion, Harris commits fully to meditation practice. The retreat at Spirit Rock produces a breathtaking emotional breakdown during loving-kindness meditation, and Harris returns to negotiate a new ABC contract and settle into a new on-air role. His story concludes with his meditation journalism winning Diane Sawyer's approval and Harris ultimately securing permission from his new boss to write the book itself.

The people, setbacks, and discoveries that shaped Harris's path to meditation.

Harris is fired upon while reporting from a conflict zone but emotionally detaches in order to keep working.

Harris learns that war correspondents commonly develop PTSD, giving him a framework for understanding his own struggles.

Harris interviews the disgraced Haggard after his scandal and finds himself unexpectedly admiring the pastor's enduring faith.

Harris reads Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth and connects with the concept of a relentlessly negative inner voice.

Harris has an angry outburst at work after being passed over for a major assignment and receives a formal reprimand.

Harris investigates self-help promoters and concludes that many exploit desperate followers with unscientific claims.

Harris meets Mark Epstein for the first time and the two immediately bond over a shared pragmatic worldview.

Harris attends a three-day Buddhism conference and learns Tara Brach's RAIN technique for managing difficult emotions.

Harris nearly abandons the Spirit Rock retreat entirely but is talked through it by teacher Spring Washam.

Harris experiences a dramatic surge of heightened awareness — intense noticings per minute — during a session at the retreat.

Harris feels mudita — sympathetic joy — for loved ones during a meditation session at the retreat.

Goldstein tells Harris that simply asking whether a worry is useful is the retreat's single most practical lesson.

Harris's interview with Paris Hilton ends badly when she walks out, causing him to question his entire approach.

Bianca shows Harris footage of his visible on-air tension and tells him he needs to stop trying to control everything.

Harris interviews an armed drug lord in Rio de Janeiro and silently extends loving-kindness to the man while working.

Harris's transformation begins in the war zone, where emotional detachment while being fired upon plants the seeds of unprocessed trauma that is later recognized as PTSD. His exploration of self-help exposes both the appeal and the fraud at the heart of the industry, while an unexpected post-scandal interview with Ted Haggard forces Harris to reconsider the value of sincere faith. A book by Tolle sparks his interest in the inner voice, and a candid meeting with Mark Epstein opens the door to meditation just as workplace frustrations boil over into a public reprimand. At the Spirit Rock retreat, Harris pushes through near-defeat and experiences a cascade of revelations — from heightened awareness to overwhelming compassion — capped by Goldstein's simple but powerful advice about the usefulness of worry. Back in the professional world, a disastrous Paris Hilton interview and Bianca's honest feedback force Harris to confront the gap between his Zen aspirations and his real behavior. The book closes with Harris putting loving-kindness into practice in a genuinely dangerous situation, demonstrating the full arc of his inner transformation.

The pivotal realizations and emotional turning points that changed Harris's life.