Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20150317

From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie john brennan is the director of the cia and announced the agency will have a major overhaul. Changes will include the creation of a new directorate of Digital Innovation with a mandate to exploit digital advances. Missions will team spies and analysts. This comes as the United States faces complex threats to National Security. I spoke with john brennan at the council for Foreign Relations and here is that conversation. You emphasize more than once the relationship with intelligence agencies around the world. Is that in any way a fallout from the snowden disclosures . John it reflects how complex the world is and how we have to rely on not just partners in the government but we have to rely on partners overseas because the world is a big place. As capable as the cia is we need to work with services that have eyes and ears on the ground to stop terrorists and proliferators. That is a critically important component of this new world. It is interconnected and we need to rely on partners and also it reflects that despite the damage caused by the disclosures, i have found that over the past two years since i have been at the cia i have a steady stream of foreign partners who emphasize how much they want to continue and build upon relationships with the cia. They know that we bring to bear the insight and intelligence and technology and approaches that they need to be able to address the many challenges that they face. So i do see the world being more interconnected for a variety of reasons in terms of intelligence and law enforcement. Charlie when you look at the threat of terrorism today, what scares you the most about it. John i have forced terrorism for most of my career and i think we see an evolution of the terrorist phenomenon. Dealing with al qaeda over the years, a lot of these organizations were discrete. They were contained organizations. We made a lot of progress against them. Isil represents developments because it has been a phenomenon that has snowballed in terms of appeal so they have made great strides. The roots are in al qaeda and they branched out to syria and they established a caliphate. They have had success using Technology Like youtube in ways that romanticize what is going on but that are inconsistent. This phenomenon is generated a lot of appeal. We see boko haram pledging allegiance, we see these different franchises, whether in libya or solved asia, trying to get on the bandwagon. As a Global Movement that requires us to work with a broad array of partners. Charlie is what is happening in tikrit the beginning of rolling back isil in iraq . John there have been a number of things that are folks who contain the spread and growth. They were on the march towards baghdad and the Iraqi Security forces were able to bolster defenses. Charlie how close were good in terms of the march to go to baghdad . John within a couple dozen miles. They have sent out vanguard forces. Iraqi forces were able to coalesce. Now the push is against dislodging them. We see a combination of forces militia groups including tribal elements that have brought to bear the resources to push isil out of tikrit. That will be an intense battle. If we look at kobani, four months they were trying to gain the victory. They are not invincible, they can be stopped. Charlie could this be accomplished without support of the iranians in terms of the shia militia and their own groups . John the hypothetical, i do not know. The iranians have brought to bear advisors working with the shia militias and have been able to amass a large enough force to be able to push back isils inroads. But the Coalition Strikes that have taken place, a couple thousand strikes, have softened up the forces and disrupted the logistic networks. Although it is looked upon right now that this is an iranian directed shia militia effort there has been tremendous efforts made by the coalition in terms of airstrikes. Charlie and the iraqi army are they fighting back . John the iraq he army that melted away has been able to regroup. There is training and they have been able to augment the forces. This coalition is engaged in trying to strengthen those forces with training and advice. This is going to take time, i would not expect things to turn around immediately here. I think this is going to be a long, tough fight. Isil has a lot of material. They have shown they are willing to kill themselves in defensive defense of some areas. This is a long and bloody fights. Charlie and the help, is that enough on the ground to push into mosul with the help of air support . John there will be an effort by the iraqis, to move into those areas that isil has overrun. I think what needs to be done is a very careful, strategic approach so that they do not go into battle unprepared and unready in order to prevail. I think it is important from a battlefield perspective as well as from a psychological and symbolic perspective that we need to have those victories against isil. They are not invincible but you need to bring to bear capabilities. Charlie it has been said that you can never eliminate or even seriously diminish their power and those are prepared to do something in syria. John and there is a combined effort to work with syria to make sure they do the right thing not just on the battlefield but in terms of political reform so that they can get the Sunni Community involved. In syria we have a government that is problematic and one of the reasons there has been this Great Attraction to the region among fighters. Assad is not a part of serious future as we see it. Charlie what do we need for him to be empowered temporarily to oppose isil . John the crisis in syria which it is will not be resolved on the battlefield. We need to be able to support those elements within syria that are dedicated to removing assad. But there has to be a political pathway to the future. Charlie do you think russia wants to be a part of that . John russia is looking at the problems created by the situation in syria. There are a lot of russian nationals that have traveled and russia is concerned about the foreign fighters. I think they realize that assad is problematic. None of us, russia, the United States, the region, wants to see a collapse in damascus. What we do want is for there to be a future in damascus that will bring into power a Representative Government that will try to address the grievances that exist in a country that deserves a government that will try to represent the people. Charlie you fear the collapse of the government. John we do not want to empower the extreme elements. We have the al qaeda elements. The last thing we want to allow them to do was to march to damascus. That is why it is important to Bolster Forces within the opposition that are not extremists. Charlie do you worry about iran and iraq and what will happen if the iranians want a stronger presence in iraq. John the iranians have a clear interest because they share a border with iraq and a bloody history as well. There are the shia coreligionists inside of iraq. We need to do is make sure it will not be the iranian installation of the internal political situation in iraq that will not allow the iraqi people to live in a country that has a sense of stability. Charlie any coordination on the ground . John there is an alignment of some interest in us and iran. We work closely with the Iraqi Government and the iranians were work closely with the government. Some of these are ones that are trying to advance our common objectives against isil. Charlie speaking of negotiations for nuclear capability, what is for you a central requirement in terms of an agreement . John well, clearly there are aspects of the Nuclear Program that need to be addressed and will give us in the United States and countries in the region and International Partners comfort they are not on the march. That involves enrichment capabilities and what the limits will be for what they can retain. Also cutting off other pathways to a nuclear weapon. Making sure that we can inspect facilities so there will not be this breakout. These are the arrangements. It is a multidimensional package of things, the negotiations are looking at. I must say that in my experience in government, looking at the last six years or so at the march towards the negotiations there has been a very intense, deliberate, careful effort to try to understand all of the different dimensions of the iranian Nuclear Program as well as to address all the areas. This is not something done in a haphazard way and i must say that looking at what the United States government is doing with our partners and how this has proceeded, this has been the most careful and deliberate experience i have seen as far as negotiations to come up with a result that will help with peace in the region. Charlie are you confident with the agreement they are working on now . John i am comfortable that the parties during the negotiation on the u. S. Side are going to have minimum requirements here that we are not going to reduce. That we have to have that confidence and comfort with the arrangements. Not just what iran has agreed to allowing us over the course of the agreement agreed to but allowing us over the course of the agreement to verify. Charlie what is your sense of what putin is involved in . John i think russia and putin clearly have Strategic Ambitions as far as the area on the western border of russia is far as exerting russian influence on countries that. Countries there. And concerns about checking a nato influence there. Putin has reached a point where there is International Consensus about not allowing russia to march in this direction. Thankfully over the last several weeks we have had a reduction in the amount of violence there but i would look to mr. Putin to say how he is going to get himself out of this predicament where the russian economy is i think facing some serious challenges as the result of sanctions and how the International Communities are united. Charlie is it in our interest that you find a way out . John it is always in our interests to find a diplomatic way out. It is encountered on the united incumbent on the United States as the leader of the western world ruptured this. Those who have been that to to those who shape this. We have seen that our partners are taking a leading role as well. Charlie someone in the administration once said to me that they worry most of all about the possibility of a russian making a mistake. Is that something that makes you lose sleep . John in any situation, there is almost a game of brinksmanship as far as the chess moves. It has the potential for escalation that was not the intention. When there is a lot of violence that is going on, there can be a devastating attack or development that will provoke a reaction and a quick series of reactions to that. Talking about a place like the ukraine or the situation between north and south korea, the tinder is dry. That is why there must be constant attention to these issues even though they seem they are simmering right now, it is the time to tension that at bay. There are pressures as far as sanctions and activities. United states recognizes rightly that there are not unilateral solutions. It is important for us to work with partners and gain consensus. Charlie do we include in our partners china . John absolutely. China played a very Important Role in the world stage, increasingly so. Obviously, their economic power is critically important to many countries in the world. We have regular interactions with the chinese. We are trying to make sure that as we engage with the chinese on east asian issues we are cognizant that they are playing more of a role. Charlie what are their ambitions . John they see that their size and power gives them a place on the world stage that is different than it was 1015 years ago. I think that is why they are looking at the various superpower relationships and trying to define them in a way that will advantage chinese interests. They are pursuing a careful and strategic approach as far as how to expand influence. Charlie and consolidating power and increasing the military. John it keeps the chinese economic engine going. He needs to fuel the domestic engine as well. Charlie what is the threat from china on the Cyber Security arena . John if you look at nationstates across the world, engagement in the Digital Domain, there is so much going on. Some countries will believe that any activity in the Digital Domain is ok. I think this is where the norms and standards of behavior in the digital environment are critically important. There have been a number of discussions with the chinese and others about what we think is inappropriate activity in that realm. It is not just a question of large nationstates that our adversaries, there is a lot of capability developing and private Sector Companies so that any country can tap into the capabilities that might exist in these companies and utilize it for National Security or political or business or whatever. Charlie how do you measure the tension between china and japan . John i think when you look at asia, there is one issue out there which is north korea that is a problem for the countries of the region. China, south korea, japan and other states. The unknown actions of a kim jongun as far as work is going to go next, this is worrisome where he is going to go next this is worrisome. There are issues that divide the chinese and japanese. What we would like to do is create a dialogue. Charlie we are committed . John there are alliances and treaties that underscore how important relationships are with those countries. Charlie talking about reform and the levels of reform, when you went to the cia, you are saying that you would like to see the cia do less paramilitary kinds of things. Was that true do you still believe that . John the cia has played a role in a lot of areas. Almost every president has utilized the cias authorities. The covert Action Authority requires paramilitary capability. I believe that the cia needs to retain our military capability so that should the chief executive decide we need to apply it to protect and advance National Security interests, the cia needs to be prepared to do it. I am concerned that the cia has a lot of responsibilities worldwide and that we are able to address those responsibilities capably across the board and not swing wildly one way or another. When i looked back since 9 11 with iraq and afghanistan and counterterrorism, we have had to utilize a number of military skills and capabilities working with partners in order to address the threats we face. Thankfully the cia had that. It is not as though i am trying to diminish it, what i am trying to do this is the motivation to fulfill responsibilities across all of these areas. Charlie how do you see the challenges of the next 50 years . John the world is becoming more and more challenging. Nationstates are under increasing challenge and threat. We see individuals identifying with regional organizations. Just the authority of nation states and governments i think is being looked at at a different way than just 20 years ago. This is one of the things that we need to understand and anticipate with foreign governments because if you are going to have the dissolution of the nationstate structure it will be a more chaotic world. On the analysis we have to not only inform policymakers about trends and developments worldwide, but analysis for cia has taken on more dimensions than when i joined. At that time, analytic work was exclusively limited to the finished products we give to others. Now analysis drives so much of our activity. Talking about operational activities and covert action. That analytic insights, they full advantage of the intelligence that we get as well as taking advantage of the increasingly rich open source environment and social media so that we are in social media so we are better able to inform. Analysis is becoming a driver. Charlie how would you measure success . John preventing further encroachment in syria and iraq and working with Partner Services to identify elements cropping up other places. Those are milestones. Success is going to take time, it is going to take years. In order to manage and describe it not only their capabilities but also their attractiveness and appeal. We need to expose just how murderous and psychopathic they are. Charlie what is the difference between them and barack obama . Who asked the better questions . John they are two of the most impressive individuals that i have had the opportunity to engage with. Having said that, they have a tremendous ability to absorb information. I remember briefing bill clinton about something months previously and he would bring it back up and i had forgot. The same thing with president obama, they both have rapacious appetites for information. Charlie have you seen an evolution in how he views National Security . How he assesses threats to the United States, the tools that he wants to use, his willingness to use force . John i certainly think that there has been a natural evolution. Any president that comes into office does not have a good appreciation of what they will encounter during their term in over the last six years the president has faced more of the strategic and significant National Security challenges than a lot of his predecessors. I think he has gone to school. He understands the complexity and the interdependence of these issues as well as the importance and imperative of working with partners. The United States does not have the unilateral ability to shape world events. It has to work with partners. I think the president looking at whether it is terrorism in the ukraine or north korea, he recognizes just how complex the world is. What he has told me and the cia is that we need to continue to evolve ourselves so we are better prepared to deal with challenges ahead of us and not just the challenges of the 21st century. Charlie some have argued that the cia did not see the arab spring coming, it did not see ukraine, it did not see the rise of isil. If those were mistakes, why . John you said if those were mistakes. I saw the rise of those i think certainly would have identified a number of developments and trends we had identified a number of developments and trends moving in that direction. The arab spring, for years the cia was pointing out how some of the authoritarian regime within the middle east and the arab world were vulnerable to this type of popular reaction. Were we able to determine and forecast that there was going to be a tunisian food salesman that was going to set tunisia and the arab world on fire . No. There have been so many developments recently and a lot of them are populist. The traditional ways of intelligence collection are not giving us insight. Having somebody in a senior government position whispering in our ears might be giving us not the right perspective. We need to have a better sense of what is happening on the streets. That is why looking at social media you can have a better sense of the barometric conditions of the country is going to be more conducive than the forming of a storm. In ukraine, people said you did not say people were going to do this or that. We identified the pros and cons. Putin as well as other leaders have not determined what their next move is going to be on till they see what their opponents chess move is going to be. Intelligence is not having a crystal ball. We need to help understand the forces in play and how certain developments and actions it may offset that calculus. That is what important to cia is actually in a world where we have so many challenges. We are not talked about africa and latin america and venezuela and nigeria. This is something we need to stay a little too because we have a mission that requires us to have information. Different types of technical capabilities, the expertise, being able to work with individuals and other parts of the private sector that we will be up till flesh out our standing. Charlie john, thank you. John brennan of the cia. Charlie dan harris is here. He is a coanchor nbc news nightline. He has covered stories ranging from the Mass Shootings of newtown to combat in iraq and afghanistan. His most terrifying moment as a journalist happened while filling in on good morning america. He suffered a panic attack in front of an audience of 5 million people. That episode led him on a journey to retrain his brain through meditation and he tells the story in his new book called 10 happier. I am pleased to have dan harris. Dan thank you. I am happy to be here. Charlie lets go to the moment. People who do not know the story. Dan i would say at that point probably the worst thing to happen to me. In many ways, it turned out to be one of the best of things. I was filling in as the newsreader on good morning america. And the job is to come on the top of each hour and read a series of headlines. I had done it before. I had no reason to foresee, i was taken over by a bolt of fear. My heart was racing. My mind was racing. I could not breathe. I had to do something i had never done before i had to just quit and toss it back to the main anchors of the show who were diane sawyer and charlie gibson. Afterwards, i went to see a doctor to try to get to the root of what had gone wrong. I knew it was a panic attack. It was unmistakable. I went to a doctor. He asked me a series of questions to get to the bottom of the issue. One of the questions was, do you do drugs . I said, yeah, i do. He leaned back in his chair and said, ok, moron, mystery solved. And he pointed out that even though my drug use was sporadic at the time, it was enough to raise the level of adrenaline and cause me to have a panic attack. We can talk about the drug use if you want. That kind of stems out of my coverage of war. When i came home from spending many months in iraq, i got depressed. I did it is really stupid thing was i self medicated. Charlie how long did it last . Dan about two years and ended 10 years ago. Charlie what kind of drugs . Dan cocaine and ecstasy. Charlie a lot . Dan it depends on how you define a lot. It was not like the wolf of wall street, it was not every day and not while i was at work. It was definitely not when i was on the air. I like to say i was stupid but not that stupid. But as the doctor explained charlie he knew it instantly. Dan yes, there was no further discussion. Charlie what came out of that . Dan it is not a neat and tidy thing where i find out i had been a dummy. Charlie it is a book. Dan it is a book. You know what Alfred Hitchcock said about making movies, it is like life except you take the boring parts out . That is what you do with the book. I am honest about this in the book. The doctor said you have to quit doing drugs. I quit doing drugs. I went to go see this doctor once or twice a week for a long time. It was Something Else that set me on the path of finding meditation which was my boss at the time. A guy you know, peter jennings. He told me i was going to cover faith and spirituality for abc news. I told him, i didnt want to do it. I was raised in the peoples republic of massachusetts by a pair of scientists. I had a bar mitzvah but only for the money. It was not something i was interested in doing. He said i do not care, you are going to do it anyway. As a result of that, ultimately, after learning about faith and making new friends, through a sort of strange set of circumstances, i stumbled upon meditation. Charlie what about religion . Dan i spent a lot of time in mosques and megachurches. Charlie what did you get from that . Meditation . Dan no. What i got was an education in how the world works and the lenses through which most of our coinhabitants on the planet view the world. Charlie the prism they see . Dan raised as i was in the northeast, i do not think i had a serious conversation with a person of faith in my adult life until i got the assignment. I was thrust into this world where i made good friends. Frankly, how ignorant i was. Heres what i took from it. I saw the value of having a world view that transcends your own narrow interests which was very valuable for a young and extremely ambitious reporter. Charlie that is really an eyeopening opening experience. To see there is something larger than you. In a sense that you are simply part of a larger something and to see that, adds to your value appreciation. Dan absolutely. There is no question about it. What i like about meditation there are a lot of things i do not like about it, one of the things i like, it is a way of hammering home into your self daily. And that appeals to me. That really appeals to me. It is a very practical thing to do to provide you with perspective. Thats one of the many reasons. Charlie you do it about 30 minutes a day . Dan i do, but i hate to admit it. A lot of people [laughter] i think there are a lot of reasons why people do not meditate charlie you have to do it every day. Dan people tell themselves, i do not have time. A lot of people tell you should consider meditation and i do not know what your reasons for not doing it, but maybe not enough time. I think 510 minutes is enough. You can start with 510 to minutes. Charlie the question i have not been able to overcome. I would do it in a second. And some of the people friends of mine tell me how much it has meant to their life. Serious people of great accomplishments. It has added to their life in monumental ways. I am a worldclass napper. I do not know what it does for me that napping does not. Dan a lot. Charlie what . Convert me. [laughter] dan i am strongly pronap. Like you, a couple of days a week, i anchor a morning show. I need a nap. I have a newborn at home. I like his model of sleeping. I am not trying to say you shouldnt nap, but something to add on top of it. There are a couple of reasons. One is, what you do in meditation the word meditation is like sports, it describes a wide variety of activities. When i am talking about my meditation, i am talking about mindfulness meditation. There are two big benefits. Charlie here comes your introduction to meditation. Dan first big benefit is your ability to focus. We live an era described as the info blitz. Besieged by status updates charlie information overload . Dan absolutely. What you are doing in meditation is focusing on one thing and get lost and start thinking about what am i going to have for lunch and whatever, your mind is going to go nuts. The whole game is to notice when you have gotten lost and start over. That is a muscle. Youre exercising the muscle in your mind. That is very useful in an era when your attention is fractured and besieged all of the time. That is benefit to number one. Benefit number two is, mindfulness. What is mindfulness . Mindfulness is an ancient term kind of boring sounding term but a game changer. There are many definitions but one is the ability to know what is going on in your head without getting carried away. Charlie without getting carried away . Dan the ability to see what is happening in your mind without necessarily being the fish that bites the hook and getting yanked around. You have an internal charlie rose that is yammering at you as soon as you open your eyes and maybe even before, all day long. This internal charlie rose, this voice has you wanting stuff, not wanting stuff. Judging other people. Making choices. Many of them impulsive. Comparing yourself to other people, thinking about yourself. My friend, sam harris, wrote a book about meditation. He said when he thinks what the voice in his head, he feels like he has been kidnapped by the most boring person alive who says that the same things over and over. Charlie how are the voices in your head different than mine . Dan i think there are a lot of similarities between every bodys voices. There are a series of characteristics. Focus on the past or the future. It is focused on you. It is largely negative and very repetitive. It can be kryptonite for the voice. Charlie talk to me how you came to it and found the right meditation for you and how you wound up how i obtained the voice in my head, reduce stress without losing my edge. If i could say to the people out there, im going to help you reduce stress, help you do all of this without losing your edge and help you find selfhelp that works, send me one dollar. [laughter] dan better yet, send it to me. I think, first of all, the subtitle mentions selfhelp and that is where it starts. I have been assigned to cover religion by peter. As a consequence, i stumbled upon selfhelp. I interviewed a guy who turned out to be a guy who was a massively successful selfhelp guru. Charlie what does selfhelp mean . Dan it is like what i said, meditation means a lot. Selfhelp is illdefined term basically books that help you improve yourself, develop your potential. Charlie there a lot of those books. Dan there are. There is a spectrum from very bad to like kind of bad. And i think he would refer to himself, i know he would, as a spiritual teacher. Anyway, i read his book and at first i thought it was irredeemable garbage. Filled with all of this grandiose language about how the book was going to create a spiritual awakening for the reader. Scientific claims and at one point, claim that he had a spiritual awakening and afterwards lived on park benches in the city of london in a state of bliss for two years. I am not a meteorologist but i think they have winter. So, i was completely unimpressed. He started to unfurl a thesis about the human condition i have never heard before and we all have, we all have the voice in her head. It was what i was saying before. You have an internal charlie rose that is in a constant conversation with you. Most of us are unaware. This is the first person i heard talk about it. I was intrigued. I went and interviewed him. One of the luxuries of our job is as you know, if we read a book and are interested, we can interview him. I asked him, what you do about the voice in the head . This is interesting, what you do . He took a breath and said, he took a beat and said, well, take one conscious breath. The voice in my head was saying, what the hell does it mean . I started pressing for practical advice and he did not have any. It was kind of like he had pointed out that my hair was on fire and refused to give me a fire extinguisher. It puts me in a place of being intrigued, but im not sure what to do next. I spent a lot of time hanging around with selfhelp gurus. I met a lot of questionable people that argue you can get whatever you want through positive thinking which we can talk about but i think its a horrible idea. And finally, my then fiance and now wife and baby momma, bianca, said i have been listening to you talk about this stuff, it sounded similar to a book i read. She handed me a book and it was by a buddhist psychiatrist. I started to read the book. All of the stuff i loved best seemed to have been taken from the buddha about who i knew nothing. Charlie did you call him and ask if he read the book . Dan we do not have that kind of relationship. The buddhists, unlike eckhart tolle, has a really practical suggestion for dealing with the voice in the head and it is meditation. I did not want to do it. I thought it was for hippies and freaks and weirdos and people into cat stevens. That is what i thought. People who use the word namaste without any irony. I thought it was completely ridiculous. Charlie do you know any of them . Dan i grew up with them. [laughter] my parents were hippies. They made me go to yoga class when i was five years old. And this was kind of like preyoga, early adopters and not in a good way. The yoga teacher made me take my jeans off and do the stretches in my tighty whities, in front of all of the other kids, so it gave me a negative attitude about all things new agey. I found out there is an enormous amount of science that suggests that meditation can lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system, literally rewire key parts of your brain that has to do with focus, compassion basic wellbeing and then i decided to do it. Charlie how long did it take you to get into it . Dan it is a more complicated question than you might imagine. The first time i did it, i hated it. I also realized it was not hippie nonsense. In fact, it was exercise for the brain. I had 2 simultaneous reactions. One is it is really hard and i suck at it. And 2, i get why this is helpful and i will keep doing it. I resolved i would do 510 minutes a day in perpetuity and i stuck with it. Charlie what difference . Dan the key difference is the word mindfulness. Most of the things we do that we are most embarrassed about let me say it again. Most of the things we do in our lives about which we are the most ashamed are the result of impulsive, mindless actions. Charlie i agree with that. Dan so for me, it was what was the most mindless thing i ever did. It was going to war zones as an ambitious young guy without thinking about the consequences, coming home and getting depressed and being insufficiently selfaware to know it and selfmedicating. I think as i had a meditation back then, i wouldve avoided that. I wouldve avoided the panic attack. And it is i have a different set of problems now but i have to navigate a very stressful career in ways that reduce my emotional reactivity and make me calmer, a better listener, a better colleague, a better husband. I am less likely to say the barbed comment to my wife that will ruin the next 48 hours of my marriage. I am more likely to look at my baby and checking my email. Those are the benefits. Charlie having said what you said, if in fact you did not do 10 minutes a day, on the seventh day, would you be more likely to be all of the things you are not . Dan yes. Charlie the old dan would kick in . Dan i think so. There are times in my life i cannot meditate. Charlie napping brings me down. I wake up fresh. Dan if you do not sleep, you will literally lose your mind. Charlie there is a ton of medical literature about sleep. The best one is, we need a significant amount of sleep. People who run around bragging about how little sleep they need, they are a tiny minority. Dan i am glad you brought up sleep. I am not proposing medication is a Silver Silver bullet. There is a reason it is called 10 happier. Charlie i assumed it was Something Like that. Dan i am counterprogramming. Just to get back to sleep, i just think that there is a whole when it comes to happiness, i am a maximist. We should pull every lever we can. Sleep, eat well, be loved, all of that. Charlie is it a substitute for meditation . What ought to compete with the meditation for the result of meditation . Dan i do not think anything does. You know why, what about my gardening, is it meditation . I am not antigardening and definitely not antirunning. Meditation can be anything you Pay Attention to. Just paying attention is one of the main ingredients. I think you need a couple of minutes a day off formal practice in order to really get it. Charlie when you say meditation, what do you mean . Dan i mean mindfulness. It is simple and secular. And do not even have to join a group. You do not have to wear special outfits or believe in anything. Its just derived from buddhism but all of the buddhist language stripped out. Ia am not going to make you do it, but i will explain how to do it. When i taught one of the tech reporters at the New York Times at the time how to do it in fewer letters then how to send a tweet. The first step is to sit with your spine straight and eyes closed. Focus your full attention on the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. The third step is the key. As soon as you try to focus on the feeling of your breath, your mind will go nuts. It will start wandering. You will ask yourselves silly questions and doing your to do list or whatever. You want to notice when your mind has gotten carried away and start over. And start over again and again and again. You are literally rewiring your brain. By the way, it is a radical act. Most of us have trouble paying attention at the present moment. We are wrapped up in the past. You are happily an outlier. Charlie the book is called 10 happier. Dan harris, thank you. A pleasure. Congratulations i think selfawareness is a remarkable thing. To bring to bear anything that helps you do that makes you a more interesting person. Dan thanks. Charlie see you next time. Cory live from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to bloomberg west, where we covered innovation, technology, and the future of business. S p up 1. 4 . It led to speculation the fed may hold off on interestrate hikes expected at the middle of the year. A plunge in the ecb Bond Buying Program has lifted european stocks. The german dax has closed above 12,000 for the first time