Ready to begin or deepen your meditation practice? Join Dan Harris and world-class meditation teachers on the 10% with Dan Harris app here: https://app.danharris.com/membership The modern world often feels like a dumpster fire — political upheaval, economic volatility, pandemics, AI dread, personal crises that come out of nowhere. Our natural moves in response are either compulsive control or curled-up denial. Today’s guest, who has operated at the very top of the national security apparatus and also sat with a child in a pediatric ICU as a terrified parent, has a much better framework. Dr. Raj Panjabi is a physician at Harvard Medical School and the former Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the White House National Security Council under President Biden. Time Magazine has named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. His new book is Safer: A Playbook — Turning Fear into Action and Crisis into Community. In this episode: – Why denial is hardwired — the evolutionary logic of “normalcy bias” – Why we actually need some normalcy bias (and when it betrays us) – The eight recurring themes that show up in every crisis – The story Raj opens the book with — missing a life-threatening heart condition in his own two-year-old daughter – Play 1: Turn denial into action — the pre-mortem (and Dan’s Stoic version, praemeditatio malorum) – Why making risk concrete and emotional actually works (Kahneman’s loss aversion) – “Liminality” — the acute tipping point you don’t want to be surprised by – The trigger-action discipline for predefined metrics (and how to apply it to parenting) – Play 2: Don’t go it alone — Raj’s family fleeing the Liberian civil war when he was 9 – Dan’s recurring riff about social connection beating all the biohacking in the world – Three circles of community: inner, middle, outer (and the diversification question) – Rebuilding public trust in an age of “conflict entrepreneurs” – The crucial shift from appeal-to-control to appeal-to-curiosity – The smartphone fight Raj’s family nearly lost (and the question that fixed it) – The flexibility play: anchor tightly to purpose, hold loosely to plans – Apollo 8, iterative navigation, and the executive-assistant-in-the-age-of-AI case study – Naming the unknowns — Jacinda Ardern’s model during COVID – Risk vs. uncertainty — and why “10% chance AI ends humanity” is a category error – Play 8: Embrace uncertainty — the shift-the-locus-of-control exercise – Choice point check-ins — “toward” moves vs. “away” moves (from acceptance and commitment therapy) – “No condition is permanent” — the mantra Raj’s father brought from Liberia – Antifragility — building emotional memory cells so the next crisis makes you stronger – Jocko Willink’s “Good” (and Joseph Goldstein’s “don’t waste your suffering”) – What’s Good — Raj on morning pages (via Atul Gawande via Julia Cameron), Dan on HBO’s A Killer Story Subscribe to watch more 10% Happier videos: https://www.youtube.com/tenpercenthappier Follow Dan Harris on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/danharris/ https://www.tiktok.com/@danbharris https://www.facebook.com/DanHarrisABC https://twitter.com/danbharris https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-harris-91ba5716b/ #10PercentHappier #RajPanjabi #Safer This episode is sponsored by: Planet Visionaries: In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, listen to or watch Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts. FIGS Scrubs: Take fifteen percent off your first order at wearfigs.com with the code FigsRx. OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code HAPPIER at www.oneskin.co/HAPPIER #oneskinpod To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris