Dr. Rangan Chaterjee: #1 Way to Break a Bad Habit & Why 50% of What Doctors Learn in Medical School Turns Out Wrong

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Or behaviors either come from the energy of love or
the energy of fear. The more powerful question is not
which expert should I trust? It's why do I no
longer trust myself? A UK based physician, over a million
people listen to his podcast every week.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Doctor Rung and Chatterjay, you say that when you went
to medical school, fifty percent of what you were learning
was going to be wrong at some point.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We just don't know which fifty percent.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
What would you say is the number one advice for
someone who says I want to break a bad habit,
it just can't happen.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
The number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Jay said, Jay Sheidy, Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
I'm so grateful that you come back every week to
become a happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guests is
one of your favorites. Doctor Rung and Strategy a UK
based physician, an author, wellness expert and podcast host known

(01:00):
for empowering people to take control of their health through
simple lifestyle changes to rethink it. His sixth and latest book,
Make Change That Last, offers a personalized approach to simple
nine strategies for lasting change in daily life to unlock
long lasting health and happiness. This I truly believe is

(01:23):
Rongan's best book yet, and that's saying a lot. He's
had some incredible books out of the last few years.
Go and grab your copy right now. You won't regret
it and make these nine strategies a part of your
daily life. Welcome to On Purpose, Doctor Rungan, chat with
you Rung And it's great to have you.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Back, Jay. I love coming on your show. You're such
a wonderful host, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
No, it's so great to have you here. Always wrong, Like,
I really enjoy our conversations. I enjoy our interactions offline
as much as I do online. And I remember when
you were talking about this book with me, when you
were first I think, putting it together, and there was
this excitement and then that you had in this look
in your eye where it was like this was the
first time it was like a medical doctor was writing

(02:06):
somewhat of a philosophical spiritual book. Yeah, but with a
scientific lens. And I think it's come together brilliantly. So
congrats on trying to mesh those things together. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Thanks, It's the book that my heart wanted to write.
I would say, more than anything I've ever done before,
this has come out to me. It had to come
out of me. And I'm in that funny position, Jay,
where I feel that I've already had the success through
writing the book. Yes, I hope it lends with people,
but even if it doesn't, like I've won by writing it,

(02:39):
and it's been a really authentic process. And frankly, it's
about something I'm super passionate about, which is helping people
make change that last. I think the title says it all.
We can all make change, but often it's only for
a few weeks or a few months. How many people
can make change that truly lasts, How many people can
truly transform their lives for good? It's not as many

(03:02):
as we would like. And this book is my attempt
to help people solve that problem.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, it's brilliant, I mean, talking about change. I want
to go back to something you say in the book.
So you say that when you went to medical school,
fifty percent of what you were learning was going to
be wrong at some point, you just didn't know which
fifty percent, And so I wanted to ask you, what's
something that you learned at medical school that today you
believe to be untrue and you've discovered new truths about well.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
We were actually taught that. It was a professor at
Adamram Medical School. He said to us. I can remember
being in the anatomy lecture theater and he said, guys,
fifty percent of what you learn is going to turn
out to be wrong. We just don't know which fifty percent.
And I think that has huge relevance for all of us. Actually,
and I come to that shortly. But in terms of

(03:52):
one thing that I learned that I now believe not
to be true, I'd almost flip it the other way,
in the sense that I was never taught how much
our lifestyle can impact our health. I was taught that actually,
people come in to see you and they have a
set of problems. We need to hear what those problems are,

(04:13):
collect them, give them a label, and then give them
a pharmacuis good treatment. Whereas the more I practice medicine,
and I've been a dotsor for twenty three years now,
I realize, Wow, that only helps us for a small
fraction of people. And if you flip it, it's like, no,
our lifestyles, the way we eat the way we move,

(04:34):
the way we sleep, but also the way that we
think and the way we approach adversity. Those things all
combined together to create our health. And Jane, I think
you'll resonate with this. One of the things I've realized
over the past couple of years of really reflecting on
the way we're trained in Western medicine. And this is
not me saying I'm anti Western medicine. I think Western

(04:55):
medicine is exceptionally good at many things, but unfortunately for
most of the things we now see, the chronic lifestyle
driven illness, it's just not as helpful. Right, and fundamentally,
Western medicine teaches us that things go wrong in the body. Right,

(05:15):
we get taught to diagnose disease and treat disease. We
don't get taught how to create health. How do you
create vitality? What are the factors in someone's life that
allows them to live their best life? And you know,
with our culture, with our Indian backgrounds, are you eating
medicine for many years has been talking about this. Traditional

(05:38):
Chinese medicine has been talking about this. So for me,
it's not a battle of Eastern medicine versus Western medicine,
it's what is the best of Western, what is the
best of Eastern? How do we blend them together? And
I'd like to think that I've done that throughout my
career and hopefully in this book give people a real
practical toolkit.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, that and that definitely resonates. And I wanted one
thing that caught my eye when I was reading the book.
I wanted to ask you, why have you never told
a patient to quit smoking, to just quit smoking? Why
have you never said that.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
I've never told a patient that they must give up smoking,
Because I don't think that's my role. And I think
this is where we go wrong in medicine and frankly
in any relationship, because what is the relationship I have
in my patient? Says a doctor patient relationship? But this
principle kind of works parent, child, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend.

(06:33):
These are just human relationships. Nobody wants to be told
what to do by somebody else. At some point, if
you're going to make transformative change, it's got to come
from within. So one of the things that I've always
rebelled against in my career as a doctor is this
rather paternalistic approach that we get taught in medical school

(06:54):
that doctor knows best. Patient comes in, you tell me
what the issue is. Then I'll tell you what's wrong
with you and what you need to do. Some people
may be able to make that approach work. I couldn't,
and I'll tell you why I couldn't. If a patient
comes in and asks for my opinion, that's very important.
One thing I've tried to change in my life over

(07:14):
the past few years is never to give unsolicited advice. Right. So,
if the patient's in in front of me and says,
dotr chatity, listen, I'm not feeling good. What impact is
smoking having on my health? I feel that my role
as a fellow human being is to explain to them
what impact I think smoking is having on their health. Now,

(07:35):
if at the end of that conversation, if I'm confident
that they've understood me and that they retained the information,
and they say, hey, dot strategy, I understand what you're saying.
But I get so much enjoyment out of smoking that
I'm prepared to put it with the consequences. I don't
feel that's my job to change their minds. I feel

(07:56):
it's a deep respect that I have for my patients.
If they understand it, I want to do it. I'm
okay with that. And I'll tell you, Jay, what I've
learned over the years is that by taking that approach,
I feel I've had really good compliance with my patients,
like really good compliance. Like a lot of doctors will say.
I have this course called Prescribing Life, some medisan that

(08:17):
I created with the Royal College of GPS with a
friend of mine, with a colleague, and we have trained
thousands of healthcare professionals around the world. And the principles
that I talk about in this book and my previous books,
and one of the things people would say to me
doctors would say, hey, actually listen, I get all this,
but patients don't listen to what we tell them. And
even the way that they phrase that is really interesting

(08:40):
to me. I don't tell my patients what to do.
It's not my role. I want to connect with my patients.
I want to then educate and empower them, but I
always want to connect first. So going back to your
initial question, why do I Why have I never told
a patient that they must give up spoking? It's my
role to do that. And here's what happens when you

(09:03):
treat people like an equal. You don't look down at them,
you don't think that you know better than them. What
will often happen. They may say I want to smoke, right,
I understand, but I enjoy this. They'll come back two
months later they'll be like, hey, dot's chash. You know
I said I wanted to keep smoking because I enjoy
it so much. Actually, I've been thinking, can you help

(09:26):
me start to change that? But often, if you say
you must give up smoking, it's going to give you cancer,
it's going to increase your risk of heart attacks. I
just don't think that works in the long term. You
make short term change. But as for the title of
this book, you don't make change that lasts. And that principle, frankly,
as I say, applies far beyond the dots of patient relationship.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah. I mean, I love hearing that because I think
there's such a humanity to it. And also a big
part of making change that lasts is someone making change
for themselves exactly. They really believe that this change will
help them be a better parent, a better professional, a
better person, a better functioning human. And if I feel

(10:11):
pressured into making change, or if I feel pushed into
making change, then chances are I'm going to fall right
back into that habit. So if someone does come up
to you and say, doctor, chatatejy, how do I break
a bad habit? What would you say? Is the number
one advice for someone who says I want to break
a bad habit? It just can't happen. It's just never happened.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
There's many ways of tackling bad habits, but if you're
asking me for the number one tip, it would be
related to our environments. Right, So we don't realize how
much our environment influences our behavior. I feel that being
here in La I've been here for a week now.
The people I've been hanging out with over the past

(10:55):
week are really into health and wellness. Right, So everyone
around me who I'm in for acting with, wants to
eat well, they want to go to bed early, they
want to look after themselves. So even though I'm away
from home, when I'm in this exciting city, I naturally respond. Right.
It's been really telling for me, and it really gave
me an insight as to that if you live in

(11:15):
an environment where your family, where your friends, where the
things you have in your house are encouraging, unhelpful, behaviors.
You're going to be struggling, right, You're going to be
constantly fighting your environment. So what does that mean for
an individual who's trying to say to me, I want
to eat less sugar, for example, which is very common

(11:37):
right especially at New Year. I have said to my
patients for years, if you don't want to eat it,
don't bring it into your house. Don't exercise willpower in
your house, because you have to exercise it as soon
as you walk out the front door. Now, that's been very,
very helpful for so many of my patients, and it's
kind of what I do in my own life. Even

(11:59):
though I really understand my internal triggers these days, which
I think is really important. I just don't make life
more difficult for myself than I need to. That I
won't bring into my house the potato chips, the chocolates,
the biscuits, whatever it might be, because I know I'm
human just like everyone else. At some point, I'll come

(12:20):
back stressed and tired, and I want to open the
cupboard and see what's there? Nothing wrong with that. If
people are doing that, I don't want them to feel
guilt or shame, but I think they need to understand
that if you have it there, it's going to be
harder for you. Now, related to that example, I have
an exercise, Joe, that I'd love to share with your audience,

(12:42):
if that's okay.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
As a doctor. Many people will say, dots Chashi, I
know that excess sugar is not helping me, but I
can't stop. Right. I'm really good in the day, but
at nine pm, do you do you recognize this? Jay?
I used to. I worked really hard at this. Yes,
I It's really common. Right, That's why people have been

(13:05):
you know, in adverts Icma is good during the day,
but at I their kids are in bed, or they're
sitting on the sofa, there's a box set on. I
really feel like ice cream. So I have this exercise
that I created for my patients so that it has
been so helpful that I've used with myself. Called the
three f's. Okay. The three f's are feel, feed, and find. Okay.

(13:28):
So if someone's listening Jay, and they have this issue,
which I suspect will be quite a lot of people,
I would say, Okay, you're sitting on your sofa, you're
craving the ice cream. Okay, just take a pause, just
for a second. Take a pause and ask yourself the
first F feel what are my feeling? Is it physical
hunger or is it emotional hunger? Okay, ah, well you

(13:50):
know what, I'm actually not basically hungry. I had a
huge meal one hour ago. Oh, I feel a bit stressed,
I feel a bit lonely, whatever it might be. Then
go ahead and have it. Okay. I just want you
to start building in some self awareness, which is the
missing piece in behavior change with people. If you ask
me the big thing that we're missing. The next time

(14:10):
you're on the sofa and you're you can do this
all in one go if you want, but you know
some people find it difficult. So the next time you're
on the sofa, I would say, do the first F again,
what am I feeling? Then go to the second F,
which is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Ah? Oh,
I was feeling stressed. When I have I scream, at

(14:31):
least in the short term, I feel less stressed. Okay, cool.
Now you're developing a bit of an understanding as to
why I'm engaging with this behavior. Okay, great, If you
want to eat it, go ahead and eat it with
no gilt and no shame, Go and enjoy it, and
then the next time go through this f's what am
I feeling? How does food feed the feeling? Which is

(14:52):
the second F? And then the third F is fine?
Now that I know what the feeling is, Now that
I know how food feeds that feeling, can I find
an alternative behavior to feed that feeling? So it could be, Oh,
I feel stressed, That's why I go to sugar. What
else could I do instead of sugar? Oh? I really

(15:13):
like yoga. Maybe I'll go on YouTube and do a
term minute yoga sequence. Maybe you feel lonely. You've been
on zoom calls all day, you haven't seen your friends
or your partner, and it's a bit of a treat
to yourself in the evening. That's very common. You know,
people aren't hungry, but they just it's in a little
treat to themselves. Okay, how else could you nourish yourself? Oh? Well,

(15:35):
maybe I could run myself a bath and have a
ten to fifty minute bath to myself. Maybe I'm feeling lonely,
I could phone a friend or a parent or whatever
it might be. Every single behavior we engage with serves
a role in our life. You'll only change your behavior
in the long term if you understand the role it's playing.

(15:56):
So that is it's a very simple exercise. I've described
it through the lens of shit, okay, but the truth
is you can apply that to anything. You can apply
that to alcohol, three hours, doom, scrolling on Instagram, online pornography,
online shopping, whatever you want. It's a simple exercise, which
are my favorite kinds of exercises that can be very
very powerful once you start engaging with it. Yeah, I

(16:19):
think it's spot on.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I think if you think about it, we're constantly chasing
a feeling, an emotional fix, and we usually turn to physical,
tangible things that we think are going to make us
feel that way. Right, as you said, like, really, what
I'm trying to do is lower stress, and I've just
created the mechanism to think, if I want to lower stress,

(16:41):
I need to indulge in ice cream. And that's the
connection we've made. Whereas, like you're saying, there's so many
other ways and actually could be a natural source of sugar.
It could be a low sugar product if that's what
you're after. It could be as you said, a yoga session,
breath work, whatever, it may be.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
What I find though, is that when you first try
and make that change, it literally feels like you're fighting
against yourself, right. It almost feels like there's this internal battle.
And I'm at the point now, having worked on some
of these things for a while, I'm at a point
now where I believe my taste buds have actually changed exactly.
The feeling and the desire is evolved, and I'm able

(17:20):
to deal with it in a healthier way.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
But there's that middle part where you feel like you're
just like, come on, I've got to give in.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
I've got to give in.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, you said two key words there for me, and
these are the two missing words I think in behavior change,
internal struggle. This is really what I'm trying to get
across to people. Every single behavior is downstream, usually from
something inside you. And we're living in a world where

(17:50):
we want to consume more and more information, get more
and more knowledge, which is helpful up to a point.
Now I'll come back to that point. So I think
it's a really important one. I just want to that's
what you said about it feeling difficult. Out of those
three f's, the most important F is the first one.
Why because it suddenly just breaks you out of your

(18:12):
repetitive cycle. I feel stressed, I want so my scream,
I go to the freezer, and before I know it,
I've had half the tub. That is very, very common.
You think that's who you are. It's not who you are,
it's who you've become, and you can unbecome it if
you start to do that first F. It is simply

(18:32):
the knowledge that I can take a pause. There is
a gap between the stimulus and the response when you
are repeating your behavior's day to day, when they become habits,
whether good habits or unhealthy habits, there's no gap. There's
a feeling, there's a stimulus, and there's a response, usually

(18:53):
an unhealthy response in this current climate right for many people,
So that first F creates a gap. Now often say yes,
not's actually but you know and now that I'm aware,
so what what can I do? I'm like, wait a minute.
Ninety percent of change in my experience is that first
F is understanding, Oh, this is why I'm going to it. Sure,

(19:16):
it may take a few weeks, it may take a
few months to really work on that relationship and start
to tweak it, because how long did it take you
to develop this relationship. Maybe you've been using sugar to
manage stress for twenty years. You're not going to change
that in one week in January just because you wake
up thinking I want to make this year the best
year of my life, You're not going to It is

(19:38):
a process of change. But what people miss Jay, for
me is that that process where you learn what this
behavior is doing for you. You struggle, you sometimes can't make
the change that you want, other times you can. That
process is where the gold is. That's when you're learning

(19:58):
about yourself. That's you get the mastery about yourself. Oh
I always when I have a row with my partner,
I don't feel good, so yeah, I want sugar. Or
when I'm alone or I'm traveling for work and I'm
away from my wife and my kids, that's when i
just want to spend three hours on Instagram because I'm
looking for connection. That's where the gold lies. And for me, Jay,

(20:22):
the most important chatter in this book is chapter one,
which is called trust Yourself. And I don't think we're
talking about this enough in the health and wellness space.
People are getting confused. Right, you must get this on
your show, like I do on my podcast, right, this
idea that despite our best efforts at trying to navigate
the complexity. What I often find, Jay, is people will

(20:44):
say to me, not often, but it happens enough that
I know that this is an issue. Chat You know,
two months ago, you had this credential expert from Harvard's
and they said this diet is really good, like a
Keith to jendera is really good for mental health. And
they sound really trustworthy. They've got all the credentials, and

(21:06):
they've quoted four or five research studies to back up
what they think, and I thought, okay, amazing. And then
last week you spoke to another doctor, also well credentialed,
who said, no, a vegan diet or a whole food
plan basedite is best for mental health, and presented five
studies to support what they have to say. People would
contact me and say, Chatty, I'm really confused. Right, both

(21:28):
of those experts they sound great, They've all got research
to back up what they're saying. I don't know which
experts to trust. And Jay, what I've realized is that's
the wrong question. The more helpful question, the more powerful question,
is not which experts should I trust? It's why do

(21:49):
I no longer trust myself? Yeah? That is the magic
to behavior change. You have to start tuning into the
signals your body is giving you. Using that example, I
would say to someone, hey, I tell you what, why
do you have to choose which one's right? Maybe they're
both right for certain people, but they're not right for anyone. Right,

(22:13):
So I would say, Okay, try this expert started for
four weeks, and whilst you're trying its, pay attention. Pay
attention to what's going on. What's your energy like, what's
your vitality, how are your relationships, how's your sleep, how's
your focus, how's your concentration? Pay attention. I go, okay,
I try that for four weeks. Now, let me try

(22:33):
this other person's start for four weeks, and again, pay attention.
I promise if you start paying attention, you'll very quickly
find out what is the right diet for you at
that moment in your life. And I feel that we're
not talking about this enough. We're still we've we've got
to appoint Jay where we've outsourced our own inner expertise

(22:59):
to external experts. I'm not saying ignore external experts. Right,
you have some great experts on your show each week.
I have some great experts on my podcast each week.
But you should listen to their advice and put it
through your own filter, and then you figure out what
works for you. And honestly, if you say, what is
the key thing you've learned in twenty three years of

(23:20):
seeing patients, I've seen tens of thousands of patients. I've
learned many things, But I would say no one approach
works for everyone. It just doesn't. And when we try
and make it work for everyone, it's a problem because
people feel like failures. Right. People feel, oh, I'm following
the experts advice. I'm doing what they said to do.

(23:41):
It's not working. There must be something wrong with me.
They start to feel guilty, they start to feel like
they're a loser, they start to have shame. Those things
never lead to long term behavior change. And you know
the other thing, Jay, I've learned and I love your
view on this because I think it probably resonates with
the way you see the world. I think we focus

(24:04):
too much on the behavior. For me, it's the energy
behind the behavior that's the most important thing. You need
to go what's behind the behavior. And I've realized that
in life, all behaviors either come from the energy of
love or the energy of fear. If it's coming from
the energy of fear, so guilt, shame, I'm not good enough,

(24:28):
those changes will not last in the long term. I've
been doing this a long time. I have seen it.
It lasts for January, it lasts for a few months.
It doesn't lead to long term transformation because your behaviors
are in conflicts with the way that you see yourself.
If it's coming from an energy of love, that I
like who I am, I want to improve my life,

(24:50):
that I'm going to be compassionate to myself, those changes.
It can be the same behaviors, working out, eating well,
going to bed on time, getting it whatever it might be.
It can be the same behavior. But if the energy
behind it is from the energy of love, that's when
the changes start to become long term, and I really

(25:11):
get I don't get frustrated. Nothing frustraights anymore. Really, if
I'm completely honest, because I've been doing the inner work
for many years, I just I can stay quite detached
from things. I just see them for what they are.
But as a doctor, I guess I believe we made
behavior change so difficult, Jay, I don't even say it's
hard anyone. I'll tell you why. I don't say that.

(25:31):
I used to say, you know, I know it can
feel hard. I know it's hard as a way trying
to empathize with people. But if we say, if we
constantly say, oh, it's difficult, Oh it's going to be hard,
we're prejudging the experience for people. Sure it may feel challenging,
but it doesn't always have to. And I've experienced that myself.
So five years ago, Jay, I would have a very hard,

(25:56):
very harsh, inner voice. So on January the first, I
would be very much I'm going to meditate this year,
like twenty minutes a day, and I do it for
fourteen days and I feel like I'm rocking. Yeah, this
is a I've got meditation down this year that I
miss a day that the self taught would start. Man,
you couldn't do it, You couldn't do it wrong? And
could you you know you're a loser whatever. I used
to have a really harsh, negative voice not that long ago,

(26:18):
but I have completely changed it through all the things
that I share in this book. Right, I've completely changed it.
Back then, behavior change felt difficult because it was in
conflict with how I saw myself. Now that I liked myself.
Dare I say, talking to a fellow brit that I
love myself? Right? Can you imagine in the UK saying

(26:41):
that you know? I do, though not in a narcissistic way.
But I like who I am. I think I'm a
nice guy. I'm kind, I'm compassionate, I help people. I'm
no longer competitive, as I've talked to you about on
a previous episode on your show, like, I just want
to raise people up when you feel like that, and
everyone can feel like that if they know which leads

(27:04):
to turn. But hate you change becomes so much easier
because you're not trying to fight yourself. Does that what
make sense?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
It makes a lot of sense. I mean two things
came to mind as you were speaking. The first was
you can't change something you hate. You can only change
something you love, and that includes yourself. Because if you
hate something, how much energy will you give it, how
much focus will you give it, how much direction will
you give it? Whereas when you love something, you'll be

(27:32):
present with it, You'll be right there with it. And
I feel we're trying to hate ourselves into change, And
you're so right. I remember years ago as well, like
having a very very harsh negative in a voice, and
it did all the things you said. I would shame myself,
I would guilt myself, I would judge myself, and none
of that helped me change. If anything, it took longer

(27:54):
for me to get back to where I wanted to
get to, because when you fall off after fourteen days
of meditation, now, when you're judging and guilting and shaming yourself,
you feel like you can't do the thing unless you
can be perfect.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, and then you go to more unhelpful behaviors. And
in some ways, I've realized you you would have been
better off never doing those fourteen days in the first place,
because you feel like a failure. And you know, it's interesting.
Someone once asked me about, what are your non negotiables wronging.
I've realized, Jaye, I no longer have any, because a
non negotiable to me feels like a harsh rule. So

(28:27):
let's use that through the lens of this meditation practice.
Where I tried for fourteen days, I miss one day.
I beat myself up. Now, yeah, I meditate most mornings,
but not every morning, and if I miss, I'm like, okay, yeah,
sure I didn't do it today. Oh I'm a better person.
I'm a bit calmer when I do. And I say, yeah,

(28:48):
I must make sure I do that tomorrow. It's a
very different relationship. That energy behind the behavior is completely different.
So I wasn't like you, j One. I want to
get practical for people. So I have these three questions
I ask myself every morning. But one of those questions
I think really applies here. So you teach an audience
Jay on a consistent basis about living an intentional life,

(29:12):
a purposeful life, right, And I think a lot of
people don't realize how powerful the mornings are. We all
have a morning routine, whether we think we do or not.
The question is are we intentional about it? Have we
thought about the consequences of how we start each day?
Because somebody say, oh, they're not for me. You know,
it's a bit cliche, this idea of a morning routine,

(29:34):
whatever it might be. And I'm like, no, no, you've
got a routine. You just made it a thought about it.
So what I've learned Shay over the years is that
so many of our thoughts our feelings. Our behaviors are
downstream from the content we consume. So if you wake
up and the first thing you do is going on

(29:55):
to your phone and go on the news and see
the negativity that the news is telling us from all
over the world. You go onto your work emails and
see the backlog that you didn't complete, or whatever it
might be. You go into social media and get caught
up in an argument or whatever it might be. Does
it really surprise you that half an hour later you

(30:16):
may be a little reactive with your kids or your partner,
or you may feel a little negative about the state
of the world. When you look at it like that,
I think it's quite obvious if that's what you're inputting
into your brain. Think about it as software. That's what
you're inputting in. Of course, the outputs straight after that.
For many people it's going to be negative as well.

(30:36):
If you have a more intentional start to your day
with a bit more positivity, don't I'm not talking about
toxic positive. Is your fake positivity just intentionally going Whether
it's gratitude. I mean, one of the questions that I
ask is a gratitude question. What is one thing I
deeply appreciate about my life. It helps shift your mindset
and where you're going to place your attention. But where

(30:57):
I finish my morning routine is with this what I
considered to be a very powerful question, What quality would
I like to showcase to the world today. It's a
simple question, but it's very very powerful because it forces you. Yeah,
let me rephrase that. I don't even like using the
word force anymore. It feels a bit of an aggressive word, right,

(31:17):
It doesn't. It feels like it's coming from the energy
of fear rather than the energy of love. I have
the opportunity each morning with that question to set the
intention of how I wish to show up. So often
it will be I wish to showcase the quality of
patience today or compassion, and you write it down. I

(31:41):
write it down in my journal and I think about it.
What would it look like today to show the quality
of patience or compassion? Ah? You know, if I get
caught up in a a in a traffic I'm not
going to stop rating people. I'm just gonna smile and
be kind. If I get an email I maybe don't like,
I'm going to just take a break and naturally not
respond In the moment. If my wife says this to

(32:04):
me or whatever about the dishes or whatever, I'm just
going to go, hey, it's cool.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Maybe she's having a bad day and I'm just going
to smile and be compassionate. It sounds too simple to work.
This is transformed. It really works now just by sending
the intention. It doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect.
So I have a couple of questions I asked myself
in the evening, which helps balance this What went well

(32:29):
today and what can I do differently tomorrow? So what
went well today could be again it's a form of gratitude.
It could be that, you know what, I had a
really busy day, I didn't take a lunch break, I
got home late, but I still found twenty minutes to
make my family a home cooked meal instead of ordering
takeout or whatever. It might be. Okay, you're just going

(32:50):
because we have a negativity bias. Instead of focusing on
all the things that you didn't get done and the
stress in your day and what you know, how you
behaved or whatever, you're putting attention on what you did do,
which I think is very powerful. But then the second
part of that question, Jay, is really interesting. What can
I do differently tomorrow? So it could be that you say,
you know what, This morning I said I was going

(33:12):
to be showed the world the quality of compassion. But
at lunchtime or at four pm, I was really tired.
I didn't like the email that my colleagues sent me,
and I quickly sent an annoyed email back. Okay, no
worries again. We're looking for love, not fear. So you
can say, Ah, what I can do differently tomorrow is
I can try harder tomorrow if that same situation arrives,

(33:35):
I'm going to respond differently. And I tell you sure,
doing this will one day may not do much. You
do that for seven days or dare I say even
thirty days, the way you experience the world will be
completely different. You will have made this small, like one
degree shift each day that in the moment doesn't feel

(33:55):
like anything. Thirty days later, you will be like a
different person. I've been doing this, sub Jay for maybe
five years now, and like I was sharing with you
before the mices were rolling, I've never felt this good,
Like I have this deep sense of peace these days

(34:17):
and inner calm, and I've worked at it some of
the things I've shared already, many things I haven't shared
that I put in this book. This is available to everyone, Jay.
I absolutely believe that I have seen throughout my career
people in the darkest of places, suicidal patients who through

(34:39):
these kind of practices, have managed to completely turn their
lives around. It is possible to everyone. But I think
we're going about change a lot of the time in
the wrong places. Right. We talk about creating healthy habits.
It's important, and I've written a book about that in
the past, and I know the rules of healthy habit form,

(35:00):
you know, make it easy stick on the new behavior
onto an existing habit. Those things are very, very helpful,
but they still don't get to the roots. And my
attempt with this book is to help people go no, no, no,
there are things that you don't know that are driving
you in your life. A lot of people don't realize, Jay,
that their behaviors are driven by their beliefs. So if

(35:24):
you believe that somebody out there knows what is best
for you more than you, that is going to dictate
your behaviors. Your belief is that someone else knows better,
so you're going to be every few months looking for
a new expert to follow. Every January, you're going to
buy a new health book to say, oh, you need

(35:44):
to go on a thirty day sugar details, you need
to cut out alcohol, you used to cut it, ultra
processed foods. These things are all well and good. But
I submit to you, Jay, that many people there, I
say it, most people who are listening to shows like
yours or mine kind of already know that excess sugar
is not helping them, or excess alcohol is not helping them.

(36:06):
I don't think they need more external knowledge of oh
alcohol will do this to your liver, or sugar will
do this to people know that they need more internal knowledge.
They need insights, intuition, and in my view, the way
you develop that is with some intentional time each day,
these questions, meditation, journaling. If you're constantly in your life,

(36:30):
you never step out of it to reflect on it.
It's not about the behavior, it's about the energy behind
the behavior.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, it resonates very strongly with me. And to kind
of encapsulate what you're saying, what I'm hearing, and what
I've found to be true is that if you really
want to make a change, it comes down to your
most repeated thought, your most repeated words, and your most
repeated actions. And what you find is you already have

(37:01):
a most repeated thought, I'm not good enough, I can't
do it, that life's not for me. And this goes
back to your point, that's what your beliefs are. Your
beliefs suggest your most repeated thoughts, and now it feels
like that's who you are, and then naturally those become
your words. So when someone says to you, like, oh,
how's that new habit going, or you know, how's the

(37:21):
workout going or whatever, you go, oh, you know, I can't.
I can't keep up exactly, and now you keep repeating.
Then everyone you meet you go, oh, yeah, I gave
up after seven days. And now that's your language, and
then that naturally leads on to your actions. And so
what you're talking about, which I really appreciate because it
is harder to talk about which is what is the root.
But for all of us, anyone who's had a lasting change,

(37:45):
it's been a root issue that's been solved always.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
And this is why I'm so passionate Jay about this idea.
You know, I've been in this health and wellness space
publicly for ten years now and for all the best
benefits of this increase in information, and of course there
are many like people are better educated now than ever
before about health and wellness and what we can do.

(38:10):
But we have to confronts a very uncomfortable truth, which is,
despite all of this increasing information, people are getting physically
and mentally more sick. So I was trying to solve
this problem. I was trying to go I don't want
to just write another book with more information on what
you should do. I want to help people understand why
they are doing it, and again talking to root causes

(38:31):
and maybe feeding back to what you've just said. This
I think is the most undertaught aspect. This is the
most underappreciated aspects of health. For me, let me make
it really practical for people. Many of us are trying
to change our behaviors. And I know I've used sugar
and alcohol a few times just because I think they're
quite common and quite relatable for people. People don't understand

(38:55):
that the way they interact with other people directly affects
that behavior. So for example, you're driving to work in
the morning and there's a bit of traffic and someone
cuts in front of you. Okay, we've all seen it,
maybe we've experienced it where we start to create all
this mental noise. Oh my god, stupid driver. They shouldn't

(39:15):
have done that. They need their eyes checked, whatever it
might be. And we think that we're entitled to do that,
and we are right. I'm not here to change anyone, right,
You've got to change yourself. You're entitled to react like that.
Just know that there's a consequence. One of the themes
that underpins every chapter in this book is that emotional

(39:35):
stress is not neutral. So we think about physical stress,
but we don't think about emotional stress. So a driver
cuts in front of you. There are many ways to
react to that situation. If you take a disempowering narrative
and create all of this anger and stress and noise
in your head, you've generated emotional stress. You will need

(39:59):
to neut that emotional stress in some way or another. Now,
you could do it in a healthy way by going
for a walk or going to the gym. Usually what
people do when it gets to the office is they
need an extra coffee, They need to go to the
vending machine and get some sugar. They need an extra drink.
After work, and then they think, Oh, I'm drinking too
much in the evening or I'm eating too much sugar.

(40:21):
I need to change that. But they don't realize that
actually the way they dealt with that driver on the
road that day, because it's not just that, that's the
pattern they use for everything in their life. I say
this with an open heart. We almost make ourselves a
victim to life. We think that the way we feel

(40:42):
is down to the way other people treat us. And
I understand that we like other people to treat us well.
But you can cultivate the skill of not having your
inner state as dependent on the world around you. So
you can develop the skill, and I share how to
in this book. With practice, you can basically go, Wow,

(41:03):
what other story could I create here? Oh, maybe that
mother has had a sick child up all night with
earache and they're just rushing. Maybe she's on her last
warning with her boss, and actually, if she's late one
more time, she's going to lose her job, and that's
how she feeds her family. Right, the truth doesn't matter

(41:25):
for your inner well being, It really doesn't. And you
can choose to start looking at the world this way
and what you will find. Yes, it might feel challenging
at first, so you have to consciously think about it,
maybe not in the moment, maybe in the evening. And
I'll share a practice that can help people with that.
But over time it becomes your default. Whereas now you know,

(41:48):
I've been in LA traffic this week. I've heard you
guys talk about it all the time. Oh, I've experienced it.
I'm running late for some interviews. I'm just totally cheating.
I'm like, I can't do anything about this. Nothing I
can do. You can train that response. And I think
last time I came on your podcast, Jay, I think
I shared the story of Edith Eager, the ninety three
year old lady who was in Auschwitz when she was sixteen,
and I shared the powerful narratives she would use in

(42:10):
her mind to reframe her existence there. And I won't
tell that story again, but I'll remind people of the
final thing that Edith Eager told me when she came
on my podcast. She said to me, Dr Chaschi, I
have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the
greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison

(42:32):
you create inside your own mind. And the penny dropped
for me Jay in that conversation. Literally, I thought, that's it.
That's what we're all doing. We're interacting with the world
with other people, were creating these disempowering narratives, were making
ourselves a victim to the world around us, without realizing
that we have the power to shape the narrative on

(42:54):
every single situation. Most situations in life. You could even
say all, but that gets a bit triggering for people.
So I say most situations in life are neutral. It's
the perspective we take on that situation that determines its impact.
You want to change your behaviors. If you're someone who
has been trying to make changes in January for the

(43:16):
last ten years, and you keep buying a new book,
and you keep trying a new detox pan and whatever,
and you're still ending up where you were the year before,
you have to ask yourself the question, am I taking
the right approach? Is there something I'm missing? Is it
more external information I need or more internal information?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah? And I really appreciate the direction of getting people
to trust themselves. I mean I've seen that time and
time again. I remember a couple of months ago, I
was trying a really high protein diet the amount that's recommended,
and I just it didn't work for me. It just
didn't work for me, Like trying to eat my body
weight in protein was far too much for me personally,

(44:00):
and I didn't feel good. I was feeling more tired,
I was feeling actually more bloated. I was. It just
didn't work. And it was like, well, this is all
the studies say this, all the research says.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Even within those studies that are done right, we think
the studies show this when you look into most scientific studies. Right,
let me try and make it super simple to understand
for people. Let's say there was a study done where
one hundred people were put on one diet and one
hundred people put on another diet, which one is better?

(44:32):
And then on balance we'll say, oh, this one, this
one statistically was better, But it doesn't mean that one
hundred percent of the people were better on that one.
There would have been some people who were better on
the other one, but overall we say that one. What
we're saying is that that one works for the most
people in that study. It doesn't mean it will for you.

(44:53):
And this is where I think the differences between researchers
and clinicians. You know, I I feel one thing I'm
really good at, and again I don't say this with
any arrogance. I feel I'm really good at connecting with
my patients and I've managed to help them make transformative change,

(45:14):
many of them throughout their careers. And i've, as you know,
I even showcase what I do on BBC one and
back in twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen, where families who
were sick were under GPS, were under specialists with type
two diabetes, panic atats, fibromalgia, menopausal symptoms, irristol bound syndrome.
I either helped everyone fully reverse their conditions or get

(45:36):
them significantly better, like eighty percent better in just six weeks,
using nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. That's not blaming people. It's
showing people, educating them that, oh, the way you do
things matters. How you live each day, the choices you make,

(45:57):
the way you taught to each other. Right, these things
really play a role. And Jay, I often think, you know,
I was thinking about this on the plane over to
LA this time wrong and why do you have such
a I don't know if I can call it a
unique perspective on health, but it's not the normal perspective.
I would say that most medical dots that would you
agree with that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Mostly yeah, compared to most absolutely.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
And I think one of the reasons why, and there's
many reasons, including my cultural upbringing probably similar to yours,
where we grow up with this more holistic approach, these
ideas that food is medicine, all those kind of ideas.
But I think my filming that BBC documentary series over
two or three years, I think it gave me an

(46:39):
insight that very few doctors ever get. Even if you're
a disenchanted doctor and you think ten minutes is not enough,
which it isn't, and you figure out a way to
spend one hour with your patients. What I learned on
filming that series when I would live alongside families for
four to six weeks, sometimes i'd stay overnight in their house. Okay,
I got to see stuff that people rarely get to see.

(47:03):
I got to see, oh, wow, they've got these symptoms.
But I'm noticing how the husband and wife are talking
to each other in the evening. Oh, I wonder how
that relationship is impacting their fiscal health. And I would
do this with all kinds of families in all different
areas of the UK. So it gave me a rather
unique insight where this idea is that literally ninety nine

(47:26):
percent of what happens to your health. I know this
sounds worthly obvious. It's outside the doctor surgery. It's how
you live your life, it's how you approach adversity, and
so I think it's kind of given me this rather
unique view. I think my twenty three years of clinical
practice has also taught me that there's no one white approach.

(47:47):
So you, as you say, you can hear all the
experts online you want telling you about the high protein
that you need, and you could keep trying it, or
you go, wait, well, you know what, I don't think
that's all right approach for me at this point in
my life. And that secondary bit is another key piece.
It might be later, but right now for the state

(48:09):
of your life and your health, it's not work with
you and we need to learn to trust ourselves more.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, absolutely, I like that edition as well. What's your take.
We've talked a lot about self awareness and the importance
of it. Obviously right now everyone's getting really excited about
fitness trackers. What's your take on them?

Speaker 1 (48:27):
There's a section on this actually in the book, because
I think it's a really important thing to think about.
So I currently have one on. I've been slow to
adopt fitness trackers, and i'll tell you why. A key
theme in this book is about reliance and that we're
overly reliant on things outside of ourselves, on people treating
us well, on all kinds of things, expert knowledge, whatever

(48:49):
it might be, and we need to become what I
say in the book is minimally reliant, not zero reliance,
but less reliance. I think trackers, health trackers, fitness trackers
can be good and they can also be bad. It
depends on who you are. So we've got all these,
you know, new fitness trackers, but let's talk about another
kind of tracker that's been around for a while. A

(49:10):
blood pressure monitor, right, They've been around for thirty forty
years something like that. That's a form of health tracker.
Maybe it's not as high tech as some of these
new ones, but it's a form of health tracker. And
what I would notice Jay in my practice for years,
is that many people would say, dot cha, Actually, should
I buy one from the pharmacy and use it at home?

(49:32):
And Initially I would say, yeah, great idea, Then you
can check what your blood pressure's doing. And then what
I noticed is that, oh wow, maybe fifty percent of
people this is a rough guess, it's not a scientific study.
Half of my patients would use regular blood pressure checks
at home to empower them, right, So they'd be like,
oh wow, okay, it's going a bit high. Now what's

(49:52):
going on? And they'd use it in a very helpful
way to get to know themselves better and make positive changes.
The other half, I think it was harmful for them.
They would get stressed out, they would check it four
times a day, they would get health anxiety, and that
would paralyze them. So I thought, wow, it's not the

(50:12):
tracker itself that's the issue. It's our relationship to the tracker.
That's the theme throughout this conversation. It's our relationship to it.
So if you're someone who can look at that tracker,
whether it's an Apple watch or a whoop band or
an or or whatever, you know, whatever, you've got a garment.
You know, if you're able to use it to help

(50:36):
you get to know yourself better and it helps you
make positive changes, I think they can be very very helpful.
In fact, I'm on a two month experiment at the
moment with this one that I've got on, and it's
really helping me understand myself bad at Oh this is
what my heart rate variability is like when I eat
a bit later at night, or you know, when I've

(50:56):
been on a transatlantic flight. Whatever. I'm like, I'm learning
about myself. I'm getting a deeper understanding of myself through this. Now.
I think it'd be very helpful. But some people have
got a very unhealthy relationship with them. They're obsessed with them.
If the battery's not working, they start to stress out. Oh,
I don't know how to exist. And the truth is

(51:17):
there are some scientific studies which show us that they
can be problematic. So there was one study which I
write about in the book, where in essence, a simplified
way of describing it is, they took these groups of
people and put them in the lab. One group were
only allowed to sleep for five hours. The other group

(51:37):
were allowed to sleep for eight towers right, but there's
no clocks anywhere. And then they told the group who
slept for five hours that they slept for eight hours,
and the group that slept for eight towers that they'd
only sat for five hours, and that impacts it that
energy love us through the day and impacted their physiology. Right.
So that's a really powerful study. And there's many more

(52:01):
like that, which all that does for me. Again, let's
not get let's not use that study to disempower us.
That's interesting. What does that show? It shows that some
people can have an unhealthy relationship with these devices. Some
people can have a helpful one. And if I think
about that through the lens of me and my wife, right,
I love getting data. I can be very detached from it.

(52:25):
It doesn't affect me. If I see a low readiness
score in the morning, I can be detached from that
and go wow, I can still perform even with that. Right,
I will often not check for days, right or once
a day, once every two days, I'll go on and
check my data. I don't want to become dependent or reliant.
That's the key. So I can't tell you, Jay, are

(52:45):
these good or bad? It depends on who you are
and what's your relationship to that device. Yeah, and only
you will be able to answer that question for yourself.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yeah, it's a great answer. It's a great answer. And
I fully agree. I think it goes back to what
the common theme is. As you said, it's our interpretation
of the event, of the data, of the information. And
I guess, then, going back to what you said earlier,
your only non negotiable has become being kinder to yourself,

(53:14):
Like that is your non negotiable, Like the ability to
always turn towards not judging, not shaming, not guilty, but
giving yourself that space and grace to just operate and
think it through.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, it's funny that words are interesting, aren't they. I
guess the word non negotiable for me these days, maybe
because I used to have such a negative voice in
my head. I kind of feel that everything's negotiable in life, right,
So I don't know. Let's take an example violence. Right.
I could say that I'm a calm person and I

(53:48):
would never be violent, right, But hold on, there's always
a situation in life that might challenge that. What if
I was on a street with my two beautiful children
and someone was trying to attack me or tack them,
would I turn to violence to protect them?

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I think I would. I wouldn't intentionally want to do that,
So I could say that being kind and compassionate and
nonviolent is a non negotiable or I could be a
bit more realistic and go, well, I think in ninety
nine point nine percent of situations in life, I'm going
to be kind and compassionate, or I'm going to certainly
have the intention to be. But I can foresee a

(54:26):
situation whereby yeah, maybe I would turn to violence. Do
you know what I mean? I think it's that complexity
and you wance. So for me, if I say it's
a non negotiable, again, it may for someone else they
may like the term, but for me it's not so
program me with this harsh task master, I must always
do this. I can never I can never fall from this.

(54:49):
So for me, I personally don't use that term, but
I totally welcome other people like if they want to
use that term. I think it's completely fine, and I
think it's all highly highly individual. We have to find
what works for us. I don't believe anymore that anything
for me is non negotiable. I think I set an
intention about how I want to live, but always knowing

(55:11):
that the situation could change. Now, Jay, I'm here in
La right maybe two weeks after the election, and it's
remarkable for me to see, certainly online the division right.
And I remember maybe six or nine months ago, when
your current US Surgeon General, Vivic Mersey, was in London.
He came on my podcast. We had a wonderful conversation,
and he said to me, back then, one in six

(55:33):
Americans are currently not talking to a family member because
of their political views. And I suspect that's even higher
now from what I can tell now, I'm not trying
to wade into politics here. I'm trying to take a
step back and go to me. And I'm not American, right,
so I acknowledge that to put that out there, to me,

(55:58):
it seems like madness. There's a chapter in this book
called take Less Offense, which is an over reliance on
being right, our need to be right. And I explained
in that chap so that nothing in life is inherently offensive.
If it was, we'd all get offended to the same thing.
If it was that thing that was offensive, all of

(56:19):
us would find it offensive. If we don't all find
something offensive, it means that thing isn't offensive. There's something
inside of us that's been activated or being triggered. So
that whole chapter is about helping people understand that you
don't need to take offense to everything. You can choose
not to. You can choose to go wow, Why has

(56:42):
that person got a different view to me? Why does
that person see the wills so differently from me? You know,
I think I might have shared this last time I
was on your show, Jay, but that one of the
phrases that has been transformative for me is if I
was that other person, I'd be behaving in exacta the
same way as them. And what I mean by that

(57:03):
is if I was that other person, with their parents,
with their childhood, with the bullying they experienced, with the
friends they had at school, with the first boss who
bullied them, on the workplace, whatever it might be, if
I had their life, I would probably see the world
in the same way as them, and I probably act
in the same way as them. Now, this doesn't mean

(57:24):
I'm saying this excuse is poor behavior. No, I'm not
saying that. What I'm saying is, instead of jumping to
judgment of other people, which I think is a toxic behavior,
I think it's a behavior that won't help you make change.
I used to be judgmental, and not anymore. You can
change this. We said before, how our behaviors are driven

(57:45):
by our beliefs. None of us came out of our
mother's womb with these beliefs, right, we didn't. We developed
them based upon what we experienced throughout our life. It's
a much lighter way of interacting with the world when
you go, wow, why do they think in the way
that they do? Now, you don't have to choose that

(58:07):
approach to life. But if you're someone who's walking around
taking offense to everything, okay, and I say this, I
promise you. I say this with compassion. Jay. If there's
anyone listening who's thinks that they're a person who's constantly
berating the drivers on the freeway, taking offense to everything
they see on social media, my invitation to that individual is, Hey,

(58:30):
that approach to life may not be serving you. You
may have an over reliance on being right. And in
that chapter I make the case that actually thinking that
everyone in the world is going to see the world
in the same way as us in a world of
eight billion people is actually quite an arrogant way to think.

(58:51):
And I'm not judging when I say that I used
to think like this, Jay, Right, So I'm why I
share that is because I want people to know. I
know what that feels like, and I know you can
change that. If you choose to not take offense and
interact with compassion, why does that person think the way
in which they do. You will naturally make better choices

(59:13):
because you're not generating that emotional stress you go on
Instagram or Twitter or x and find a comment really
irritating or someone's viewpoint really offensive and starts to get
involved with them. Of course you can do that. That
might be why you struggle to reduce your alcohol intake
or your sugar intake, because you're getting addicted to that noise,

(59:34):
that emotional stress. And let's relate that back to what
I said about Edith Eager before. This lady who survived
Auschwitz and at ninety three is full of compassion and
forgiveness and even said that she's forgiven Hitler right. Let
that land for a minute. It doesn't mean that what
Hitler did was right. She's not saying that. What she's

(59:57):
saying is I'm no longer going to allow what he
did to affect me and my life and how I interact.
There's a big difference people get. There's a whole sectional
forgiveness in the book. People really misunderstand forgiveness. They think
it means that I'm saying that that was right and
it was okay. It's not that at all. One of
the daily practices I did after my conversation with Edith,

(01:00:21):
which is still probably one of the most powerful episodes
I've ever had in my podcast, is every evening, because,
as I say, you often can't do it in the moment.
Every evening. Once my kids were in bed, when they
were a bit younger, I sit down and I'd ask myself, wrongan,
where did you get emotionally triggered today? When did an
email piss you off? Right? When did you react to

(01:00:43):
someone whilst you were driving? And instead of putting the
blame on the other person, on something outside of myself,
I asked myself a question, what is it within me
that's been activated by that external action? Why did that
email bother me? Oh? It reminds me of something my
parents said to me when I was a kid. Oh,

(01:01:04):
it reminds me of the boss I had a few
years ago. Oh, it's highlighted in an insecurity like criticism. Right,
we both exist in the public domain. We have to
you know, we get positive comments, we also get negative comments. Right,
That is just part and parcel of life. Not everyone
is going to like how I put across my messages.
That's okay, they don't have to. Some people will say

(01:01:26):
I'm the greatest podcast host on the planet. Some people
say I'm the worst, and I talk over my guests
and whatever. Do you know what? They're both right for them? Right?
Do you know what I mean? It's really important. So
what I've learned about criticism, because criticism generally doesn't bother
me anymore, because I've learned to be emotionally detached. I've
come to the realization, Shay, that criticism only bothers us

(01:01:51):
to the degree we believe it about ourselves. I don't
know your relationship with criticism, but certainly for me, I realized, Oh,
the reason that bothers me is because it triggers an
internal insecurity. Now I can get annoyed at the person
delivering the criticism or and maybe it's out of order,
maybe they shouldn't. But I'm not sure how much that

(01:02:12):
helps you. You can't control whether someone is or is
not going to criticize you. What I can control and
what I can work on is my internal state? Oh
I'm insecure about that. Let me write down why? Let
me think about that. Maybe if you have access to
a therapist, sure, go and see one. Talk about it.
That is the secret to long term change, Jay. It's

(01:02:33):
not looking outside for the answers. It's going what is
going on inside of me? That exercise Like, if people
take nothing else from this conversation, Jay, I would say
that is one of the most powerful things you can do.
It will take you maybe five minutes every evening. And
you don't realize. People do not realize how quickly their
lives will start to change when they take full responsibility

(01:02:57):
for their reactions. You're no get dependent on everyone around
you acting a certain way to feel good. You become
like a master in yourself. Like in martial arts, we
want to be black belts. This is your way of
becoming a black belt in yourself and I love it.
And going back to what I said before about the
process of change, if you commit to doing this, you

(01:03:21):
will learn so much about yourself. You will learn why
certain things trigger you, why you go to sugar, why
you go to alcohol, why you can't stop scrolling Instagram
for four hours every evening, you will learn about yourself.
And I promise you that is much more powerful than
any expert ever telling you that. And I say that

(01:03:41):
as a so called expert myself.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Make change that last Rangan. It's been really a jury
talking to you today. I mean, the thing that's staying
with me and resonating with me most deeply about what
you shared is this idea of taking accountability, taking responsibility
for ourselves, for our feelings, for our health. I think

(01:04:04):
it's very easy to say I did this because this
person told me. Oh, I feel this way because that
person did that to me. Oh that person's diet didn't work.
And you're so right. We've been trying to outsource our health,
our emotional health, our physical health. And I love the
ownership and the empowerment that you're offering everyone through this

(01:04:25):
book because that's really what's missing. That's really what the
struggle is, is that we haven't taken ownership of our
own life. And that's what I feel you're encouraging us
to do.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I really am, because Jay, not only have I
experienced it myself, because what I say at the of
the end of the introduction is I say effortless change
actually is available to you. Once you work on this stuff,
change doesn't become as hard as you think. I think
the reason we think it's so hard is because we're

(01:04:58):
going about it in the wrong way. And I think,
I mean, certainly we spoke up this beforehand. I think,
I think what I've stumbled across through my career and
through my own lived experience are I think some universal
human truths, right. I think for me at least, what's

(01:05:19):
exciting about this book for people is that you're going
to learn concepts that you're not used to learning about
from a medical doctor. There's like elements of philosophy, spirituality, yes,
physical health, and habit formation. It's all there. And I
think from the bottom of my heart that this is
the most important book I've ever written. I think it's

(01:05:42):
going to have the most impact on people. You're very
kind enough to give a quote for the book. But
remember one of the first people outside my team to
have read it was Dr Gable Matte and Gable read
every single word and he sent me the most wonderful
email and he goes wrong and this is just wonderful.
This is your most insightful book. Get this can help
so many people and coming from someone I really respect that.

(01:06:03):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
I was so touched. I was so touched, And so
I think this is the only journey that's worth taking,
is understand your inner world. Stop relying on those external
experts so much. I'm not saying ignore, I'm not saying
ignore the science. I'm not saying ignore external experts. I
think we've gone too far. It's all about what does

(01:06:26):
the experts say now. I'm like, no, let's just bring
it back. It's too head focused and not enough heart focus.
So let's just wind it back. Let's use our head,
but let's also use our hearts. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Ever on the book, it's called Make Change That last
nine simple ways to break free from the habits that
hold you back. Go and grab your copy right now
and run. And thank you so much for always coming
with so much energy, enthusiasm and counterintuitive thinking, which I
think is going to benefit a lot of people and
start their new year just right. So thank you so much,

(01:06:59):
my friend. It's great to have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Jay, Thanks for having me back on your show. I
appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Amazing. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview
with doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your life
by changing your brain.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or
the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and
over one hundred murderers, and their brains

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Are very damaged,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr. Rangan Chaterjee: #1 Way to Break a Bad Habit & Why 50% of What Doctors Learn in Medical School Turns Out Wrong