August 7, 2025 • 48 mins
Discover how Dr. Ravi Iyer transformed his unique perspective on ADHD from a perceived limitation into a powerful cognitive advantage. In this captivating episode of Lifejacked, Dr. Iyer shares his remarkable journey from India to Harvard Medical School, while offering groundbreaking insights into neurodiversity and personal growth.
Drawing from his own experiences with Asperger's and ADHD, Dr. Iyer explains how these conditions, when properly managed, can become extraordinary assets. He introduces innovative concepts like intentional focus and breath-watching techniques, demonstrating how ancient wisdom can address modern challenges.
Key highlights:
-Reframing ADHD as enhanced cognitive ability
-The power of intentional focus and mindfulness
-Building resilience through perspective shifts
-Integrating Eastern and Western approaches to wellness
-Creating inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals
Don't miss this transformative conversation that challenges conventional perspectives on neurodiversity and offers practical strategies for turning challenges into opportunities. Tune in to learn how you can harness your unique cognitive strengths and achieve extraordinary success.
Drawing from his own experiences with Asperger's and ADHD, Dr. Iyer explains how these conditions, when properly managed, can become extraordinary assets. He introduces innovative concepts like intentional focus and breath-watching techniques, demonstrating how ancient wisdom can address modern challenges.
Key highlights:
-Reframing ADHD as enhanced cognitive ability
-The power of intentional focus and mindfulness
-Building resilience through perspective shifts
-Integrating Eastern and Western approaches to wellness
-Creating inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals
Don't miss this transformative conversation that challenges conventional perspectives on neurodiversity and offers practical strategies for turning challenges into opportunities. Tune in to learn how you can harness your unique cognitive strengths and achieve extraordinary success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this next episode of Life Jack's The Resilience
Podcast with your host, Doctor Rowe. That's me. What do
you do when life challenges you to discover your true potential?
Today on Lifejack to the Resilience Podcast. I am thrilled
to welcome doctor Rev Eyer, a Harvard trained physician, best
(00:23):
selling author, inventor, and healthcare leader whose journey from India
to the Esteem Hall of Harvard Medical School in Boston
exemplifies the extraordinary power of intentional focus and resilience. With
over forty two years of experience, doctor Eyer has dedicated
(00:44):
his career to empowering individuals to overcome destructions, embrace mindfulness,
and achieve remarkable success in the face of adversity. His
transformative ted X talk The Power of Intentional Focus, has
inspired millions, including myself and today, in this episode, we
(01:08):
will uncover the wisdom behind his message of hope and
intentional living. Sometimes life gives us lemons, sometimes it gives
us lemonade. Other times it gives us something entirely out
(01:28):
of left field that makes us say w t F.
But no matter what obstacles come, there is most often
a way out on the other side, and we are
once again victorious. My name is doctor Rul and you
are listening to my podcast about resilience. Every guest shares
(01:51):
a tragedy to triumph story to give listeners like you
the inspiration to push through every single day. Listen now
as my next guest shares how they were like jacked. Hi,
doctor Ayer, Welcome, Thank you so much for being a
guest on my show.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
How are you greaming? Dot a role? Thank you for
having me. This is a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fantastic. Now, Doctor Iyer, can you share with us what
first ignited your passion for medicine and science during your
early days as a young child, and how that shaped
your dreams.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So I was always a very exquisitive, curious child growing up,
and unconsciously I was always asking myself the question how
do things work? But more importantly, I would always ask
the question how does life work? My natural curiosity was
(02:55):
more towards living creatures, so I would always ask my so,
how does this animal work? How does this creature work?
How does this bug or this fish or this frog work?
And out of that came the subsequent corollary to that question,
how do you make life work? And how do you
make life work when it doesn't work. And my entire
(03:18):
life has been built around the answers, the search and
the answers to these two questions, how does life work?
And how do you make it work when it doesn't?
And that pretty much gave me a framework upon which
(03:38):
to develop my entire curiosity by pursuit of the science
of medicine. When from there I went into research, or
from there I went back into clinical medicine, and clinical
research were doing clinical trials in the hospital where I
got elevated to chairman of the hospital. That same question became,
(04:01):
how do you make how does the department work? And
how does the hospital work? And how do you make
the hospital work? But it does it So at every
point it is the same question asked in different flavors
and different tones.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow. I love that now we have critical moments in
our lives where we experience either something really good and
then of course we sometimes experience something really bad. And
when you have experienced these challenges that I refer to
(04:39):
as the things that happen to us that are bad,
how did you learn the essence of resilience early on
in your career?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So resilience is basically what other people call a person
who does not get paralyzed by circumstances. So resilience is
more an opinion of the world observing somebody who's behaving
(05:15):
in a way that is not stoppable. But if you
ask the person who's actually not being stopped, if you
ask how they are perceiving the obstruction, you will find
that they're actually perceiving the obstruction completely differently than somebody
(05:36):
else who actually gets starped. And what I found when
I was growing up was I had two ways of
looking at life, and I realized that there's one aspect
of me that is available to experience life in the
(05:56):
form of the input of my five sensus. Something that
I see, something that I hear, something that I smell
or touch or taste, and those are my actual that
is actually my reality, the physical impressions that are gathered
by my five senses. Then comes this second aspect, which
(06:20):
is the meaning making machine that we all have that
creates a story, a narrative, a value judgment, something a
preference alike or a dislike, and then based on that
preference a set of actions and also a kind of
imprinting of this current situation. And if it's a dislike
(06:42):
then a need to memorize how this situation looks, so
that in a future situation, when something looks similar to that,
you can quickly avoid without having to interact with it.
So out of this we create our lived experience. Lived
experience is often not the same as our perceived experience,
(07:07):
and life actually exists in the perceived experience, not in
the lived experience, and resilience is all about making sure
that your lived experience is in harmony, is aligned with
your perceived experience. A lot of people get sucked up
(07:29):
in the story the lived experience, and it is going
off on a tangent based on a past like let
us say some guy with a beard rejected you. The
next time you bump into a guy with a beard
in the bar, your defenses are already up. Now that
(07:51):
means that right now, for this new guy, you are
really not interacting with the perceived experience, interacting with the
lived experience of the past, projecting the past into your future.
And yes, and then you just recreate your past into
your future. So resilience completely resides in the ability to
(08:14):
remain focused upon your pursued experience.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Oh no, so that makes sense. So that makes so
much sense, so much sense. So I have to ask
you about this phenomenon that people talk about. For some
it's a diagnosed disability, and for others they just kind
of throw this term around to make an excuse for
(08:40):
the reason why they can't focus or they're distracted or
they're disorganized. And that is using the term ADHD, which
stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, right or sometimes people
refer to it as ADD, which is a tension deficit disorder,
And a lot of time people throw that around. So
(09:02):
as a medical doctor, can you enlighten the viewers and
the listeners and really explain, you know, in the simplest
terms possible, what exactly is ADHD and ADD and is
there a difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So remember I mentioned about the meaning making machine, Well,
everyone has a meaning making machine. Yeah, A person with
an ADHD or ADD has a meaning making machine that
is turbocharged. It is going at the speed of a rocket.
So because of that, they create stories and narratives of
(09:43):
their liw of their perceived experience at a far greater intensity.
And because of that they are not able to hold
on to the story long enough to execute the logical
conclusion of actions that are dictated by the story. And
therefore they appear distracted because they'll get one meaning, and
(10:08):
before they can even carry that meaning out to its
logical conclusion, the next meaning comes up, and then the
next meaning and the next meaning, and they're spinning out
of control. This is not a disorder. It is actually
an extreme manifestation of a natural cognitive trait that everyone has.
(10:29):
The meaning making machine. Now the person, if you take
an add person, he's basically having a thoroughbred horse capable
of running the Triple Crown as is everyday ride, whereas
the rest of the world has an average pony. Now,
if the add person actually learns how to control his
(10:54):
powerful machine, he will outrun the rest of the world
in no time flat. And that's exactly what happens. So
I was born with ADHD. I was born with aspergers
and ADHD. So I had not only the meaning making
machine that is capable, I was also had an extreme
creativity that would see things differently than the rest of
(11:15):
the world. But I didn't have any control. You know,
the thing that makes a car go fast is not
the accelerator. It is the power to break that allows
you to go fast. If your brakes failed, you will
you will take your foot off the accelerator. You will
not run, you will not go fast. So going fast
(11:40):
requires control, and if you don't have control, you will
just go keep on going from one crash to another crash.
Most ADHD and Aspergers people have a lifetime of crashes
until they get control. And the minute they get control,
they become like Elan Musk. You can't stop them.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I totally understand that. Now within this ADHD work that
you've done. So you have a TED talk and I
want to put that up here for people to see,
or TEDx talk. You have a few TED talks actually,
but this particular one is called the Power of Intentional Focus.
(12:28):
So how did you discover this life changing concept and
how has it influenced your personal and professional journey.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So, like I mentioned, I had ADHD and I would struggle,
but because I was had also this ashburg wers, I
had a photographic memory. So I managed to do very
well in school, well enough to get into medical school
and I went to Partner to do my medical school.
And in Partner, every morning my college was close to
(13:01):
the Ganges. Every morning I would go swimming the Ganges,
and then I would sit down for a hard breakfast.
And when I would sit down for a hart breakfast,
the temple Mahoots, the elephant keepers of the temple, would
bring the temple elephants down the street where I was
hudding my breakfast down on their way to the river
for their back. And now the elephant's trunks would wander everywhere.
(13:26):
They'd go, grab coconut through create mischief of all kinds.
And to prevent this, the mahoots gave the elephant a
chain to hold in its trunk, and holding this chain
prevented the trunk from going off and grabbing at other
things because it had some They gave the trunk a job.
(13:46):
And when I saw this, I suddenly realized, Hey, you know,
I need to give my mind a job, some kind
of an internal chain to hold on to so that
it doesn't go spinning off into idea for ideas. So
I started researching how to do this, and I found
an ancient five thousand year old Sanskrit textbook on meditative techniques,
(14:11):
and there were many techniques in that book, but I
was looking for something that I could use easily for
myself at any time, and I found this technique of
breath watching, and I started watching my breath And actually
recently there's actual research papers showing that breath watching has
profound benefits in ADHD. At that time, when I was
(14:32):
growing up in India, nobody knew ADHD existed in India.
I had no treatment, I had no therapy, nothing. I
trial and error, mistakes, a lot of flop falls and
picked me up. I figured my way through it and
I started doing this breath watching. And initially my periods
(14:54):
of focus was you know, sporadic, but then it became
better and better. I could remain in a zone of
total focus. Now the psychologists called it a flow state,
but I could enter that flow state at will and remain.
And not only that, I could do a task in
(15:16):
perfect flow, stop in mid sentence or mid work, go
to another task being perfect flow, and then switch back
to the first without losing I became that good at
it later on, and that became the theme of my
TED talk where I described the value of flow and
(15:37):
how to develop flow and when you develop flow, not
only does it affect ADHD people, but it affects everyone.
During the pandemic, we were able to teach our patients
to focus on the immediate reality using flow states, so
that they did not spin off under out of control
in their fear driven narratives of what is going to
(15:58):
happen to them or their family. So it made a
huge difference, I could imagine.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I know for me during the pandemic, it was very
difficult because I'm an extrovert and I love being around people,
and so of course I started a podcast, another podcast,
not this one, but I start another podcast at that time,
just so that I could connect with people and talk
to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, the entire world got shoved into an isolation tank
during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
No, absolutely, And so you know, with this power of
intentional focus, which I know at times for some of
us it's harder than others. And you know, in your
work you emphasize staying fully present amid life's chaos, and
(16:53):
I know at times, especially right now, I don't know
about you, but it just seems like the world is
very chaotic right now, and especially here in the United
States is just a little chaotic right now. Things are
just happening left and right, and it's like we can't
control it. I mean, we can't control it anyway, but
it just seems like there are all these life jacked
moments happening around us all the time, and it's causing
(17:16):
you an extreme amount of stress. So how do we
stay fully present amidst this chaos?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So the key to presence in the midst of chaos.
First of all, life, by its very nature is chaoting.
It has always been chaotic. It is neither more chaotic
nor less chaotic in the present moment. It will always
be this way. So once you get past that, no
(17:49):
amount of chaos can really shake you. Once you realize
that this is the nature of life to be chaotic.
Then the second part of it is people in this world,
the vast majority, they live as if time and space
(18:12):
are the definitive boundaries that define their existence, when in reality,
time is actually your memory. So it's a mental construct.
You take one event that you remember and you call
it the past. You take a hope or a dream
(18:34):
of yours and project it and call it a future.
In neither the event that you remember exists anymore at
this point, nor is your plan or anticipated event ever
going to happen with any surety. And that is your future.
(18:55):
So both time is entirely a function of your memory.
If you go to an Alzheimer's spatient, he has no
time because he has no memory. Now, the second thing
is space. Space is entirely a construct based on your perception,
(19:17):
your ability to measure objects through your vision and through
your physical ability to touch and feel. If you did
not have these sensory tools of perception, space would be different.
Space for an earthworm is different, Space for a bumblebee
(19:40):
is different. All right, So space is not a fixed entity.
It is a perception created entity based on the sensory
tools that an organism uses to measure its environment. So
once you get past these two definitions, time and space
(20:03):
are completely entirely invented, it created. Then everything that is
defined within that time and space is your construct. But
one thing remains that is not your construct, your ability
to be aware of it. You actually are a space
(20:26):
within which all these events pop up as options, as stories,
as narratives. Once you realize that your space of being
within which the entire universe pops up as an event,
is a constant, then you really are not defined by
(20:51):
what pops up. You are defined by your ability to
interact with it that is completely in your control. And
not only that, your entire identity shifts you. You shift
from being a product of your interaction to being the
originator of the interaction. As an originator, you're a You're
(21:11):
a constant being. You're you're a constant, timeless being that
is neither beginning nor end to you because there's your
just pure awareness within which Doctor Rowe appears, this podcast appears,
this conversation appears. Something that does not happen tomorrow, like
a plan that does not materialize, that also appears. So
(21:35):
all of that are within an infinite timeline of your being.
Once you get that, you can just dance through life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, Now, the modern world bombards us, and I literally
mean bombards us with constant stimulation. I mean you name it.
It's whether it's from social media or it's from you know, television,
all these different shows, reality shows, the news, uh, you know,
(22:09):
just the conversations around us on the day to day basis.
So what's strategies do you see suggest for maintaining the
really matters? Because if you're not careful, there are a
lot of things that you can focus on that truly
(22:30):
don't matter, or you can't really control the outcome in
a sense.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Most times, like I said in the previous question, the
chaos of the world is nothing more than the stimulations
of the modern world and your ability to pay attention.
If you shift your attention to the act of being
aware of things and allow the various options of your
(23:00):
life to emerge as narratives, but don't grab onto it.
So you've got to practice this. You had to practice observation,
just like you practice going to a gym and lifting
weights to build a bustle. This is a mental muscle
that you have to exercise at. And what I tell
people is exercise observational skills, observation without judgment. So for example,
(23:25):
the Japanese tea ceremony where they make a cup of
tea and serve it, it's entirely an observational exercise. Breath
watching is an observational exercise. Painting can be an observational
it says, where you just watch the flow of colors.
Don't try to go into a judgment, evaluation and meaning better,
but feel the flow. Once you get into the is
(23:49):
the realm of feeling, then that is entirely in the
realm of observation, and in that realm of observation you
have a sanctuary of space, and you can allow meaning
to pop up, and you can decide which meaning you
want to give you want to give the full power
(24:10):
of your attention to if it is in alignment with
your grounding narrative. Now, everyone has a grounding narrative that
they need to define for themselves. But once you identify
your grounding narrative, you can choose which narratives are actually
in alignment with your grounding grounding idea of your life,
(24:30):
and then you can give that particular narrative the full
force of your attention.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
No, that makes sense. Now, do you feel that Eastern
practices in medicine have influenced your approach to healthcare at all?
In leadership as well?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, I mean like I grew up in a country
where you know, we lived with Eastern medicine. So right
now I practic Western medicine, but I borrow extensively from
Eastern medicine and I freely interchange. The body does not
know West or East. The body only knows molecules. So
(25:14):
if there is an Eastern herb that produces the molecules
that will benefit my patient, I'll use it. I am
interested in the creation of health, which is nothing more
than the ability to live life well to the satisfaction
of your goals no matter what. So anything that produces
(25:37):
that is medicine. So under those circumstances, ability to think
clearly is medicine. Good sleep is medicine. Good friendships, good conversations,
things that allow you to become empowered is good medicine.
That's all.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, here's to good medicine. I think we are like
good medicine. Yeah. Now, you often mentioned that it's important
for someone to find one's grounding narrative. What exactly does
that concept mean and how can the viewers or listeners
(26:19):
start crafting their own grounding story.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So everyone in this world has many talents, and they
have one gift, and the business of life is to
find out what your gift is. Your gift is something
that is unique to you that you basically can give
(26:44):
to anybody and you would not become poor by giving it,
and it is the core of your being. And you
have to find that your talents are all the skills
and the abilities you bring to the service of your gift.
Your grounding narrative in your life is anything that allows
(27:06):
you to manifest your gift. So for me, my grounding
narrative is empowerment, and my gift is the ability to
make people free of fear. I can get into a
room and I talk to a person, I can erase
fear from their being. So under those circumstances, my grounding
(27:29):
narrative is the task of empowerment, and to that I
bring into its service all my talents, my eloquence, my
writing skill, my analytical abilities, my abilities in medicine, my
knowledge as a chemist, my knowledge of Eastern and Western medicine,
(27:49):
my knowledge of human behavior. All of that I bring
as my talents to the service of my grounding narrative
of empowerment and removal of fear from the being of
human beings. That is what I mean by finding a
grounding narrative. Each one has to have it. Somebody's grounding
(28:10):
narrative may be playing divine music, another person's grounding narrative.
It's a gift that allows people to expand their presence
when they are in your presence. That is a grounding narrative.
(28:32):
It is the ground and basis of your existence.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Got that? Okay? Okay? That makes sense. That makes sense,
And I understand that you know it is important to
find your grounding narrative I think for me is doing
this resilience work. It's so important to me, and the
fact that I can connect with an audience of people
(28:58):
and give them motivation and have people share their stories
of how they push through in times of adversity. It's
it's fantastic. I tell you that this show gives me
so much joy and pleasure. It really does. Now, you
(29:21):
have so many diverse roles researcher, hospice director, hospital chairman.
How do you balance it all and maintain you know,
each of these different roles.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, I don't do all of them now, but there
was a time when I was doing both. I was
both the hospital chair as well as hospice director. The
beauty of intentional focuses. Once you master focus, you can
enter a close state. Once you enter a close state,
(29:57):
whatever is in front of you is the only thing
that exists. Yes, so to the world it looks like
as if I'm doing multiple things. To me, from my perspective,
it looks as if I'm only doing one thing at
a time. So it becomes ridiculously easy to do only
one thing at a time because that's the only thing
(30:18):
that my mind is engaged in. Most people don't have that.
They engage in something, but they don't engage it fully.
A part of their mind is going off into some
other tangent somewhere else, and because of that, they become skidsophrenic,
they become split multiple personality disorders basically, and as a result,
(30:39):
their effectiveness falls. When you do only one thing and
that's the only thing you're doing, it's easy to do it. Well.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Now, I understand that times I have that same question.
As to me, It's like, how you do everything that
you do? You are, you work full time, you're a
mom of three, you have a podcast, you have a newsletter,
you have friends and a book club, and I do
all these things and I'm like, how do you do that?
And it's exactly what you said one time management, But
(31:19):
I have to have incredible or intentional focus is important.
And that's what you know I have is that I
focus on whatever activity I'm doing at the time, and
I put my energy into that particular activity.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That's right. Yeah, Yeah, So that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah. So now you have several patents and you have
contributed to I mean contributed immensely to medical science, including
co authoring a book entitled I'm sorry. A book titled
Squirrels in My Brain. So I'm sorry, yees, squirrels in
(32:02):
my Brain. So what do you hope readers take away
from this book?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So Squirrels in My Brain came out of a project
that I was doing with the co authors. These are
two students, Media Naqui and Rakel pas Bergia. And it
started with a conversation and they wanted to do some
research project and we got talking about neurodiversity, and we
(32:34):
wanted to see if we could identify strategies that HR
people and corporations could use to tap into the diverse
cognitive powers that their employees have. Twenty percent of the
workforce is considered to be neurodivergent and they are suboptimally
(32:58):
employed because managers don't understand how to employ adhd and
As bog As people to their best ability in workforce
and a work policy that does not recognize the unique
nature of these cognitively empowered individuals. These people are not
(33:22):
cognitively disordered individuals. They are cognitively empowered. They are they
are like rocket powered engines in a world of bulletcarts.
And as the world of bulletcarts is accusing these rockets
of going and crashing up the road, and that's the problem.
(33:47):
All they need is the rockets need their own lane
where the bulletgarts don't go. And that's exactly what schirirrels
in my brain tells. How do you construct a work
environment that gives the bullet carts the freedom of the
way as well as the rockets the freedom of the
way without the two constantly clashing and all of them
(34:12):
aligned to the corporate goal of getting some product out
or some service rendered. So that is the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
No, most definitely. You know, it is difficult to have
focus at times, as we've you know, talked about over
and over in this conversation. But I love that if
you haven't intentional focus that it really can empower individuals
that then you know, dominoes into empowering communities. So what
(34:46):
qualities do you feel that are essential for leaders to
foster resilience and also support people who are as you
as people call neurodivergent within in their environment.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Every leader does only two things for their tribe. The
leader creates a space of safety for his tribe by
eliminating the risk of life. That's the first thing. And
they do this by predicting how life will emerge, and
(35:25):
they allow their tribe the resources to claim their advantage
and whatever comes their way. And the second thing is
a leader shoulders the full burden of failure and allows
their tribe to have the complete freedom to innovate without
(35:46):
the risk of the penalty of failure. So these are
the two things. One is prediction and the second is
elimination or they're taking on the responsibility of failure. If
leaders start doing that, then automatically, whether their workforce has
(36:06):
neurotypical or neurodiversity, they all become neuro aligned. And that
is something that I say in my book. In the
book Schools in My Brain, we bring out the concept
not of neurodiversity or accommodation. We talk about actual alignment.
Let's talk about cognitive alignment. Let's talk about neurolignment. Because
(36:30):
these two words, cognitive alignment and neuro alignment are non judgmental.
They are neutral, and they are enabling across the board.
It is not like you're taking away something from the
normal neurotypical people and giving it to the neurodiverse people
or vice versa. So all this anger and argument over
(36:55):
DEI just fades away into nothing. When you talk about alignment,
alignment is the actual purpose and it is the spirit
of Dei. So instead of talking of BI is DEI,
I talk about it as alignment. How do we get
The five fingers of my hand are unequal. They are
(37:17):
unequal in length, size, shape, and power. But when they
are aligned, they form a fish that can punch through walls.
So that's what I talk about in companies or in groups.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I love that analogy. Oh my gosh, I've never thought
of that with my hand. Yeah, they are all different lengths,
but you're right when they come together and make a fist.
I mean, I don't know if I make a powerful punch,
but cry. Yeah. So for those just beginning their career
in science or medicine, what advice would you offer to
(38:00):
them to help them to remain focused and resilient in
an ever evolvement industry. Because it is difficult to get
through medical school. I don't feel like that's an easy
thing to reach that finish line. So what advice could
you offer to those individuals.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
The first thing is focus on the fact that the
entire world, every human being in this world want solitary things.
They want to be seen. They want to be heard,
and they need they want to be validated, and if you,
as a possession can provide that, then you will succeed
(38:49):
no matter what. That's the first thing. Make sure that
every interaction you have with people allows you to allows
them to feel seen, heard, and validated at wherever, whichever
point they are, where they are, you meet them where
they are and make sure that they are seen, heard,
and validated. Second, in the interaction where you make them
(39:15):
feel seen and heard and validated, make sure always that
you are also equally seen, heard and validated. If you
cannot do these two things at the same time, walk away,
walk away. Second, that last part is where a lot
of doctors have difficulty. They spend their time seeing, hearing,
(39:39):
and validating the rest of the world and forget about themselves.
They need to be seen, heard, and validated themselves, otherwise
they can't do that first part. And if they can't
do both, if they only can validate themselves but not
them or vice versa, then they need to walk away.
And this this is the essence of being successful as
(40:04):
in medicine.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Wow Wow, So I have to ask how do you
envision the role of intentional focus and shaping the future
of healthcare research and community empowerment. I mean, how can
you know we be more intentional in our focus as
(40:26):
we continue to navigate this world.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So the the fundamental core essence of human beings is
to seek happiness. That is why we do everything we do.
We all are only trying to be, to find a
space where we feel validated, empowered and our full complete being.
(41:00):
The problem is we think that we will get that
outside in achieving any one of those stories that pop
up in the circumstances of our life. In actuality, we
can achieve it right sitting in your chair through focus.
If you focus on just yourself as a space of
(41:23):
possibility in which all the stories and options and narratives
and possibility the various situations of your life, they pop
up as emerging possibility that you can decide whether it
is in alignment with your grounding narrator. If it is
in the alignment of the grounding narrative, you pull it
(41:44):
in paid your attention, play with it. If it is
not an alignment to the grounding narrative, forget it. Focus
on your grounding narrative, remain constantly anchored to grounding narrative
like your elephant's chain all right, and your whole life
will just flow like as if there is. It is
(42:07):
as if you're caught up on a powerful current that
carries you to the finish line with no effort on
your part, instead of having to fight against the current
with every stroke. It's a lot of it's a lot
of fun living life that way.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Most definitely. And I mean, I think we all want
to have fun, and you're right, that's what we search for.
We do the supposedly you should do your work rights
some it should be something that you enjoy and as
you're spending time with different people, it should bring you
joy and you should experience happiness.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Now it's more than should, it's more than should. If
you actually know your grounding narrative, then you will there
is no should in your life, like for example, there
is no should for water to be wet and flow.
There is no there's no should for fire to have
heated light. It is just the way it is. So
(43:07):
when people find their grounding narrative, they just be the
way they are. They have no should about them. They
just do it as a natural expression of their own being,
just like the way you and I breathe, You don't.
You don't sit here. You don't sit and contemplate every
breath and say I should take the next breath. It's
(43:28):
just natural, true, very true, very true.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, doctor Eyer, it's hard to believe that this conversation
is coming to an end, but I have to ask
My final question is the question that I ask everyone,
which is, what is, in your opinion, the best way
for someone to build resilience, whether they have trouble focusing,
(43:58):
have trouble developing or understanding what they're grounding or creating
their grounding narrative, or just maybe they've reached their breaking point.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
There is a power that brought you into being. For example,
before you were born, five hundred millions permetozoa lost the
race to the ones permetozoa that fertilized your mother's egg
(44:32):
and became you. And after that happened, the precise arrangement
of genes that made who you are has never existed
in the entire history of the universe, and after you
(44:54):
dissolved into the elements of the universe, that genetic the
nation will never again exist. If you once you realize
the extreme rarity that you actually are, it is absolutely
impossible for you to even consider that you could ever fail.
(45:22):
You really need to know this. People need to know
how rare each one of them are. There's never been
a person like you before, There's never be a person
like you again, And you were a winner or out
of five hundred million before you were even conceived.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Wow, well, doctor ire your journey from India to the
corridors of Harvard is nothing short of inspirational. Your insights
on mindful presence and resilience remind us that even amidst
modern distractions, we have the power to reclaim our focus
and rewrite our own narratives. As we wrap up today's conversation,
(46:11):
I hope the viewers and listeners feel empowered to seek
their inner silence, build their grounding narrative, and find purpose
in every challenge. Before we sign off, Doctor Iyer, please
let our viewers and listeners know where they can connect
with you. Find copies of your books or book you
for speaking.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Oh, you can just go on to my website. It's
www Doctor d r I y e r dot com.
You can look at me on LinkedIn Facebook. I just
put my website in the chat, but that is the
(46:58):
most common ways to actually come to my website and yeah,
that's the doc Trier dot com. You can book fifteen
twenty thirty minute call with me to talk about what
you want to have accomplished and you can figure out
(47:19):
how to get it accomplished.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Do you have any last words of encouragement for the listeners.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's a wonderful life. Go live it. Whatever you were
meant to do, go do it. That's all it is.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Thank you for sharing your extraordinary story and practical wisdom
with us onlike Jack to the Resilience Podcast. Your message
encourages us all to focus intentionally and live passionately. I
want to wish you and your family nothing but blessings
and a this please take care. Thank you doctor Reverie,
(48:04):
I or everyone be sure to join me next time
for more uplifting stories and insights on resilience. Until then,
keep pushing forward, embrace the journey, and remember that every
setback can lead to a greater comeback. Doctor Rowe signing off.
Welcome to this next episode of Life Jack's The Resilience
Podcast with your host, Doctor Rowe. That's me. What do
you do when life challenges you to discover your true potential?
Today on Lifejack to the Resilience Podcast. I am thrilled
to welcome doctor Rev Eyer, a Harvard trained physician, best
(00:23):
selling author, inventor, and healthcare leader whose journey from India
to the Esteem Hall of Harvard Medical School in Boston
exemplifies the extraordinary power of intentional focus and resilience. With
over forty two years of experience, doctor Eyer has dedicated
(00:44):
his career to empowering individuals to overcome destructions, embrace mindfulness,
and achieve remarkable success in the face of adversity. His
transformative ted X talk The Power of Intentional Focus, has
inspired millions, including myself and today, in this episode, we
(01:08):
will uncover the wisdom behind his message of hope and
intentional living. Sometimes life gives us lemons, sometimes it gives
us lemonade. Other times it gives us something entirely out
(01:28):
of left field that makes us say w t F.
But no matter what obstacles come, there is most often
a way out on the other side, and we are
once again victorious. My name is doctor Rul and you
are listening to my podcast about resilience. Every guest shares
(01:51):
a tragedy to triumph story to give listeners like you
the inspiration to push through every single day. Listen now
as my next guest shares how they were like jacked. Hi,
doctor Ayer, Welcome, Thank you so much for being a
guest on my show.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
How are you greaming? Dot a role? Thank you for
having me. This is a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fantastic. Now, Doctor Iyer, can you share with us what
first ignited your passion for medicine and science during your
early days as a young child, and how that shaped
your dreams.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So I was always a very exquisitive, curious child growing up,
and unconsciously I was always asking myself the question how
do things work? But more importantly, I would always ask
the question how does life work? My natural curiosity was
(02:55):
more towards living creatures, so I would always ask my so,
how does this animal work? How does this creature work?
How does this bug or this fish or this frog work?
And out of that came the subsequent corollary to that question,
how do you make life work? And how do you
make life work when it doesn't work. And my entire
(03:18):
life has been built around the answers, the search and
the answers to these two questions, how does life work?
And how do you make it work when it doesn't?
And that pretty much gave me a framework upon which
(03:38):
to develop my entire curiosity by pursuit of the science
of medicine. When from there I went into research, or
from there I went back into clinical medicine, and clinical
research were doing clinical trials in the hospital where I
got elevated to chairman of the hospital. That same question became,
(04:01):
how do you make how does the department work? And
how does the hospital work? And how do you make
the hospital work? But it does it So at every
point it is the same question asked in different flavors
and different tones.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow. I love that now we have critical moments in
our lives where we experience either something really good and
then of course we sometimes experience something really bad. And
when you have experienced these challenges that I refer to
(04:39):
as the things that happen to us that are bad,
how did you learn the essence of resilience early on
in your career?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So resilience is basically what other people call a person
who does not get paralyzed by circumstances. So resilience is
more an opinion of the world observing somebody who's behaving
(05:15):
in a way that is not stoppable. But if you
ask the person who's actually not being stopped, if you
ask how they are perceiving the obstruction, you will find
that they're actually perceiving the obstruction completely differently than somebody
(05:36):
else who actually gets starped. And what I found when
I was growing up was I had two ways of
looking at life, and I realized that there's one aspect
of me that is available to experience life in the
(05:56):
form of the input of my five sensus. Something that
I see, something that I hear, something that I smell
or touch or taste, and those are my actual that
is actually my reality, the physical impressions that are gathered
by my five senses. Then comes this second aspect, which
(06:20):
is the meaning making machine that we all have that
creates a story, a narrative, a value judgment, something a
preference alike or a dislike, and then based on that
preference a set of actions and also a kind of
imprinting of this current situation. And if it's a dislike
(06:42):
then a need to memorize how this situation looks, so
that in a future situation, when something looks similar to that,
you can quickly avoid without having to interact with it.
So out of this we create our lived experience. Lived
experience is often not the same as our perceived experience,
(07:07):
and life actually exists in the perceived experience, not in
the lived experience, and resilience is all about making sure
that your lived experience is in harmony, is aligned with
your perceived experience. A lot of people get sucked up
(07:29):
in the story the lived experience, and it is going
off on a tangent based on a past like let
us say some guy with a beard rejected you. The
next time you bump into a guy with a beard
in the bar, your defenses are already up. Now that
(07:51):
means that right now, for this new guy, you are
really not interacting with the perceived experience, interacting with the
lived experience of the past, projecting the past into your future.
And yes, and then you just recreate your past into
your future. So resilience completely resides in the ability to
(08:14):
remain focused upon your pursued experience.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Oh no, so that makes sense. So that makes so
much sense, so much sense. So I have to ask
you about this phenomenon that people talk about. For some
it's a diagnosed disability, and for others they just kind
of throw this term around to make an excuse for
(08:40):
the reason why they can't focus or they're distracted or
they're disorganized. And that is using the term ADHD, which
stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, right or sometimes people
refer to it as ADD, which is a tension deficit disorder,
And a lot of time people throw that around. So
(09:02):
as a medical doctor, can you enlighten the viewers and
the listeners and really explain, you know, in the simplest
terms possible, what exactly is ADHD and ADD and is
there a difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So remember I mentioned about the meaning making machine, Well,
everyone has a meaning making machine. Yeah, A person with
an ADHD or ADD has a meaning making machine that
is turbocharged. It is going at the speed of a rocket.
So because of that, they create stories and narratives of
(09:43):
their liw of their perceived experience at a far greater intensity.
And because of that they are not able to hold
on to the story long enough to execute the logical
conclusion of actions that are dictated by the story. And
therefore they appear distracted because they'll get one meaning, and
(10:08):
before they can even carry that meaning out to its
logical conclusion, the next meaning comes up, and then the
next meaning and the next meaning, and they're spinning out
of control. This is not a disorder. It is actually
an extreme manifestation of a natural cognitive trait that everyone has.
(10:29):
The meaning making machine. Now the person, if you take
an add person, he's basically having a thoroughbred horse capable
of running the Triple Crown as is everyday ride, whereas
the rest of the world has an average pony. Now,
if the add person actually learns how to control his
(10:54):
powerful machine, he will outrun the rest of the world
in no time flat. And that's exactly what happens. So
I was born with ADHD. I was born with aspergers
and ADHD. So I had not only the meaning making
machine that is capable, I was also had an extreme
creativity that would see things differently than the rest of
(11:15):
the world. But I didn't have any control. You know,
the thing that makes a car go fast is not
the accelerator. It is the power to break that allows
you to go fast. If your brakes failed, you will
you will take your foot off the accelerator. You will
not run, you will not go fast. So going fast
(11:40):
requires control, and if you don't have control, you will
just go keep on going from one crash to another crash.
Most ADHD and Aspergers people have a lifetime of crashes
until they get control. And the minute they get control,
they become like Elan Musk. You can't stop them.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I totally understand that. Now within this ADHD work that
you've done. So you have a TED talk and I
want to put that up here for people to see,
or TEDx talk. You have a few TED talks actually,
but this particular one is called the Power of Intentional Focus.
(12:28):
So how did you discover this life changing concept and
how has it influenced your personal and professional journey.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So, like I mentioned, I had ADHD and I would struggle,
but because I was had also this ashburg wers, I
had a photographic memory. So I managed to do very
well in school, well enough to get into medical school
and I went to Partner to do my medical school.
And in Partner, every morning my college was close to
(13:01):
the Ganges. Every morning I would go swimming the Ganges,
and then I would sit down for a hard breakfast.
And when I would sit down for a hart breakfast,
the temple Mahoots, the elephant keepers of the temple, would
bring the temple elephants down the street where I was
hudding my breakfast down on their way to the river
for their back. And now the elephant's trunks would wander everywhere.
(13:26):
They'd go, grab coconut through create mischief of all kinds.
And to prevent this, the mahoots gave the elephant a
chain to hold in its trunk, and holding this chain
prevented the trunk from going off and grabbing at other
things because it had some They gave the trunk a job.
(13:46):
And when I saw this, I suddenly realized, Hey, you know,
I need to give my mind a job, some kind
of an internal chain to hold on to so that
it doesn't go spinning off into idea for ideas. So
I started researching how to do this, and I found
an ancient five thousand year old Sanskrit textbook on meditative techniques,
(14:11):
and there were many techniques in that book, but I
was looking for something that I could use easily for
myself at any time, and I found this technique of
breath watching, and I started watching my breath And actually
recently there's actual research papers showing that breath watching has
profound benefits in ADHD. At that time, when I was
(14:32):
growing up in India, nobody knew ADHD existed in India.
I had no treatment, I had no therapy, nothing. I
trial and error, mistakes, a lot of flop falls and
picked me up. I figured my way through it and
I started doing this breath watching. And initially my periods
(14:54):
of focus was you know, sporadic, but then it became
better and better. I could remain in a zone of
total focus. Now the psychologists called it a flow state,
but I could enter that flow state at will and remain.
And not only that, I could do a task in
(15:16):
perfect flow, stop in mid sentence or mid work, go
to another task being perfect flow, and then switch back
to the first without losing I became that good at
it later on, and that became the theme of my
TED talk where I described the value of flow and
(15:37):
how to develop flow and when you develop flow, not
only does it affect ADHD people, but it affects everyone.
During the pandemic, we were able to teach our patients
to focus on the immediate reality using flow states, so
that they did not spin off under out of control
in their fear driven narratives of what is going to
(15:58):
happen to them or their family. So it made a
huge difference, I could imagine.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I know for me during the pandemic, it was very
difficult because I'm an extrovert and I love being around people,
and so of course I started a podcast, another podcast,
not this one, but I start another podcast at that time,
just so that I could connect with people and talk
to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, the entire world got shoved into an isolation tank
during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
No, absolutely, And so you know, with this power of
intentional focus, which I know at times for some of
us it's harder than others. And you know, in your
work you emphasize staying fully present amid life's chaos, and
(16:53):
I know at times, especially right now, I don't know
about you, but it just seems like the world is
very chaotic right now, and especially here in the United
States is just a little chaotic right now. Things are
just happening left and right, and it's like we can't
control it. I mean, we can't control it anyway, but
it just seems like there are all these life jacked
moments happening around us all the time, and it's causing
(17:16):
you an extreme amount of stress. So how do we
stay fully present amidst this chaos?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So the key to presence in the midst of chaos.
First of all, life, by its very nature is chaoting.
It has always been chaotic. It is neither more chaotic
nor less chaotic in the present moment. It will always
be this way. So once you get past that, no
(17:49):
amount of chaos can really shake you. Once you realize
that this is the nature of life to be chaotic.
Then the second part of it is people in this world,
the vast majority, they live as if time and space
(18:12):
are the definitive boundaries that define their existence, when in reality,
time is actually your memory. So it's a mental construct.
You take one event that you remember and you call
it the past. You take a hope or a dream
(18:34):
of yours and project it and call it a future.
In neither the event that you remember exists anymore at
this point, nor is your plan or anticipated event ever
going to happen with any surety. And that is your future.
(18:55):
So both time is entirely a function of your memory.
If you go to an Alzheimer's spatient, he has no
time because he has no memory. Now, the second thing
is space. Space is entirely a construct based on your perception,
(19:17):
your ability to measure objects through your vision and through
your physical ability to touch and feel. If you did
not have these sensory tools of perception, space would be different.
Space for an earthworm is different, Space for a bumblebee
(19:40):
is different. All right, So space is not a fixed entity.
It is a perception created entity based on the sensory
tools that an organism uses to measure its environment. So
once you get past these two definitions, time and space
(20:03):
are completely entirely invented, it created. Then everything that is
defined within that time and space is your construct. But
one thing remains that is not your construct, your ability
to be aware of it. You actually are a space
(20:26):
within which all these events pop up as options, as stories,
as narratives. Once you realize that your space of being
within which the entire universe pops up as an event,
is a constant, then you really are not defined by
(20:51):
what pops up. You are defined by your ability to
interact with it that is completely in your control. And
not only that, your entire identity shifts you. You shift
from being a product of your interaction to being the
originator of the interaction. As an originator, you're a You're
(21:11):
a constant being. You're you're a constant, timeless being that
is neither beginning nor end to you because there's your
just pure awareness within which Doctor Rowe appears, this podcast appears,
this conversation appears. Something that does not happen tomorrow, like
a plan that does not materialize, that also appears. So
(21:35):
all of that are within an infinite timeline of your being.
Once you get that, you can just dance through life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, Now, the modern world bombards us, and I literally
mean bombards us with constant stimulation. I mean you name it.
It's whether it's from social media or it's from you know, television,
all these different shows, reality shows, the news, uh, you know,
(22:09):
just the conversations around us on the day to day basis.
So what's strategies do you see suggest for maintaining the
really matters? Because if you're not careful, there are a
lot of things that you can focus on that truly
(22:30):
don't matter, or you can't really control the outcome in
a sense.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Most times, like I said in the previous question, the
chaos of the world is nothing more than the stimulations
of the modern world and your ability to pay attention.
If you shift your attention to the act of being
aware of things and allow the various options of your
(23:00):
life to emerge as narratives, but don't grab onto it.
So you've got to practice this. You had to practice observation,
just like you practice going to a gym and lifting
weights to build a bustle. This is a mental muscle
that you have to exercise at. And what I tell
people is exercise observational skills, observation without judgment. So for example,
(23:25):
the Japanese tea ceremony where they make a cup of
tea and serve it, it's entirely an observational exercise. Breath
watching is an observational exercise. Painting can be an observational
it says, where you just watch the flow of colors.
Don't try to go into a judgment, evaluation and meaning better,
but feel the flow. Once you get into the is
(23:49):
the realm of feeling, then that is entirely in the
realm of observation, and in that realm of observation you
have a sanctuary of space, and you can allow meaning
to pop up, and you can decide which meaning you
want to give you want to give the full power
(24:10):
of your attention to if it is in alignment with
your grounding narrative. Now, everyone has a grounding narrative that
they need to define for themselves. But once you identify
your grounding narrative, you can choose which narratives are actually
in alignment with your grounding grounding idea of your life,
(24:30):
and then you can give that particular narrative the full
force of your attention.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
No, that makes sense. Now, do you feel that Eastern
practices in medicine have influenced your approach to healthcare at all?
In leadership as well?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, I mean like I grew up in a country
where you know, we lived with Eastern medicine. So right
now I practic Western medicine, but I borrow extensively from
Eastern medicine and I freely interchange. The body does not
know West or East. The body only knows molecules. So
(25:14):
if there is an Eastern herb that produces the molecules
that will benefit my patient, I'll use it. I am
interested in the creation of health, which is nothing more
than the ability to live life well to the satisfaction
of your goals no matter what. So anything that produces
(25:37):
that is medicine. So under those circumstances, ability to think
clearly is medicine. Good sleep is medicine. Good friendships, good conversations,
things that allow you to become empowered is good medicine.
That's all.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, here's to good medicine. I think we are like
good medicine. Yeah. Now, you often mentioned that it's important
for someone to find one's grounding narrative. What exactly does
that concept mean and how can the viewers or listeners
(26:19):
start crafting their own grounding story.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So everyone in this world has many talents, and they
have one gift, and the business of life is to
find out what your gift is. Your gift is something
that is unique to you that you basically can give
(26:44):
to anybody and you would not become poor by giving it,
and it is the core of your being. And you
have to find that your talents are all the skills
and the abilities you bring to the service of your gift.
Your grounding narrative in your life is anything that allows
(27:06):
you to manifest your gift. So for me, my grounding
narrative is empowerment, and my gift is the ability to
make people free of fear. I can get into a
room and I talk to a person, I can erase
fear from their being. So under those circumstances, my grounding
(27:29):
narrative is the task of empowerment, and to that I
bring into its service all my talents, my eloquence, my
writing skill, my analytical abilities, my abilities in medicine, my
knowledge as a chemist, my knowledge of Eastern and Western medicine,
(27:49):
my knowledge of human behavior. All of that I bring
as my talents to the service of my grounding narrative
of empowerment and removal of fear from the being of
human beings. That is what I mean by finding a
grounding narrative. Each one has to have it. Somebody's grounding
(28:10):
narrative may be playing divine music, another person's grounding narrative.
It's a gift that allows people to expand their presence
when they are in your presence. That is a grounding narrative.
(28:32):
It is the ground and basis of your existence.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Got that? Okay? Okay? That makes sense. That makes sense,
And I understand that you know it is important to
find your grounding narrative I think for me is doing
this resilience work. It's so important to me, and the
fact that I can connect with an audience of people
(28:58):
and give them motivation and have people share their stories
of how they push through in times of adversity. It's
it's fantastic. I tell you that this show gives me
so much joy and pleasure. It really does. Now, you
(29:21):
have so many diverse roles researcher, hospice director, hospital chairman.
How do you balance it all and maintain you know,
each of these different roles.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, I don't do all of them now, but there
was a time when I was doing both. I was
both the hospital chair as well as hospice director. The
beauty of intentional focuses. Once you master focus, you can
enter a close state. Once you enter a close state,
(29:57):
whatever is in front of you is the only thing
that exists. Yes, so to the world it looks like
as if I'm doing multiple things. To me, from my perspective,
it looks as if I'm only doing one thing at
a time. So it becomes ridiculously easy to do only
one thing at a time because that's the only thing
(30:18):
that my mind is engaged in. Most people don't have that.
They engage in something, but they don't engage it fully.
A part of their mind is going off into some
other tangent somewhere else, and because of that, they become skidsophrenic,
they become split multiple personality disorders basically, and as a result,
(30:39):
their effectiveness falls. When you do only one thing and
that's the only thing you're doing, it's easy to do it. Well.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Now, I understand that times I have that same question.
As to me, It's like, how you do everything that
you do? You are, you work full time, you're a
mom of three, you have a podcast, you have a newsletter,
you have friends and a book club, and I do
all these things and I'm like, how do you do that?
And it's exactly what you said one time management, But
(31:19):
I have to have incredible or intentional focus is important.
And that's what you know I have is that I
focus on whatever activity I'm doing at the time, and
I put my energy into that particular activity.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That's right. Yeah, Yeah, So that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah. So now you have several patents and you have
contributed to I mean contributed immensely to medical science, including
co authoring a book entitled I'm sorry. A book titled
Squirrels in My Brain. So I'm sorry, yees, squirrels in
(32:02):
my Brain. So what do you hope readers take away
from this book?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So Squirrels in My Brain came out of a project
that I was doing with the co authors. These are
two students, Media Naqui and Rakel pas Bergia. And it
started with a conversation and they wanted to do some
research project and we got talking about neurodiversity, and we
(32:34):
wanted to see if we could identify strategies that HR
people and corporations could use to tap into the diverse
cognitive powers that their employees have. Twenty percent of the
workforce is considered to be neurodivergent and they are suboptimally
(32:58):
employed because managers don't understand how to employ adhd and
As bog As people to their best ability in workforce
and a work policy that does not recognize the unique
nature of these cognitively empowered individuals. These people are not
(33:22):
cognitively disordered individuals. They are cognitively empowered. They are they
are like rocket powered engines in a world of bulletcarts.
And as the world of bulletcarts is accusing these rockets
of going and crashing up the road, and that's the problem.
(33:47):
All they need is the rockets need their own lane
where the bulletgarts don't go. And that's exactly what schirirrels
in my brain tells. How do you construct a work
environment that gives the bullet carts the freedom of the
way as well as the rockets the freedom of the
way without the two constantly clashing and all of them
(34:12):
aligned to the corporate goal of getting some product out
or some service rendered. So that is the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
No, most definitely. You know, it is difficult to have
focus at times, as we've you know, talked about over
and over in this conversation. But I love that if
you haven't intentional focus that it really can empower individuals
that then you know, dominoes into empowering communities. So what
(34:46):
qualities do you feel that are essential for leaders to
foster resilience and also support people who are as you
as people call neurodivergent within in their environment.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Every leader does only two things for their tribe. The
leader creates a space of safety for his tribe by
eliminating the risk of life. That's the first thing. And
they do this by predicting how life will emerge, and
(35:25):
they allow their tribe the resources to claim their advantage
and whatever comes their way. And the second thing is
a leader shoulders the full burden of failure and allows
their tribe to have the complete freedom to innovate without
(35:46):
the risk of the penalty of failure. So these are
the two things. One is prediction and the second is
elimination or they're taking on the responsibility of failure. If
leaders start doing that, then automatically, whether their workforce has
(36:06):
neurotypical or neurodiversity, they all become neuro aligned. And that
is something that I say in my book. In the
book Schools in My Brain, we bring out the concept
not of neurodiversity or accommodation. We talk about actual alignment.
Let's talk about cognitive alignment. Let's talk about neurolignment. Because
(36:30):
these two words, cognitive alignment and neuro alignment are non judgmental.
They are neutral, and they are enabling across the board.
It is not like you're taking away something from the
normal neurotypical people and giving it to the neurodiverse people
or vice versa. So all this anger and argument over
(36:55):
DEI just fades away into nothing. When you talk about alignment,
alignment is the actual purpose and it is the spirit
of Dei. So instead of talking of BI is DEI,
I talk about it as alignment. How do we get
The five fingers of my hand are unequal. They are
(37:17):
unequal in length, size, shape, and power. But when they
are aligned, they form a fish that can punch through walls.
So that's what I talk about in companies or in groups.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I love that analogy. Oh my gosh, I've never thought
of that with my hand. Yeah, they are all different lengths,
but you're right when they come together and make a fist.
I mean, I don't know if I make a powerful punch,
but cry. Yeah. So for those just beginning their career
in science or medicine, what advice would you offer to
(38:00):
them to help them to remain focused and resilient in
an ever evolvement industry. Because it is difficult to get
through medical school. I don't feel like that's an easy
thing to reach that finish line. So what advice could
you offer to those individuals.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
The first thing is focus on the fact that the
entire world, every human being in this world want solitary things.
They want to be seen. They want to be heard,
and they need they want to be validated, and if you,
as a possession can provide that, then you will succeed
(38:49):
no matter what. That's the first thing. Make sure that
every interaction you have with people allows you to allows
them to feel seen, heard, and validated at wherever, whichever
point they are, where they are, you meet them where
they are and make sure that they are seen, heard,
and validated. Second, in the interaction where you make them
(39:15):
feel seen and heard and validated, make sure always that
you are also equally seen, heard and validated. If you
cannot do these two things at the same time, walk away,
walk away. Second, that last part is where a lot
of doctors have difficulty. They spend their time seeing, hearing,
(39:39):
and validating the rest of the world and forget about themselves.
They need to be seen, heard, and validated themselves, otherwise
they can't do that first part. And if they can't
do both, if they only can validate themselves but not
them or vice versa, then they need to walk away.
And this this is the essence of being successful as
(40:04):
in medicine.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Wow Wow, So I have to ask how do you
envision the role of intentional focus and shaping the future
of healthcare research and community empowerment. I mean, how can
you know we be more intentional in our focus as
(40:26):
we continue to navigate this world.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So the the fundamental core essence of human beings is
to seek happiness. That is why we do everything we do.
We all are only trying to be, to find a
space where we feel validated, empowered and our full complete being.
(41:00):
The problem is we think that we will get that
outside in achieving any one of those stories that pop
up in the circumstances of our life. In actuality, we
can achieve it right sitting in your chair through focus.
If you focus on just yourself as a space of
(41:23):
possibility in which all the stories and options and narratives
and possibility the various situations of your life, they pop
up as emerging possibility that you can decide whether it
is in alignment with your grounding narrator. If it is
in the alignment of the grounding narrative, you pull it
(41:44):
in paid your attention, play with it. If it is
not an alignment to the grounding narrative, forget it. Focus
on your grounding narrative, remain constantly anchored to grounding narrative
like your elephant's chain all right, and your whole life
will just flow like as if there is. It is
(42:07):
as if you're caught up on a powerful current that
carries you to the finish line with no effort on
your part, instead of having to fight against the current
with every stroke. It's a lot of it's a lot
of fun living life that way.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Most definitely. And I mean, I think we all want
to have fun, and you're right, that's what we search for.
We do the supposedly you should do your work rights
some it should be something that you enjoy and as
you're spending time with different people, it should bring you
joy and you should experience happiness.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Now it's more than should, it's more than should. If
you actually know your grounding narrative, then you will there
is no should in your life, like for example, there
is no should for water to be wet and flow.
There is no there's no should for fire to have
heated light. It is just the way it is. So
(43:07):
when people find their grounding narrative, they just be the
way they are. They have no should about them. They
just do it as a natural expression of their own being,
just like the way you and I breathe, You don't.
You don't sit here. You don't sit and contemplate every
breath and say I should take the next breath. It's
(43:28):
just natural, true, very true, very true.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, doctor Eyer, it's hard to believe that this conversation
is coming to an end, but I have to ask
My final question is the question that I ask everyone,
which is, what is, in your opinion, the best way
for someone to build resilience, whether they have trouble focusing,
(43:58):
have trouble developing or understanding what they're grounding or creating
their grounding narrative, or just maybe they've reached their breaking point.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
There is a power that brought you into being. For example,
before you were born, five hundred millions permetozoa lost the
race to the ones permetozoa that fertilized your mother's egg
(44:32):
and became you. And after that happened, the precise arrangement
of genes that made who you are has never existed
in the entire history of the universe, and after you
(44:54):
dissolved into the elements of the universe, that genetic the
nation will never again exist. If you once you realize
the extreme rarity that you actually are, it is absolutely
impossible for you to even consider that you could ever fail.
(45:22):
You really need to know this. People need to know
how rare each one of them are. There's never been
a person like you before, There's never be a person
like you again, And you were a winner or out
of five hundred million before you were even conceived.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Wow, well, doctor ire your journey from India to the
corridors of Harvard is nothing short of inspirational. Your insights
on mindful presence and resilience remind us that even amidst
modern distractions, we have the power to reclaim our focus
and rewrite our own narratives. As we wrap up today's conversation,
(46:11):
I hope the viewers and listeners feel empowered to seek
their inner silence, build their grounding narrative, and find purpose
in every challenge. Before we sign off, Doctor Iyer, please
let our viewers and listeners know where they can connect
with you. Find copies of your books or book you
for speaking.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Oh, you can just go on to my website. It's
www Doctor d r I y e r dot com.
You can look at me on LinkedIn Facebook. I just
put my website in the chat, but that is the
(46:58):
most common ways to actually come to my website and yeah,
that's the doc Trier dot com. You can book fifteen
twenty thirty minute call with me to talk about what
you want to have accomplished and you can figure out
(47:19):
how to get it accomplished.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Do you have any last words of encouragement for the listeners.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's a wonderful life. Go live it. Whatever you were
meant to do, go do it. That's all it is.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Thank you for sharing your extraordinary story and practical wisdom
with us onlike Jack to the Resilience Podcast. Your message
encourages us all to focus intentionally and live passionately. I
want to wish you and your family nothing but blessings
and a this please take care. Thank you doctor Reverie,
(48:04):
I or everyone be sure to join me next time
for more uplifting stories and insights on resilience. Until then,
keep pushing forward, embrace the journey, and remember that every
setback can lead to a greater comeback. Doctor Rowe signing off.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!