← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
9 Ways To Break Free From the Habits That Are Holding You Back | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
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- [00:01]
Dan Harris
Wondery subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing today? We're going to talk about habits of mind that may be holding you back. I'm referring here to things like your reliance on perfection, your reliance on being right all the time, your reliance on being comfortable, your reliance on being busy, and much more. My guest is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who has written a book in which he taxonomizes nine areas of what he calls over reliance and he talks about how these nine things are holding you back from making the changes you might want to make in your life and how to break free from them. Aside from the examples I listed above, we also talk about our tendency toward over reliance on experts instead of listening to ourselves, our over reliance on being liked by other people, and our over reliance on things never going wrong. He has a theory that I like called the Escalator Theory, which is the fallacy that life should always be a smooth upward trajectory. I have fallen prey to this fallacy many times, so we'll talk about that. Before we dive in though, I just want to say two things. First, a little bit more about Dr. Chatterjee. He's been a practicing physician for more than two decades. He's also a published author. His latest book, in which he lists these nine things that hold you back, is called Make Change that Lasts and he's the host of his own podcast called Feel Better Live More. The other thing I want to say is that this is yet another episode that is overstuffed with practical strategies. So I will remind you that if you're a paid subscriber over@danharris.com, you will get a cheat sheet that sums up all the key takeaways and also comes with a full transcript. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee coming up right after this. Before we get to the show, I just want to mention that the Dump It Here journal that my wife and I created and that sold out double quick. It's back in stock. Just go to danharris.com and click on Shop to find it. Or go to shop.danharris.com It's a really cool journal. It's pretty non dogmatic. There are some instructions at the beginning. The rest of it is an open field for your scribbling. Go check it out danharris.com and click on the shop or go to shop danharris.com the Happier Meditation App has introduced a new course called Even Now Love A Prescription for Connection. Led by the renowned teacher Joseph Goldstein, this timely course offers practical tools to pause, breathe and reconnect even when it feels impossible in a turbulent world. With fresh perspectives on relationships and self compassion, practices that actually work, it's a powerful way to approach the new year with love. Download the Happier Meditation App today and explore Even Now Love. I love Staying in Airbnbs. Last year a bunch of families got together and we had an Airbnb near a ski lodge in upstate New York. It wasn't even snowing yet. The point was just to hang out and we all spent the weekend together in this house. It was incredibly cozy and fun. As my friend Zev sometimes jokes, it's really cool to get out of the dinner industrial complex and instead of just spending time with your favorite people over, you know, this kind of regimented two hour meal at a restaurant, which can be super expensive. When you get a house together, you're really, really hanging out and it's a great way to get to know other people's children. My son was so happy during dinner he got up from the table just to dance, which is always a good sign. Long way of saying I like Airbnb. Maybe you want to go somewhere warm over the winter while you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money toward your trip. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home or spare room might be worth more than you. Find out how much@airbnb.com host it's a new year and Whole Foods Market is the place to jumpstart your wellness journey. Shop for high quality ingredients, organic produce, no antibiotics ever, meat, and more. My family and I are power shoppers at Whole Foods Market. We get a huge percentage of our household goods from Whole Foods. And I really like the fact that you can think of Whole Foods as a kind of partner as you plan your wellness routine in the new year. They have high quality standards. Whole Foods Market bans more than 300 questionable ingredients from all the food they sell, and they ban more than 150 ingredients from all supplements they sell. Plus, there are so many organic options, you'll find 41,000 organic products across the store. It's always great when a brand that my family and I are using anyway asks to be a sponsor of this show. We live pretty close to a Whole Foods Market and we love it. So glad to have them as a sponsor. Just to say in closing Here, terms apply to all sales, pickup and delivery. Make Whole Foods Market the home of your wellness routine. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, welcome to the show.
- [05:10]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Dan. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
- [05:14]
Dan Harris
Yeah, me too. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Jay Shetty. So before we dive into the list that forms the spine of the book which I'm really interested in, let's just start high level for a second. I'm curious, as a medical doctor focused on lifestyle medicine, this is a book about how to break free from toxic habits. I think I can see the through line there. But I'd be interested from your point of view. How did this book arrive?
- [05:41]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. So as we're speaking, Dan, I've been a medical doctor for 23 years. And during my career, my thoughts on health and wellbeing and, frankly, happiness to broaden this out have evolved quite a lot. So I left Medical School in 2001 thinking that I had all the tools that I needed to help my patients get better. And now, with hindsight, I realized for the first few years there was a bit of discontentment within me as I practiced medicine. Because what I learned, which is what many doctors learn, is that the tools we learn at medical school are fantastic for some things, but not for everything. And I think the simplest way for people to imagine this is that the health landscape of the us, the UK, and frankly, many countries around the world has dramatically changed over the last 20, 30, 40 years. So 30, 40 years ago, most of what we saw were what we call acute problems. You have a chest infection, you go to see the doctor, they listen to your chest, they see that you've got a fever, they diagnose it, they give you a prescription, and a week later your problem has gone. So our training is very, very good for these acute problems, or you have a heart attack, or you get knocked down in the street by a car. But 80 to 90% of what we see today is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles, the way we're living our lives. Dan, I'm not putting blame on people. I understand that modern life is really stressful and that people are unable or they feel unable to live the lives that they want to live. Right? But nonetheless, the tools that we learn at medical school don't work so well for, I would say, 80 to 90% of what we see. And so I've been on this journey to figure out, well, how can I truly help my patients, not just give them a pill to suppress a symptom where I know they'll be back in three weeks saying it's not gone, or give me another pill, which is what I did for a few years. I thought, well, there must be another way. And there's been quite a couple of powerful experiences in my career that have really forced me to change the way that I look at health and medicine. But the reality is that once you understand that most of what we see is related to the way we're living our lives, then it's kind of obvious, if you follow that train of thought, that the way to help people then is to help them change the way that they're living their lives. Right. When I put it like that, I think it's quite obvious. But I still think people only think about that in relation to things like type 2 diabetes or obesity. But actually, the same principles apply for most of what we see. Anxiety, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, gut problems, low libido. Our lifestyle is hugely impacting that. So in 2015, Dan, I got the opportunity to make a primetime BBC One show called Doctor in the House, which has now been shown in 70 countries around the world. And in that series, I helped a family reverse their type 2 diabetes in 30 days. I helped a lady with panic attacks reduce them by 80% in six weeks. I helped a lady with fibromyalgia pains who'd had pains for 10 years and was unable to even go to work or walk around the block. She was pain free after six weeks. I did the same thing with menopausal symptoms. And I'm not saying that to say I'm anything special at all. I don't mean that. What I mean is on that show, I was able to demonstrate that if you can help people with their nutrition, their lifestyle, and their mindset, which is really, really important, their mindset, you can have a profound impact on multiple different symptoms. So, circling back to your first question, how did this book come about? Well, a lot of what I do as a doctor is trying to help my patients make changes to their lifestyle. But, Dan, I'm sure you will recognize this as much of the audience will. All of us can make changes for a few weeks, maybe a few months, but often we can't make those changes sustainable. We revert back to where we were before. And I believe the reason why is because we haven't got to the root cause of our behaviors. So the central message in this book is that every single behavior in your life serves a role. You'll never change the behavior in the long term unless you Understand the role that it plays in your life. I'll give you a really quick example that hopefully makes it clear to the audience if your alcohol consumption is your way of managing stress. Well, you can decide in January or February or whenever that you're going to cut out alcohol for 30 days and you may well succeed. But often people end up where they were before unless one of two things have happened. Either the amount of stress in your life has to have gone down so you have no need for that alcohol, or you need to find an alternative behavior to alcohol to manage your stress. And I think, Dan, when I put it like that, it sounds rather obvious. But I don't think that we think about habit change and behavior change in that way. We're too focused on the behavior instead of understanding the energy behind the behavior. If that makes sense.
- [11:25]
Dan Harris
It does. So a couple of things just to reflect back to you, just to make. Just to make sure I understand it. One is you became a doctor at an interesting time where there were these macro forces in the society. It used to be in medicine, when my parents were doctors were coming up, the profession was really good at just treating an acute issue. You come in, there's something immediately wrong. We the medical profession surround the football and help you with the right medicine and other interventions to get cured. The new problem is that we have these underlying sort of noxious, emergent properties of modern life that are making us sick. Overly processed food, sedentary lifestyle, individualism and loneliness that have deleterious effects for our health. And these underlying trends are causing these diseases or health issues that aren't effectively treated with acute medical interventions. They we need to address the underlying lifestyle. And so that has become the main focus of your medical career. And I've of course, as part of that, making change is a huge element. And making change we know for humans is really hard, hence this book. It's a kind of. And this is I think the second part of what you were saying. It's kind of like we know there are lots of. And we're posting this at a time where we've just come through the beginning of a new year and on this show and elsewhere, people are talking about these little hacks you can deploy to change your habits. But actually what you're trying to focus on is like I deep habit change getting at the root of why we do what we do and really understanding that and addressing it at a root cause level. Okay, so that's my attempt to summarize a long answer, a great long answer just to be Clear, long answers are welcome here. Did I come close?
- [13:13]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
That was perfect. I love the way you did that. You did it in two parts. I think that's very, very accurate. Again, I just want to emphasize none of this is about blame, right? I. I don't blame people. I don't judge people. I became a doctor to help people. And that is, in essence, you know, what you've just said is how I view the world, how I view healthcare, but also, you know, Dan, you know the name of this podcast is 10% happier, right? And I've also spoken a lot and written my last book on happiness, actually. Because what people don't realize is that the things we're talking about, these behavior changes, it isn't just health, it's also happiness. It's also our relationships. These things are not quite as separate as we often make out. And I've realized as a doctor, I need to be interested in my patients happiness as well as their health, because they're not completely separate. There are very strong links in the literature between health and happiness, and the relationship goes both ways. Healthier people are happier and happier people are also healthier. We've seen, there's different studies that show it's a bidirectional relationship. And I've seen that firsthand. And what I've tried to do in this book, Dan, is put it all together. 23 years of medical practice, tens of thousands of patients seen. There are some commonalities, you see, when people truly transform their lives for good, not just for January, not just for February, but they managed to do it like it's a real change in their life, because then that's what people really want, right? They don't want to listen to this podcast or another podcast and go, yeah, I can do this thing for the next week. They actually want it to make a meaningful change where they go, wow, I kind of get that. And I think one of the central ideas, in fact, I opened the book with this story, actually. It's a very powerful story. There was a GP friend of mine, so another medical doctor who was a real expert in type 2 diabetes, and she was basically counseling a patient in front of her. You know, the patient was newly diagnosed with diabetes, and she was saying, look, this is the situation. And you know, too much sugar and ultra processed foods are going to have this kind of impact on your insulin resistance and your blood sugar. And the patient said, hey, Doc, why on earth should I listen to you? You're fatter than I am. Now, we may say that that's an insensitive thing to say. And yes, you know, normally you wouldn't expect that kind of thing to be said in a professional interaction. But my friend phoned me. Well, she texted me and said, rongan, could we chat this weekend? I thought, this is weird. Obviously something's up. So I spoke to her and she was really upset. She said, hey, yeah, I know the patient probably shouldn't have said it, but you know what? The patient was right. They were absolutely right. While I was counseling the patient on the dangers of excess sugar, in my desk drawer I had a big packet of Cadbury's Giant buttons. Right. So the reason I start the book with that story, Dan, is to illustrate the point that knowledge is not enough. Right? We think that all we need is more knowledge. Oh, let's listen to another podcast. Let's get another book on sugar. Well, I submit to you, Dan, that most people who are consuming excess sugar, let's say, or consuming excess alcohol, most people kind of know that already. Like they already know that sugar's not good for their teeth or their waistline or their risk of diabetes. Do we really need more external information? What I argue in this book is that we need not necessarily more external information, but more internal information. We need more self awareness, more insight, more understanding of why do we go to certain behaviors when we're feeling stressed, for example? And that's the secret for me, it's understanding what is actually going on. Why do I keep going to this behavior, whether it's sugar, alcohol, pornography, too long on social media, online shopping, you know, whatever it might be. All of these kind of low grade addictions we have in society, they're actually not as separate as we think. Often they have the same root cause. And this book is basically about trying to help people identify what are those root causes for them?
- [17:47]
Dan Harris
One of the central ideas and motifs in the book is minimal reliance. Can you unpack that?
- [17:55]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Minimal reliance basically comes from this idea that the reason so many of us struggle in our lives and with our lives is because we're overly reliant on certain things in our external environment. Okay? So very simply, many people feel that they can be okay and feel okay if everything in their day goes okay, right? If their kids are nice to them in the morning, they get to school on time, their partner says nice words to them, there's no traffic on the way to work, their boss treats them nicely, they get the parking space they want, et cetera, et cetera. When things go well in our external world, we feel good. And of course, that's understandable, but many of us are overly reliant on those things happening in order to feel okay. So when something happens in our external world that is not okay, like someone cuts you up in the road on the way to work, there's traffic, your boss sends you a short email that you don't like, it really, really affects us internally and we don't feel good. So we are overly reliant on certain things in the external world in order to feel good. And I'm making the case in the book that what we're looking for is a state of minimal reliance. Not zero reliance, which we can get to later perhaps, but minimal reliance. You want to be less reliant or dependent on these things in your external world in order to feel good, because then you feel a sense of control over yourself. And that's going to help you make better decisions and better choices. But there are some other more big picture reliances. And those big picture alliances are basically form the nine chapters in this book, right? A reliance, a big reliance that I have seen, whether it be affect myself, my patients, members of the public, whatever, these reliances affect many different people. And if we can cut that reliance or become minimally reliant on those things, we're going to be able to make changes that last. So the best way to describe it is with an example, I think. So the first chapter is called Trust Yourself and that's all about this over reliance on experts. Now, I need to be very careful how I say this and be really clear because I am one of these so called experts, right? So I'm a medical doctor with 23 years experience. I've done my specialist exams, my primary care exams, I have an immunology degree, I'm a professor at Chester Medical School. Like, I have all these expert qualifications, but I can still say that I cannot know what is the right thing for any individual, right? And so let me just explain what I mean by that. We're living in a world, Dan, where there is a bombardment of information, right? All of us are consuming so much information these days from podcasts like yours or mine, books, you know, online blogs, whatever it might be. We're constantly consuming all this information. And what's often happening is that people are ending up being confused. So what I've often found on my podcast, Dan, is this, right, I may talk one week to an expert from Harvard Medical School. And so they've got all the credentials. And there was one chap, Dr. Chris Palmer, fantastic doctor, psychiatrist at Harvard. And he came onto my show and he spoke about how he has found a ketogenic diet can be really, really helpful for some people with severe mental health problems like bipolar disorder or severe anxiety. Right. And he will show you published studies and he'll present to you case studies of patients who have changed their life. And it all sounds great. And then I can also speak to someone two months later, let's say Professor Felice Jacker from Australia, who has shown that a whole food diet with lots of plants in can help reverse depression in some cases. And she'll present research findings and also patient case studies. And what I would often find is on Instagram people will DM me and say, Dr. Chatty, I'm a little bit confused. Right. Both experts sound fantastic, but I don't know which expert to trust. And then I believe in 2025 that's the wrong question to be asking. It's. It shouldn't be, which expert should I trust? The better question is why do I no longer trust myself? And I think this is a really, really key point. Both of those experts can be right for different people, but they're not going to be right for everyone. So a very simple thing I could say to someone is, listen, if both of those experts resonate with you and you like the data they are showing you and the evidence, why don't you try one of their diets for four weeks and whilst you're trying it, pay attention to your energy, your mood, your guts, your bloating, your sleep, your relationships, pay attention to those things and then try the other approach for four weeks. And whilst you're doing it, pay attention and you will know at the end of those four weeks which one of those diets is suiting you better at that time in your life. Just to be clear, Dan, I'm not saying to ignore experts like me. What I'm saying is the balance has gone so far where by now, what often happens is that we no longer trust ourselves. When we follow an expert's plan, whether it be about meditation or food or exercise or sleep, and it's not working, we never think the plan is the problem. We think that we're the problem, that we fail, failed in some way and then guilt, shame, regret, these things start to come in and then that's what gets in the way of making sustainable change. So that chapter is all about saying, hey, it's okay to listen to experts, but we now need to start trusting ourselves a little bit more. Listening to our bodies. We need to understand that there's no one right approach that Works for absolutely everybody. So I think this book is a little bit different from a lot of health books in that I'm really trying to put the control, I'm trying to give the control back to the reader and say, listen, you know your body better than I do. Here are some guiding principles. But ultimately only you will know the right approach for you in your life.
- [24:31]
Dan Harris
It's interesting because in some ways in this aspect of the book you're cutting against the tide. Because I have a sense that people really want to be just told what to do because it's so confusing. I think there are a lot of voices in our industry. And by our industry I'm referring to not the medical profession because I'm not part of that, but like the health and wellness expert slash influencer industry. I see the people who often are really at the top of the game are very prescriptive because people really want to be told, just fucking tell me what to do. And what you're saying is actually trust yourself, which is a hard thing to do because everything about modern society militates us against self awareness.
- [25:14]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Exactly.
- [25:15]
Dan Harris
Required.
- [25:16]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. You're raising such a good point. Right. Just because people want to be told what to do, it doesn't mean that that's the best thing for them.
- [25:25]
Dan Harris
I agree.
- [25:25]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay. So what I've realized, and the truth is this is the most. I couldn't have written this book even five years ago because I would have been too scared of judgment. I was too insecure in who I was. Even with all my expertise, I was still, as I was for much of my life, dependent on external validation in order to feel good. Now I'm not anymore. I've done a lot of the so called inner work and processed my inner world. So I'm sitting before you now, Dan. At 47 years of age, I've never felt this good. I feel calm, I feel grounded. I genuinely feel peaceful inside. And I no longer need to be liked by the world around me. Right. Chapter three in this book is about this. Over reliance on being liked. Right. I used to have that and it affected a lot of my behavior. Circling back to what you said for just a moment, if it was as simple as hearing from an expert and they give us the prescription and we follow it and it changes our life. Why is it that so many people are still sick? Right? We've got more expertise than ever before available to more and more people, yet at the same time, physical health is getting worse and our mental health is getting worse across the society. So I thought Something's going on here. More knowledge is not equating to better health outcomes because we'd always think, oh, knowledge is power, all we need is more knowledge now. Sure, I accept there are some external factors like our food environment and the toxic workplaces that many people have to go to where they're chronically stressed and never get to switch off. I accept that those things are working against people, but actually you will only make long term change, like the change that people actually want when it comes from deep within you. I have seen this time and time again with patience, Daniel. Anybody can change for four weeks or two months or three months. Anyone can just go, right, I've had enough, that's it. Now I'm losing weight or I'm sick of keep saying, I'm going to meditate. That's it, I'm going to meditate now, right, I'm going to do it this year. But actually we're not really wanting that for one month or two months. We're wanting it sustainably and it will only happen when it comes from you. Like, Dan, you've got children, right? Like I do one kid. So you've got a child. I've got two children. Okay. One thing I've learned, and I've also learned this from my patients, is that nobody actually likes to be told what to do. Right? Kids don't like to be told what to do, but I don't think adults do. And so there's a section in this book where I write about the fact that I've never told a patient that they must give up smoking. Why not? Because most people will go, well, that's your job as a doctor. I said, no, it's not my job as a doctor. If a patient comes in and asks me for my opinion, then my job is to tell them the impact smoking is having on their health. I say, well, I think smoking is the reason you're breathless and the reason, you know, you're struggling to sleep and whatever it might be. If at the end of that conversation, if I'm confident that patient has understood me and they really understand what I've said to them, if they then say to me, hey, Dr. Chatter, you know, I understand what you're saying, but actually I get so much enjoyment out of smoking that I'm prepared to put up with those consequences. I've never thought it's my job, Dan, as a doctor, to tell him that he should stop like he's another human being who I genuinely see as an equal. And I will go, I will Accept that. Now, I will also say, throughout my career, I think I've had pretty good compliance with my patients because I never talked down to them. Like, I really don't subscribe to this old school, paternalistic medical establishment type view where doctor knows best and we're gonna tell the patient what to do. I'm sure some people can make that work. I never could. I've always seen this as an equal interaction. And when you behave like that with your patients, what often happens is they come back a few weeks later or a few months later and I'll go, hey, Doc, you know, I know I said I didn't want to give up smoking, but I've been thinking about it, actually, I think I do. Could you help me take the next steps? And it's something subtle that I've noticed time and time again. It's because I wasn't telling them. I didn't tell them what to do. I was just sharing information. They decided it came from within them. And that's why a lot of these plans, these prescription plans, in my view, don't work in the long term because we still feel it's, oh, doctors telling me what to do, the experts telling me what to do, which means at some point we can discard it because it hasn't become a part of who we are. And I think that's the subtle difference. Did that make sense, Dan?
- [30:20]
Dan Harris
It does make sense. There's abroad, in the land, in the general populace, in among your patients and among our listeners. Although most people don't know it, there's a conflicting set of demands. On the one hand, on some level we crave, just tell me what to do. And on the other level, we really don't want to be told what to do. And so that's why we'll get really excited about some plan that some shiny new expert has, but we won't ever actually get it into our molecules and execute on it in a long term way. We might do it for a little while and maybe some of us will do it in a long term way. Those are the mutants who are really good at following instruction. But most of us will do it for a little while and then we'll fall off the wagon because we're missing the fundamental step, which is intrinsic motivation. We fully understand why we want to do what we need to do and how we ought to go about it. And that can make an abiding long term habit.
- [31:17]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I completely agree, Dan. And another way I think about this is that every single behavior in our life, either comes from the energy of love or the energy of fear. Now, I've been testing this out and really trying to get it clear in my head that does this apply in every single case? And I genuinely believe that it does. So New Year's a prime example, right? So I believe a lot of New Year's resolutions, a lot of changes that often happen in January, February, March, the start of the year, are coming from an energy of fear. What do I mean by that? I don't feel good enough. I don't look good enough. I'm a loser. Like, I need to beat myself up now. I need to overcome basically how I feel about myself with these lifestyle choices that I'm now going to make and we're pushing through. But the underlying energy is one of fear. I don't like who I am, right? I'm afraid to show up and be seen in the world for who I truly am. So these lifestyle choices, then try and camouflage that and try and overcome that. But actually, when your energy is one of love, that actually, you know what? I like the person I am actually, and I want to do the best for who I am. I want to be the best human being that I can so I can be present with my children and my partner, so I can be a really good work colleague. It's a very different energy. And those changes then tend to be sustainable. So let's take meditation as an example, right? Because I've had a checkered history with meditation over the years. So five or six years ago, when I still had this very vicious inner voice, you know, I think for much of my lifetime, I don't think I really liked myself. And I have kind of tried to unpick where this has come from. I have a very simplistic explanation which I think works for me. But in essence, I didn't like who I was. Really at my core level, I was a people pleaser, an excessive people pleaser. I feel today I'm a people pleaser in recovery because I felt that the only way I would get validation is by changing who I was, right? So I became very good at changing who I was to get validation from other people. But that's not a very happy and calm and compassionate way to live. It certainly wasn't for me. So back then, this is my approach on January, the first meditation, right? I know meditation is really good for me. I've seen the studies. It's going to help me reduce activity in my amygdala. It's going to help me focus better. It's Going to help me sleep better, right? I know with more and more external knowledge that meditation is good for me. This is the year I'm going to rock out on meditation, right? So I start January 1, 20 minutes and I keep going. And on January 20, let's say I'll be a little bit busy, something will happen. I don't manage to do it. And then the negative voice starts, oh, you couldn't do it, could you? You're a loser. Yeah, you said it was going to be this year, but you just couldn't do it. You couldn't even get to the end of January. What happens then? That's the energy of fear, guilt, shame, regret, which means I don't continue meditation, then becomes a pipe dream. It's something that I used to do and I no longer do. Whereas now, these days, genuinely, I meditate regularly, but not necessarily every day, right? I don't beat myself up anymore. I've realized that actually I'm a better human being when I meditate for 10 or 15 minutes first thing every morning. I'm more present with my children, I'm a better husband, I'm a better doctor. So I do it. And then on the odd day where I miss it because life happens, I go, oh, wow, isn't that interesting? I missed it today. And look, I was a bit more reactive. I wasn't quite as focused. Oh, you know what? Tomorrow I must make sure I get back to that. It's a very different relationship with myself. And so the behavior now sticks, right? So we've got this idea. I think I've had a great conversation with Kristin Neff on my podcast. I think you have as well, Dan, in the past. And she'll tell us about self compassion and how people who are compassionate to themselves, they are the ones who stick to behaviors in the long term. Actually, it's not the ones who beat themselves up. So these ideas about getting to the root cause of your behaviors, they're actually more important than Getting the latest 21 day plan? Because the latest 21 day plan is more. Again, there are some great ones out there. I'm not denigrating them, right. A lot of my friends have written some brilliant 21 day plans, right? So to be really clear, I'm not saying that you don't need that. Yes, you need external knowledge. But I would argue for most of us, what we need more than anything is more internal knowledge. And therefore, I believe the most important practice that anyone can do in this day and age is have a daily practice of solitude like A daily practice where you're not getting in more and more information from the outside. You're starting to tune in and listen. What is your body telling you? How are you feeling? Where is that tightness in your body? What is coming up for you? Are there relationships in your life that need a bit of attention? We don't realize, Dan, if we wake up and the first thing we do is start consuming social media, emails, even if we're consuming good quality content, we're still consuming from the outside. And what I want people to take from this book is that guys, your body is always sending you messages and signals, but if you never spend any time with yourself, you're never going to hear those messages.
- [37:00]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I agree. And just to put a fine point on it, you're arguing that if we learn chapter one in this book, one of nine over reliances that you've identified and chapter one is about this reliance on experts. If you don't learn to trust yourself, then it's going to be hard to make long term change and we one way to learn to listen to yourself, which again very few of us are taught in a culture where we're constantly being bombarded by messages from the larger world, the larger society, via social media, et cetera, et cetera. One way to get that self awareness is meditation. So we can okay, is this new diet I'm trying working for me? So we've covered that. We're not going to be able to make it to all nine of the chapters, but people should go read the book for themselves. But to the extent that we can, let's cover some more of them coming up. Dr. Chatterjee talks about barriers and solutions when it comes to long term change. How to stop people pleasing or to become a people pleaser in recovery, as he refers to himself. And some tips for neutralizing emotional discomfort and stress. Elevating my style used to mean spending a ton of money, but with quints I can get high end versatile pieces at really incredibly reasonable prices. I wear a ton of Quint's stuff. I may have mentioned this before, but I was at an event recently and somebody, some dude walked up to me and said are you wearing quints? Do you actually wear that stuff? Because I hear you talk about it on the podcast and the answer is yes I do. I started out wearing their stuff because they were a sponsor, but now I actually spend my own money on the stuff instead of just the items they send me. I particularly like their Mongolian cashmere crewneck sweaters which start only $50. I have several of those. I also have some pants that are super comfortable. You may have heard me mention this before, but I particularly like that their pants are not too tight fitting. The best part? All Quint Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quint's cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to you. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fabrics and finishes. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U-I-N-C E.com happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com happier year this show is sponsored by Better Help. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled in 2025. Maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's part of your story you've been wanting to revise. Life isn't about resolutions that fade by January. It's about picking up the pen and becoming the author of your own life. Think of therapy as your editorial partner in this process, helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story that you deserve to live. I have benefited enormously from therapy in my own life, and I really do think of the therapists I've worked with, including the one I'm working with now, as my editorial partners in this process. And I've been thinking a lot about what I want out of this current year. A lot of it involves the status quo. I love doing this show, and I love danharris.com, but I also have other goals, like finally finishing my book. So I'll be talking about all of this with my therapist. If you want access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties, check out BetterHelp. You can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E L p.com happier the happier meditation App has a new course. It's called Even Now a Prescription for Connection. It is taught by Joseph Goldstein and others, and it invites you to pause, breathe, and choose love, even in life's messiest moments. With tools to strengthen connection, rethink relationships as a lab for love and Build self compassion. It's a useful way to approach the new year with clarity and care. You can download the Happier Meditation app and check out Even Now Love Today. You mentioned chapter three is about this reliance on being liked. And you talked about your own struggles with people pleasing. How does a reliance on being liked block us from making long term change and what can we do about it?
- [41:33]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
People who identify as people pleasers, which, you know, there's a lot of people in society, I'm sure there's many people listening now down to this show who probably would go, yeah, I'm a excessive people pleaser. The problem with people who identify like that and behave like that is they're constantly putting other people's needs before their own. So they tend to feel a lot of anger, resentment when they're in the privacy of their own home because outwardly they're always doing what everyone else wants them to do and they, they're coming across fantastically to everyone, but it's coming at a cost to themselves. So I say in the book, the cost of being liked by everyone else is that you no longer like yourself. Right. Very simplistically. And then you start to engage in all of these behaviors to compensate for the inner discomfort you feel because you're not living in alignment with who you really are. Again, let's just relate this to something I said earlier to really, I really want these points to land for people these behaviors that many of us struggle with. Sugar, alcohol, online pornography, social media, doom scrolling, online shopping, whatever it might be. Often the underlying reason behind that behaviour is the same in different people. Right? So one people pleaser may deal with their internal discomfort by drinking to excess in the evenings when they're at home, because it numbs the discomfort that they're feeling within themselves. Someone else might do that by opening a tub of Haagen Dazs ice cream in the evening, right when they're back at home. Someone else might do it on online pornography or whatever it might be. They're trying to get a relief from that internal discomfort. So that's why a reliance on being liked by other people, I should say an over reliance, because we are social beings. I'm not talking about behaving in a way that no one likes you and that you don't create those good relationships. No. And that's why the last chapter is the Gift of Reliance. And I talk about the importance of community and how actually the best way we serve those around us is to become minimally reliant because then we're not needy on those people. We're actually complete in and off ourselves, and then we can be of real service to the people around us. So I think community is really, really important. But we engage better when we become minimally reliant. So how do we stop being a people pleaser and stop this over reliance and being liked? Well, again, it's like getting to the root cause, Dan. Right? It's trying to get to, well, what is really causing this for me? Why am I unable to put up boundaries and put my own needs first when I need to? And so, you know, I'll try and summarize my story very quickly in case it resonates with any of your audience. My parents were Indian immigrants down to the UK. So my dad came in 1962 to the UK, mum, I think in 1972. And they came to create a better life, right? Dad came here to create a better life for his family, me, my brother, and his family back home in India. I remember as a child, Dan, coming home from school, maybe 6 years old, 7 years old, really excited, say, hey, Mum, dad, hey. I got 19 out of 20 in the test. And I can really clearly remember that Mum and Dad would never say, well done. They would say, what did you get wrong? Did you come first? So I say, no, no, I didn't come first. I came second. So who came first? Oh, right, okay. Their focus was on what I got wrong. Now, this is not about blame, right? Every situation in life, Dan, has multiple perspectives, right? So from mum and Dad's perspective, I totally get it now. They're immigrants to the UK in the 60s and 70s. They're facing discrimination in their head. The way they avoid their children facing the struggles that they had to face was by excelling, right? So if their child can become a straight A student and become a doctor or a lawyer, they're not gonna have the problems that we face. So it kind of makes sense from their perspective. The problem for me was that little Rongen takes on the belief at the age of six that, oh, I'm not really loved unless I'm top dog, unless I'm top of the class, and I get 100%. And it's only over the last few years I've realized just how toxic that belief was for me for much of my life. Dan, most of my friends will tell you that Rongan is one of the most fiercely competitive people they know. I used to be Dan. I'm not anymore. Because being competitive is not who I am, it's who I became, right? So if you feel that the only way you get the validation or you're liked by the people around you and as a young age by my parents is by achieving well. Well, it's pretty genius to develop the trace of competitiveness because that's going to drive you to push hard and work harder and stay up to 1am to make sure that you are top of the class and you are a straight A student. Right. But it's not who I am, it's who I became. And as I, yes, with therapy for sure, but also with deep meditation and asking myself a few pertinent questions every day, which I still do, I've managed to change that. I understand where that came from. I actually don't blame my parents at all. I totally get where they were coming from. I think when people go and examine their past on a slight offshoot here, Dan, One of the things that concerns me at the moment is that it's good that we have a greater awareness of how important our childhoods are. What happened in our childhood has a huge influence on our adult behaviors. But I think there's two stages to that process. There's the understanding what happens and why it happens. But then it's moving on and going, okay, that happens. Now what am I going to do about it and move on. And I think a lot of people don't get to stage two. They get stuck in, yeah, well, you know, what can I do? This is how my parents brought me up. Of course I'm this way. Like I could have that. So I could say, yeah, I'm competitive, what can I do? I developed that as a five year old, but actually I think that's very disempowering. You became that way for a reason, and I believe you can unbecome that way as well once you become aware of what caused it. Sometimes it needs therapy, but it doesn't always. Daniel. The reason I say that is not to say therapy is not good. It is if you have the right kind of therapy for you and the right therapist. I think it can be life changing. But I have worked in so many different practices over my career, Dan. Many people, they don't have access to a therapist for a variety of reasons. Cost, availability, time. So actually I don't want people to read this book and go, oh, there's nothing I can do because I can't see a therapist. It's like, no, no, no. Even if you can't, there are still certain things that you can do. So I know I went on a slight offshoot. There Dan. But it's because I'm really passionate about helping people understand that. Actually, you develop this trait of people pleasing for a reason. And there are many things you can do. One of the things you can do is to start putting up boundaries in your life. Now, boundaries can be a very scary word for people if they've never had them before. I grew up in a family that I don't think the word boundary even existed, let alone. I didn't know what it meant. You know, everyone's business was everyone else's business, right? Boundaries feel scary at first. And actually you may get it wrong when you start. But that's the process of learning, right? If you've never put up boundaries before, actually you're gonna have to start experimenting and going, okay, what happens if I say no? I can't go to the social engagement guys. Cause I'm knackered and I really need an early night. What happens if you do that? I tell you, Dan. I was in Barcelona last week giving a talk, right? And at the dinner that evening, this lady from Singapore was sitting next to me. And she said to me, Dr. Shashi, you know, it's interesting what you said in the talk. I completely agree. Actually. Intermittent fasting for me has been like a game changer. I said, okay, so this is probably a lady who's about 54. And she said when she does 16 a intermittent fasting. So eating within eight hours and having 16 hours where she doesn't eat, which not every person finds helpful, but some people do. She did for her. Again, she had found what works for her, right? That's the key message. She said, I'm really good, but sometimes when I'm at social engagements with my colleagues and stuff, I end up eating because I don't want to seem like the odd one out. And then I always don't sleep well and I feel awful the next day, you know, what can I do in those situations? And I thought that point really beautifully illustrated. The question you're asking me. She knows what she needs to do, and when she does it, she feels great. But actually she has an over reliance on being liked in certain situations. And so she starts to. She starts to create a void. I would say it's another way you can look at behavior change, right? When you're not in alignment. So alignment being when your inner values and your external actions start to match up. When the person who you really are inside and the person who you are being out there in the world are one and the same. Actually, life becomes quite easy. I Think that's one of the secrets to happiness. That's one of the secrets to behavior change in the long term. If you know that, you feel better when you act a certain way, but because you want to be accepted by other people, you don't act in that way, you create a void in who you are. And it's that void where we start to fill the gap with our problematic behaviors, right? Because we don't feel good. Because we know that in some way we betrayed who we are. And so I said to her, look, this is a really powerful learning opportunity for you. The only way you'll break free from that is to understand why is it that in this setting, you need to be accepted by these other people. What would happen if you said to them, hey, guys, look, I know we've got dinner. I'm just going to take a sparkling water tonight, actually, I actually feel really good, want to eat early. I want to hang out with you guys. I want to be here, but if I eat, I'm not going to sleep so well. So if it's okay with you guys, I'm just going to drink some sparkling water tonight. She goes, actually, I've never thought about doing that. I keep thinking that they're gonna judge me. I said, well, do you know that? Do you know that to be true? Well, no, I don't know that. I said, okay, well, why don't you. Next time, why don't you just try it, right? Why don't you just try that and see what happens? And, you know, for her, I think she's gonna learn a lot about herself through that process, because, again, I can give her answers. If she was my patient, there's plenty more I could say to her. But, you know, we had a very short interaction over Dennis. I wanted to empower a little bit and say, try that and see what happens. And the truth is, what you realize with a lot of these changes, Dan, is that usually the reason we're scared is because of an inner insecurity that we have about ourselves, Right? So we feel they're going to judge us, but a lot of time it's simply not true. And often their judgment is actually a reflection of their own insecurities about their own behavior rather than yours.
- [53:19]
Dan Harris
So you're comfortable now with people thinking you're an asshole or whatever it is? Like, I'm not. I don't think that. But I'm just saying, you. You really don't care anymore?
- [53:27]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay, yeah, it's a great question. Let me sort of try and articulate it with a bit more clarity. Of course I care what people think about me. Right. I'm a human being. We are social animals. Right. So it's a huge part of who we are. I'm not overly reliant on what people think about me to feel good about myself. Right. There's a. There's a subtle difference. Right. Okay, let's look at it another way. I, like you, Dan, have a public profile. Right. So one of the things that we have to not put up with, one of the consequences in 2025 of having a public profile is that there's a lot of people who will comment on you on a daily basis. Is that fair to say?
- [54:13]
Dan Harris
Yes, it is.
- [54:14]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Some of these comments will be really great. Some of these things will be not so great. Okay. That's the cost of having a public profile in the modern age, with social media and the Internet now. Ten years ago, when I first started trying to articulate public health messages in public, what I realized is that criticism would really bother me. Like, I wouldn't sleep. When that Doctor in the House series came out in 2015, I remember the first episode came out. 99% of the feedback on Twitter was amazing. 1% was vicious negativity attacking me. I had never come across that before. I'd never had a TV show out before. I was just trying to help people. I improved their lives. My wife and I found that really, really difficult. And what I've realized, on reflection is, you know, I would really like the positive comments. It would really make me feel good. But at the same time, the negative comments would equally bring me down, whereas these days, I'm just a lot more even. The positive comments don't go to my head and artificially elevate how I feel about myself. But the negative comments don't really bring me down to those negative depths in the way that they used to. I'm a lot more even because I'm not overly reliant, and it comes out of external, internal validation, Dan. So for me, I feel I. These days, I validate myself. I'm really clear on who I am and what my values are. And I've realized that the biggest question I have to ask myself each day before I go to bed is, did you act today in accordance with your values? Because if I did, I cannot control what other people are going to say about me, and I have to act like this. Otherwise, I fall into my old patterns of people pleasing, which is changing who I am in order to be liked by others. That's My Achilles heel, like it is for many people. So I almost have to go the other way and go, no, no, I cannot change who I am in order to be light by others. Let's look at it another way, Dan. Chapter five is one of my favorite chapters in the book. It's called Take Less Offense and it's about an over reliance on being right. And I'll explain some of the ideas in that chapter in just a second. But if you need to be liked by everyone that you come across, you're actually setting yourself up for failure. There's 8 billion people on the planet. Of course not everyone is going to see the world in the same way as you. It's unrealistic. So we have to accept that actually some people will not see the world in the same way that we do. And so I think it's really important that we understand that it's okay to want to be liked by other people, but being liked by everyone, I think that's an unrealistic goal that is setting ourselves up for failure and it actually comes from an insecurity that we have in ourselves. So that chapter, basically, because I think the idea in it speaks to this idea that we're just talking about here, I basically make the case that nothing in and of itself is inherently offensive. It can't be, because if it was the external comment or thing that was offensive, all of us would take offence to the same thing. But the fact that we don't means that it's not that thing that's offensive. It's something within us that's been activated by that comment or that external event. And I think that's a key subtle point because a lot of the time we blame. Coming back to what I said right at the start of this conversation, right when you asked me about minimal reliance, a lot of the time we're blaming the world around us for our internal responses. Oh, that comment that I read on social media is the reason why I feel bad and therefore I'm justified in having extra ice cream tonight or an extra glass of wine because that comment made me feel bad. But actually what we don't realize is that we've given our power away to that external event. When we feel like that. Once you realize that, no, it's not the comment, it's your interpretation of that comment, then actually life opens up, right? It really does, Dan. Like, how long's your podcast been going for now? Is it seven, eight years?
- [58:36]
Dan Harris
Yeah, eight years.
- [58:37]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Eight years. Okay. Mine's been going for seven years. Right. And we just passed episode 500. I would still say the most powerful conversation I've ever had on my show was with a lady called Edith Eager. Have you heard of Edith Eger?
- [58:50]
Dan Harris
Mm. Mm.
- [58:51]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
When I spoke to her a few years ago, she was 93 years old, Dan. And when she was 16, she was growing up in Eastern Europe. She was pretty excited that morning. She had a date with her boyfriend that night. She was wondering about what dress she was gonna wear. Her family get a knock on the door and they all get put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. She gets there. Within two hours of getting there, both her mother and father are murdered. Right? She's a 16 year old girl, she gets to Auschwitz, her parents are murdered. One hour later, she is asked to dance for the senior prison guards in Auschwitz. So her parents have been murdered. They all know that she's a dancer. And so she has to dance for these older men, prison guards, right? And so there's a few things from that conversation, Dan, that have never, ever left me. The first thing is that Edith said to me, Dr. Chastity, I never forgot the last thing my mother said to me. She said, edith, never forget. Nobody can ever take from you the content that you put inside your own mind. So she says to me, dan, when I was in Auschwitz and dancing, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful dress on, there was a full house, the orchestra was playing. In my mind, it was a wonderful experience. And I thought, wow, that's pretty incredible to be able to do that after your parents have been murdered. Then she tells me, while she was in Auschwitz, she started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. She said, in their mind, they weren't free. They weren't living the lives that they were here to live. They weren't happy. But in my mind, I was free. Which again, I thought, this is pretty incredible to be able to do that at the age of 16. But the final word she said to me, dan, I feel had been tattooed onto my heart and have really changed the trajectory of my life. And some of those ideas really underpin many of the chapters in this book. She said to me, Dr. Chatterjee, I have lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. And, Dan, let me tell you, the penny dropped for me that day. I got it. I thought, oh, my God, that's it. We all go around in the world expecting things to be a certain way. We make up stories about what that driver meant when they cut us up, what that person who knocked us in the supermarket meant, what that comment meant on social media. And we think that actually our internal response is down to those external events. No, it isn't. We get to choose our response in every single situation in life. And one of the reasons we cannot make changes that last is because we're overly reliant and on the outside world. So just let me give you a really simple example to hopefully land this point with your audience. Let's say you drive to work, okay? You're driving to work, you're running a little bit late, and there's another car quickly comes in front of you, right? Suddenly, obviously, you don't like it. But many people think that because that happened, I'm justified now to go on this mental tirade. Stupid driver. They need their eyes checked. They shouldn't have a license. I can't believe they did that. Even though that driver can't hear us right now. To be really clear, I'm not judging anyone. I used to do this, right? I used to get mad at situations like that. What I didn't realize is that I was creating emotional stress around an event that I had no control over, right? So what does that emotional stress do? And again, this is a central idea that underpins many of the chapters in this book. Dan, Emotional stress is not neutral. You will have to neutralize it in some way or another. So when you get to work, having generated all that angst and tension, you might need an extra coffee with sugar. You might need a chocolate bar from the vending machine. You might need an extra beer or wine at lunchtime or after work, you need to do something, engage in some kind of behavior to neutralize the stress that you generated by the way you interacted with that situation. What Edith Eger has taught me is that, no, I have a choice there. I have a choice. I don't need to react like that. I could choose, and now I do because I practiced enough, and I'll share the exercise I do to help people get to this point. But I practice so, so much now that it's very rare that I react if that happens. I'm like, oh, I wonder what's going on for that driver. Or maybe it's a father whose child was up with earache last night and they're exhausted and they're just trying to get to work. Or maybe it's a mum who's been late three times in the past two weeks and she's on A final warning. And if she doesn't get to work on time, she's gonna lose her job, which is how she feeds her children and pays for the heating at home. The truth of that situation, Dan, actually doesn't matter for your inner wellbeing and your happiness. What matters is that you put on what I call a happiness story onto that situation, because what happens then is that you don't generate the emotional stress in the first place, and so you have no need for those compensatory behaviors afterwards. So bringing it back to alcohol and sugar, let's say, two very common things. Often we're going to those things to neutralize emotional discomfort that we have created. So what I did for many years, Dan, once my children were in bed, I'd sit down with a journal and I'd ask myself, where did you get emotionally triggered today, Rongan? Okay. And I'd be like, ah, yeah, that email really bothered me when I got it. Okay. All right. Why. Why did that email bother you? Oh, it reminded me of something my mum said to me when I was little or reminded me of my last boss or it made me not feel valued at work or whatever it might be. And you start writing these things down. This is one of the most powerful exercises anyone can do because you are using your emotional triggers as your most powerful teacher. You're learning that actually it's never the external event. It's your internal response to that external event. So initially, you have to do this consciously, you know, in practice, and before you know it, Dan, you start to do it unconsciously in the moment. Right. It's so powerful because ultimately, when you can cultivate this inner calm in yourself, you actually have no need for all of these compensatory behaviors. And if you choose to have them, like alcohol or sugar, let's say you're intentionally choosing to have them and enjoy them, rather than needing to have them as a consequence of your internal states. That's the key difference.
- [66:00]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Dr. Chatterjee talks about the life is an escalator myth and our relationship with complaining. How to adapt to adversity without feeding your bad habits and escaping the trap of busyness. There are people making the same amount of money as you to the dollar who are not stressed about money. You probably see them all the time talking about their latest vacation or hosting parties in their freshly renovated homes. It makes you wonder, how do they do it? Where does all of my money go With Ynab, it goes wherever you tell it to go. Ynab spelled Ynab is a life changing app that helps you do what you want with the money you have. With ynab, you'll create a flexible plan for your money through the simple practice of giving every dollar a job, keeping you focused on the life you want, cover your mortgage and fund your 401 without sacrificing dinners or with friends or that long awaited trip to Greece. With ynab, you'll stop wondering where your money goes and start deciding where it will take you. The average ynab user saves $600 in their first two months and $6,000 in their first year. 92% of users report feeling less money stress. Since using Ynab, life is short. Spend it well. With YNAB, listeners of 10% Happier can claim an exclusive three month free trial with no credit card required at ynab.com happier. That's www.ynab.com happier and again, YNAB is spelled Y N A B. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled in 2025. Maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's part of your story you've been wanting to revise. Life isn't about resolutions that fade by January. It's about picking up the pen and becoming the author of your own life. Think of therapy as your editorial partner in this process, helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story that you deserve to live. I have benefited enormously from therapy in my own life, and I really do think of the therapists I've worked with, including the one I'm working with now as my editorial partners in this process. And I've been thinking a lot about what I want out of this current year. A lot of it involves the status quo. I love doing this show and I love danharris.com but I also have other goals like finally finishing my book. So I'll be talking about all of this with my therapist. If you want access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties, check out Better Help. You can easily switch therapists anytime and no extra cost cost. Write your story with better help. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp hp.com happier let's keep going through some of the over reliances that you identify in the book. One that hit me because I I can see this operating in Myself is a reliance on things never going wrong. And you talk about this life is an escalator myth. Can you walk us through that?
- [69:21]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Again, I was gonna say this is one of my favorites, but I said that about the last chapters, but I think they're all my favorites. Right. This is a very, very personal book. I think a lot of us subscribe to the belief, the unconscious belief that things in our life are constantly gonna keep getting better. Right. If we do enough things with ourself and we exert enough control over our life, nothing's ever going to go wrong. And one way that you can tell if you are subscribing to this myth is to ask yourself, how much do you complain? It's a really simple way of asking yourself, like, how much do I complain in a day? And if you're not sure, ask someone close to you, how much do you complain? They might give you a slightly different answer and perhaps a more insightful answer, because actually complaining or how much you complain is often a sign that you are surprised by the natural order of life. So the natural order of life is that things are going to go wrong. It's just going to happen, Right. You're never going to go through life when things always go your way. But if you believe that they are always going to go your way and then they don't, you start to feel hard done by when they don't. And that leads to a lot of compensatory behaviors. So business really understand this very, very well, right? So there's a concept in business called shrinkage. So in the UK, I believe that business retailers plan for £11 billion worth of shrinkage every year. What is shrinkage? Let's say you're a supermarket. You can pretend in your head that no one's ever going to steal any of your food and nothing's ever going to go off on the shelves. And then be constantly surprised when it happens. Or you can go, oh, actually, we know on average we're going to lose this amount of stock each year to shoplifting and the food going off. So you factor it into the business plan. So all of these successful businesses, they're not surprised when people shoplift or their stock goes off. It's planned for and accounted in. And I'm making the case in that chat so that we don't look at our lives in the same way, and we should. So in that chat. So there's a very powerful story for a friend of mine, and this is quite an extreme version, right? But I think it proves the case or it's a very good way of illustrating the point for people. I had a friend of mine who was a medical doctor and she basically was the recipient of a negligence claim. Now, if you look at the statistics in the UK, on average, a medical doctor in the UK is going to be suede three to four times over the course of a 40 year career. And I imagine in America that number is higher, right? Because I think we've actually learned this from America and it's come over to us. So you know that if you see enough patience over the course of your career, you are going to get sued at one point. It doesn't matter how good you are, you know, if you drive enough times, you're going to be involved in a crash at some point. It's going to happen. Statistically the problem is when she was the recipient of this negligence claim, it totally threw her and it's understandable. There was a cancer misdiagnosis that had nothing to do with her. She got dragged into it and of course it's scary and worrying and people are scared about their job and their license. And yes, for the family, of course, it's understandable that they want answers as to why a diagnosis was missed. Right? But she started to drink excessively for two years while this was going on. She wrecked her health. She was chronically stressed, she didn't sleep. Now, if you look at it statistically, this is going to happen, right? So we start, we need a mindset where we're going actually things are going to go wrong. How are we going to deal with things when they do inevitably go wrong? So how this played out for me, maybe three years ago. I've had elderly parent caring responsibilities for much of my adult life. I still do. I live five minutes away from my elderly mother. A few years ago, I think this was three years ago, I went to sleep at night in my house and the phone rang at about 10pm I was already asleep and it was my mum's emergency alarm. She had triggered it and the call centre had phoned me as the first point of contact saying, your mother has fallen, she can't get up at home. Are you able to go round and help her? So I was, I drove round, you know, I was half asleep. I got up in my pajamas, got in my car, drove around to Mum's, sorted her out, got her back into bed, checked she was okay, settled her, took me about an hour and then I decided, okay, I think everything's okay, Mum, call me if there's any problems. I'm going back home. I reversed out of my mum's drive straight into the parked car on the other side of the roads. Now the older version of me, Dan, would have done this. Oh my God, I can't believe it. Typical. With all the stress I've got on with mum and work, now I've got to deal with insurance, you know, poor old me. This whole self pity story would have started. Now you may say that's understandable. Yes, it's completely understandable. I'm just saying that there's a consequence of interacting with the world like that. The consequence of that is I feel sorry for myself and then the next day I engage in problematic behaviors to help me. Yeah, I might have an extra bit of sugar, an extra croissant, another glass of wine, whatever it might be, because I'm trying to compensate for this internal discomfort that I feel. Whereas what I actually did, because I'd been practicing and I was really quite proud of myself when this happened, I thought, oh wow, things really are changing in your life, Rongan. I actually banged into that car and immediately I was like, oh well, it could be worse, no one got hurt, I've got insurance. And you know what Rongan, if you keep coming round at 11pm to see your mum when you're half asleep, it's bound to happen at some point. Now it sounds like a very trivial thing, Dan, but that change in viewpoint has multiple downstream consequences. By not telling myself that self pity story, I'm just much more able and empowered the following day. I don't start engaging in these problematic behaviors because they are a consequence of the way I interacted with the adverse event. These adverse events are going to happen and you can train yourself to actually look at them differently. I've had many, you know, female patients over the years who are mothers and I find this as well actually like I used to, if I was going to pick my children up from school, let's say 3:30 sometimes if I was not working the afternoon you nip to the supermarket on the way to make sure you've got some food for dinner, you quickly want to get in and out and pick your children up and get home. But sometimes there's an elderly lady in front of you who's having a nice chat with the checkout assistant and you're in a hurry, but actually they're not in a hurry and they're chatting away. If you notice a lot of the time we're creating that internal stress there. Oh my God, I wish you'd stop talking soon, you know, keep looking at your watch, keep checking. I've been that person before, Dan. Right. So I'm not judging. I'm simply saying you are creating all of this, frankly, unnecessary stress. Right. If you go to the supermarket late enough times on the way to pick up your kids, at some point there will be an elderly lady there chatting to the supermarket attendant. It's going to happen. So there's loads of exercises in the book to help you catch those moments and not beat yourself up, but go, oh, wow, yeah, I'm creating stress here. What would happen if I just go with it and say, isn't it nice that this lady is having a chat? Maybe that's the only chat she's had all day with another human being. When you start interacting with a world like this, Dan, I promise you, your behaviors naturally start to change. And again, a really practical exercise for people to really land this is if you find yourself complaining about anything, I want you to do one of two things. Either turn that complaint into an action that is you're going to do something about it, or turn that complaint into. Into a moment of gratitude. It's a very simple exercise, Dan, that it really transforms your relationship with complaining. You either do something about it or you actually reframe that whole situation in your mind. And I say in the book that basically when you choose gratitude, you stop thinking like a victim. When you choose action, you stop acting like a victim. And I think it's a very simple, practical technique that can have profound benefits for us.
- [78:20]
Dan Harris
I like that. I was also thinking about this clip from Jocko Willink. Actually, I've never had him on the show, but I think he's a former military guy. In the clip, he. He talks about how anytime anything bad happens to him, anytime anything, quote unquote, bad happens to him, he says, good. And he's just really tried to create this habit of like, oh, we just got a huge bill that is derailing our finances. Good. I got in a car accident. Good. Because it's all, this is the way life is. And these are all opportunities to train in dealing with adversity.
- [78:49]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And I love that. And what that shows me, Dan, when we think about habits, right, we tend to think about, oh, I want to create a meditation habit, I want to work out regularly, whatever it might be. But we don't so much think about mindset habits in the same way. Like what you just illustrated from Jocko is, oh, he's training himself to have a different mindset habit when these bad things happen. I'm gonna initially through conscious effort, but with enough practice, it becomes your default response. You go, oh, wow, there it is. So you're not surprised then anymore. And you create that internal stress. You're like, oh, there it was. It was bound to happen. Great. What am I gonna learn from this situation? So, yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it's a great example.
- [79:32]
Dan Harris
Do you think we have time to sneak in one more of these chapters? I'm particularly interested on your notes on relying on busyness.
- [79:40]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, let's get it in, because it's probably one of the most important ones. How many of us these days are Overworking? In the UK, 88% of office workers have said in a survey that they've experienced some degree of burnout in the past two years. I mean, I don't know what that says about the state of society, but it's pretty profound. Right. So why are we so busy all the time? Well, there's many reasons, of course. Some people have to do certain things, but a lot of us are overly doing things because we have this need to feel important. Dan. So I spoke to this wonderful chap, Will Storr, who wrote the book the Status Game on my podcast about a year ago. And in that book, Will makes the case from the scientific evidence that status is a universal driver in all humans. Right? And when we say status, we're not talking about the amount of money you earn, the car you drive, or the amount of followers you have online. No, status is actually the feeling of being off value to other people. Right. We have a need as a human being to feel that we are of value. Now, in the old hunter gatherer tribe days, it was going to be pretty obvious to us on a daily basis what was the value that we had. We were, oh, you know, I'm the forager, I get the sweet potatoes. Oh, I'm the one who goes out and hunts. I'm the one who looks after the tribe at night to make sure we're safe, whatever it might be. You could see very clearly the value that you offer to the people around you. But I think what's happened in modern society is many of us have moved away from our tribes and our communities for work opportunities, for better financial opportunities, whatever it might be. And of course, there are benefits of doing that. But one of the downsides is that often we're not getting that sense of value anymore, apart from through our work. So a lot of the time this feeling of busyness comes from, I want to feel that I'm worthy, that I actually provide value for people, which is one of the reasons that it drives us to work so hard. Now, I explore that idea in depth in that chapter. But in essence, many of us are overly busy also because we haven't taken the time to truly understand what our real priorities are. In the interest of time, let me give you a very simple question that we can ask ourselves each day that really helps us with this. So I ask myself three questions every morning. The second question I ask myself is, what is the most important thing I have to do today? And it's a deceptively simple question, Daniel. In fact, I'm gonna say something. Maybe it's a little bold. If anyone listening to this conversation takes nothing else apart from this question, I pretty much guarantee it's gonna change the way that they experience life. Do it for seven days and you will start to feel the difference. So why this question is so powerful is because it forces you to make a decision each morning. In a world where our to do lists are never done, right. You could basically complete your email inbox, Dan, and then take a break to make a cup of coffee in your kitchen. In that time, you could have received another 20 emails. There's nothing you can do about that, right? So the problem for many of us is that we're waiting to do the truly important things in life when all the other things in our life are done. But those things are never done. So this question forces you to make a decision each morning, right? And I'll give you some examples of how this might go. Dan, I don't know if you know this or not, but when the word priority came into the English language in the 1500s, it only existed as a singular word, right? You couldn't have multiple priorities. You could only ever have one priority. But now we're all struggling with our 10 priorities each day that we have to get done. So this question is what I call in the book. It's the anti busyness question. And so for me, a typical week will look like, I don't know, on a Monday morning. It might be something work related. You know, two weeks ago I went to America to do some interviews for this book. And I flew on the Thursday. So I remember on the Monday morning, because this book's out, I had an article I had to send to my publisher, Penguin. So that day. So the most important thing I have to do is finish that article and send it to Penguin. It doesn't mean my other work wasn't important or that my relationship with my wife and kids wasn't. Important. It meant on that day, that's the focus. If I get that done, that day is a win. On the Tuesday I know my wife was away the previous weekend. I was going to be in America for 10 days away. I thought, actually the most important thing I have to do today is make sure when the kids are in bed that I spend some quality time with my wife. Right in the day I got on with my work, I did all my things, but the focus was the most important thing is I spent some time with my wife tonight. On the Wednesday, I was working from home and I remember thinking, I'm not gonna see the kids for a couple of weeks now because I'm gonna be traveling for work. The most important thing I have to do today is at 4:30pm when they walk through the door from school, I need to make sure my laptop is shut, my phone is in a different room so that I can be fully present to listen to what they have to tell me. Dan, these things sound really, really simple and they are, but they're very, very powerful. I promise you, if someone, as I say, if that's all they take from this, they just answer that question for seven days. That means after seven days you will have done seven really important things. Things that you have specified are important, not the world around you. You do it for 30 days, I promise your life will be transformed. It's one of my favorite questions I ask myself every single day. Some days it will be today I must break at lunch and go for a 30 minute walk. It's these simple things that when you do them consistently, they change your experience of life. They make it so that you can actually make these changes that last in the long term. And honestly, Dan, the book is full of practical tips just like that. I know a lot of this conversation was quite big picture and philosophical, but I kind of think that's important to really land this idea that we control a lot of the narrative of our lives in our minds. In fact, Dan, I've really come to the conclusion that life is simply a set of experiences and it's the story that we put onto those experiences that ultimately determines the quality of our life.
- [86:18]
Dan Harris
Just in closing here we've talked about the book quite a a bit, but can you just remind everybody of the name of the book and also the names of your other books to the extent that you can recall all of them on demand and the name of your podcast? Basically, I just want you to plug mercilessly so that people who want to get more from you can do so.
- [86:37]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Sure. Well, Dan, first of all, again, thank you for having me on the show. I've been a fan of your show for years. It's a real honor to come on. I think you're doing wonderful work and helping people live these happier lives, which is amazing. My new book is called Make Change that nine Simple Ways to Break Free from the Habits that Hold you'd back. It's my sixth book. I genuinely believe it's my best and most original book and most transformative book for people. So if they're interested, it's out on a paperback ebook. Also as an audiobook which I narrate. I know a lot of people ask who narrates the audiobook. I do my own audiobooks and I guess yes, there are other books I guess your audience might like. My previous book was my fifth one was called Happy Mind, Happy Life. I break down happiness and give my three ingredients of happiness within that alignment, contentment and control. So I think your audience may like that as well. And I guess there's my weekly podcast, Feel Better Live More. Every Wednesday, a new conversation drops on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. So if people are interested, those are the places they can check me out.
- [87:38]
Dan Harris
Awesome. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, thank you very much for doing this. Really, really fun to meet you.
- [87:42]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, you too, Dan. Thank you.
- [87:46]
Dan Harris
Thanks again to Dr. Chatterjee. Great to talk to him. As I said at the beginning, this is yet another one of those episodes that is just packed with practical advice. So if you want a cheat sheet which sums up all of the key takeaways and also comes with a full transcript, you can sign up@danharris.com we're doing lots of cool stuff over there, including live Ask Me Anything sessions and much more. So go check it out. I would appreciate it. Before I go, just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10 happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short surveyondry.com survey.
- [89:05]
Keke Palmer
Hey everyone, it's your girl, Keke Palmer. Did you know I host a podcast called Baby this is Kiki Palmer. And you're not going to believe the conversations I've had. Like, is onlyfans only bad? How has dating changed in the digital age? What's the deal with Disney adults? I talked to John Stamos, the vp, Kamala hers to Jordan Peele, Raven Simone, and yes, the one and only Jamila. Jamila. And just wait until you hear our conversation. We talk Twitter drama, bad dates, and then time. How the hell do you actually get sexy? Like, what the hell does that mean? Like, I know how to be funny. I know how to be like. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't really know how to be like. And take your. I'm not robbing fucking givens. You know, it's like, how do people do that?
- [89:44]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I've been in this situation too many times and not. Not felt any of those things. The dull eyes. Yeah, quiet. Like I've never been quiet a moment in my fucking life.
- [89:52]
Keke Palmer
Yes on Baby this is Keke Palmer. No topic is off limits. Follow Baby this is Keke Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.