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#887 - Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The Key Strategies Of Behaviour Change

Modern Wisdom

Thu Jan 09 2025

Summary

Modern Wisdom Podcast Summary

Episode: #887 - Dr. Rangan Chatterjee - The Key Strategies Of Behaviour Change
Release Date: January 9, 2025
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Introduction

In episode #887 of Modern Wisdom, host Chris Williamson engages in a profound conversation with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, a renowned medical doctor and author. They delve deep into the intricacies of behavior change, exploring why many struggle to make lasting transformations and uncovering strategies to foster enduring positive habits.

1. Overcoming Reliances for Lasting Change

Dr. Chatterjee begins by addressing the problem of reliances—dependence on external conditions to feel good or achieve desired outcomes. He explains that excessive reliance on uncontrollable external factors can impede long-term behavior change.

Dr. Chatterjee [00:03]: "The problem with Reliances is that we are overly reliant on too many things in the outside world which we cannot control. And those reliances, Chris, are tying us down."

Key Points:

People often believe they can only thrive when external circumstances are perfect (e.g., no traffic, supportive colleagues).
Such beliefs lead to frustration and failure when conditions aren't ideal.
Sustainable change requires focusing on the underlying energy driving behaviors rather than the behaviors themselves.

2. Trust Yourself Over Experts

Dr. Chatterjee emphasizes the importance of trusting one's own intuition and experiences over solely relying on external expert advice. He critiques the modern tendency to outsource personal well-being to multiple experts, leading to confusion and inconsistent results.

Dr. Chatterjee [07:30]: "I still would have to say, Chris, to you or any of your audience, I simply cannot know exactly what is the right approach for you."

Key Points:

Excessive reliance on experts can lead to conflicting advice, leaving individuals unsure of whom to trust.
Personal experimentation and self-awareness are crucial for identifying what truly works for one's unique circumstances.
Dr. Chatterjee encourages listeners to engage in personal trials to determine effective strategies.

3. Internal Knowledge and Self-Awareness

The discussion shifts to the concept of internal knowledge, which encompasses self-awareness and the ability to tune into one's own body and emotions. Dr. Chatterjee highlights techniques like interoception to enhance personal insight.

Dr. Chatterjee [12:26]: "Internal knowledge is insight. It's self-awareness. It's tuning into yourself."

Key Points:

Internal knowledge is essential for recognizing why certain behaviors persist.
Practices like mindfulness and breathwork can strengthen internal awareness, aiding in better decision-making.
Understanding one's internal states helps in neutralizing emotional stress without resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

4. The Toxicity of Perfectionism

Perfectionism is identified as a significant barrier to lasting behavior change. Dr. Chatterjee shares personal struggles with perfectionism and its detrimental effects on mental health.

Dr. Chatterjee [16:50]: "Perfectionism is toxic. It is literally one of the most toxic things that you can suffer from."

Key Points:

Perfectionistic beliefs lead to self-criticism and feelings of inadequacy when ideal standards aren't met.
Such feelings often drive individuals to seek comfort in destructive behaviors like substance abuse or excessive internet use.
Overcoming perfectionism involves adopting a more compassionate and accepting relationship with oneself.

5. Managing Regret and Embracing Imperfections

Regret is discussed as an extension of perfectionism, where individuals believe they could have made better decisions.

Dr. Chatterjee [26:20]: "Regret is a form of perfectionism. At its core is this idea that I could have made perfect decisions."

Key Points:

Regret traps individuals in the past, fostering guilt and shame that hinder present well-being.
Dr. Chatterjee proposes reframing experiences to view past decisions as the best one could have made at the time.
This perspective shift reduces unnecessary emotional burdens and promotes personal growth.

6. The Practice of Solitude and Mindfulness

Solitude is presented as a vital daily practice for enhancing self-awareness and reducing reliance on external stimuli.

Dr. Chatterjee [37:10]: "The most important daily practice that any one of us can do in the 21st century is a daily practice of solitude."

Key Points:

Allocating time for oneself fosters a deeper connection with internal states.
Simple practices like meditation, mindful breathing, or unplugging from technology can significantly impact emotional resilience.
Regular solitude helps in distinguishing between genuine internal narratives and externally influenced thoughts.

7. Rethinking Non-Negotiables

The concept of non-negotiables—strict daily habits—is examined critically. Dr. Chatterjee argues that flexibility is key to maintaining a healthy relationship with habits.

Dr. Chatterjee [43:44]: "I don't believe in non negotiables anymore. Everything in life is negotiable."

Key Points:

Viewing habits as rigid can lead to self-criticism when deviations occur.
Embracing flexibility allows for a balanced approach, where behaviors are adapted based on current needs and circumstances.
This mindset fosters a kinder and more sustainable path to personal growth.

8. Busyness, Success, and the Need for Validation

Dr. Chatterjee explores the societal obsession with busyness as a proxy for success and the underlying need for validation.

Dr. Chatterjee [54:16]: "I believe busyness comes from our reliance on feeling important."

Key Points:

Modern lifestyles often equate busyness with self-worth, leading to chronic stress and burnout.
The pursuit of status and validation through external achievements can be detrimental to overall well-being.
Finding intrinsic value and recognizing one's true priorities can mitigate the negative impacts of an overactive schedule.

9. Taking Less Offense for Better Health

The episode highlights how taking offense can generate unnecessary emotional stress, adversely affecting one's health and behaviors.

Dr. Chatterjee [75:07]: "When you take offense to something, usually you are generating that emotional stress inside you."

Key Points:

Emotional stress from taking offense often leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms like substance abuse or excessive screen time.
Developing resilience involves owning one's emotional responses and reframing situations to maintain internal calm.
Practices like deep breathing, perspective-taking, and gratitude can help mitigate the stress from offensive encounters.

10. Conclusion and Takeaways

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee concludes by reiterating the importance of internal knowledge, self-compassion, and flexible behavior change strategies. He encourages listeners to prioritize personal well-being over external validations and to cultivate resilience through mindfulness and self-awareness.

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Chatterjee [10:46]: "People don't realize that you're driving to work in your car and someone cuts you up on the road. You have a choice in how you respond."
Dr. Chatterjee [26:18]: "Regret is a form of perfectionism."
Dr. Chatterjee [43:44]: "Everything in life is negotiable."

Key Strategies for Behaviour Change:

Identify and Reduce Reliances: Focus on what you can control and minimize dependence on external factors.
Trust Yourself: Develop internal knowledge and self-awareness to guide your decisions.
Embrace Imperfections: Let go of perfectionism to foster a healthier relationship with yourself.
Practice Solitude: Regular time alone enhances self-awareness and emotional resilience.
Flexible Habits: Adopt a compassionate approach to habits, allowing for adjustments as needed.
Manage Regret: Reframe past decisions to reduce guilt and promote personal growth.
Handle Offense Constructively: Own your emotional responses and use them as opportunities for growth.

Further Resources

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee's Book: Make Change that Lasts – Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
Podcast: Feel Better, Live More – Dr. Chatterjee's podcast featuring authentic conversations on health and well-being. Available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms.

This episode offers invaluable insights into the psychology of behavior change, emphasizing the importance of internal processes over external dependencies. Dr. Chatterjee's compassionate and pragmatic approach provides listeners with practical tools to navigate personal transformations effectively.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

What's the problem with Reliances?

B (0:03)

The problem with Reliances is that we are overly reliant on too many things in the outside world which we cannot control. And those reliances, Chris, are tying us down. So as a medical doctor, one of my main interests is how do you help people make changes that actually last? Not changes for two or three weeks in January, or maybe January, February, March, but actually long term transformational changes. And I realized that one of the reasons why people cannot or they struggle to make those long term changes is because they're too reliant on too many things. I'll give you an example, right? So many people feel that they can only feel good and live the life that they want when everything around them goes, right, okay, there's no traffic. The emails are okay, the coffee is given to you by your barista, just the way you like it. Okay, Your boss treats you nicely. There's no traffic on the way home from work. If those conditions are met, we can feel calm and satisfied and we can get on with our life and make the choices that we want to make. But if those conditions are not met, then actually we start to struggle. We don't feel good in who we are. And what I've realised, Chris, over 23 years now, seeing patients, is that usually the behaviors that we are trying to avoid or cut down on are there for a very good reason. And they're usually there to help us neutralize the internal discomfort that we feel. So the reason I think that most people cannot or struggle to make changes that last is because they're not understanding the role that those behaviours play in their life. They're too focused on the behavior. But I think we need to be focused on the energy behind the behavior.

A (1:54)

How do you dig behind a behavior? Given that it's quite hard to. We're not crystal balls to ourselves. We don't know why we do the things we do all the time.

B (2:04)

Yeah, it's not as hard as. Actually, it's not as hard as we might think, right? Because let's take something super common and something that people are trying to reset their relationship with all the time. Let's say alcohol, for example. Right? So what I see a lot of in medicine is us trying to give public health advice to people saying, look, too much alcohol, frankly, a little bit of alcohol is probably not helping you that much. And the way we'll try and facilitate change is by giving people more knowledge and more information. Right? You know, too much alcohol will damage your liver. It's not good for Your weight, it's not good for your sleep, ARC, etc. Whatever it might be. And that can be helpful up to a point. But I submit that most people who are trying to cut back on alcohol or cut it out completely, and you could substitute alcohol for sugar or online pornography or gambling or whatever you want. Basically, it's a behavior. What a lot of people who are trying to do that, they already know the damage that that is causing for them. Not everyone, but a lot of them do. What they're not understanding is why do they keep going to that behavior. So instead of every January, for example, buying the new book on the alcohol detox or the sugar detox, anyone, Chris, can stop a behavior for three or four weeks, and they think that they're getting somewhere, but they're often not getting somewhere because that behavior was there for a reason. So very simply, if you're drinking alcohol to manage the stress in your life, which many people do, then you can white knuckle it for four weeks and quit. But usually you'll end up back to where you were unless one or two things has happened. Either the stress in your life has to come down so you have less of a need, therefore, for the alcohol, or you need to find an alternative behavior to alcohol to manage the stress. When I put it like that, it sounds really, really simple and obvious. But I genuinely believe that when we think about behavior change, too much of it is about more and more external knowledge, right? But I think what we all need is more internal knowledge. And your first question to me was about reliances, right? And I said about a lot of these everyday reliances that people have which are tying them down. In this new book, what I've done is go through some bigger picture alliances, right? So chapter one, I think it's one of the most important chapters I've ever written. It's called trust yourself. And I talk about this over reliance on experts, right? So if I could just elaborate, because I think it's a really interesting point. You and me, Chris, we both host podcasts, right? And we talk to a lot of experts, right? And they give their advice. Now, I don't know if you found this, Chris, but what I would find, and I do find on my podcast is one week I could talk to, let's say, a medical doctor from Harvard Medical School, right? So people say, you know, you must get your advice from experts. But here's the problem in the modern world. One week, let's say I talk to Chris Palmer from Harvard Medical School, right? Which I have done Chris is great. And he will show evidence that a ketogenic diet can be incredibly helpful for some people with bipolar and other mental health problems. Right. He'll give you patient case studies and he'll give you published research to support what he's saying. Two months later. I could talk to someone else, let's say Professor Felice Jacker from Australia, right. And we can talk about her trial that showed a Mediterranean diet is really good for reversing depression. Right. And she'll present case studies and published research. So what I would find often in my Instagram DMs is that my audience would say, hey, Dr. Chatterjee, I'm a little bit confused. Chris Palmer said this. Felice Jaka said that. They both sound really, really convincing. I don't know which expert to trust now, Chris. I believe in 2024 and 2025 that's the wrong question to be asking. It's not which expert should I trust, it's why do I no longer trust myself? I think we have become overly reliant on external experts. I'm not saying ignore external experts, but somewhere over the last few years, we've outsourced our inner expertise to these external experts. So what I would say to people, and I've got 23 years of clinical experience behind me, so this is real life experience with patients, not just published research. Different things work for different people. So I would say to people, listen, why don't you try what Chris Palmer is suggesting, for example, for four weeks. And in those four weeks, I want you to pay attention. Pay attention to your energy, your sleep, your relationships, your focus, your concentration, your gut, your bloating, your bowels. Pay attention, right? And then for the next four weeks, try what the other expert's saying and pay attention to those same things. At the end of that eight week trial, you will actually start to know which of these diets feels right for me. Does that make sense?

B (12:27)

Internal knowledge is insight. It's self awareness. It's tuning into yourself. I'm sure you may have covered this before on your show interoception. You know, the ability to sense your own body's signals. Right. We know full well there's so many research Papers now on interoception. It's almost like our Six Sense. There's a study that was done with autistic individuals who had anxiety. And if they were trained to be able to sense their heartbeats and feel their heartbeats, they could actually get remission from their anxiety more than people who couldn't. People who've had substance abuse with drugs and alcohol, if they have mindfulness training, which allows them to feel their internal sensations and their signals, it reduces the rate of relapse, reduces the rate of depression, improves how they feel about themselves. Right? So this is this. I sometimes wonder, Chris, why I have this approach to health that I do. Because it's not similar to most doctors, right? I think the way I look at health, and I think there's a few things that have influenced the way I see the world. One is my upbringing. You know, I'm the child of Indian immigrants to the UK, so my dad came in 1962 to the UK in search of a better life. And I grew up with this clash of cultures right at home, this Indian upbringing, where we very much see food as medicine, where if I have a cold or a sore throat, mum is putting extra turmeric in my food, or making me hot ginger and honey and turmeric and saying, you have to drink that before you go to school. And then at school, I was getting this more Western mindset. And I think that clash really comes when you get to medical school, where it is very much about what does the research trial show? I'm not against science at all. I think science is wonderful. But what I've realized over the past few years is actually what a lot of these traditional healing modalities like traditional Indian medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine had, which we don't so much have in Western medicine, is a real appreciation of the individual. The individual, every individual is different. They all need a slightly different approach. But the model we get taught, Chris, is what does the randomized control trial say? Okay, so very simplistically, let's give 100 people this treatment and 100 people don't get the treatment on average, does it work or not? And if enough people benefit, we say yes, on average. This is a statistically significant finding. This treatment works. But the problem is if you go under the hood there, you will find that even in the group where it wasn't statistically significant, some people still got better, Right? So it doesn't account for the individual. And I think this is why I'm so passionate about this. Idea. Because science is great to help inform us. Right. But you may not be the person who was in that randomized controlled trial. And going back to what you said, Chris, it's about outcomes. What are we looking for? We're not. You know, one thing we do get taught very well at in Western medical schools is we're not treating biomarkers. We're not treating blood levels. We're treating a human being, a patient. Right. So going back to that patient I mentioned, as you said, what does she want? She wants energy, she wants vitality, she wants good sleep. Whether she's having five plant foods a week or 30 plant foods a week is actually irrelevant in terms of the goals that she wants.

B (16:50)

Well, it kind of plays in to what we're talking about, actually, in some ways. So perfectionism is on the rise. We know that from the 1980s. A lot of us think it's from social media. Social media has definitely made it worse, but we actually know it was happening before that. This idea that actually we can be perfect. Right. And I think it's because of all these cultural myths that we have around us. The billboard image, what we might see on social media. We think actually that attaining what we think these people have is possible. But perfectionism is toxic. It is literally one of the most toxic things that you can suffer from. And I have had it for most of my life. Until very recently. I would say I had quite serious perfectionist tendencies, which I think affected me in so many different ways. We know that perfectionism is associated with all kinds of mental health problems, including suicide. Right. So this is a serious, serious issue. But perfectionism makes you feel less than. Right. Often we are comparing the worst version of ourselves with the best version of somebody else. And when we feel less than, we compensate with our behaviors. Right. This is why this matters to me, Chris. So everything in make change at last is this idea that every single person is capable of making meaningful change in their life. I know that to be true. I have seen it time and time again. I have seen patients in the darkest places with suicidal thoughts and I've helped them turn their life around. So I know that it's possible for every single person. But in order to do that, we have to understand ourselves. We have to understand that our behaviors follow our beliefs. So if you have perfectionistic beliefs that it is possible to be perfect, you will find that when you fall short, as you inevitably will, because none of us are perfect, we don't feel good. And that's what drives us to the pornography, to the gambling, to the sugar, to the alcohol. Those things are a consequence. They're not the cause of the issue, they're a symptom of the problem. So I think perfectionism is massive. And you know, it's something I've heard you talk about before and I, I write about at length is in chapter two is, which is the chapter title is called give up your heroes. I used to really put my heroes on a pedestal, Chris. I don't know if you did as a kid or not. I certainly did. I don't know if one could admit this these days or not, but you know, I started that chapter saying that when I was 14, I can remember a group in the northwest of England on my wall I had a life size flag of Jon Bon Jovi.

B (21:56)

What's changed is I've cut a lot of these reliances that were tying me down that I talk about in this book. Bit by bit, I've gone through the process of cutting them. This reliance on perfection, realizing, no, perfect is a myth, Rangan. You cannot achieve perfect. It's not possible. Right? So get really clear on what your priorities are this week. Everything in life has a consequence right now. This is something I truly get these days, Chris, in a way that I never got before. We make choices in life, and those choices have consequences. Too often we only think about the upside of our choices and not the downsides. And so I think last time I came on your show a few years ago, I mentioned this little happiness exercise that I've used with patience for years. I use myself, which is this very simple. Write your own happy ending exercise where you imagine yourself on your deathbed and you imagine looking back on your life. What are the three things I will want to have done in my life? And for me, the last time I did that, it was, I want to have spent quality time with my friends and family. I want to have had time to. I will want to have had time to actually pursue my passions. And thirdly, I will once have done something that has improved the lives of other people. I genuinely think if I was on my deathbed, now those are the three things I will want. Now, I can't say that for sure because I'm not there, but I'm imagining. And then the second part of the exercise is you come back to the present where you then pick three happiness habits. Right? So what are three things I would need to do each week? My happiness habits that will guarantee, or pretty much guarantee I get the happy ending that I just defined that I want. So for me, and I don't think it's changed in the last year and a half or so, it's literally, and I have it on my fridge at home because I want to be visually triggered by it every day so I don't get caught up in what I might be able to achieve or what I might be able to do. I put down on my list, can I have five meals each week with my wife and kids where I'm fully present and not thinking about work? Okay, it's an arbitrary number that works for me. It may not work for someone else, but it works for me, right? Secondly, if I have time to play my guitar, write a song, or go for a long run each week, then I know I found time to pursue my passions. And thirdly, if I release an episode of my podcast each week, which I've been doing for seven years now, I will be doing something each week to improve the lives of others. It's such a simple exercise, Chris, but I tell you, in a world where we have infinite things competing for our attention and we often think that we'll only do the important things when everything in our life is done and everything in our life is never done, these days it forces me in a really beautiful way to focus on these are my top priorities for the last three years.

B (26:25)

Yeah. This is one of my favorite sections in the book. This is one of the latest additions before I submitted it. Is this idea that regret is a form of perfectionism. Right. And I wanted to talk about this with you today because I've just seen your blog From Australia on YouTube. Right. And you were on stage. And I don't know if this is still your view or not, but my recollection of what I saw was that you said on stage or certainly the bit in the vlog was about this idea that we choose our regrets. So can I present my perspective, which I see it a little bit differently than that? Okay. I think it is possible to live a life of no regrets. I really do. I don't think we necessarily have to choose our regrets. The definition of regret is when we look back on something with sadness or disappointment, this idea that we could have done something differently. I used to look back on many of my past experiences with guilt and shame, and I think that's what regret can do. Because the reason I say that regret is a form of perfectionism is because at its core is this idea that I could have made perfect decisions. It was possible, and I'm a failure because I didn't. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it keeps us trapped into the past and it leads to guilt and shame. And in terms of making changes that last, it won't allow you to do that because you keep beating yourself up in your mind over the things that you wish you'd done differently. Now you can live two regrets. You can Live a life of no regrets in two different ways. Right. You can live it. And I'm not suggesting people do this in a way where it's like, yeah, screw everyone else. It's my life. I'm going to be myself and do what I do, and I'm going to put it with the consequences. Now, when I say you can live a life and no regrets, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it a slightly different way, which is I can look back on my past and I can learn from past experiences. I can choose to believe, which I do. It's a choice. You don't have to believe this, but I would argue that your life is much happier and calmer if you choose to believe this. I choose to believe that I was always doing the best that I could based on the information I had at the time. If I choose to adopt that belief, then there's no room for regret. I was making the best decision I could. And now with hindsight, I go, yeah, you know what? If I'm faced with that situation again, I can act differently. And I will act differently, because now I know better. I will do better, but I couldn't have done better back then. And in terms of your question before, Chris, why is it that at this stage of my life I feel so good? One of the reasons. There's many. One of the reasons is because I no longer have any regrets. Every single one of my past experiences has led to me being the person I am today. Without any of those experiences, I wouldn't have been the same person. Right. I'm informed by all of those things. So I very much do look at my past, but I use it as a way of learning about myself. I think the other way. Well, I'll come see you the way in a minute. What's. You said in that video that you think you have to choose your regrets. I'm presenting a slightly different perspective, I think. What's your take on that?

B (31:57)

Exactly. So it's a choice. I love the thought that the way we believe that, the beliefs we hold about the world, Chris, it is a choice, right? We can choose them. Like something I've been really playing around with recently in my head is this idea that life is a set of experiences and it's the story we put onto those experiences that ultimately determines the quality of our life. And what I didn't realize until a few years ago is that I get to choose that story, that narrative that comes down to me and that was taught to me on a very, very deep level by an Auschwitz survivor, Edith Eger, who I think I've spoken to you about before. This incredible lady who, when I spoke to her at 93 years old and then again at 97. She was in Auschwitz when she was 16 and she said so many things to me, Chris, which I've shared before, so I won't go through it all again. But in essence she was able to reframe her whole experience in Auschwitz through the power of her mind. So when she was dancing for the senior prison guards as a 16 year old young lady after her parents were murdered, she said to me, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz, Dr. Chastity. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House dancing with a beautiful dress on in front of a full orchestra. She said, whilst I was in Auschwitz, Dr. Chatterjee, I started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. I was free in my mind. They weren't living their life. And the final words, Chris, she said, which probably is one of the main reasons why I feel so content. And Edith and her teachings are in this book like they were in my last one. She said, rongen, listen, 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 I tell you, Chris, there are some conversations, as you know as a podcast host, where you're not the same person afterwards. That was one of those for me, where pre that conversation and post that conversation, I wasn't the same person. The penny dropped for me in that moment. I was like, oh my God, I get it. We're all putting ourselves in mental prison every day by the way we interact with the world. People don't realize that. Let's make it really, really granular. Let's take it away from Auschwitz as something maybe a bit more relatable for someone. People don't realize that you're driving to work in your car and someone cuts you up on the road. You have a choice in how you respond. You may not think you have a choice, but you do if you decide to go, as I used to do. So I'm not judging, but everything has a consequence. If you decide to react like stupid driver, they need to get their eyes checked. They shouldn't be on the roads. They're a menace, whatever it might be. And you start screaming at them when they can't even hear you. A, you're not changing the situation, but B, what you have done. And this really relates to the theme of making change that lasts. You have generated emotional stress inside your body. And again, this again for me is one of the missing pieces in the health conversation online. Emotional stress is not neutral. You have to neutralize it in some way or another. Now there are a variety of ways in which you can do that. So you could neutralize that emotional stress with a workout in the gym or a walk around the block or when you get to work, you will neutralize it by going to the vending machine and pulling out a chocolate bar, having another coffee with sugar in, having an extra glass of wine or a beer at lunch, whatever it might be. Those behaviors are there to neutralize the emotional stress that you generated by the way you interacted with that moment. You can also, and it's not that difficult. It just takes a bit of practice. You can also choose in that moment to not interact like that and go, wow, I can just let that go. Like I said before about regrets, I choose to believe it's a choice that I've always done the best that I could with the information that was available to me and where I was in my life at that time. I also choose to believe that about other people. So therefore I've trained myself. Now it took me a few months and years. Now I do it in the moment, it's default. But I had to consciously do it initially where it's like, oh, what's going on with that other person? What might be going on with that other person? Oh, well, maybe it's a dad whose daughter was sick last night and they were up all night and now they're rushing to work. Maybe it's a mother who's been elate for work three times in the past two weeks and she's worried she's going to lose her job if she's late again. The truth of the situation, Chris, for your well being and your ability to make changes doesn't actually matter. It's the way you frame the situation. Because in that moment then you're not generating the emotional stress you're feeling internally calm and therefore you have less of a need to engage in these unhelpful behaviors that were only there to neutralize the stress that you generated by the way you responded.

B (37:20)

Yeah, that's a good point. So when I spoke before about interoception and the importance of trusting ourselves, one thing I didn't say, which I write about in that chapter right at the end, is I say, listen, I believe that although most of us are different and we've got unique lives and we need slightly different approaches. I believe that the most important daily practice that any one of us can do in the 21st century is a daily practice of solitude. And when I say solitude, I'm simply talking about time with yourself. If you get up and the first thing you do is start consuming from the outside, whether it's news, whether it's social media, even if it's good quality information, you've lost an opportunity to listen to yourself. Right? Our body is always sending us signals and in this world of content and information, I think many of us are never getting that time to listen to ourselves. So the only way you get to know if you're telling yourself a nice story and kidding yourself is by sitting with yourself every day only for five or 10 minutes, if that's all you've got. But that could be. It could be meditation, it could be breath work, it could be some yoga moves, it could literally be having a cup of coffee and not also scrolling Instagram and email at the same time. It could be going to the toilet without taking your smartphone with you. Something that many people find revolutionary. Seriously. But it is. The truth is, Chris, it really is for people. Because these little micro moments where you allowed your own thoughts to come up are being eroded out of life. So I'm not putting all the blame on smartphones, right. Ultimately it's just a tool. It's our relationship with the tool that determines the impact they have on us. But if you practice sitting with yourself, doesn't have to be in the morning. I happen to think the morning's the best time for most people. You will start to know when your heart rate's going up. You will start to know when you're telling yourself fibs. I mean, one thing I do every morning, Chris. Well, there's a couple of things I do. One of the things I do is a breath hold work meditation practice that I learned from. Do you know the Movnat founder, Ewin Lecour?

B (43:49)

Well, we've spoken about perfectionism, right? So let me try and draw a connection between this and perfectionism. As a perfectionist in recovery, I don't believe that this idea of non negotiables is helpful to me because again, a non negotiable implies that I will not negotiate on this. I will always do this for me. There's hints of perfectionism there, right? Because everything in life is negotiable, Chris. Everything. Nothing is a non negotiable. So I could tell you, for example, that I'm a calm, peaceful person, which I am. And I will never be violent. Right? That's a non negotiable for me. Always going to be peaceful. Well, hold on a minute. What if I was out with my two children and someone was trying to attack them and threaten us? My non negotiable suddenly becomes negotiable. I could quite easily believe in that moment I could become violent. If it was to protect my two children, who I love with all my heart. Yeah, I probably would. That may seem quite extreme, but I love going to extremes, Chris, because I think it's in the extremes where you learn the veracity and the truth about a concept. Edith Eger in Auschwitz, at the extreme she was living in hell and even in hell she could reframe her experience, using her mind. I used that in my life to go, hey, Rongan, you're struggling to reframe what that driver did or that email that someone sent you. You know what, Rongan? Edith could reframe stuff in Auschwitz. You can probably reframe this in your life, right? I use it as inspiration for me, not to beat me up, to inspire me. And so why non negotiables for me can be a problematic concept. I think I've also got to be clear, Chris. Different concepts land for different people in a different way depending on where they are in life, right? So let's say you're struggling with your health and you're feeling lost, you're feeling lonely. You don't know how you're gonna get any motivation to move forward in your life. A non negotiable might actually be really good for you, where you go, no, actually every day I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna do that five minute workout, and I'm gonna go and have a cold shower for 30 seconds. And by not missing for three months, you literally change your identity and how you view yourself. But I've been through that process. I'm in a different stage in my life now where a non negotiable to me ends up beating myself up in my head. I'll give you an example of how that played out for me. I actually find behavior change quite easy these days. And I believe that one of the central ideas in this book is that effortless change is possible when you get to the root, but we're not getting to the root. Right? So I can imagine four years ago, on New Year's Day, I would wake up and be like, right, that's it, Chatterji. You are nailing meditation this year, right? You've seen the studies. Lower stress, lowers anxiety, can increase the matter in your brain, the brain function, right? That is it. This year it's happening. And I would nail it. 20 minutes a day, first week, second week, I would miss a day. Let's say the third week of January. Oh, my God, Chris. I would beat myself up in my heads. Oh, you just couldn't do it, could you, this year? Stupid, right? You know, it's important. You couldn't do it. That was my pattern, right? And so that was a non negotiable for me, which meant that when I missed it, because I said it was a non negotiable in my head, I felt less than I felt bad, I felt guilt, I felt shame. It plays into perfectionism, which means I stopped Doing it right. I'm like, oh, God, I'll try again next year. This all or nothing type approach. Whereas now I have a much kinder relationship with myself. I don't have that negative inner voice anymore unless I'm really, really stressed and sleep deprived, which, again, it's a signal for me to go, oh, wow, I need to stop looking after myself. Whereas now I do meditate most mornings. But if I miss, I'm like, oh, how can I miss today? I'm actually a better human being when I do meditate. I'm more focused. I'm more present with the people around me. Actually, tomorrow I'm going to start meditating again. It's a much healthier relationship with that behavior. For me. It's a balance between discipline and compassion. And Chris, another idea that I've been thinking a lot about because I think a lot about behavior change, 80 to 90% of what doctors today see is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. I'm not putting blame on people, Chris, when I say that. I'm just saying the way we live, the food, environment, our sedentary jobs, the chronic stress, the rates of burnout, the sleep deprivation, the environmental toxins, whatever it might be, it's causing us to be sick. And one thing I've realized, Chris, I really think this holds true in every situation. It's not the behavior, it's the energy behind the behavior. And I actually genuinely believe that every single behavior either comes from the energy of fear or the energy of love. Now, that may sound really spiritual, and I am becoming more spiritual as I get older, but I think too, you know, although you're an American now, although you live in America now, you're still a Brit by birth, right? Like me.

B (49:17)

So this idea of love and that we can love ourselves is quite an alien concept. I think in the UK we don't like to say that, but I can on this mic in front of you today say, although I still struggle to say it right, I was going to initially say, look, I really quite like myself, but dare I say, I love myself. Not in a narcissistic way, like I'm clear on what my values are. My three core values are integrity, curiosity and compassion. Those are the three values I believe represent who I am and who I would like to be. So I regularly assess in the evenings, maybe on a Sunday, you know, how much of this week, Rangan, were you in alignment with your values? When did you behave? When did you not behave, for example? And when you get to that point, you find that everything within you is quite aligned. So behavior change becomes quite easy. Because when I used to struggle with behavior change, it was because the behaviors were coming from an energy of fear. So what does that mean? Guilt, shame? I'm not good enough. What do most people do in January or whenever they're trying to make change? They're trying to overcome the person who they think that they are. A lot of the time in January, they're beating themselves up, Chris. They're like, I'm not good enough. My stomach's not flat enough. I'm not enough. Let me beat myself up with my behaviors to overcome that. That works for a few weeks, it might work for a few months, but in my clinical experience, it never works in the long term. At some point, that energy has to change where you actually quite like yourself. You're doing it not because you're trying to avoid something, because you're trying to get towards something. Actually, I want to have a stronger body. I want to have a clearer mind. I feel that it's the way I can become a better human. I can be a better father when I look after myself. And again, going back to your earlier question, Chris, what is it about me now at 47 where I. I feel this sense of calm? I think for me, becoming a father has been a huge part of that. You know, my son is 14, so I've been a dad now for, you know, almost 15 years. And again, I want to acknowledge, not everyone needs to have a child to see this. A lot of people are choosing not to have children for a variety of reasons. Hey, I'm okay with all of that. For me personally, it's been transformative. You know, suddenly having kids, you just can't be as me focused anymore. You realize there's more to you than just you and your experience. There's other people who depend on you. So going back to perfectionism, let me sort of connect the kids and me as a dad, to my perfectionist tendencies. We look at these people, these heroes, we put them on pedestals. You'll have people, Chris, in your audience who are putting you on pedestals, who are putting you on a pedestal. They're like, oh, my God, Chris is an amazing podcast host, which, they're too.

B (54:16)

Let me just respond to what you just said, and I will come to that, I promise. You can't just take that one aspect, like I mentioned about Jon Bon Jovi, like you've just mentioned, right? You can't be Tiger woods and just take the 15 majors without the painkiller addiction, without the public humiliation, right? You can't. You can't take the 28 Olympic gold medals that Michael Phelps has without the depression and the suicide attempts. You can't take Johnny Wilkinson's World cup medal without the 10 years of pain that followed that, Right? So many of these heroes have paid a huge cost to get where they are. Huge cost. And we often just look at the upside and not the downside. And that's where that. Write your own happy ending exercise, I think, can be so useful. It sounds simple. Oh, just a little what, a little three question exercise? Yeah, just a little three question exercise. These things can help us reframe our lives in quite a huge way. Now, you mentioned busyness, right? And chapter eight is all about business and this idea that business is successful and the reliance. Because everything in this book is about a reliance we have, right? So I believe busyness comes from our reliance on feeling important. So both you and I have spoken to Will Storr before on our podcast, author of many great books. But the Status Game, it's a really good book that Will wrote. And in that book he makes the case that status is a universal driver in all humans. But status is not the amount of YouTube followers you've got, the amounts of Instagram followers you've got, your celebrity status. Will makes the case of status actually is that feeling that we are of value to other people, right? And I think it is what drives us all now. I think many of us now in the 21st century are living these disconnected lives. We've moved away from our communities, our tribes, the people that know us, the people that knew us. And we might have moved away for work opportunity, right? Which is fantastic. But there's a consequence. Sometimes we just don't feel a value. In the old hunter, gatherer tribes, you would know your value. You were either, you know, you were the forager, you were the hunter. There was something that you were providing to the people around you. This is probably one of the main reasons why people who follow religious practices not are religious, but people who follow religious practices are happier and healthier than those who don't. Because a lot of those religious practices, depending on which religion you're talking about, are about doing things for others, showing you to be of value to others. But I think we have a value deficiency in the modern world where we don't know that we're of value to others. So some of the way we get that is by overworking and pushing ourselves really, really hard. Because then you can say, yeah, I am important. You know, I have this reliance on feeling important. And now I think that reliance, that over reliance, I should say, is pushing many people beyond what they can cope with. And it's making them sick. This is why this matters so much to me, Chris. I have seen time and time again over the years in clinical practice, people who thought they could keep pushing. Nothing will happen to them. They can keep pushing. They're the superheroes, right? Until they get hit with the autoimmune illness. And they wish, man, I didn't need to do this. I wish I'd stopped earlier.

B (57:59)

Okay, well, there's many theories on autoimmune illness. The theory that makes the most sense to me is from Dr. Aselio Fasano from Harvard. And basically, he says there are three criteria that someone needs to get an autoimmune illness. Genetic susceptibility, increased intestinal permeability, and an environmental stressor. Right. I'll explain what that means. So you need to have the gene. If you don't have the genes for an autoimmune illness, you're not going to get it. Okay, but that's not enough. You need it, but it's not sufficient in and of itself. You also need something that's called increased intestinal permeability. Colloquially is called leaky gut, basically, when, you know, our guts are all a bit leaky, but when it actually becomes problematic. Okay, in essence, it's a simplified way of saying that. But even with those two things, according to his theory, you won't get it. You need a third thing, an environmental stressor. So for someone with celiac disease, for example, which is an allergy to gluten, that would be consuming gluten, that would be the environmental stressor. But a very common one for many people is stress. Right. I would see in my practice for many years, Chris, autoimmune illness I used to really enjoy seeing. When I say enjoy, as a doctor, I was fascinated by the development of autoimmune immune illness and what you could do with your lifestyle to alleviate things. Right. So I would see a lot of it in my practice. I would say in over 95% of cases in the six months preceding the diagnosis, there was heavy, heavy stress in that person's life. Work stress, bereavement, losing your house, losing your job, something which might have been the final trigger. And there's loads of case studies in the book where I share people who already had enough and they pushed past it for more. I genuinely believe that the biggest disease in society these days, Chris, is the disease of more. More money, more followers, more downloads, more, more, more is going to make us Happy. And the phrase that I think about a lot is from the Tao Te Ching. It's one of my favorite quotes that I reflect on. A lot of the time I was on the train down from the Northwest this morning, I'm thinking about it. True wealth is knowing what is enough. I think that's the million dollar question for so many of us, Chris. What is enough? At what point do you have enough? Why I feel so happy and content these days is because I have got very clear that I have enough. I really do, right? So I've got a wife who loves me. I've just passed 17 years of marriage last week. And we're as happy as we've ever been. I've got two kids who I love and who love me and want to spend time with me, right? I've got a job that I love that provides me and my family a great quality of life. I'm winning, right? And this may interest you, Chris. Two years ago, my son at the time was 12. And I can't remember, it was a weekend. I was maybe uploading something to YouTube or looking at something related to my podcast, right? And I don't know how we got onto this topic, but I remember saying to him something like. I said, oh, son, you know what? I've heard from people, if I go to two episodes a week, you 4x the show, right? Or something. Maybe it's three years ago and you release two episodes a week, you know what? Three episodes a week. So you know what I'm talking about, right? So he said, well, Daddy, why don't you do that? You know, she'll be even bigger and more successful than it already is. And I said, hey, son, listen, if I go from one episode to two episodes a week, you know, there's weekends where we play football in the garden, or we go for a walk, or we sit and play cards, or we go on bike rides together. I probably won't be around to do those things. Cause I'll be in the studio recording intros, recording outros, whatever it might be, right? So I've had to get real clarity. Because as you remember from last time we spoke, Chris, you may remember, I used to be very competitive, but that came from a feeling of lack. Because as a kid, as I explained to you last time, I took on the belief that I was only loved when I was top of the class and I got full marks. That was nobody's fault. I'm not blaming anyone. My parents were immigrants to the uk. Their way of having their kids not face the problems they had was by pushing you to be a straight A student and become a doctor, because then you won't have any problems in life. I took on the belief as a young boy that I'm only loved when I'm top dog, right? But then you go into the world where you're now competing with 8 billion people. That's a very toxic belief system, right? And I'm no longer competitive. Because being competitive, Chris, was not who I was, it was who I became in response to my upbringing. And now that I understand that and I've done the work and there's loads of practices in this book that will help people with that. I'm not competitive anymore. It never was who I was. So I can, for example, look at my life and go, hey, Ranga, you know what? I'm doing great, right? If you had told me 10 years ago that, Ranga, you're going to have five Sunday Times bestsellers. You're going to be happily married, you're going to have two kids that love you. You're going to have a top 10 podcast in the UK, the most listened to health podcasts in Europe, right? If you're going to have those things, I wouldn't have believed you, Chris. But I have all those things and it's very easy. I could look at you, I could look at other people who are who you know, and I'm not saying this in a bad way, I'm saying it genuinely in an honest way and go, oh, you know, it'd be good to do that or go to two a week or go to three a week. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute, it's the unmeasurables in life. Where is, where the goal is. It's the unmeasurables, Chris. I've really, really got that in my head. The most important things in life I don't believe can be measured by society's metrics. So I can't give you a number. I can't give you an official measurement of how happy my wife and I are. I can't give you a, a number like I can with my Instagram followers or podcast downloads that tells you what joy I get from my children. And the reason why I keep coming back to the Tao Te Ching quotes. True wealth is knowing what is enough. Is the reason we keep pushing is that so many people, and I've had patients who already had enough and they keep thinking that more is what they need. Hey, we're all individuals, we've all got to find this truth on our own, on our own path. But I have pushed really hard in the past. I don't want to do it anymore. Like, I feel like I'm winning. I've got a job that I love. I've got a family that I love. I'm in great health. Like, do you know what I mean, Chris?

A (65:11)

Yeah. I mean, you know, the sacrifices that you make in order to get to the place that you want to be is. Is. And it's an interesting one to think about what you need to do in the beginning. You're right. If somebody has 200 pounds to lose, having some non negotiables might not be too bad of an idea, but if you're a little bit further down your journey, you're still whipping yourself into submission, even though you're already performing at a pretty high level. Why did you put all of that work in in the first place? Was it not so that you could actually enjoy this a little bit? Was it not so that you could be happy? And I think that, you know, maybe this is part of the sort of phases of podcasting generally, or whatever you want to call it, personal development information on the Internet that lots of people were probably first introduced to this type of content about 10 years ago, within sort of five to 10 years ago. And there's this huge, big generation of people that have moved through it. And I do get the sense that the work until your eyes bleed, optimize every second of your life thing is getting a little old now. I've certainly found for myself that I'm less sort of compelled by that. I'm much more compelled by trying to find balance, by trying to find enjoyment in the things that I do, by optimizing for fun as opposed to just success. This episode is brought to you by Function. I partnered with Function because I wanted a smarter, more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, they run lab tests that monitor over a hundred biomarkers, and their team of expert physicians will analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. If you've been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be a problem. They play a massive role in your energy and performance, and being able to see them charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. Dr. Andrew Hubman is the scientific advisor and Dr. Mark Hyman is their chief medical officer. So you can trust that the data and insights you receive are as scientifically sound as they are actionable. Getting these lab tests done would usually cost thousands, but with Function, it is only $500. Right now you can get Function's expert blood work analysis and bypass their 300,000 person waitlist by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com modernwisdom that's functionhealth.com modernwisdom how do.

B (71:28)

Didn't exist. But now we've. We've got. I've got 20 priorities today. Well, that's probably why you're overly stressed and busy. You know, a standard week for me, like the week before I went to America, I went recently. I remember the week before then on the Monday, because my flight, I think was on the Thursday. On the Monday I put down because this book is coming out, I had an article to submit to Penguin. So that morning it was. The most important thing I have to do is complete that article and send it to Penguin. It doesn't mean my relationship with my wife and my children wasn't important that day or my other work commitments. But I decided in the morning, that's a win today. If I get that done, today's a win. Tuesday was, you know what? I'm going to be away for two weeks. My wife was just away at the weekend. When the kids are in bed tonight, the most important thing I do is spend some quality time with my wife, okay? On the Wednesday, I remember very clearly what I put down because I'm going away. Not only because I'm going away, but what I felt like putting down there was, I'm working from home today. When my children come in at 4:30 from school today. The most important thing I have to do today is make sure my laptop is closed and my phone is in another room so that I'm fully present to what they have to tell me. Now, Chris, these things may sound really simple. I can guarantee to anyone who's listening or watching right now, if all you do is answer that question each day for the next seven days, I guarantee your experience of life will change for the better in the next seven days. Do it for 30 days, your life will feel different because that'll be you specifying 30 important things and doing those 30 important things. And the sense of achievement and inner wellbeing and self esteem that you build from doing stuff like that is so powerful because we have a negativity bias. So our brain is always drawn to what we didn't do. I didn't get that email done. I didn't prepare properly for that podcast, Guess who's coming tomorrow, whatever it might be, this goes. No, no, this is the most important thing and I'm going to make sure I get this done today. Again, I love simple things that don't cost any money because I've worked, Chris, for years in all kinds of practice. I've worked in affluent areas, but I've also worked in very socially deprived areas. And I hand on heart, I believe that every single person should have access to quality information that helps them. And so where possible, you know, because I live in this online health and wellness space and people will say, oh, this health and wellness world, it's for the middle classes, it's for people who can afford all the fancy stuff. I was Just in la, in Austin. And LA must be like. And of course it was because of the people I was hanging out with and the podcast I was going on. But, you know, if you live in la, or certainly where I was, it feels like sauna and cold plunge and red light is the norm, but it's not the norm for most people around the world. Nothing wrong with those things at all. They can be absolutely very beneficial. But I'm always thinking, great for people who can. No problem. But how do you give health information to people who don't have the means, who maybe can't afford those things or don't have a cold plunger in their back garden? Right. I also really, really want to help them, and I'm. One of the proudest things that I have for this book, Chris, is that every single thing I've recommended is free of charge. Right. So it means everyone can basically apply it, no matter who they are or where they live.

B (76:13)

Revolutionary. But that did really affect me for a variety of reasons, and I spent two or three days thinking about it. I accept I'm not an American, so I don't. I didn't grow up with this history of the race issues that have been there in America. Right. I'm putting that all out on the table. But I am from an immigrant family and, you know, there's been elements of discrimination that my family have faced in the past. So I put out a post on Instagram carefully thought out post where I, I explained that the imp, you know, I explained, you know, some of my thoughts, but then I explained the impact that racism can have. Right? And I shared an example when my wife, so my wife is born and brought up in the UK like me, but of an Indian background like me. I shared an experience that she had as a kid where she was living in North Manchester and basically one afternoon at the weekends, the bnp, the British National Party, threw a brick through their window. So she's a young girl watching telly and a brick comes through the window. That is a traumatic experience. Right? And I shared that. Now, what's really interesting is that most people were very supportive of the post and were happy that I had added my voice to what seemed like a very important cultural conversation at the time. But there was quite a few, Chris, who took offense to what I had written. And they're saying, you know, shame on me. This is not an Asian issue, Dr. Chachi, this is a black issue. You have no right to comment or explain this at this time. And initially I was like, have I done something wrong here? You know what it's like now with the PC State. What have I, Have I. Have I done something wrong? And then I thought about it. I thought, this is ridiculous. I haven't signed up to any code of conduct anywhere that determines how I should or should not respond to the killing of a man by a police officer 3,000 miles away. I'm fully entitled to respond how I see fit in a way that is compassionate, that is kind, that is full of integrity. I'm fully entitled to. But a few people, quite a few people took offense to what I had written. I thought, this is really interesting, really, really interesting. People are taking offense. And I think this problem is just out of control now, Chris, people are walking around taking offense to everything that they see online. And it's a problem, right? It's a real problem. And I'm going to explain the relationship to our health and our behaviors. When you take offense to something, usually you are generating that emotional stress inside you. I can't believe they posted that. They were so out of order for posting that. You're working yourself up, right? So you're no longer calm inside. You've elevated your sympathetic nervous system, you've elevated the levels of stress and emotional stress in your body. And you will need to neutralize that emotional stress in some way. You will have to. It doesn't just dissipate, right? And you can do it in helpful ways. You can do it in Unhelpful ways. So for many people, the way that they do it, as I've already mentioned, is alcohol, sugar, pornography, gambling, three hours, doom scrolling. Right? This is why this sort of stuff matters to me. I want to help people change their behaviors. Yes, we can talk to them about sugar and alcohol. But what I think makes this book, I think, quite unique is this more philosophical approach to health and behaviors than we typically get. If you're someone who is regularly taking offense, you are generating unnecessary emotional stress in yourself. I did this for years, Chris, so I'm not judging. I know what that feels like. But when you don't, right, because there's a certain amount of arrogance that is needed to take offense. And I'll tell you what I mean by that, right? If you're taking offense to certain things, on some level, you're saying that person should think the same as me, right? They have no right to think differently to me. And in a world of 8 billion people, how can it possibly be, Chris, that everyone is going to agree with you? They are not at a point, which I think a lot of people don't realize, is that nothing is inherently offensive. It cannot be. Why not? If the thing was inherently offensive, it means every single person interacting with the thing would take offence. But if they don't, it means it's not the thing that is offensive, it's something within you that's being lit by that thing. Once you get that, you get life because you understand that instead of blaming other people for our internal responses, you own it. You go, actually, no, no, this is something. Why does that comment bother me so much? What is it inside of me that is being lit by that? You can apply the same thing to criticism, Chris. Right. It's hard for me to get out of podcast host mode because I really want to ask you questions, even though it's your show. Right. So I do want to. I'd love to know your relationship with criticism that whenever you face it on YouTube or on Instagram or wherever, because you can't have a successful show like this and not get criticism, it's simply not possible. What I've learned over the years, people used to say to me when I first started in the public eye and like 10 years ago, oh, you need to just grow a thick skin. I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't think it's about a thick skin. I think criticism can be really, really powerful if you use it in the right way. Now, criticism can be a tool for learning. You can go, wow, yeah, They've got a point there. If you're not getting triggered and you get caught up in the emotions and you can step back and go, is there any truth to this person's criticism? Like, I've had that before. I put out a post on Instagram and maybe there's been a criticism and sometimes I'm like, actually, you know what, they've got a point. Next time I bring up that topic, I could maybe take a little bit more care and caveat that a bit better than I did. Right? So you can learn something or you can go, actually, no, I'm okay with what I did. This says more about them and their state of mind. I would say. The big thing, Chris, that I've learned is that criticism only bothers us to the extent we believe it about ourselves.

B (84:16)

Got it. So I think that's a great point. So I'm not saying, when I say take less offence. When I say that criticism only bothers you to the extent with which you believe it about yourself, which I do believe to be true. Generally. I'm not saying that that makes what the other person said or did okay, right? Someone can say something horrible, right? I don't need to take offence to it. So let's say, let's use the example you just mentioned. Someone has gone on your wall, let's say, and said something that is completely untrue about you, that can damage your reputation. I would submit that by you not taking offense by learning to keep your emotional cool, you're going to be much better able to handle that situation and deal with it. That's the key. It's a difference. It doesn't mean you don't want to get that comment removed, perhaps. It doesn't mean, let's take it away from a high profile influencer like you that people may or may not be able to relate to, right? Let's say you got an email from your boss at 4pm that has really pissed you off, right? How dare my boss write to me like that, you know, and undervalue the work that I've done. Now, first of all, the first thing you have to understand is that you will see the world through the state of your nervous system. So had you got that email at 9:00am, you may not have interpreted in the same way as at 4pm it's the same email, but you are different, your nervous system is different, you may be tired, maybe you didn't take a lunch break. So you may start to interpret threat there where there was no threat, right? But let's assume it wasn't a nice email. If you train yourself to not get offended by that and just take a breath and go, okay, that's interesting. I wonder why my boss sent that. Wonder what's going on for them. That's really unusual. Like I'm so valued normally by this company. What on earth is going on? If you start to interact with the situation like that, rather than thinking, I have every right to be pissed off and annoyed and have another Coke now, I phone my friends to moan about it. I've been there, I've done all that. I'm simply saying, look, people can act in the way that they want. I'm just another human being trying to share my experience of the world, right? If people want to act like that, they can. I'm just saying, in my experience, as a consequence of doing that, you are not going to see the situation clearly. For what it is, you're going to be less able to change it. Whereas if at 4pm you can have that calm and go, this is really unusual, what's going on? Are they sick? Are they under pressure from their boss? You're better able to send a calm email back that evening or the following morning, say, hey listen, can we have a meeting? At the meeting you can say, hey, listen. You know, that email felt really rushed. You know, when I read it, I actually felt as though I was a bit undervalued at the company. I'm not sure that was your intention or not. You could have a much more productive relationship with that situation if you don't walk around getting triggered by everything. Does that make sense, Chris? Because that's the point I'm trying to make. There's a subtle difference there. I'm not saying we're saying that that behavior is okay. I'm saying if you want to change that behavior, you're going to be much better at changing that behavior if you can stay internally calm and all you have to do is practice. I believe that.

B (88:40)

Yeah, yeah. I'm really glad you picked that out of the book because it's one of my favorite. I'm not saying they're all my favorite. This is such a personal book. It's literally my template of how I got to this place and why I feel so passionate about these ideas. And one of the chapters is, is literally about this. You know, it's called expect adversity. And the reliance is a reliance on things never going wrong. And I think many of us subconsciously hold that we're surprised when one day there's traffic. Well, if you drive enough, there's going to be traffic. Right. We're surprised. If you're a parent And I know you're not yet, but many parents, or some parents will sometimes on the way to picking up their kids, will nip into the supermarket to get food for dinner on the way. Well, you know what, sometimes there is going to be an elderly lady having a natter with the checkout assistant. That is going to happen. But if you in that moment get really frustrated and annoyed, you are rebelling against the natural order of life. Now, there are things you can do about this and I want to share an exercise in a minute that I do, that's been really helpful. But another way to look at this, I mean, I don't know if this is an extreme example. It's an example I use in the book. Right. But I think it's quite powerful. Current statistics say that a UK doctor will be sued on average four times over the course of a 40 year career. Right. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you see enough patients, you are going to get sued. If you drive enough times, you're going to be involved in a crash. Right? It's going to happen. It's not a matter of if, it's when. So a really close friend of mine a few years ago, this is quite an extreme situation, but I think it illustrates the point. There was a missed case of a cancer diagnosis that had nothing to do with my friend, but she got dragged into this complaint and of course the family have every right to make a complaint, right? Because it's a very emotive issue. It has serious consequences. She got dragged in and for two years her life was hell. She was drinking to excess most nights, she was getting smashed at the weekends, she was really, really struggling. Now, it's always going to be hard to deal with a complaint like that, but if you look at it another way, it was going to happen at one point and you can train yourself to expect adversity. That is quite a hard situation to do it in, I acknowledge. But if you look at the stats, it is going to happen. Look at it through the lens of business, right? I don't know. Have you heard of the term shrinkage?

B (91:22)

So my understanding of the term shrinkage from business is that it's kind of when businesses account for the stuff that's going to happen that they don't want but they know is going to happen. So, for example, a supermarket knows that with their best intentions people are going to shoplift and some food is going to go off. That's factored into that business model. And I think from, from memory that UK businesses Last year, factored in shrinkage to the level of £11 billion, right? It's a big thing, shrinkage. But you know, the UK supermarkets and the US ones are not surprised when it happens. They know it's going to happen, so they factor it in. You are going to have adverse events in your life, so you've got to factor in, you've got to be not be surprised when it happens. Now, there's an exercise you can do that I write about, which I talk about complaining, right? Ask yourself. And it's a really great thing for people to do. You know, ask yourself, how many times in a day do you complain, right? Because a complaint is in essence you getting surprised by the natural order of life. Things are going to happen that you don't want, right? So you can do two things. And this is one thing I did for many years, Chris, you turn the complaint into an action if you can do something about it, and if you can't, you turn it into a moment of gratitude, right? So turning it into an action means you stop acting like a victim. And turning it into a moment of gratitude stops you thinking like a victim. You go, okay, this is going to happen. This is how I'm going to handle it. And I'll tell you something that happened to me about six months ago, Chris, right? So I still live in the town where I grew up in the northwest of England, and for much of my adult life I've had elderly parent caring responsibilities. My mum now isn't so well, she has care every day and I live five minutes away. Now, Mum for many years has had an emergency alarm around her neck if she was to fall. And a few years ago, no, this is actually, this was last year. Was it last year or the year before? It was in the last six to 18 months, right, this happened. I was asleep at night in my house and the phone rang, picked it up and it was the emergency lady saying, hey, look, your mum's pulled her trigger. She's on the floor, she can't get up. Can you go around and help her? So I'm half asleep, I'm in my pajamas. I get into my car, drive around to Mum's, who's only five minutes away. I go into the house, can't remember what time it is, but it's maybe 10, 10:30pm Something like that. And I help Mum, I check, she says okay. I get her back into bed, I get her settled. When I'm happy that things are settled and that she's safe at home, I think, okay, all Right, Mum, I'll come check on you in the morning. I go into Mum's drive, I get in my car, I reverse out straight into the car that was parked in the street opposite Mum's drive, just straight into it. The older version of Rongan who hadn't been practicing these concepts, the older vision Rongan, who didn't expect adversity, would have done this. And I submit, Chris, that many people listening, dare I say most people listening, unless they're your enlightened audience who know not to do these things, would have gone something like this, oh my God. Typical. I've got all this stuff to deal with. Work's crazy at the moment. If I had to go and sort this out with mum and now I've got to phone the insurance and get all this stuff sorted, right? That is a very common response. But that response has a consequence, Chris. The consequence of that is that you feel pissed off, you feel annoyed, you're likely to consume more rubbish the next day. You really are. I've seen this with patients over and over again because that's a consequence, It's a downstream behavior based upon your emotional states. What I did in the moment and I was really proud of myself, I thought, wow, Rangan, maybe this stuff is working with you because I did it in the moment. I was like, oh well, Rongan, if you're going to keep coming around half asleep to pick mum up off the floor, it was bound to happen at some point. No one's hurt, you're not hurt and I've got insurance. That one way that I reacted with the same incident has multiple knock on effects, right? I'm not trying to compensate anymore with my behaviors. I'm not putting the guilt and the self pity, oh poor me, I've got all this to do. Every decision you make, every thought you have, it has a consequence. And these ideas that I'm trying to put forward in this book, I really believe Chris will be life changing for people because they don't realize so many people you can train this stuff out of yourself. You don't have to keep reacting like this for the rest of your life. And going back to Edith, eager for a moment, the reason why Edith had such a profound impact on me. Chris, I've already mentioned some of the reasons, but a practice that I would do for years, I don't do it anymore because I don't need to. But I did need to, right? In the evening, it was when my kids were in bed, I'd sit down in my kitchen and I'd go, okay, Ranga, where did you get emotionally triggered today? And instead of putting the blame on the other person who I could say has triggered me, I could own it and go, no, no, no. Someone else might have done something, but you chose to get triggered. When I say chose, it was you. It was something within you that was lit up by that. What was it? Oh, it's because it reminded me of something that my parents said when I was a kid. Oh. This kind of hit on a little insecurity I have about myself or whatever it might be. I would argue that that is the most important and powerful exercise I've ever done. Because what happens is you become a black belt in yourself, Chris. Instead of blaming the world around you, these dependencies, reliances. Instead of being reliant on everyone around you being a certain way and acting a certain way so that I can feel good, I thought, no, I don't want to be a puppet on a string where people around me and things that I've got no control of can blow me around. No, I'm going to own it right now. People will bring up trauma, right, Chris? We will say, yeah. What about people who've been heavily traumatized? Don't they need therapy sometimes? It's a trauma response. Yes, I agree. Trauma therapy can be really, really helpful. But the reality is a lot of people cannot access trauma for a variety of reasons. Availability, cost, access. These are very common reasons why people cannot access therapy. And again, I want to empower people. Instead of going, oh, well, there's nothing I can do because I can't get up. Like, wait a minute. Yes, you've been traumatized. Yes, that was a horrible experience. But these practices are still going to help you. They're still gonna help you.

Summary

Modern Wisdom Podcast Summary

Episode: #887 - Dr. Rangan Chatterjee - The Key Strategies Of Behaviour Change
Release Date: January 9, 2025
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Introduction

1. Overcoming Reliances for Lasting Change

Dr. Chatterjee [00:03]: "The problem with Reliances is that we are overly reliant on too many things in the outside world which we cannot control. And those reliances, Chris, are tying us down."

Key Points:

People often believe they can only thrive when external circumstances are perfect (e.g., no traffic, supportive colleagues).
Such beliefs lead to frustration and failure when conditions aren't ideal.
Sustainable change requires focusing on the underlying energy driving behaviors rather than the behaviors themselves.

2. Trust Yourself Over Experts

Dr. Chatterjee [07:30]: "I still would have to say, Chris, to you or any of your audience, I simply cannot know exactly what is the right approach for you."

Key Points:

Excessive reliance on experts can lead to conflicting advice, leaving individuals unsure of whom to trust.
Personal experimentation and self-awareness are crucial for identifying what truly works for one's unique circumstances.
Dr. Chatterjee encourages listeners to engage in personal trials to determine effective strategies.

3. Internal Knowledge and Self-Awareness

Dr. Chatterjee [12:26]: "Internal knowledge is insight. It's self-awareness. It's tuning into yourself."

Key Points:

Internal knowledge is essential for recognizing why certain behaviors persist.
Practices like mindfulness and breathwork can strengthen internal awareness, aiding in better decision-making.
Understanding one's internal states helps in neutralizing emotional stress without resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

4. The Toxicity of Perfectionism

Perfectionism is identified as a significant barrier to lasting behavior change. Dr. Chatterjee shares personal struggles with perfectionism and its detrimental effects on mental health.

Dr. Chatterjee [16:50]: "Perfectionism is toxic. It is literally one of the most toxic things that you can suffer from."

Key Points:

Perfectionistic beliefs lead to self-criticism and feelings of inadequacy when ideal standards aren't met.
Such feelings often drive individuals to seek comfort in destructive behaviors like substance abuse or excessive internet use.
Overcoming perfectionism involves adopting a more compassionate and accepting relationship with oneself.

5. Managing Regret and Embracing Imperfections

Regret is discussed as an extension of perfectionism, where individuals believe they could have made better decisions.

Dr. Chatterjee [26:20]: "Regret is a form of perfectionism. At its core is this idea that I could have made perfect decisions."

Key Points:

Regret traps individuals in the past, fostering guilt and shame that hinder present well-being.
Dr. Chatterjee proposes reframing experiences to view past decisions as the best one could have made at the time.
This perspective shift reduces unnecessary emotional burdens and promotes personal growth.

6. The Practice of Solitude and Mindfulness

Solitude is presented as a vital daily practice for enhancing self-awareness and reducing reliance on external stimuli.

Dr. Chatterjee [37:10]: "The most important daily practice that any one of us can do in the 21st century is a daily practice of solitude."

Key Points:

Allocating time for oneself fosters a deeper connection with internal states.
Simple practices like meditation, mindful breathing, or unplugging from technology can significantly impact emotional resilience.
Regular solitude helps in distinguishing between genuine internal narratives and externally influenced thoughts.

7. Rethinking Non-Negotiables

The concept of non-negotiables—strict daily habits—is examined critically. Dr. Chatterjee argues that flexibility is key to maintaining a healthy relationship with habits.

Dr. Chatterjee [43:44]: "I don't believe in non negotiables anymore. Everything in life is negotiable."

Key Points:

Viewing habits as rigid can lead to self-criticism when deviations occur.
Embracing flexibility allows for a balanced approach, where behaviors are adapted based on current needs and circumstances.
This mindset fosters a kinder and more sustainable path to personal growth.

8. Busyness, Success, and the Need for Validation

Dr. Chatterjee explores the societal obsession with busyness as a proxy for success and the underlying need for validation.

Dr. Chatterjee [54:16]: "I believe busyness comes from our reliance on feeling important."

Key Points:

Modern lifestyles often equate busyness with self-worth, leading to chronic stress and burnout.
The pursuit of status and validation through external achievements can be detrimental to overall well-being.
Finding intrinsic value and recognizing one's true priorities can mitigate the negative impacts of an overactive schedule.

9. Taking Less Offense for Better Health

The episode highlights how taking offense can generate unnecessary emotional stress, adversely affecting one's health and behaviors.

Dr. Chatterjee [75:07]: "When you take offense to something, usually you are generating that emotional stress inside you."

Key Points:

Emotional stress from taking offense often leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms like substance abuse or excessive screen time.
Developing resilience involves owning one's emotional responses and reframing situations to maintain internal calm.
Practices like deep breathing, perspective-taking, and gratitude can help mitigate the stress from offensive encounters.

10. Conclusion and Takeaways

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Chatterjee [10:46]: "People don't realize that you're driving to work in your car and someone cuts you up on the road. You have a choice in how you respond."
Dr. Chatterjee [26:18]: "Regret is a form of perfectionism."
Dr. Chatterjee [43:44]: "Everything in life is negotiable."

Key Strategies for Behaviour Change:

Identify and Reduce Reliances: Focus on what you can control and minimize dependence on external factors.
Trust Yourself: Develop internal knowledge and self-awareness to guide your decisions.
Embrace Imperfections: Let go of perfectionism to foster a healthier relationship with yourself.
Practice Solitude: Regular time alone enhances self-awareness and emotional resilience.
Flexible Habits: Adopt a compassionate approach to habits, allowing for adjustments as needed.
Manage Regret: Reframe past decisions to reduce guilt and promote personal growth.
Handle Offense Constructively: Own your emotional responses and use them as opportunities for growth.

Further Resources

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee's Book: Make Change that Lasts – Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
Podcast: Feel Better, Live More – Dr. Chatterjee's podcast featuring authentic conversations on health and well-being. Available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms.