← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
How To Improve Your Mindset & Reinvent Your Life In 2025
01:47:38
Join me for an enlightening conversation with renowned physician Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who after 23 years of medical practice has uncovered the deep connection between emotional well-being and physical health. In this powerful episode, Dr. Chatterjee shares insights from his new book "Make Changes That Last" and reveals how 80-90% of what doctors see is related to stress. Through personal stories and clinical experiences, he explains why most people struggle to maintain lasting changes and offers practical solutions for breaking free from limiting habits. His unique perspective on trusting yourself, managing stress, and the science of forgiveness provides a fresh approach to sustainable transformation.
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- [00:00]
Lewis Howes
Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode. My name is Lewis Howes and I'm so excited that you're here because we have a powerful episode with world renowned physician Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who after 23 years of medical practice has uncovered the deep connection between emotional well being and physical health. And for years, people have struggled trying to understand how to heal themselves. And they've struggled trying to understand how medicine is, can heal their emotions when it's only been treating symptoms in the body. And we're starting to learn how emotions, how stress, how anxiety, how thoughts are also impacting the body. And as a physician for many years, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee reveals how 80 to 90% of what doctors see is related to stress and how unresolved emotional stress actually manifests as physical symptoms and illness in the body. So if you're listening to this right now and you've been thinking to yourself, I'm not crazy, I feel like the, this anxiety with my relationship, this stress around my career or my, my working situation or this unresolved trauma that I've had through my parents or childhood might be causing me some of these physical symptoms that, that I have might be causing me these irritable bowel symptoms or constipation, or maybe I have these incredible migraines and headaches that are just causing me so much pain in my head or I feel this tightness in my chest, or I have this skin condition that just keeps flaring up and I'm eating all the right things, I'm trying to do all the right. For whatever reason, I feel like maybe it's related to stress and my emotions. Well, if that's what you've been thinking, you're not crazy. As we enter this new year, he explains why most people struggle to maintain lasting changes. And he also offers practical solutions from breaking free from these limiting habits that have been holding you back. Here's someone who is trained as a medical doctor who has now learned how emotions, thoughts, habits, your environment, your relationships, how those are impacting symptoms in the body, and how you can heal all these different things. He's going to give us a unique perspective on trusting yourself, managing your stress, and the signs of forgiveness that provides a fresh approach to make this your best year yet. I am so excited for you to dive into this episode. If this is your first time here, please follow us on Apple podcast. Follow us on Spotify. Just click that follow button right now. If someone sent you this episode, make sure to follow and share this with one or two friends. Friends that you want to see improve the quality of their health in a positive way this year. Go ahead and copy and paste the link, share it, text it to a few friends, post it on social media, and make sure to tag mewishouse as well. Because I want to stay connected with you throughout this entire year on this journey of personal growth and living your best life. Because you deserve to live a healthier, happier life. And we are here to bring you the top experts in the world. I'm so grateful that you're here and again, it is my intention to give you the best information possible and to ask the questions that most people are unwilling to ask. And that's what we're here on the School of Greatness to do. Again, I'm so grateful for you. Make sure to follow this show on Apple on Spotify. Make sure to share this with one friend if you can. And I'm so grateful that you're here. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. I'm Dexter Morgan.
- [03:26]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
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- [03:45]
Lewis Howes
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- [03:52]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
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- [03:55]
Lewis Howes
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- [05:19]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Good to see you, Louis. I'm excited to come back on new studio.
- [05:22]
Lewis Howes
New studio, new life. And that's what we're talking about today, which is around your book, make changes that last. Nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back. From a life that really you people have been struggling from or dealing with some type of blockage in their life. And as we are shooting this and starting out into a brand new year, 2025, there's a lot of things in the last half decade that have been blocking people. And you have been a medical doctor for 23 years. You're one of the most well known famous medical doctors in the uk. You've got a massive show, you've treated people for a long time, but you just stopped your practice, which you just told me after 23 years.
- [06:06]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- [06:07]
Lewis Howes
What have you noticed in 23 years of being a medical doctor and now leaving the medical world and transcending by doing different strategies to set yourself free, to create peace? What have you noticed in the last 23 years that's been holding people back really over this last half a decade? And we'll start with that.
- [06:29]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
What I've noticed, Louis, is that every single patient who I've ever seen throughout my entire career, they've come in for a reason. They've come in because they want to get well. I know that sounds obvious, but I don't think we think about that enough. Like people. Why would they take half a day off work to go and sit in a waiting room in a doctor's surgery? About a symptom that sometimes might appear to be quite trivial, I've never thought, why is that person wasting my time? Many doctors do say, why are they coming in with this? I've always thought, why is this person on this particular day ended up in my practice? What has been going on in their life and for how long? That means today they're here in front of me wanting help. And what I've realized over 23 years is that everyone can feel happier and healthier than they currently are. Like everyone wants to make change that lasts. Anybody can make change for a few weeks, for a few months. But what most people are really looking for are changes that actually last true transformation in their life. And I believe that that is available to all of us if we know what to look at. So you said, what is holding us back? Well, I believe there's many things in modern society that are holding us back. But chapter one in this book is called Trust Yourself, okay? And I believe one of the things that is holding us back is that we are overly reliant on experts. Now, let me be clear what I mean by that, Liz, because I'm a so called expert, right? I have a medical degree, I've got my specialist qualifications, my primary care qualifications, I have an immunology degree. I'm a professor at Chester Medical School.
- [08:27]
Lewis Howes
Like bestselling author, podcast, all these things.
- [08:30]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
So I have all these things. But I will still say that I don't know what is right for every single individual. Like I can't do. I know some principles. And I think what's happened today in this era of information overload, there's so much health information out there. I mean, you talk to health experts, I talk to health experts. There's books, there's blogs, there's podcasts, there's everything. And people are getting confused, right? I often get on my Instagram, people will say, hey, Dr. Chastity, a few months ago you spoke to this expert and they said this kind of diet was the best diet for health and they have all the credentials. And then last week you spoke to this expert and they said this diet is best for human health and they both had research to back it up. Dr. Chastity, tell me what to do. I'm confused. Which expert should I trust? But Louis, I think that's the wrong question. I don't think we should be asking which expert should I trust. I think the real question, the more powerful question, is why do I no longer trust myself? And I am an expert, but I give people principles and I feel that what we need to get back to is our intuition, is our inner world. I contend that most people, Louis, know when they're on the right diet for them because they can feel it if they're paying attention. So I say listen to experts. I'm not saying don't listen to experts. I'm saying listen to what they have to say. And instead of trying to decide which expert is right, I feel that the advice should be which expert's advice is right for me at this moment in time. And we're not doing that. And this is why I think people are getting confused, because they've given up their own inner expertise to external experts. And they can all be right. Both experts can be right. They're different People.
- [10:34]
Lewis Howes
And they could both be wrong for you.
- [10:36]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Exactly. And this is where my many years of clinical practice comes in. Because I've seen tens of thousands of patients, Louis. And the truth is I've seen some patients thrive on a whole food plant based diet, but I've seen others who didn't do so well on that diet, and they thrived on a low carb diet. I've seen others thrive on a paleo diet. And so what I've learned is that there's no one perfect diet for every single individual. And I think when I say it, it sounds quite obvious, but I think many people, they're still waiting for an expert to tell them what's best for their life. And I think that's a problem.
- [11:15]
Lewis Howes
With all the credentials that you have, with all of the years of experience, with the tens of thousands of patients or clients that you've treated, with all the knowledge you have, when was the time that you trust yourself the least? Even with all the credibility and the. The education and the tools and the success, what was the time that you had the least amount of trust in yourself?
- [11:42]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's a great question and it's making me think. I think it was before my dad died in 2013. I think my dad dying was such a big moment for me, like it would be for anyone. Right. But I used to care for my dad. I'd moved back to the northwest of England because my dad was sick with lupus. He had an autoimmune disease. He was on dialysis for 15 years. And I moved back from Edinburgh where I went to study and practice. I moved back to help my mum and my brother look after my dad. And when my dad died in 2013, it was the first time where I had to start asking myself questions about who am I? Like, whose life am I leading? Is this my life or is this somebody else's life? And I think that prior to that moment of my dad dying, I'm not sure how much I trusted myself. Really. Yeah. I think I was looking for, what's the evidence saying? What's the external evidence saying? What are people saying? Like, I was very much driven by external validation back then. I wanted people to like me. I changed who I was to be accepted by other people. So you say, when did you trust yourself the least? That's a great question. I've never been asked that before. Right. It's making me think. I don't think I even knew what it meant to trust myself back then. When I started dating my now wife back in 2007. And I write about this in chapter three of the book, which is called Be Yourself. I write about when I first met Vid, and we were dating and we'd go out for dinner and, you know, what are you going to order? What are you going to? And I would often say, hey, babe, listen, you can't decide. Why don't you order two dishes that you want and I'll have the one that you don't want? And on the face of it, I thought I was being kind and compassionate, you know, I really like this girl. Hey, you can't choose. Don't worry about it. Because that's how I was raised, right? Don't make a fuss. You know, do what everyone, you know, do what you need to do to keep the peace around you. And a few days in, I didn't realize that Vid was getting frustrated, and I didn't get why she was getting frustrated. And she basically, she. She wanted a man who knew his own mind. She didn't want a man who was just trying to appease her. And it was quite a powerful lesson for me back then. I mean, I found it difficult because I didn't know what I was doing wrong. But since my dad died and I've gone on this inner journey to explore myself and why I feel certain ways and why certain things used to trigger me. I realized that I was a people pleaser for much of my life. And so when you asked me the question, louis, when did you trust yourself the least? It was back then because I didn't know what myself was. I didn't know what I wanted. Everything I did was about what the people around me wanted. But that is something that it is possible to change. I changed it. You've done massive changes in your life, you know, in terms of what happened in your childhood and where you are today. I'm not a people pleaser anymore. Like, I do know how to listen to my body now. I do know how to trust myself. And I think there's a wider point there, isn't there, Lewis? Which is many people, they might hear me and you talk about trusting yourself, but they don't know what that means because they've spent their whole lives changing who they are to be accepted by other people. And that's why I think sometimes we're looking for external advice to teach us what should I do? How should I live? How should I eat? And I'm not saying don't listen. I'm saying, listen, put it through your own filter. And that's why I Believe that for most of us, the most important practice for our health and happiness is a daily practice of solitude. And I really believe that because without that solitude, where you're not getting inputs from the outside and you're actually starting to listen to your body's own signals, you're gonna struggle to know what your body's telling you. You're gonna struggle to trust yourself. And it's. You've really made me think, man. You've really made me think. Yeah. When was the last time that. When did I trust myself the least? Yeah, it was pre2013, and I would say it was for most of my life.
- [16:26]
Lewis Howes
When you trust yourself the most, what are you doing and what are you not doing?
- [16:31]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
When I trust myself the most, I'm living life in alignment with my values. So my last book was on happiness, Louis. And in that book, I share how happiness is a skill. It's a skill that we can all get better at if we know what to work on. And in that book, I created a model for happiness. And I say the three key ingredients for happiness are contentment, control, and alignment. And alignment is 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. I'm really aligned these days as I get the impression you are. And I think it's much easier to trust yourself the more aligned you are right now. It's a vicious cycle because, you know, you kind of need to trust yourself to start living in alignment. And the more alignment you can live in, the more you start to trust yourself. So I think it works both ways. But for me, it's when I've got a regular routine in my life, when I'm going to bed the same time every night when I'm sleeping well. And for me, it comes down to whether I can, for the first half hour of my day, not go online, not go on my phone and have a little morning routine and ritual, which I do have, and I have been for many years. And that ritual that I have every morning, it sets me up. It's my time before my wife gets up, before my kids get up, what I center myself, I ground, and I pay attention to how I'm feeling and what my body is saying. And if people did that every single day, even five minutes, if they don't have time, five minutes a day where, you know, let's say you like coffee and you have a sip of. You have a cup of Coffee in the morning. Can you do that and not also look at Instagram and not also check your emails and just start to pay attention? And very quickly you will start to learn things about yourself, and then you become less dependent on all these external voices. Hey, listen, I'm a podcaster like you, Lewis. I love listening to podcasts, I love making podcasts. But at the same time, for me, it's very important to have time where I'm not listening and I'm listening to myself and not external experts. Does that all make sense?
- [19:00]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, of course.
- [19:01]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Wow.
- [19:02]
Lewis Howes
When you talk about happiness, though, you say contentment, control, and alignment. What does control mean with happiness?
- [19:09]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, so let me be a bit clearer. Okay. So contentment are. What are the things that you can do in your life that give you that sense of peace and calm? And contentment. That's what the contentment arm of the three sort of ingredient model is. I'd mention alignment and then control. Control's an interesting word. This is not about controlling the world. The world is fundamentally uncontrollable. And if we try and control the world, we're going to really struggle. But this is about a sense of control. What are the things that you can do in your life that give you a sense of control? We know from the scientific research, Lewis, that people who have a strong sense of control, the healthier, the happier, they have better relationships, they earn more money. Right? A sense of control, that's really important. And arguably, Lewis, I think it's never been more important, because if we look around today, the news headlines, what's going on on social media, the toxicity, the division that exists, or we think that exists in society, I think regularly doing things that give us a sense of control is one of the most important things you can do. Right. So that little morning ritual I do every day, that grounds me. And it means even if the news headlines are toxic that day, or I have loads of emails or the, you know, things are going to go wrong in life. Right. That's just the way it is. It grounds me and it centers me so I'm better able to face the friction and the problems that may exist in life if I had that sense of control. So I think it's really important, and I think that's one of the most powerful things that morning routines and rituals give people, is a sense of control in a fundamentally uncontrollable world, 100%.
- [20:56]
Lewis Howes
And if people are trying to change their life, there's a stat out there that says, Studies show that 88% of people who set New Year's resolutions fail within the first couple of weeks. I would probably relate that to anyone setting any goal at any time in life. It's like, okay, I'm gonna lose the weight. I'm gonna start doing this daily. I'm gonna do whatever. A lot of people seem to fail pretty quickly after they realize how hard it is to make lasting change. You're talking about the habits of lasting change. It just seems like it's so hard to reinvent yourself from an old way of being that is doing things for years and. And all of a sudden change it into becoming someone new. There's a quote you have that says the reason most people are unable to make changes that last for good is because they never actually address the underlying reasons behind their habits in the first place. This means that any changes they try and make are ultimately in conflict with the state of their lives and the person they believe themselves to be. And as a medical doctor for 23 years, someone who studied this for a long time, I. I'm assuming the goal of a doctor is to get to the root cause, or some doctors is to find the root cause. How did you learn to apply that to life, to making lasting change, not just towards a disease or medical condition. That's that people were having. And how can people do that in life?
- [22:29]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
The way I've learned to apply it is when I realized that people coming to a doctor's surgery for help are just people, right? All of us are looking for help in our lives. All of us are looking to transform our lives, to have more peace, to have more contentment. So going back to what I said earlier, right? I've always wondered, why has this person ended up in my practice today? Yes. Right. Why they ended up today. Why did they not come in three weeks ago? Why did they not come in three months ago? Assuming that there were problems there, Something had shifted so much in their life that they thought, okay, now I need help, right? But what I've learned over the years, and I think one of the reasons I've learned this is because I've had some quite unique experiences as a doctor, which I'll explain in just a minute. But I believe that actually, like this change that we're all looking for, when I was able to help my patients make changes, it wasn't just their health that got better. They also became happier. They became more contented. Their relationships got better. So I don't see as health as separate from life like it's part of life. I don't see health, happiness and relationships as separate. I think that all part of the same thing. And if you improve one of them, you improve all of them. And that's what's always driven me as a doctor. So, yes, you've, you've alluded to something that's really important, that not all doctors look for root causes because we're not taught to.
- [23:57]
Lewis Howes
No, taught to treat the symptom.
- [23:58]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
We really are. And we hear this on podcasts. Right. But people, I still don't think, understand how we're trained. We are trained to hear what a patient has going on with them and all these symptoms, and we're trained to recognize patterns. Oh, that set of symptoms means depression. That set of symptoms means the autoimmune disease lupus. That set of symptoms means migraine. And basically we're taught to make the diagnosis. Once we can make the diagnosis, then we can start the treatment. And the treatment usually is a pharmaceutical drug. Oh, it's a migraine. Let me give you a migraine drug. Oh, it's an autoimmune disease. Let me give you an autoimmune drug. You know, whatever it might be.
- [24:44]
Lewis Howes
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- [28:25]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But I quickly realized, when did you.
- [28:26]
Lewis Howes
Realize that doubt's not the best way to go about healing?
- [28:30]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I've always had a slight discontentment throughout my career in the early days that we were just suppressing symptoms. It never Made sense to me. I thought, why am I just giving this person like a, a drug, a band aid, a band aids? And I tell you, one of the most powerful days for me is I was in general practice in the UK. I'd seen maybe 45 patients that day. It was a busy, busy day. You know, we would have 10 minutes appointments.
- [28:56]
Lewis Howes
So it's a quick, tell me how you're feeling, let me assess. Open up your tongue and say, ah, boom.
- [29:01]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Get something, walk out.
- [29:02]
Lewis Howes
You have this, here's antibiotic, here's this drug, here's whatever.
- [29:05]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. And for whatever reason, at the end of the day, I sat back, I was exhausted, I looked at my clinic list and I said, rangan, how many people have you really helped today? Like, really helped. And I went through the list and hand on heart, look at this. I thought I've only helped 20% of people. Like, really helped them, the other 80%. Yeah. I was kind to, I was courteous, I did my job. But I don't feel I really helped them. I felt that I just put a band aid on their symptom or I just referred them off for a test. But I was doing my best within that system, but it didn't feel right to me. I thought, I can't practice like this for the next 40 years. There must be something more I can do. And.
- [29:50]
Lewis Howes
And you probably didn't go into medicine to live that life. You probably said, I want to help people heal.
- [29:55]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Like truly heal. What is the root cause? And then I had quite a. An incredible experience in 2015 and 2017. I, you know, this is part of this journey. My dad dies in 2013. I'm on this journey of trying to find out who I am. I come to America to lots of conferences to learn things that I think were not taught at medical school. Like, I want to learn more tools to help my patients. I start applying them with my patients.
- [30:21]
Lewis Howes
Root cause stuff.
- [30:22]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Root cause stuff. Like, root cause stuff. And I love it. I think this is why I went into medicine. Like, this is properly helping people. And then I got the opportunity to make my own sort of primetime shows for BBC One television, where I had a series for a few years called Doctor in the House. And that series now has been seen in 70 countries around the world. I think some of the episodes are still on YouTube, but essentially there were people who were sick, they were under doctors, they were on pills, and I went to live alongside them for four to six weeks. Wow. And it's still the proudest thing I've done. In my career, Louis, I helped a lady put her type 2 diabetes into remission in just 30 days. That was back in 2014. I helped a lady with panic attacks reduce them by 70 to 80% in just six weeks. I think a 48 year old lady with severe menopausal symptoms who didn't want hormones, that was her choice. I, in six weeks helped her virtually eliminate all of her symptoms. And the list goes on. But all of it was done with nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. I didn't use any drugs. And I feel that show was groundbreaking, what it showed. And I've often wondered, Lewis, why do I have this view of the human body? Why do I write about relationships? And in this new book I write about life. But your relationship to life is gonna change your health. Because I don't see these things as separate because when I was filming that series, I got to see stuff with these families that you would never see in practice. I was staying with them sometimes overnight in their house, which is pretty remarkable, right?
- [32:10]
Lewis Howes
In the UK specifically.
- [32:11]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So I was there and I would see things like, oh, how is a husband and a wife interacting with each other? Oh, there's some stress there. Like, even if I had more time in my consultation room, they may never tell me that information. I got to see how every single input in their life is impacting their symptoms. You can't separate health from the rest of your life. It's one and the same. And I think in medicine we try and separate it, but you can't. And so I saw this stuff and I saw how they view the world, how they deal with conflicts, what kind of foods they're eating, what time do they go to bed, how do they talk to each other? Oh, these things are all important. And so I got a real window into people's lives that I think has given me quite a unique view that most doctors don't get.
- [33:06]
Lewis Howes
How many physical symptoms or diseases do you think arise from relationship and lifestyle challenges? Not nutrition related, but more relationship deficiencies?
- [33:23]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I can't give you a percentage. Right. Because I haven't done a study where I can give you an accurate percentage. So what can I say? I can say that I believe it's a lot more common than people think. Right. If you have relationship conflicts in your life, and many people do in some level, I'm not saying you're ready for a divorce necessarily, but if there's conflict in, I was going to say a close relationship, but frankly, any relationship, it does impact your health.
- [33:52]
Lewis Howes
It manifests in your body 100%.
- [33:55]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And there's an obvious way to make it and a less obvious way to make that case. Okay, the obvious way is. Listen, one of the reasons, as you've already pointed out that I write about, one of the reasons we can't make change that lasts is because we haven't. We try and change the behavior without understanding the role the behavior plays in our life. Okay? I think it's such a, it's such an obvious point, but we don't think about it. We go straight to the behavior. Okay? In January, we go straight to alcohol. I want to reduce how much alcohol I'm having or how much sugar I'm having. But here's the problem with this. How many people can do dry January? Quite a lot. How many people can quit sugar in January? Quite a lot. How many people do that? And then they actually make long term changes? The number's a lot less, right? Often by the end of February, most people are back to where they were in December. And here's, let's make it really obvious. If you've got a lot of stress in your life and alcohol is your way of dealing with the stress, right? Because it's a, it's an effective way of managing stress, at least in the short term. You can white knuckle it for a few weeks and stop drinking, but you're gonna return back to your previous behaviors unless one of two things happens. Number one, either the stress in your life goes down. If the stress in your life goes down, great. You may need less alcohol. If the stress in your life doesn't go down, if you don't find an alternative behavior to manage that stress, like something else to relieve the stress, maybe the gym or something else, you're going to go back to the alcohol. So let's relate that to what you were asking about relationships. If you are having conflicts in your relationships, it doesn't feel good. It's a huge source of stress. That, that emotional stress you will neutralize. You have to neutralize it in some way, right? And this is something I think people really don't get. And it's one of the big themes in this book is that emotional stress is not neutral. You're having conflict with your partner. What do we often do? We don't feel good. We go to sugar, we go to alcohol. We spend three hours scrolling Instagram trying to find some kind of inspiration. Those things are a downstream consequence of the emotional stress that's going on because of your relationship issues. And that's why if we can repair our relationships, Learn how to communicate better. You know, be open, be honest, not give accusations, but share how we're feeling. And if we can successfully manage conflict, you will naturally find your behavior start to improve. And I think this is the missing piece in behavior change. We don't think about the root cause of our behaviors. We just want to change the behavior, which is why it usually doesn't last in the long term.
- [36:50]
Lewis Howes
Wow. And when you were treating patients.
- [36:55]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
How.
- [36:55]
Lewis Howes
Much would you say were people's symptoms related to relationship conflicts in their life? Whether it be with their parents or their boss or a friend or whatever it might be, a family member or something? How much of it was once they started to have the courage to speak up or once they were able to break themselves free of a situation in a relationship or create a boundary in their life or whatever it might be, create new alignment with that person. How much of. Of the patients you saw had emotional pain that flared up in the symptoms on their body, that once they started to make the emotional changes and the boundaries, the alignment in relationships, those symptoms went away?
- [37:39]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
So many. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, there's at least three or four cases in this book where I outline patients I've seen. Let me give you two examples. Okay, So a few years ago, and tell me if this is directly answering your question or not, Lewis, but a few years ago, I saw this lady, I'm going to guess, 45 to 50 years old. I can't remember her exact age. And she had high blood pressure, and she'd seen previous doctors and they were trying to treat it. She didn't like the medications. She was getting side effects. She started to see me, and I was. I think that high blood pressure doesn't just happen. It's a response to other things. Right?
- [38:22]
Lewis Howes
To events in life.
- [38:23]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, you know, it's a. You know, it's hypertension. It's too much tension.
- [38:28]
Lewis Howes
It's not a genetic thing. Huh? It's not.
- [38:30]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I think in most cases it's not. There can be a genetic predisposition, but.
- [38:36]
Lewis Howes
But you can override that.
- [38:37]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
You can usually override it. You can. And if we just think about it through the lens of the stress response. Okay, let's just take a. I'll come back to your question, but let's just look at it from a slightly different angle. We know that stress is responsible for maybe 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors in some way.
- [38:53]
Lewis Howes
Come on.
- [38:54]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Really? Yeah, in some way. Because chronic stress affects every single organ system in the body. Can I explain why?
- [39:00]
Lewis Howes
Yes. Okay, so wait, say this, dad again.
- [39:02]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
80 to 90% of what a doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress.
- [39:08]
Lewis Howes
That is crazy.
- [39:09]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, that was in an editorial in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical association, back in 2015, 2013. That's where that was published. Right. And what's remarkable about that is once you understand that and you understand the stress response, you can see it everywhere. So we have to understand what is the stress response? What is it there for? Well, the stress response is fundamentally there to keep us safe. So let's take a trip down. Like our evolutionary history. Let's imagine 200,000 years ago. We're hanging out in our hunter gatherer tribe. We're getting on with our day, we're doing our stuff, okay? We're in a nice state of relaxation and we're just getting along with our. We're just getting on with life. And then let's say in the corner of your eye, you see a wild predator starting to approach the camp. Okay? In an instant, your stress response kicks into gear, because that's what it's there to do. Now, what happens when your stress response kicks into gear? All kinds of things happen. Your blood sugar starts to go up so that we can deliver more glucose to your brain. Your blood pressure starts to go up so more oxygen can go around your body. Your amygdala, which is the emotional part of your brain, where all these emotional reactions come from, that goes on high alert, so you're hypervigilant for all the threat around you. Okay. Your blood becomes more prone to clotting. Why? Because if that predator was to cut you and attack you, instead of bleeding to death, it's going to clot and that's going to save your life. Right? These are appropriate responses to stress, to stress when you're in danger. The problem we have in the modern world in which we live is that our stress response has no longer been activated by wild predators. It's been activated by the state of our daily lives. Our email inboxes, the three social media channels, we're trying to keep up to date with the news headlines. The fact that we may have moved away from family for career opportunities, but then we're trying to bring up kids by ourself and look after elderly parents by ourselves. These all are stresses on the body. And so those short term things which help you when you really are in danger, they become really problematic if they're day in, day out. So if you're getting chronically stressed by the State of your life, which many people are. Okay, we know chronic stress is through the roof these days, right? Your blood sugar going up for 30 minutes is not a problem. If it's going up every single day, it's going to cause you to be tired, weight gain around the middle, and ultimately type 2 diabetes. If your blood pressure goes up for half an hour to help you deliver more oxygen around your body or it goes up in your spinning class, that's not a problem. But if that's happening day in, day out to the state of your life, that high blood pressure is what causes heart attacks and strokes. Do you get what I'm saying? It works in the short term, it's problematic in the long term. What about what I said about the amygdala, right? The emotional part of our brain. If there's a lion that's approaching you, you want that to be on high alerts, right? You want to be hyper vigilant. If you're walking back to your car on Friday night in downtown LA and you think someone's following you, you want to be on high alert and hypervigilant. But if that's happening to the state of your daily life, well, that's what we call anxiety, right? So the stress response can affect everything in your body. And so this lady who I saw, who had high blood pressure, I helped her change her diet, I helped her change her lifestyle, but it wasn't budging. And I always believe that there is a root cause for everything. And my job is to help my patient find a root cause for them. And we were chatting, I was getting to know her over a few weeks and months. I really spend a lot of time on my patients. I like to get to know them and find out about their lives. And then it became clear to me that there was an issue that she wasn't dealing with. Right? She had got divorced a few years ago because her ex husband had cheated on her and she couldn't let it go. She was so wound up talking about it, she basically couldn't forgive him. She held onto this resentment, Lewis. She's like, no, well, it was his fault. My life is bad because of what happened. He did this to me. And over time, I built up trust with her and I said, hey, listen, I understand that this must have been really, really difficult, but that was in the past. And you're allowing that past event now to affect your future and your present. I want to help you try and let go of what happened because I believe that you holding onto this resentment might be contributing to your high blood pressure. And there's actually research on this Professor Fred Luskin from Stanford. You should have him on your show. He's great. He's done all the research. It's the Stanford Forgiveness Project. His stuff is fantastic. And he has shown that when people forgive, your blood pressure can go down. Wow. Your anxiety can go down, your depression can go down. Right. Forgiveness has been shown to improve the quality of your relationships, improve your self esteem. So I helped her. She didn't want to see a therapist. I went through various things with her and various exercises. And over a period of a few months, she learned to let go. Right. And forgive her ex husband. And hand on heart, Lewis, her blood pressure came down crazy. Right. So this is one of the biggest.
- [44:47]
Lewis Howes
So there's no drug you had to give her and have to give money drugs? She didn't have to change her diet. She didn't have to. It was just an internal reflection and either opening her mind or opening her heart to the ability to forgive.
- [45:02]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. And trying to help her understand that it doesn't mean what her ex husband did was okay. I'm not saying it was okay or it was good. I'm saying you're, you're allowing that. And I say that with compassion. I get it's difficult, like it can't be nice to have been cheated on by your husband. I get that. But what I helped to see and it took me a bit of time, but I like try and like, I really try and talk to my patients with an open heart and I think they trust me. And I helped her realize that it wasn't helping it anymore. It was a one off event. And Louis, I remember when you last came on my show, when your last book was out, we spoke about forgiveness. I actually write a little bit about that in my new book because you said something to me that I've never forgotten. And I'm sure many of your listeners know your history and what happened to you as a little boy and the trauma you faced. And you said to me in on my podcast, you said words to this effect, Yes, I had to forgive the person who perpetrated the trauma on you. But you said I also had to forgive myself for allowing that pain to affect you for like 25 years. And that stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh, wow. Lewis didn't only have to forgive. Well, I shouldn't say had to. No one has to do anything you chose. And I'm sure it was really difficult and I'm sure it is difficult from Time to time. But you had to move on and then forgive yourself. And people don't realize how important forgiveness is. Like, I really believe it, that people are walking around with resentment and they're holding grudges on people. And, you know, I've. I spoke about stress before, but we can think about stress in two different ways, Livis. There's the external stress, right? From our workload. Oh, my boss needs me to do these 10 activities. I don't have time. I've got to rush around. There's traffic. I understand that there is external stress, but I would argue that most of our stress is internally generated by how we interpret things.
- [47:13]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [47:13]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
How we interpret things. And once you understand that, that's when your life changes for the better. When you realize that most events in life are neutral. What determines that impact on us is the perspective we take on that event. That's when your life really starts to change. And that's when my life changed.
- [47:34]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. And going back to one of the first things you talked about, learning how to trust yourself. Like, get the wisdom and the knowledge and, you know, learn from experts in science and research and examples. But at the end of the day, you gotta listen to what you need based on the experts or what's available out there. You've gotta take action on what your intuition is telling you or what your body or your mind, your heart is telling you. And I don't think you can fully trust yourself unless you learn to forgive yourself.
- [48:01]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I wanna say, Louis, if anyone's listening right now or watching, and they're pushing back, Right. Because I've realized that on my Instagram, I try and share this kind of helpful information with people like you do. And whenever I bring up forgiveness, it's amazing to see the response. Some people love it, and other people push back hard.
- [48:25]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. I had Dr. Ramany on. I don't know if you know Dr. Ramani.
- [48:28]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had her on mine as well.
- [48:29]
Lewis Howes
And she says maybe you don't forgive. Like the per. The narcissist who's, like, just taken years of your life. Right. And she's like, it gives me peace not to forgive. And that was the first time I'd heard that. And maybe there's something too, like, forgiving when you feel ready and not forcing forgiveness. For sure, if you're feeling frustrated or maybe it's helping you actually create a boundary for that season of life. Okay. And however you need to forgive in your mind or whatever that looks like. But for her forgiveness of someone who's kind of taken a lot of years from her life. She said maybe you don't forgive in her mind.
- [49:08]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. And I've heard Dr. Romani say that, and I think Dr. Rahmani is great and she's helping so many people. And I have a huge amount of respect for people and their views and their opinions. I can only share what I've seen with patients and what I've experienced myself. And I think we misunderstand forgiveness. I think some people think that forgiveness means saying that that was okay. It doesn't mean that it's saying that I'm no longer going to allow that to have a hold on me. It's totally different. And like there's so much I want to say on forgiveness. Lewis Because I feel that I feel so light and free these days because.
- [49:52]
Lewis Howes
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Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Easy.
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Lewis Howes
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- [52:26]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's a stressor. It's a stressor. When we think about stress and the stress response, we are conditioned to think about external stressors. But holding onto resentment is an internal stressor. Right. So you're still activating your stress response by feeling it could have been different. They shouldn't have done that. That person has wronged me. Right. When you change your relationship with that past event, which has happened, it's no longer happening. Right. It happened in the past. But by keeping it active within you, it is causing you internal stress by you not being able to let go. I passionately believe that. That the happiest people are those who can move on and let go. Now, some people. Louis, will say that some things are unforgivable. And you may be better placed to answer this than me based upon your experience, but we both had a very powerful lady on our shows. Edith Eager. Yeah. Okay. I'm coming up to 500 episodes of my show, and people ask me, as they probably did to you, which is the most impactful episode? Right. And I can't really answer that because it's like picking a favorite child. Like, I've had so many that have had a profound impact on me. But if I had to choose, the one episode that rises to the top is the first conversation I had with Edith Eke.
- [53:50]
Lewis Howes
She's amazing.
- [53:51]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Because here's the situation. Let's relate this to forgiveness. Right. Why did that. I literally was not the same person after that conversation as I was before. I remember afterwards, I felt, I've changed. I have changed in those two hours. And why was that? So for people who don't know who Edith is, let me just briefly summarize. When I spoke to her, she was 93 years old. When she was 16 years old growing up in Eastern Europe, her family gets a knock on the door. That's a day where she's excited about going on a date that evening with her boyfriend. What dress am I going to wear tonight? They're going to knock on the door. They're put on a train and they go to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two hours of getting to Auschwitz concentration camp, both of her parents are murdered. And I remember one of the first things Edith said to me was, I never forgot the last thing my mum said to me, which is, Edith, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your mind. Powerful, right? And so the same day that her parents are murdered, She's a 16 year old girl, they know that she's a dancer, she get asked to dance for the senior prison guards. And she said to me, rongen, listen, when I was dancing in Auschwitz, I wasn't in Auschwitz in my mind. I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful blue dress on, there was a full house, there was an orchestra playing. And I thought, wow, this is incredible, right? She's reframing her experience in wow. And then she said to me, louis, whilst I was in Auschwitz, I started to see the prisoners. Sorry, I started to see the prison guards as prisoners. They weren't free in their mind, right, I'm free in my mind. They're not living their life. And the final. She said so much to me, right? But the thing that she finished off with, which I think about on most days, she said, rongen, listen, I've 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. Now when she can say that having lived through that inspires me, if I'm ever struggling with something in my life, I go, hey, Rangan, you know what? Edith could reframe Evans in Auschwitz. I think you can reframe events here. Yeah, and actually I think I asked her, or I've heard her say this, is it possible to forgive Hitler? And I think she's forgiven Hitler because I think this is where the misunderstanding with forgiveness really triggers people. She's not saying what he did was right in any shape or form. She's simply saying, I'm no longer going to allow what he did to affect me. And it's a big difference. And I know it can feel hard. I have my own way of dealing with forgiveness which I'll share. But can I just tell you one more case that I wrote about? Because I think it really speaks powerfully to this and I think you'll be interested. Lewis, I can't remember which chapter I start with this story, but this is one of the saddest cases in my career for me personally. Again, it was a lady, I think, late 40s or early 50s, who lived a really healthy lifestyle. Okay. She was careful with her diet. She moved her body regularly. She went to sleep on time every night. She had the good lifestyle. She had no genetic history of cancer in her family, to my knowledge. But she got diagnosed with ovarian cancer, like, in the. In her late 40s, which is really serious. And she died sometime afterwards. Okay. I remember because I'd been seeing her for years. I can remember this so well. When she was, I think, 20 years old, she was in a new marriage. They had a young baby and her husband cheated on her and they ended up getting divorced. She could never move on from that. Right. She couldn't talk about it. Her family and friends knew that. You can't bring up his name.
- [58:24]
Lewis Howes
It'll affect her so much.
- [58:26]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. So this is like 25 years on. She's still holding on to what happened when she was 20. Now, listen, I have compassion for that. I understand that must be awful. But what I tried to help her with for a few years, I tried to say, hey, listen, this is before the diagnosis. She was my patient for a while. I was like, listen, I don't think this is helping you. Like, I understand that happens, but I don't think this is helping you. At some point, I think this will, like, have an impact on your health. Now, look, I can't say for sure that her holding onto that contributed to her cancer. I can't say that. I can't say that I would be going one step too far. But what can I say? If you look at the scientific research, there is ample research showing us that people who struggle to forgive and let go, people who hold on to resentments, have an increased risk of things like autoimmune disease and cancer. Right. That is there in the research. There's multiple research papers showing this. Gabor Mate talks about this. He's detailed all the research in his book the Method Normal. Now, let me be really clear, Lewis, of what I'm saying. I'm not putting blame on anyone. Like, I don't blame people, Louis. My goal is to come from my heart and to help people. The reason I share this information, even though I know people will be pushing back and saying, what are you saying? But she did it to herself. No, I'm not saying that. If we don't understand, Louis, the role that our emotions play in our health, we're not motivated to do anything about it. Right. It's easy to go. No, I'll just keep eating an organic whole food diet. I'll be going to the gym. I have Seven hours of sleep a night and my life will be good. I'm like, hey, listen, I'm all for eating well, moving well, sleeping well. I'm all for that. That is very, very important. But don't neglect your inner emotional world. Right? That can play a role. And so for that lady to be really clear, I cannot say that her resentment and her inability to move on caused her cancer. I can't say that. But listen, cancer, like all chronic diseases, is multifactorial. There's never just one thing. There's genetics, there's your environmental exposures as pollution, there's your social status. There's food, there's movement, there's sleep, there's stress. But there's also your emotions. So I think we can say, based upon the research and what clinicians like me have seen, you see certain patterns when you've been practicing for enough years. And I have seen this pattern before in certain chronic conditions. And so I should. I. I honestly, I share that because I want to help people. I'm simply saying if you are holding onto resentment, at some point, when you're ready, yeah, feel the resentment, feel the anger, feel the frustration, but don't stay there. If you need help, get help. If you can access a therapist to help you get. Get a therapist. But if you can't, there is still plenty that you can do.
- [61:38]
Lewis Howes
It sounds like you can't. You don't want to stuff the emotions, but you don't want to stay in the emotions. You gotta learn to let it out in some healthy, conscious way, hopefully not hurting someone else in the process of your anger or resentment or frustration or whatever it might be. But you can't stay there also. So you can't spiritually bypass the emotion. Just say, that didn't affect me. If it did, let it out. And don't stay there. You don't. Don't keep reliving the trauma for years to come.
- [62:05]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I think one of the things we see these days, because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions as many. You talk about it on your show all the time. There's many people talking about this in public. I think what's happened is that for some people, they go to, oh, I get it now. This is why I'm the way I am. This is because of my mom or my dad. This is how I was brought up. And they stay there, and then they start to blame their parents. And I think that's unhelpful. Maybe you have to go through that, but you can't stay there. At some point, you have to come out the other side and go, okay, I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions. Now let me move to the next part where I process them and move on. And I tell you, a very simple technique that's helped me, Larissa. I don't know if it will help others, but it certainly has helped me is a few years ago, I chose to take on the belief. And again, I use those words carefully. I chose. I don't have to take on this belief, but I've chosen to take on this belief in life. I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their experiences. And so let me just elaborate on that a little bit, because it can be quite triggering for people that I choose to believe that if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them. Why? Because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were 17 or whatever it might be, if I had their life, I'd probably be thinking and acting in exactly the same way as them now. It doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right. I'm not saying that. But once you adopt that approach to life, like, you can feel this inner calm, Lewis, because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion. It's trying to understand, why is this person behaving that way now. It doesn't mean it's easy, and it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorrent or wrong. But I choose to take that approach to life. And it's really, really helped me. Because now my first instinct, if someone's attacking me online, if something's happening, if someone disagrees with me, my first instinct now, because I've trained it for years, is, oh, I wonder why they think so differently to me. And you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place. And once you start interacting with life like that, I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier. Because then you're like, oh, if I was that person, I'd be doing the same as them. Oh, their dad cheated. They grew up seeing that. It doesn't make it right, but I think it makes it easier. And again, do you know when I learned that the most right? Have you heard of John McAvoy?
- [65:02]
Lewis Howes
I'm thinking John McElroy, the tennis player.
- [65:05]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
No, no, no. John McAvoy. I had a wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about five years ago. Lewis, you'd love to. You would love talking to him, I promise you. He used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals. Wow. Right? So he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two life sentences. Right. With all the terrorists. He was locked up there.
- [65:28]
Lewis Howes
And he got out.
- [65:29]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
He got out. Wow. And he's like. He's one of the loveliest people I know. Right. I would leave him alone with my children. I think he's the most wonderful person. But I spoke to him for two hours, and he went through his life story with me, and he told me about his upbringing, that his dad wasn't around and that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers. And they came round, they had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars, and they had a code of conduct. They treated women well, like they had their own code of conduct. And I remember there was so much in that conversation, because he's now a free man, inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity. It's an incredible story, but I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast, my mind was blown, and I saw my wife in the kitchen. I said, babe, you know what? If I was John, if I had lived John's life, I think I'd be in jail right now. Like, I genuinely thought if I had his childhood, I would be in prison.
- [66:35]
Lewis Howes
Or dead.
- [66:35]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Or dead. And it really. It really helps me understand that, look, we all see the world differently. It's very easy to judge. And I get it. Some things are horrible and really traumatic, and you're gonna probably need help to process that. But I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that. So let me go back to what you said about Dr. Romani, who I really admire and respect. Yeah, she's great. I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals, but I don't. So I. You know, she has every reason to believe what she believes. My belief, based on my 23 years of clinical experience of what I've seen with patients, what I've seen in the research, and what I've experienced myself, is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on. Maybe you don't like the term forgiveness. Yes. So I think that can be triggering for some people because they feel. It's like I'm forgiving that person for what they did.
- [67:33]
Lewis Howes
I don't mean maybe don't forgive it, but let it go and move on.
- [67:36]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Let go and move on is how I describe it in this book, right? Yeah. I think you do not realize the lightness in your being that exists on the other side. I mean, Luis, why don't you. I mean, if you don't mind, like, I'd love to know from you, like, you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggle with this for years, but you have moved through that. How has that been for you when you weren't able to forgive and now would you say that you can forgive now?
- [68:03]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. And I mean, the difference is freedom, it's peace. I think you're a prisoner of the past when you don't forgive. And there's, there's. There's a reward for that as well. Like, you get to be righteous, you get to be justice, you get to be right and them wrong. You get to be. You get validation from people having sympathy for you and understanding. And understanding how something is not okay. And that was horrible what that person did and all these different things. You get rewards. But I just feel like the reward of forgiveness and setting yourself free is far greater than any other reward you could get by holding your grudge.
- [68:43]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Exactly.
- [68:44]
Lewis Howes
And holding a grudge and being angry at someone or an event or the government or the world or the weather, whatever, for ruining something in your life or hurting something in your life or causing a disruption in your life, and however drastic or small it might be, holding a grudge onto that, that's a cost. There's a big cost. There's a big price you'll pay. There's a big price you'll pay.
- [69:09]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But you're validated in society for holding it. As you say, like if you hold on and you go, yeah, they shouldn't have posted that post. They're wrong. Your friends will often support you. Yeah, they shouldn't have done it. But what we don't. And I used to be that person. So I'm not judging. I just know what it's like to not live like that anymore. Right. Chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offense. And I say many of us have an over reliance on being right. And I make the case in that book if I talk about the George Floyd death. Right. That's how I opened that chapter, you know, And I kind of explain how it affected me and then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it. Because if you remember, when the George Floyd death made headline news around the world, it was during COVID it was. We were in lockdowns. I was in the uk, we were in a lockdown and this event happened. Horrible event, tragic event, just to be really clear. And it brought up all kinds of feelings for me. Now, I'm a Brit, right? I was born and brought up in the uk. I've got Indian immigrant parents. I'm not American, Right. I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country. Right. So I understand that. Right. I have to say, this is. I'm just watching it from the outside. But nonetheless, whatever the narrative was at the time brought up things for me and I wanted to share my view on social media. Right. Like you, I have a large platform and I thought. I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice. I don't always comment on public things. In fact, it's quite rare for me. But I felt like I wanted to. I thought about some of the things that my family had experienced when they came to the uk. And I also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl and living in the north of England. She can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out. And she was just watching tv, I think, and suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in. That is traumatic. That is really scary. So two or three days after George Floyd's death, I shared a well thought out post on Instagram. I explained my perspective and I also shared the impact that racism can have and some of the things that came up for me. And I shared that example of what happened to my wife. And there was a small section who started to take offense at what I said and were attacking me and saying, you shouldn't be commenting. This is not your place. This is a black issue. This is not an Asian issue. And initially I was like, oh, have I done something wrong here? Like, I was trying to put out a really careful, kind considered pose to try and contribute to this big public conversation. Initially, I thought I did something wrong, and then I meditated on it. Louis. I thought about it and I thought, wait a minute. I've not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3,000 miles away. I am perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it. And I kind of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offense to everything. Yes. And it comes at a cost, right? Because people need to understand, as I've learned to understand over the last few years. Is that nothing is inherently offensive. Something happens. Someone shares something. If something was inherently offensive, every single person would get offended. The fact that every single person is not getting offended means it's not that thing that is offensive. It's something within you that's being activated by that external event. And once you understand that, because I think most of the world don't understand that. They think an event happens, I have every right to take offense to that now. People have got every right to do whatever they want. I'm not trying to change what people do. People can decide what they do. I'm trying to make the case in that chat so that there is an impact. If you are someone who feels that you're wronged in your life everywhere and everything's against you and everything's offensive, you got to understand that that is coming at a cost to you. You are generating emotional stress in your body that is not neutral. Maybe the reason you can't make change that lasts in your life, right? It's because you're walking around getting offended at everyone.
- [73:39]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [73:40]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Now you can stream the best of Hulu on Disney, which means the hottest Hulu series and movies are alongside your Disney favorites with Hulu. Say Yes Chef to a new season of FX is the Bear. And don't miss Marvel Television's action packed new series Ironheart on Disney. All of these and more now streaming with Hulu on Disney with a bundle. Subscription terms apply. Visit disneyplus.comhulu for details.
- [74:08]
Lewis Howes
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- [75:27]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And if you really think about it, we're living in a world of 8 billion people, Lewis. 8 billion people are not going to share the same view as you. And to think that they will is almost a little bit arrogant. The question is, why do you need people to share the same view as you? Like? One thing that's been transformative in my marriage, Lewis, is when I let go of the need to be right, I'm like, I don't need to be right. I don't need to win this argument with my wife. For while she's got her view, I've got my view. It's cool.
- [76:02]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. Is it better to be right or be happy?
- [76:04]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Exactly. I would say one of the most important things you can do in life for your inner wellbeing, which will impact your physical wellbeing. And that's the thing that interests me. That's why, as a doctor, I wrote this book, because this inner world impacts our physical health. And I still don't think we realize it enough. But there is a cost. There's a cost to thinking the world is against you and that, you know, you can choose to not take offense. You can choose to look at. Let's. Let's take social media as a prime example. Someone posts something that you don't like and you don't agree with, you could take a pause there, and instead of criticizing or reacting straight away and going, that person has no right. And you're entitled to do that. But it has a cost. You can train yourself to go, oh, why does that person have such a different worldview to me? What has gone on in their life that has led to them having that? What might I be able to understand here? And I call it in that chapter, adopting a learner mindset. Right. In every situation in life. What can I learn here? Yes. Not, how can I be right and prove my point? What can I learn here? I've applied that on my own life. Like, as you know, the cost of having a public profile these days is you have a lot of opinions about your ability and whether you're a great podcast host or a rubbish podcast host or a. Do you know what I mean? We have opinions about us because of the way the world is these days. And I think learning how to deal with Criticism, again is one of the most important things we can do. Like, I used to really struggle with criticism. Like, I'd want to push it away. Now I don't live this now. I've learned to create that gap between stimulus and response. And anyone can learn to do that. You just need to practice. It's a skill that you can get better at. So if someone is criticizing me now, I go through. Well, I do a couple of things. If I'm feeling triggered, I know myself well enough now to go, ah, wrong. This is not the time. Okay? You need to ground yourself. Calm down before you start thinking about this, because at the moment, you're. You're stressed out when you're emotional, and that's very rare these days, but that would happen in the past. And when I'm calm, I go, wow, is there any truth here? And sometimes I'll be like, that's interesting. Yeah, maybe I could have phrased my post differently. Maybe I can learn something, and next time I post about this topic, I can improve.
- [78:36]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [78:37]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And it's really freeing. Then you're learning. And if I think that there's no truth to that, then I'm like, oh, actually, it looks as though that guy's having a bad day, and they're taking out their bad day on me. And then I open my heart and I go, wow, that can't be a nice feeling for that person. They're taking out their inner pain on me. I'm okay with that. They don't know me, and I'm okay with that. Do you know what I mean? And it's why I'm so passionate, Louis, about this, is because I didn't used to be like this. I didn't. And then when I didn't, I found making change that lasts difficult because it's in conflict with who I was. But when you can cultivate this inner calm, and everyone can, your relationships will be better, your contentment will be better, you'll feel happier. And I'm telling you, having been a doctor for 23 years, your health will be better as well.
- [79:35]
Lewis Howes
It sounds to me like a lot of these habits you're talking about, when people can implement them, they will have less stress in their life. And what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong, is that chronic stress is related to 70, 80% of most disease. Is that accurate?
- [79:56]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Let me phrase it slightly differently.
- [79:58]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [79:59]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
80 to 90% of what we see as doctors is in some way related to stress. It doesn't mean it's the Only cause.
- [80:06]
Lewis Howes
Sure, sure, sure.
- [80:07]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But stress is playing a role.
- [80:09]
Lewis Howes
And so if that's the case, if we can learn to navigate stress with more ease and not let it consume us chronically, maybe it's gonna come, but then only a little bit a day, not every minute of the day for years. What are the top ways then to eliminate chronic stress so that it doesn't consume us and make us sick?
- [80:35]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. So there's multiple ways that you can tackle stress. Right. Because there are external stresses and internal stressors. So let's just break it down systematically for people so they can actually take action after this episode. Right. And actually start to make changes. So, okay, let's take an example that I've seen patients talk to me about for years. Okay. And maybe you can relate to this. They've been good in inverted commas with their behaviours all day and they're eating well and they're. They're resisting temptation for the sweets and whatever it might be. But at 8:30pm on their sofa, they're watching TV, they feel like having ice cream. Can you relate to that? Sure, yeah. It's very, very common. And people would say rangan, like, I don't get it. Like, I know sugar's bad for me or this amount of sugar that I'm eating too much is not helping me. But I can't stop eating ice cream in the evenings. So I created this little exercise called the three Fs, which I would use with patients that I write about to help people understand their relationship with stress and with sugar. Okay? So the first F is feel. Right. So, and Lewis, you can maybe try this in your own life, but next time you find yourself in the evening on the sofa craving ice cream, I want you to have a pause before you get the ice cream. Just have a pause and go, what am I feeling here? Is this really physical hunger or is this emotional hunger? Right. It's a very simple question, but often.
- [82:17]
Lewis Howes
We don't take that pause feels like physical hunger.
- [82:20]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay, fine, so that's the explicit hunger.
- [82:22]
Lewis Howes
But it's a. Yeah, it's not though.
- [82:24]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But it might be. It might be and you might want it. And there's something wrong with it now and again. Right.
- [82:27]
Lewis Howes
So it's not the body's craving sugar.
- [82:29]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. But the more you ask yourself these questions, the more you start to trust yourself. Right? So the first step is feel. What am I feeling? I actually, I don't know, I had a really big dinner. I'm not that hungry, but I just had a row with my Partner or. I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't seen anyone or been out for a walk. This is a treat to myself because all day I'll be doing things for other people. Okay, then go ahead and eat it. Right, Go ahead and eat it. Next time it happens, do the. Do the first F and then go to the second F. So the first half is feel. What am I feeling? The second F is how does food feed the feeling? The second F is feed. Okay, so you've identified. Let's say you've identified that you're stressed, you've had a ride with your partner, you're stressed and you've identified that when I feel stressed, Ice Scream makes me feel better. Because it does. At least in the short term.
- [83:20]
Lewis Howes
Temporarily. Yeah.
- [83:21]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right. Then you go and so you're drawing that connection. Oh, wow. I'm having Ice scream because I go to it when I'm feeling this stress. Okay, great. Now you have a degree of self awareness that you may not have had before. And even simply having that awareness changes your relationship with that event. But there's good research on this. But it really does. Even being aware of what's driving your tr. What's driving your behavior changes your relationship with that trigger. Right. And then the third F, which you can do the next arm is finding. Okay, now that I know what I'm feeling the first F. Right. Now that I know how food feeds that feeling, the second F. Now the third F is fine. Can I find an alternative behaviour to feed that feeling? Okay, so. Oh, I'm feeling stressed because I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't had any time to myself. And ice cream is going to make me feel better. Okay, what else could I do? Oh, well, I love yoga. I could do 10 minutes of yoga or I could go and run a bath. Yeah. And I could soak in a bath with a candle on for 15 minutes. So you're still dealing with that feeling, but maybe in a more helpful way. And you can apply that 3F exercise to most things in life. Alcohol, too much time on social media, whatever it is, it's a very simple exercise. You know, my whole thing is I look to talk about the big ideas, but then I want to make it really practical for people so that they can actually apply that. So I think for many people they're going to go, that's quite a useful exercise for me. Right. So that's one way that we can think about stress. I could talk to you about all kinds of stress. Reduction practices like yoga, blank journaling. I think breath work is one of the best. Right? We overuse the word hack, I think, these days, but breathing and changing the way we breathe, I think really does qualify as a hack. So a lot of people don't realize that the way they breathe is information for their body. Okay. So I don't know if you saw this study, Louis, or not, but it was from UCLA actually, that 80% of office workers change the way that they breathe when looking at email, but they don't know they're doing it. So here's the thing, right? You're engaged in a task. Maybe there's loads of emails, and you're on deadlines and you're rushing through them and you're focused. The way you breathe will often start to change. So what will happen? You'll breathe a little bit faster. You'll breathe more from your chest than your diaphragm, and your breathing will be a bit more shallow. Okay, so what does that do? That sends a signal to your brain that there's danger around me. It always comes back to the stress response. Right? Your breathing signals is telling your brain there's danger, and then that encourages you to stay breathing in that way. So you're literally sending stress signals back to your body from your brain because your brain thinks you're in danger. So if you can then be aware of that and consciously change the way that you breathe. And there's all kinds of techniques. One of my favorites is what I call the 3, 4, 5 breath. When you breathe in for 3, you hold for 4, and you breathe out for 5. Very simple breath that I've been teaching my patients for years. And essentially, anytime your out breath is longer than your in breath, you help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system, and you activate the relaxation part of your nervous system.
- [87:02]
Lewis Howes
Right?
- [87:02]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Very simple 1, 3, 4, 5. Breath will take you 12 seconds, five of them will take you a minute, and you will literally change your state. Because if you slow your breathing down, you then send calm signals up to your brain, and then they send calm signals back to your body. So I have a. You know, first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work. Before I actually have my coffee, that's the first thing I do. And I do it as preemptive, right? So I do it to ground me in the morning, but I also learn about the breath so that if I get stressed in the day, I can just take a step back and do like two or three minutes of three, four, Five breathing. And it really helps me. So it's one of many techniques that can help manage stress. Another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch. Like consensual, affectionate touch is one of the best ways to lower your stress. Yeah. Right. So we've got in our skin something called CT afferent nerve fibers. It's so interesting. Nerve fibers, Nerve fibers. And these nerve fibres are optimally stimulated. Check this out. At 3 to 5 centimeters per second. Okay? So that's a stroking rate of 3 to 5 centimeters per second. Now, here's the thing. No one's measuring their stroking rate, but this is how humans naturally stroke. Right. So a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate. We're doing that.
- [88:32]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [88:32]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And there's some research from the University of Liverpool, and I've interviewed this professor on my show, Professor Francis McGlone. He has shown that when we stimulate those CT afferent nerve fibers with this kind of light, affectionate stroking, it sends a signal to the deepest, most primitive part of our brain and levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down.
- [88:54]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
- [88:55]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right.
- [88:55]
Lewis Howes
So, you know, can you do this yourself, too?
- [88:58]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
You can do this yourself, but it's.
- [88:59]
Lewis Howes
Better if someone else.
- [88:59]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's better with a partner. It can be done with a pet. Right. As well. Like, so some people like taking your.
- [89:05]
Lewis Howes
Cat'S paw and, like, rubbing it on you or just.
- [89:07]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
No, but you get, like, there's benefits both ways. Like, even if you stroke someone else, you also get benefits. And what's really interesting, if you dive into that research.
- [89:15]
Lewis Howes
I was gonna say I was gonna get my cat tonight and just learn it's a strokey.
- [89:18]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But. Yeah, but look, I've never had pets, but people who do have pets. Oh, it is calming.
- [89:24]
Lewis Howes
No, it's calming. When my cat, I was making the joke of, like, taking my cat's paw and rubbing it on my skin as if she was petting me and the cat. But actually, when my cat lays on my chest and she purrs, it's so calming for my nervous system. It's just like. And she just kind of smiles at you a little bit and just rubbing her and almost giving her peace. She's purring into you. I don't know. It's just like a very calming. It's almost meditative when you're stroking someone, you know, on their. On their arm or you're engaging in that with a pet. It's like very calm.
- [90:00]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. And what's really interesting is that the research on these nerve fibers show that not only do we have them here on our forearms. Right. And our arms where we can stroke, you know, someone else, like our partner or our child or whoever it might be, we also have a high concentration on our upper back. This is fascinating, Lewis, because why would there be a high concentration on our upper back? Like, it's not as if we're going to like, stroke ourselves on our upper back. And these scientists think it just shows us how dependent as humans, we are on other people. They're there to receive love and affection from others. Wow. Right. Which is really interesting when you think about it, like, how we're made. Why would evolution put these nerve fibers there?
- [90:46]
Lewis Howes
Well, also probably, like primitively, if you're hugging someone, maybe you're grabbing the back of their shoulders and you've like. We've generated that over time.
- [90:53]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. So we don't know any of these things for sure. We have to speculate. But it's really interesting. So you mentioned to me, you know, how can you manage stress? And there's a million different ways. Okay. I mentioned two things. Breath work, which people have heard about. I think affectionate touch. People haven't heard about so much. But that is still what I would call dealing with the external stressor.
- [91:14]
Lewis Howes
Still gotta go inside.
- [91:16]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I think the best way is this is what I've done, Lewis. Right. I started this practice a few years ago. I would do it in the evening if I ever get triggered, emotionally triggered. Like something's happened and I'm feeling bothered and I couldn't do it in the moment back then. Right. I wasn't emotionally evolved. Emotionally evolved enough. Emotionally literate enough to do it in the moment. I could do it in the moment now, I couldn't back then. But it's a skill that you can get better at if you practice. And this skill is free. Right. You don't have to buy anything. You can just make a commitment to yourself that you are sick of being triggered by everything. And you want to understand what is going on inside you that is driving these things. It will change your life once you start addressing these internal triggers. I'm telling you with 100% certainty, yes, you might need a therapist to help you. But even if you can't access a therapist because of availability or cost, you can still do so much that will help you. Right. So what I would do is in the evening, usually in a journal, I'd go, when was I triggered today? Ah, okay, that happened. That comment or the driver on the way to work and then I'd go, why did that trigger you? What was it bringing up inside of you? And over time, you learn so much about yourself, Lewis. You learn, oh, oh, that was to do with my upbringing or that triggered me because, I don't know, like, I have a belief that all drivers should stay in their lane and not come out and cut people up or whatever it might be. Like you start to learn about yourself or, you know, I write about this is like, I don't think I've shared this before. I used an example in one of the chapters in the book about criticism and how in my family growing up like an Indian family, she can be. People can be quite direct. So I remember when I went to university in Edinburgh, so I grew up in the northwest of England, I went to university and I'd probably been enjoying a bit too much of the good life, you know, away from home, drinking late night kebabs, partying, whatever it might be. And I came home either a weekend or for the holidays. And my mum once said to me, like, what are you doing? Like, you're fat now. What have you been doing? Now I want to be really clear here because that can be a very triggering statement for people in my family. The way I was brought up. My mom said that from a place of love. Like, I know that, I know that's not the case in every family, I know that. But in my family there's this great book by this Belgian psychologist called Bach and Mosquito called Between Us. And she talks about I cultures and we cultures. And you know, very broadly speaking, you could say west and east, like the more individualistic cultures, like let's say America or the UK are more me cultures and I cultures, whereas Asian cultures are a bit more sort of we orientated. Right. So how I am is a reflection of the entire family, which has pros and cons. Yeah, yeah, there's pros and cons of both. Nothing's like all good or all bad. There's benefits and there's downsides. And the truth is I had put a bit of weight on, right? So my mum saying that to me because I knew her and because she very rarely said that to me, I was like, oh, I need to take some action here.
- [95:00]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [95:01]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right. Now you can stream the best of Hulu on Disney, which means the hottest Hulu series and movies are alongside your Disney favorites with Hulu. Say yes, Chef to a new season of FX is the Bear. And don't miss Marvel Television's action packed new series Ironheart on Disney. All of These and more now streaming with Hulu on Disney with a bundle subscription terms apply. Visit disneyplus.com hulu for details. Is it just me or is it getting really hard to figure out the.
- [95:32]
Lewis Howes
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Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
You can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking.
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Lewis Howes
And timely insights, you'll be set to take on retirement your way.
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Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Get started at@fidelity.com future expenses charged by your investments and other cost and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account. Apply Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSES IPC now, here's the thing. I also know that in some families that can be an abusive thing, or a husband could say that to their wife in an abusive way. So I'm not saying that that holds true for everyone. But the point I'm trying to make is, and this actually did happen to me a few years ago, someone criticized my weight on social media. I've never shared that before. Like it, someone quite prominent started to use a video of me and said, look at his nose. Look at his.
- [96:27]
Lewis Howes
Shut up. Really?
- [96:28]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. I'm not kidding you.
- [96:29]
Lewis Howes
Oh, man.
- [96:30]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Now. But here's the thing, Lewis and kind.
- [96:32]
Lewis Howes
Of posted it online and say, look at him, he's getting bigger. Yeah, he was trying to, like, the.
- [96:36]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Thing is, he wasn't having a go at me. He was trying to illustrate a point. And he said, there's this prominent doctor in the uk. Look at his images. Three years ago. Oh, man. Yeah, oh man. Or you can go, wait a minute.
- [96:48]
Lewis Howes
Thank you for the feedback.
- [96:49]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I didn't, I didn't get involved. I only knew about it because some of my followers said, hey, have you seen this?
- [96:54]
Lewis Howes
But more internally, thank you for the feedback. And maybe I do need to look at some of this.
- [96:58]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
An older version of me, which would have been a victim to the world, might have got really triggered. And initially I was like, oh, this is weird. And then I calmed down and I was like, does he have a point? Yeah, I could see what he's saying, actually. I can see what he's saying. Right. And I notice some people, they will get caught up in an argument that that person has no right to say anything about another person's appearance. And I'm not disputing that. That is, you know, it may well be a more polite thing to not do that. But I believe that you can get to a state where you don't take things personally. And so for me, I was looking at it going, does he have a point? I can kind of see what he's saying a little bit, you know, and the truth is, I was really stressed at the time. You know, my dad. No, my mum was really sick. And so when you're stressed, you're not sleeping well, you're not eating as well and whatever the reason is. Right. But I was like, hey, yeah, maybe I can just pay a bit more attention. What I'm saying is that a more victim approach to life is. Look, I appreciate this as a punchy example that not everyone's going to agree with me on, but it's very easy to get caught up in the narrative. That person has no right to talk about me in that way. And then get your friends around. Yeah, that guy's an idiot. He shouldn't be talking about you. And of course, I don't think it's the best thing to be talking about other people's appearance or wait, online. I certainly wouldn't do it. I don't think it's how I want to interact with the world. But for me, I was like, don't start telling me these disempowering stories. It doesn't matter. It's one person's opinion. Is there any truth there? Can I learn from something? Can I not? I honestly believe, Lewis, that the reason most people can't make change that lasts, going back to the title of the book, is because we haven't addressed some of these internal drivers. Well, I've written. My third book was on habit formation and I went through the rules of habit formation and I still stand by that. There are certain things that you can do that make it more likely those habits will stick. But I still believe that that's superficial because when you get to a point where you've created and cultivated an inner calm, you naturally make better choices.
- [99:14]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [99:14]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Does that make sense?
- [99:15]
Lewis Howes
100%. 100%. And that's a lot of things you talk about in the book. Make change that lasts. Nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back. And there's a lot more in here that I want people to dive into. So we'll leave people with that right now so they can go get the book. But a lot of big praise from some amazing people. So make sure you guys pick up a copy. Beautiful images in here as well, which works for my brain to be able to see the images and relate it to the habits. So I really love that. This has been powerful. Rangan, I appreciate you for being here and I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to follow your path and your truth and, and I wouldn't say leave behind, but upgrade where you're at from being in the medical world for 23 years. And you just said you recently stopped practicing in that discipline. What's the main reason behind that?
- [100:08]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
The main reason why I have stopped practicing, and I don't know how long it will be for, is because I want to live the life that I try and promote, right? I like to walk the walk. And so there's a chapter in Make Change At Last. I think it's chapter seven, which is about busyness and this idea that busyness is not success. And I make the case that the reason why so many of us are overly busy in society, it's because we want to feel valued, we want to feel important. Where we used to get that value from our tribes, but many of us now are living these quite disconnected lives and so we want to feel. It's a human need to feel that we're of value. So often we'll do that through our work at the expense of other things in our life. So why have I, maybe temporarily, maybe for good, I don't know yet. Why have I stopped practicing? With a couple of reasons. One is I feel that over 23 years I've seen tens of thousands of patients have. Having shared what I've learned on TV shows in my now six book, on my podcast, I have created a course with the Royal College of GPs called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine. We've trained over 54,000 healthcare professionals around the world now and the principles that I talk about in my books. And so we're having a huge impact on the way medical physicians are now practicing. We've had cardiologists, psychiatrists, pharmacists, nurses, physios from all over the world train on this course that I co created and are using those tools to help people. And I realize I can't do everything. I can't see patients, write books, record an episode of my weekly podcast, attend to my relationship with my wife, have a great relationship with my children. I also look after my elderly mum. My mum's not me. Well, for a few years. I live five minutes away. I'm heavily involved with her care and I don't want to be overly busy. And I've been thinking about it for two or three years. But you know why I didn't do it earlier, Louis? Because it was a fear of what people might think, are you a real doctor? Right. And then I thought, that's that whole external validation piece. Like I don't have to do things that other people want me to do. I have to validate myself. That's correct. I'm totally a real doctor. I've got decades of experience. I'm now a professor at Chester Medical School of Health Communication Education. I'm helping medical students. There's learn these principles. I feel I moved into this phase of my career now where I want to share and teach people what I have learned to help them practice. So many doctors, so many junior doctors say, can you teach me? Can you teach me? We don't learn this stuff, but you seem to have this unique insight into human health. And I wouldn't say I've got a unique insight, but I do see the human body a certain way. And I, I kind of feel I've had some pretty awesome results with patients over the years with some quite, what would be called untreatable conditions because I, I really try and get to the root cause. And so I want to teach now. I want to share the knowledge that I've learned with people and I don't want to be burnt out. Yeah. And so I decided, okay, what would my life feel like if I don't practice for a little while? And I miss it because my favorite thing was seeing patients. But like you, Louis, you know, I speak to a large volume of people each week on my podcast, right? And I do my podcast my way, right. I spend a day, a day and a half, preparing for each guest because I like doing that. I do a deep dive and then I go along with these guests and I am inundated with DMs on a daily basis. People saying, oh, that episode or your third book helped me cure my depression. You've helped me with my anxiety. You've helped my mother put her type 2 diabetes into remission. I've now got rid of my fibromyalgia pains, which I've had to take, whatever it might be. I get this every single day. And I have such gratitude that I do a job that helps people. And I've realized it. If 80 to 90% of what we see is driven by our collective modern lifestyles, I can have more impact teaching people about how to change their lifestyles through these mediums. And here's the funny thing, Louis. In the uk, there's probably a few thousand doctors, at least that I know about, who prescribe my podcast to their patients, right? So they, they have a 10 minute consultation with a patient and they might suggest a few things and say, hey, listen, if you're interested in this, why don't you listen to episode 420 of Dr. Chastity's podcast. And then in four weeks, when you come back, we'll discuss it and how it applies for you. So I feel I'm doing a public service. I feel I'm being a doctor through my books, through my podcast, through my newsletter, whatever it might be. I'm helping people improve their lives with their health problems. But after 23 years, I've realized I don't necessarily need to do that one on one with my patients. 100%.
- [105:37]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. 100. I remember I had Ali Abdal on a number of years ago, and he was holding on to, like, I'm still doing, I don't know, 10 hours a month of, you know, medical practice because I'm afraid if I let it go fully, people won't take me seriously as a YouTuber and as an author and things like that. And I really just kind of challenged him on that. And I go, what would it look like? And he eventually, on his own, decided to leave the practice and not be practicing medicine, I guess, or not have any patience. And he realized it was just a fear. Like, he was able to grow even more. He was able to do more of the things that he wanted to and not hold on to something that he once wanted to but no longer wanted to anymore.
- [106:20]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
But I still. And that's powerful. And I know Ali's story. I'm still a doctor. I'm still a GMC registered doctor. I'm a professor at Chester Medical School. I've just decided at this stage in my life, and there's other factors that influence this. You know, I, I, you know, and I share a lot of this in the book about. It's a very personal book. I've opened up and shared things that a few years ago, I would have been too nervous to share publicly. Right. About how I make certain decisions, certain mistakes I might have made in my life. But I've been very influenced by thinking about the Regrets of the dying. You know the book by Bronnie Ware, the Five Regrets of the Dying? Yeah, yeah, me too. Right? Yeah.
- [107:02]
Lewis Howes
She's great.
- [107:02]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
She's great. And for people who don't know, Bronnie was a palliative care nurse for a few years, and she noticed that these guys, at the end of their life, they all said the same things. And they said things like, I wish I'd work less. I wish I spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected. Of me. I wish I'd allow myself to be happy. Right. These things are really powerful because I hear that, and I go, I don't want to wait till my deathbed to learn those truths. I want to learn those truths now and apply them in my life so that I don't have those deathbed regrets. And do you mind if I share a little quick exercise that I think will really help people with this? Would that be okay? Sure. It's called write your own happy ending. And it's an exercise that I write about because I always try and make these things really practical for people. And it's in two parts. The first part is, and you can try now, Luz, if you want, we can maybe try it on you if you game. Fast forward now to the end of your life. Imagine you're on your deathbeds, right? This is the last day. And now on your deathbed, you're looking back on your life. What are three things you will want to have done with your life?
- [108:22]
Lewis Howes
For me, personally, raise a beautiful family, stay healthy and strong all the way to the end, and pursue every dream in my heart that I feel I was meant to pursue.
- [108:41]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, I love that. Beautiful answers. Right? Okay. So that's the first part. And if people are struggling, you don't have to get this perfect. You can keep reiterating on this. But, okay, so you write down on your deathbed, this is what I ideally want to have looked back and reflected on. Okay? Now you zoom back into the present and go, okay, what are three weekly happiness habits that I can implement in my life that guarantee I'm going to get the happy ending that I just wrote down I wanted? And so for me, for example, when I last did this exercise on my deathbed, I'm looking back, I'm thinking, okay, I will want to have spent quality time with my friends and family. I will want to have spent. I will want to have had time to pursue my passions, like what's in my heart. And the third thing is, I will want to have done things that contribute to the wellbeing of other people. Right. That's my deathbed answer. That's the happy ending I want. So now I come back to the present, and I go, well, what are three weekly happiness habits? And I literally have them written down on my fridge. Louis. Okay, And I'll tell you what I have written down. I want five meals a week with my wife and kids where I'm fully present and not distracted by work. That's great, right? It doesn't mean that's the right answer for anyone else. But for me, in the context of my life, that helps me know that I'm prioritizing my family. Right. So I write that down. The second thing I have on my happiness habit list is if I've had time to go for a long run, or I've had time to play my guitar and write a song or sing, I know I've had time to pursue my passions. And then the third thing is if I release a weekly episode of my podcast, which I'll be doing for seven years, then I know at the end of my life I'll have contributed to the wellbeing of others. It's a very, very simple exercise, Louis, but if you've never done it, it's extremely powerful because it brings into sharp focus what is truly important in life.
- [110:40]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [110:41]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And we're all living these busy lives where we've got lots of things competing for our attention. Too many people wait for all their to do list to be done before they focus on the important things in life. And I'm saying that will never happen. If you're waiting for your to do list to be done before you do the important things in life, you're gonna be one of those people on your deathbed with those regrets. So that exercise helps me go, actually, my family are the most important thing to me. How can I make sure I had time for my family each week? How can I make sure I had time for my passion? And listen, it doesn't mean that every week's perfect, Louis. One week, I might only do three meals, but I don't go down the guilt and shame route anymore. I go, oh, that's interesting. That's three. If that continues, you're going to start fracturing those relationships. So next week, I might beef it up to six or seven. And it's just a very simple way that helps you refocus on what's important in life.
- [111:40]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, that's beautiful, man. We all need those exercises. Start practicing for sure. And I think life goes by very quickly. You know, I'm 41. I always forget my. I'm 41. But it's like, when I think back in the last five years, it was like a snap. You were here essentially five years ago in LA.
- [111:58]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
That is not.
- [111:59]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, March 2020.
- [112:00]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right.
- [112:01]
Lewis Howes
Almost five years ago.
- [112:02]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- [112:02]
Lewis Howes
It's like a snapped. Yeah, it's gone. And, you know, in five years, hopefully we see each other before then, but in five years, it's going to be like this. And we want to be able to look back and say, was I doing those main core things on a consistent basis that give me closer to an end of life peace, gratitude for how I showed up, that I lived that life that I wanted. And I think it's a great time that you're sharing this, where this will be out at the, at the new Year season, for people to have that reflection. Am I taking those weekly actions that are getting me closer to the life I want to live now and something that I will be happy that I did in the future as well?
- [112:45]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. And that exercise, right, that exercise. If people do that at New Year, I promise you that the way you interact with your life will start to change. Your behaviors will naturally start to get better. If you think that this New Year, somehow miraculously your life is going to be different from every other New Year because you want it more this year, no, it isn't. Right. The reason, in my view, that most New Year's resolutions fail, Lewis, is because they come from an energy of lack rather than an energy of fullness. It's the energy behind the behavior that's most important. If you feel bad in your life and you're full of guilt and shame and you try and overcome that with your willpower and your motivation, I'm telling you because I've had it before and I've seen it in thousands of patients, those changes will not be long lasting. That guilt and shame will drag you back. But once you do these exercises and the exercises that make change at last, and they're all simple free exercises. Right. You don't have to buy stuff. Watch out the book. You don't have to buy stuff. I really feel strongly about that because I've worked with this in practices where there've been some really deprived communities I've worked with. Like I was once in a practice in Oldham in the north of Manchester for seven years. These guys had hard lives. A lot of immigrants, a lot of single parents, a lot of struggle. And I believe that each and every single one of us has the right to good, quality health information. And honestly, like people say that wellness is for the wealthy and the affluent and the middle class. I don't buy it. Like, it really isn't. And I've always made it a priority throughout my career to try and make sure that the advice I'm giving works for everyone, including the people who are struggling the most in society. Like, it really does make a difference. And I'm really proud that everything in this book is free.
- [114:43]
Lewis Howes
That's great, man.
- [114:44]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I love it.
- [114:45]
Lewis Howes
I Want people to get the book. Make change that last. Make sure you get a copy. Get a copy for a friend. Powerful stuff here. And also you have an amazing podcast that people can subscribe to. We'll have that all linked up, but the main site is drchatterjy.com is that correct?
- [115:01]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
That's the main website. And then the main social channel for me is Instagram @Dr. Chatterjee.
- [115:06]
Lewis Howes
Dr. Chatterjee on Instagram, YouTube, the podcast, the book, everything is linked up@drchatterjee.com. yeah, you can get everything.
- [115:14]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Exactly.
- [115:14]
Lewis Howes
Okay, awesome. Final question for you. This has been powerful, Rangan. I appreciate being here. What's your definition of greatness?
- [115:21]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Greatness is when you're able to live your life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. Greatness is someone who aspires to live their life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. I really believe that everything in life either comes from love or it comes from fear. Everything. All of our behaviors, all our interactions. And once you tune into that and realize that actually, oh, you're feeling angry, envious, jealousy, whatever it might be, the root cause of that is fear. Whereas if the root cause becomes joy, sorry, if the root cause becomes love, then there's empathy, there's kindness, there's compassion. These are things that we can all cultivate. So what I'm trying to do in my life, to be a great human being, to be a great dad and a great husband and hopefully a great human, it really is very simple. I'm trying to come at life with an open heart rather than a close one.
- [116:22]
Lewis Howes
All right, thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it.
- [116:24]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
That's how ambuluis. I appreciate it, man.
- [116:26]
Lewis Howes
I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life. But you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant? Then make sure to go to make MoneyEasyBook right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment. Moving forward, we have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening. Then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great. Possibility means you have a chance.
- [118:05]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Passion opens the door to all possibilities. When I feel like anything's possible, I feel kind of giddy. I want to be an astronaut, an artist, be an actress to visit another country. All I need is a backpack and a pair of shoes and I'll find a way I'm able to do anything I set my mind to.
- [118:22]
Lewis Howes
I've never felt like more things are possible than right now. In the right shoes, anything's possible.
- [118:28]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
DSW Countless shoes at brag worthy prices. Imagine the possibilities. Going up Prices keep going up These days it feels like being on an elevator that only goes up. Going up.
- [118:42]
Lewis Howes
But not at Metro. We're pushing the down button.
- [118:44]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Going down, we've lowered prices. Get one line of 5G data for $40 period.
- [118:50]
Lewis Howes
That's 20% lower.
- [118:51]
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
And you get a free Samsung 5G phone when you bring your number.
- [118:54]
Lewis Howes
Only at Metro. Five year guarantee on eligible plans Exclusion supply. See website for details. Not available FAB Metro with T Mobile in the past six months Tax supplies.