Brain Surgeon REVEALS How To Heal Trauma & DESTROY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS! | Dr. Rahul Jandial

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:00 Being in a better frame of mind, exercising, eating right-

Lewis Howes 0:04 Sleep, calm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:05 ... being calm, stress.

Lewis Howes 0:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:06 All of that changes things physiologically that make your whole body better at fighting cancer. That, we, we agree on, that's measured. Now, let's go back to the brain.

Lewis Howes 0:15 I think you gotta have a dream.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:17 The School of Greatness.

Lewis Howes 0:18 Really? [laughs]

Speaker 0:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:19 Please welcome Lewis Howes.

Lewis Howes 0:21 You worked as a brain surgeon and neuroscientist for, for a while now, and so you're an expert on all things the brain and also the mind.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:29 Trying to be.

Lewis Howes 0:29 That is, which I think is kinda fascinating.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:31 Or you're in, in a constant studying process of it. I'm curious, the first question I have is, what do you think is the, the biggest factor, since you've studied both the brain and the mind, what is the biggest factor that holds us back from thinking in terms of abundance and thinking in terms of positivity? Why do we stay stuck on negative thinking, negative thoughts, and limited mindset so much?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 0:54 Yeah, that's a big question. So, uh, the simple answer is that the, um, stories we've been told about what's going on in our skull-

Lewis Howes 1:04 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04 ... they're just wrong.

Lewis Howes 1:06 Interesting.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06 Okay? So the first thing is there's no wires. We're, we're not hardwired. There are no gears. So let's go backwards. Way back when, like, ancient Egypt, they thought it was just, like, phleon or something.

Lewis Howes 1:20 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20 The soul was in the heart, and I believe... You know, I, I can see that. I o- I've opened chests before for cardiac surgery, and it's fierce. And what they would do is stick a straw up the nose and slurp out the brain, just get rid of it. So for a while, I can understand-

Lewis Howes 1:32 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32 ... the complete misunderstanding. Then when sort of, like, you know, speakeasies and Industrial Revolution, all the pictures about, about the brain, you see them as gears.

Lewis Howes 1:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:43 And, but modern time, we're starting to think about it as wired. I'm wired for this, I'm wired for that. You're not wired for anything. It's an ecosystem filled with throbbing 100 billion microscopic jellyfish sparking electricity at each other, trying to approach each other, shaving down, pruning, branching, arborizing. So when I use those words like arborization, pruning, those are neuroscience words in rigorous neuroscience journals.

Lewis Howes 2:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 2:11 But it hasn't sort of made it to pop culture. So I think part of what keeps us stuck is that we think, "Oh, I'm wired this way," or, "I have to rewire," and it's too on/off rather than flows.

Lewis Howes 2:23 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 2:23 Right? It's not, um, freeway from A to B, it's the way you see a school of birds flow.

Lewis Howes 2:30 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 2:31 And they roll over each other, aurora borealis. That's how thoughts and that's how feelings flow through the ether of our minds.

Lewis Howes 2:39 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 2:39 When you start to understand it like that, then you know every day something new is possible. Is it easy? No, but it's possible.

Lewis Howes 2:47 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 2:47 So that's the, that's the real way to think of your brain, mind, and behavior, that it's completely plastic in the sense that you're, uh, never the same person just from a moment ago since we've met.

Lewis Howes 3:01 Mm. That's a good introduction to this. I'm curious because

Lewis Howes 3:06 you, you do surgeries on a weekly basis-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:09 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 3:10 ... where you open the skull, mostly the top of the skull?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:14 Well, all different areas. It's like ice fishing, so we make-

Lewis Howes 3:16 Take holes out

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:17 ... spots diff- wherever we need to get, we make the hole-

Lewis Howes 3:19 Gotcha

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:19 ... underneath it so we can get there.

Lewis Howes 3:20 So it may not be a full top of the skull off.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:22 No, that's an Hannibal Lecter movie. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 3:24 Yes, yes. So you're taking little, little, little-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:26 Yeah

Lewis Howes 3:26 ... little holes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:27 The slickest brain surgeons, meaning who can do it the best, make the smallest hole-

Lewis Howes 3:32 Ah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:32 ... to get right where you need to, the smallest incision an- and do the most, uh, you know-

Lewis Howes 3:37 The least amount of, uh, damage, I guess, to the whole skull. Have you ever had to take off the, the top, the whole top?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:43 No, but in trauma, after boxing, sports, car accidents, sometimes we take off two big pancake sizes on the left and right.

Lewis Howes 3:50 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:51 So when the brain is throbbing, if this-

Lewis Howes 3:53 To release-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:53 Yeah. You take the lid off.

Lewis Howes 3:55 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 3:55 But you don't take the whole thing off, 'cause you got a giant vein coming down the middle. So that's... You can't do the Mohawk part. So you take two strips.

Lewis Howes 4:03 The sides.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:03 Yeah. So if you look at, when I travel through South America, you look at the trephinations, the holes in the skulls, they're always on the side. You can't make holes in the middle and still live.

Lewis Howes 4:13 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:13 There's a giant vein splitting the two hemispheres.

Lewis Howes 4:15 Oh, so that's just in the movies?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 4:17 Okay. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:17 Yeah, that's, that's, uh, Silence of the Lambs. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 4:20 Right, [laughs] exactly.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:21 Uh, but that's a good question, though, that there's a, it's a targeted approach, you know?

Lewis Howes 4:24 Interesting, okay.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:25 You want the patient to feel it the least-

Lewis Howes 4:27 Right, of course

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:27 ... and wake up the best.

Lewis Howes 4:28 Right, of course. What did you... What's been one of the biggest realizations from studying neuroscience, but also studying the brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:35 Mm

Lewis Howes 4:35 ... and actually opening up pieces of the skull, looking in there, surgically doing things-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:40 Yes

Lewis Howes 4:40 ... to optimize it? What was one of a big aha moment for you of studying both areas where you're like, "Wow, there's something that I didn't think was possible that is actually possible for human beings to do"?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 4:52 Is there anything?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:52 Yeah, a really good question. It ties back to your first question-

Lewis Howes 4:54 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 4:54 ... about what holds us back. So the thing that shocked me was that we could actually remove parts of the brain and people would go home a week later. I'm not saying there isn't some subtle neuropsychiatric issue, but for example, I had a guy come in, he's a framer, and you know, they have the, the pneumatic, you know, s- it's not hammer and nails-

Lewis Howes 5:15 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:15 ... as many people conceive it to be, but poom, poom, poom.

Lewis Howes 5:17 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:17 And a lot of times when a real qu- recoils back, they'll pop a nail through the orbit or nose-

Lewis Howes 5:23 Ugh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:23 ... into their frontal lobe.

Lewis Howes 5:24 This happened?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:25 And they drive in. They'd have this wire-

Lewis Howes 5:26 With a nail in their-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:27 Yeah

Lewis Howes 5:27 ... brain?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:28 Right. So that's the first thing-

Lewis Howes 5:29 Come on

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:29 ... I was like, "Wait, is..." No, no, totally. I got pictures on my phone that we're not gonna show anybody, but you can have a penetrating injury to certain parts-

Lewis Howes 5:37 Of the brain

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:37 ... of the brain, and you drive in.

Lewis Howes 5:40 Holy cow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 5:41 So a- and so that's the first thing I realized was, so there isn't a, a region in the brain for creativity. There isn't a region in the brain for this. So the first thing I had to realize was, no, this thing is working in, in a, as an environment, as an ocean filled with, like, a kelp forest and jellyfish. So if you drop something into the ocean, you're not gonna disrupt the... There's no spot for something. And that ties back to what, you know, what I want people to walk away with is- That you have to think of your thoughts and feelings and the working of your flesh inside your skull as a, as a garden, as an ecosystem. Just because you have one weed or one spike doesn't mean the harmony is disrupted. So-

Lewis Howes 6:22 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 6:22 ... for example, one frontal lobe we can surgically remove if needed after trauma or tumor, and patients function. They drive. They talk on the phone. Again, you don't want this. Ah, one occipital lobe doesn't leave you blind. It's the, people think, "Oh, occipital lobe blindness." No. If I take out a tumor from the right occipital lobe, I just can't trust my left rear view mirror when I drive. It's a f- it's a field cut. Your world goes from this to this. So I, when I s- when I first started seeing that, 'cause I assumed you hit any part of the brain, it's, you're dust. It's-

Lewis Howes 6:56 'Cause e- 'cause then people will say, like, "Well, the left side of the brain is for this, and the right side of the brain is for this." And-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:01 No

Lewis Howes 7:01 ... "I use more of the right side of my brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:03 No

Lewis Howes 7:03 ... and that's why I'm creative," or whatever it is, or, "I'm more analytical-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:05 No

Lewis Howes 7:05 ... because I use this side of the brain," or, "My, my fear-based side of the brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 7:10 ... is, is heightened." So-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:11 No. No

Lewis Howes 7:11 So you're saying if one part of the brain is under attack, tumor, trauma, at a, a nail-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:18 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:18 ... whatever it is, something happens to that part of the brain, it may not hold you back from your creativity or your critical thinking potentially?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:28 No. It, because the rest of your brain can compensate.

Lewis Howes 7:32 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 7:32 Now, let me give you... Now, that's not true for the entire brain, so let me just go backwards a little bit, but those were the aha moments I had. I mean, I'd been, I'd seen bowels. I'd taken care of patients. AIDS was r- you know, going crazy in the '80s. I'd seen a lot. The first time [laughs] I saw somebody do brain surgery, I was like, "Is that possible?" First, like, it, can you even remove the skull? And they're like, "Yeah." And then they were r- you know, "Can you remove that tissue to get to the tumor?" They're like, "Yeah." You just have to understand how the whole thing works globally in harmony. Now, the way I think of the brain is like a mushroom. And so you've got the canopy, and all the magic and the thoughts spark from the top, the surface.

Lewis Howes 8:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:15 And then they send things down to the stalk, which comes, you know, deep to your mouth and comes out of the bottom of your skull and, and then turns into your spinal cord.

Lewis Howes 8:22 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:23 So if when I wanna move my left hand, my right brain says, "Move your left hand," it sends down signals. They come under my armpit. They come into this nerve, and that's what happens.

Lewis Howes 8:30 [laughs] That's crazy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:31 Right? Now-

Lewis Howes 8:32 So what does that, what does this-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:33 ... the, the lower parts, they, there is some, you hit that, you lose something.

Lewis Howes 8:36 Something down here.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:37 The reptilian brain, the spinal cord-

Lewis Howes 8:39 Down to say, uh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:39 ... every millimeter does something, 'cause it's a lot of... Think of it as cables, even though it's not wires, but there are a lot of... We call them tracts, T-R-A-C-T-S. There are a lot of tracts that are communicating the things that the canopy-

Lewis Howes 8:52 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 8:52 ... thought of, and in that area, if there's a nail injury, you do get a certain deficit. But in your thinking, your feeling, your emotions, your love, your fear, it's not a fear spot or a love spot.

Lewis Howes 9:05 Oh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:05 It's, it, it's sort of, again, the aurora borealis and the whirls of, of a s- of a school of birds just-

Lewis Howes 9:11 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:11 ... flowing in, in different energy, right? So that's-

Lewis Howes 9:13 Or fish, a, a school-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:14 Yeah

Lewis Howes 9:14 ... of fish or something.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:15 A school of fish.

Lewis Howes 9:16 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:16 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 9:17 That's fascinating.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:18 So that, that's... I, I want people to walk away with, okay, so what that leaves people with is the fear I have is real, but it's not fixed.

Lewis Howes 9:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:27 It's not wired. It's not permanent. And through effort, through exposure therapy, through whatever it is, whatever your process is, that, that, that school of fish can flow in a different way. That's, to me, that's, that's infinitely powerful-

Lewis Howes 9:43 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:43 ... that we are new every day. That also m- gives us the responsibility to hold onto our positive attributes.

Lewis Howes 9:48 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 9:48 We can spiral away every day, and we can, we can spiral downward, and we can spiral upward any day.

Lewis Howes 9:53 Wow. And so have you studied brains where someone came in at one point, and then maybe a year or five years later, you saw them again-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:00 Mm

Lewis Howes 10:00 ... and you were able to look inside their brain?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:02 Another good question.

Lewis Howes 10:03 And what did you see different, um, with the brain? I wonder, can we enhance our brain by the way we think and our behaviors-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:12 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 10:12 ... and our actions and our, and the way we love ourselves a- and-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:16 Mm

Lewis Howes 10:16 ... treat ourselves internally and emotionally, um, or can we hurt our brain by doing the opposite?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:26 Yeah. Th- that's a, that's a profound question. So again, let me start with a, a very sort of, um, dramatic example to set the point to-

Lewis Howes 10:37 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:37 ... the, the larger takeaway. On occasion, for epilepsy that shuts down kids, we have to actually take away half of the brain. It's called a hemi-, uh, you know, hemispherectomy.

Lewis Howes 10:48 You have to take out half the brain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 10:49 We remove, we... It's, you got, everybody can Google it. This is not, it's not like it's something we invented to- today. It's been going on for decades, yet because a lot of the people in this space are, are not actual brain surgeons, we're not getting a lot of those stories from there. But there's a tremendous story there that when there's a medical need, and the parents ask for it, and it helps the child, we can actually make a big incision and take away a frontal lobe, a parietal lobe, an occipital lobe that's sparking, um, seizures. And when they wake up, that left side doesn't work.

Lewis Howes 11:25 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:25 Three years later, when you see them-

Lewis Howes 11:28 No way

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:28 ... they're, yeah. This, this is not even sci-fi.

Lewis Howes 11:31 They can move. They can function fully again.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:33 Yeah. So the remaining hemisphere can reorganize.

Lewis Howes 11:37 Huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:38 The linebacker can also be the defensive end-

Lewis Howes 11:41 Sure

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:41 ... can also be sometimes even on offense. There are different roles those neurons can play.

Lewis Howes 11:46 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:46 Yeah. So the... And how do we know that?

Lewis Howes 11:49 By re- 'cause you've removed half the brain, and it's still functioning.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:51 And we took a picture three years later, and that half a brain was still gone.

Lewis Howes 11:55 Still gone?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 11:55 Yeah. It didn't sprout back. It's not like a liver where we cut half of it off, and the body-

Lewis Howes 12:00 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:00 ... grows some back. You take a chunk of it, and you put it in the kid. So that part is still missing.

Lewis Howes 12:04 Gone.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:05 Yet that function has returned.

Lewis Howes 12:06 That's crazy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:08 So that's what I mean about different players on the team-

Lewis Howes 12:12 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:12 ... can cover for each other. So- I want people to know that that, that's true plasticity, and it's not rewiring, it's not regrowing. It's actually whatever you have is repurposed. And how do they do that? Well, through the electrical flows of the mind. There's, um-

Lewis Howes 12:31 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:31 ... that's, and that's-

Lewis Howes 12:32 So not the electrical flows of the brain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:34 Right

Lewis Howes 12:35 The electrical flows of the mind.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:36 Of the mind. So what, what is... People are like, "Well, okay, now he's gone." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 12:40 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:40 "Now he's, he's, he's go- he's selling crystals in Malibu."

Lewis Howes 12:43 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:43 No, no, no, no. Stay with me. Um, when you walk... Well, you played, right?

Lewis Howes 12:48 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:48 And we talked about that briefly. I didn't know that about you.

Lewis Howes 12:50 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:50 It's fascinating. I think there are a lot of parallels with surgeons and, uh, athletes.

Lewis Howes 12:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:54 I think surgeons wanna be athletes-

Lewis Howes 12:55 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:56 ... who became surgeons.

Lewis Howes 12:57 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 12:57 The, um, when you walk up to a stadium, there's every single... You know, so I was at, uh, SoFi.

Lewis Howes 13:03 It's incredible. No, I've been there. It's unbelievable.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:05 I don't think people understand.

Lewis Howes 13:06 It's un-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:06 It's the world's largest pit. You come in near the top 'cause of the LAX-

Lewis Howes 13:11 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:11 ... flight path, and I... You come in and, and you look down. There's-

Lewis Howes 13:14 They dug deep.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:15 Oof. I know, it's-

Lewis Howes 13:16 It's amazing

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:17 ... it's good to be in my hometown.

Lewis Howes 13:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:19 When you walk up and you hear, you, you see, well, you see the pieces, 70,000 fans. Think of those as neurons. We have 100 billion. Of those little magical sparks from the jellyfish that I described, 'cause they look like that. They're not squares. So you can talk, you can... People are talking and moving. That's how people conceive or conceptualize the brain. Um, but what happens when they, they roar together? That's what I mean by the electricity of the mind.

Lewis Howes 13:47 There's an energy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:49 Right. There's an energy.

Lewis Howes 13:50 You feel it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 13:51 It's an epiphenomena- Okay, now you... Now let's build an engine. The parts are there. You fire it up, vroom, and there's a hum, right? That's more than just the engine and the pistons. Uh, a symphony, you've got the musicians.

Lewis Howes 14:06 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:06 I'm, I'm less familiar with this, but they create something bigger.

Lewis Howes 14:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:10 That's what I mean about the mind, that it's not a, it's not a forward, backward electricity zinging around on wires. It's that thing that happens when you have 100 billion, um, throbbing, growing-

Lewis Howes 14:22 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:23 ... branching neurons, and it's electricity based. You can put a sticker on and light a, a small light bulb.

Lewis Howes 14:30 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:30 Yeah. And so that's how we measure for our seizures.

Lewis Howes 14:33 Have you done this before?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:34 Oh, yeah, but this is, but this is decades old.

Lewis Howes 14:35 Yes, yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:36 This isn't like... So what I want people to say is like, understand is, when we remove the right hemisphere and the patient comes back three years later, kids, and they can function again, no new wire sprouted. Nothing was spliced. What remained created a new roar, created a new hum, created, you know, recovered the function.

Lewis Howes 14:56 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:56 So it's not always easy for people to understand, but that's the truth.

Lewis Howes 14:59 Boy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 14:59 And that's our current understanding of how the brain leads to the mind.

Lewis Howes 15:04 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 15:05 Can the brain function without the mind?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:08 If you get knocked on a ring, you're not thinking.

Lewis Howes 15:12 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:12 And if we put electrodes, there's dampened electricity. But that stock, remember I mentioned the mushroom?

Lewis Howes 15:18 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:18 That can still keep you breathing and protect your airway and keep your heart still going. So the reptilian areas of the brain, the ones that we share with many animals-

Lewis Howes 15:28 Will function

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:29 ... will function without a mind, without that w- if you equate-

Lewis Howes 15:32 Conscious-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:32 ... mind with consciousness, thought, love, emotion.

Lewis Howes 15:35 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:35 So, so it's like-

Lewis Howes 15:36 So it can-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:36 ... the babushka dolls where you have-

Lewis Howes 15:38 So it can function-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:39 ... stock

Lewis Howes 15:39 ... but it's not, it's not, um, it's, it's baseline function.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 15:45 It's keeping you a- breathing

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:46 Not high-level cognitive function that we equate-

Lewis Howes 15:48 So the mind is really what's keeping everything activated.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:53 That's what... Yeah. That's in concert.

Lewis Howes 15:55 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 15:55 Right. The mind can think down the heart rate that the reptilian brain-

Lewis Howes 16:01 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:01 ... keeps going if you get knocked out. So they're, they're integrated, uh, and so you put it nicely, the mind can keep things going. Um, but if you have brain death, then there's no mind. There's no electricity. By-

Lewis Howes 16:14 The brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:14 Brain death, so unfortunately-

Lewis Howes 16:16 What's that mean?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:17 Meaning, uh, sometimes the heart, the body's alive, but the brain has died.

Lewis Howes 16:21 How, how does that happen?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:23 Well, we'll, we'll get into some, some... I think it's important for people to understand. So car accidents.

Lewis Howes 16:28 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:29 Brain swelling. Those 100 billion neurons, they burst from smashing into each other.

Lewis Howes 16:36 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:37 We, we put a, a catheter in the thigh, and we, we squirt dye, and we see there's no blood going into the skull.

Lewis Howes 16:44 Oh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:45 It's, it's a dark vault. So your brain has-

Lewis Howes 16:48 If there's so much swelling-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:48 Yeah

Lewis Howes 16:48 ... if it's so much swelling, the blood can't flow. There's so much inflammation-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:51 Right

Lewis Howes 16:51 ... that it's hard for blood to flow and circulate.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:53 So instead of a heart attack, you've had a complete brain attack.

Lewis Howes 16:56 Can you recover-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:57 And for a day... No, no, no. The-

Lewis Howes 16:58 You can't recover from this?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 16:59 Not even miracles. When it's-

Lewis Howes 17:01 You've never seen one?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:02 ... 100.00 out, there's never anything left. But for a, for a day, the, since the heart nerves have their own pulse-

Lewis Howes 17:10 Yes, they're pumping

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:11 ... th- th- th-, we can put machines and things and to keep people going for a day or so. That's where the world of organ transplantation comes in. So a lot of, a lot of guys or a lot of people who, uh, ride motorcycles, they have that kind of injury, and their org- their bodily organs are healthy, and they, they often are, you know, the ones that provide transplants for other, other people. Their-

Lewis Howes 17:33 Their brain is, is not functioning.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:36 Brain death, body's alive.

Lewis Howes 17:37 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:38 So in that setting, there's no mind. There's no electricity coming out. So when you're asking-

Lewis Howes 17:42 Got it

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:43 ... about mind and brain. Um, and so that's a fascinating area for people to know those examples to understand themselves better, right?

Lewis Howes 17:52 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:52 And it comes back to that we are electrical currents. We're not wires. We're not switches. We're not-

Lewis Howes 17:58 Gears

Dr. Rahul Jandial 17:59 ... spots. We're not gears.

Lewis Howes 18:01 Electrical currents.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:02 Yeah, they're flows. That's what the... What is that? So like, uh, you go to a lake, and you drop a big... You jump in there, whatever, right?

Lewis Howes 18:10 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:11 There's a wave that moves through the lake.

Lewis Howes 18:13 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:13 But the water molecules didn't ride with it.

Lewis Howes 18:16 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:17 Right?

Lewis Howes 18:17 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:18 So that's the, the hum, the symphony-

Lewis Howes 18:20 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:21 ... the roar, the electrical global waves that are pulsating through our brains.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:27 And when people say they're in the zone or they're-

Lewis Howes 18:29 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:29 ... in a flow state or they're in a meditative s- state, that, that global energy flow, those waves, they're different. They can be measured and categorized.

Lewis Howes 18:39 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:39 Yeah. So that's-

Lewis Howes 18:40 What does that, what does that mean when someone's in a flow state in terms of the mind-brain connection? What is happening?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:46 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:46 Are these hundred billion jellyfish, like, in symphony-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:50 No

Lewis Howes 18:50 ... and they're humming at a high level?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:51 Well, well, I-

Lewis Howes 18:51 They're working in concert together?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 18:53 Let me jump in right there. Actually, that's perfect. Actually, you would think that if somebody's about to hit a game-winning shot, their best performance is when they're at a high level, meaning wild, frenetic. Actually, no.

Lewis Howes 19:05 When they're super calm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:06 Somewhere in between.

Lewis Howes 19:07 Oh, okay.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:07 So, so not asleep.

Lewis Howes 19:09 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:09 But not, "Hey, I'm on my third espresso just taking in stuff in the morning."

Lewis Howes 19:13 But focused.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:14 Focused, but relaxed, and there is a measured state for that, and it usually has to do with sort of medium brain waves. That's something I'm writing about right now.

Lewis Howes 19:24 Hm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:24 And, and whether you meditate or you're under that, y- the two-minute drill in football, or you're a ballerina and you have that, that perfect, you know, dance routine coming up or maneuver, um, you are actually disengaging some of the things that would get in the way of you releasing a performance. So you're not thinking the performance. You're getting out of the way.

Lewis Howes 19:47 You're, you're being. You're just-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:49 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:49 Interesting.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:50 And, and that has a different measurable electrical flow state, you know? And it's not revved up. It-

Lewis Howes 19:57 It's not hyperactive, it's-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 19:59 Mm-mm. Somewhere in between

Lewis Howes 20:01 ... above calm, but calm. Yeah [laughs] .

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:03 It's not fifth gear. It's not idle.

Lewis Howes 20:05 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:06 They're at their best, and they've seen that in athletes and different things like that.

Lewis Howes 20:09 What's the fastest way for a human being to get into a flow state?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:12 Uh, for that, in my opinion, there are no shortcuts, 'cause what, what it takes is a lot of practice.

Lewis Howes 20:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:17 And it takes is a l- a lot of learning, and then when you are performing-

Lewis Howes 20:21 And being confident in your abilities and, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:23 Yeah, but it's executing, you know... I, I don't think you can get into... I might be wrong, but when I see my kids, I don't think you can get into a flow state just rolling through Instagram.

Lewis Howes 20:31 Right, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:32 It's actually delivering a skill you've trained for.

Lewis Howes 20:35 Hm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:35 So you have a craft y- that you've trained for, and you're performing it at a high level. So you see race car drivers talking about stuff like that. So it is sort of a, a, your craft performed just at the edge of your comfort level.

Lewis Howes 20:51 Hm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:52 Like video games, if they're too hard, kids will check out.

Lewis Howes 20:56 Hm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 20:56 If they're too easy, they'll check out. So something about, it tends to be a physical maneuver. I always find that fascinating where-

Lewis Howes 21:02 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:02 ... um, you know, you could thi- I guess you could think yourself into one of those states, but you see it a lot with people who do s- a, a physical task that's challenging, rewarding, something they're engaged in, and at the level of their performance.

Lewis Howes 21:16 Hm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:16 Um, um, you know, it's a two-minute drill at the end of a football game.

Lewis Howes 21:20 At f- of course, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:20 You're probably-

Lewis Howes 21:20 It's go time, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:21 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 21:22 Did you play football?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:23 No. I love sports, though-

Lewis Howes 21:24 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:24 ... 'cause I think there are a lot of parallels.

Lewis Howes 21:26 Yeah, of course. Uh, the challenging thing is I don't know if I'd, I don't have kids, but I don't know if I'd let my kids play football-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:32 Hm

Lewis Howes 21:32 ... after all the head trauma-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:34 All this head trauma

Lewis Howes 21:35 ... that I took. I mean, every day we were just taught back in the late '90s to just lead with the head, hit with the head. Now, it's illegal. You can't hit the head at all.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:43 Monday Night Football used to open up with two helmets-

Lewis Howes 21:45 God, all the smash, crashing

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:46 ... crashing, yeah.

Lewis Howes 21:47 [laughs] I remember that.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:48 And the trauma that, you know, I feel like-

Lewis Howes 21:51 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 21:51 ... I've had to heal for the last 15, 18 years now, uh, I don't know if it's worth it. I think, I guess if you're not hitting the head anymore, it's different, but there's still gonna be clashing and-

Lewis Howes 22:00 I mean, I got a couple of thoughts about that. I mean, one thing that I didn't like about it was I think they knew this was bad for us.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:05 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:06 And they kept trying to hide it from us. So, I think-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:08 Hm, of course

Lewis Howes 22:08 ... hey, just tell us it's bad. Just tell us smoking's bad.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:11 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:11 We know boxing's bad. Nobody goes into boxing and says, "I didn't know."

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:14 But you, you held information, um, that, you know, traumatic-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:20 Yeah

Lewis Howes 22:20 ... head injury in football was sort of messing people up.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:23 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:23 That's, that's one of my things with it. On the other side is if it, if it's something you love and it's an opportunity for you to advance in your life-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:30 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 22:30 ... who am I to say no? As long as the risks are made aware.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:34 Like, hey, uh, if you banged your knee against the wall 30 times a day for 10 years-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:38 Yeah [laughs]

Lewis Howes 22:39 ... your knee's gonna be jacked up.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:40 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:40 It's no different for your brain. Got it. I still wanna play.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:43 Oh.

Lewis Howes 22:43 That's, you know what I mean?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:44 Of course.

Lewis Howes 22:44 It's more about that to me, not ... We all live in different-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:48 Yes

Lewis Howes 22:48 ... worlds and safety and-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:50 Yeah

Lewis Howes 22:50 ... risk and ...

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:51 What's, what's, um-

Lewis Howes 22:52 My sons didn't play, though.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:54 They could've, but they didn't.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:55 They didn't.

Lewis Howes 22:55 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:55 They played flag, and they all played baseball.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:57 Yeah, that's probably safer.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 22:58 So the, the brain has the ability to heal from traumatic, from trauma, then.

Lewis Howes 23:03 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:03 Physical and emotional trauma.

Lewis Howes 23:05 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:06 Because I feel like the emotional hidden trauma-

Lewis Howes 23:08 Hm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:08 ... can be more painful and harder to recover for some, the psychological, emotional trauma, than the physical trauma. You can, you can see it and you can treat the physical trauma in a sense, but depending on how intense it is, but the emotional, psychological, hidden traumas I feel like are invisible and people don't think they need to treat it. Because they don't see a broken arm and say-

Lewis Howes 23:34 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:34 ... "I need to go to the doctor because my, my bone is sticking out. Let me put a splint on it and, and heal it up." We're not trained that way.

Lewis Howes 23:42 Hm. There is no easy answer.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:44 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:44 But what, what I will say is that, um, trauma, this ... It's just these are my concepts. They're not, I'm not-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:52 Yes.

Lewis Howes 23:52 There's therapeutic trauma.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:54 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:54 And, and then what, what I mean by that is resetting a bone after it's broken.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 23:58 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:58 The pain of a cancer surgery, but then you know that your cancer's been cut out. Like, that, that's good pain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:04 Right.

Lewis Howes 24:05 Uh, and we're just talking about physical trauma.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:07 Yes.

Lewis Howes 24:08 Then there's emotional trauma if when, if people are attacked, that's also intimately connected to emotional trauma, right? So the, the-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:18 People who don't have memory after certain, uh, injuries or operations, they never have PTSD 'cause they don't remember it.

Lewis Howes 24:26 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:27 So the emotional-

Lewis Howes 24:28 Interesting

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:28 ... context and memories-

Lewis Howes 24:30 Ha

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:30 ... related to trauma, be it emotional, physical, or a combination, requires memory. That's cool, right?

Lewis Howes 24:38 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 24:38 I like to think about, like, just as a concept. I, I don't have a solution for [laughs] I don't, "Hey, don't... Do these three things, you'll be better," sort of not my approach 'cause when people did that with me, I was like, "How do you know what I'm going through, man?" You look at me, you think everything's good. Are you sure? Are you sure I wasn't attacked last night? Are you sure I didn't find out that my patient didn't do well last night? Are you sure I didn't find out a loved one was diagnosed with something? You know, like, I just don't wanna put people in the, uh, in, in boxes. In fact, I want people to know that they are new every day. You... I'm, I'm not even the same, uh, version of myself I was before the last few years. How can I be understood as a, a group of people-

Lewis Howes 25:16 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 25:16 ... a man or a surgeon, you know? I just want people to think, a- as, of each other as individuals-

Lewis Howes 25:22 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 25:22 ... and dynamic. That said, uh, I never judge people's trauma to be better or worse. People are looking... Or, or stronger or justified. Uh, they're looking at everybody's gonna have a traumatic event in their life, whether it's a car crash or hearing, there's... It's unavoidable. It's partly because we put ourselves out there. It's partly because the way we approach the world is to be completely, um, adaptive.

Lewis Howes 25:48 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 25:48 Right? If we're rigid, then there's less chances for trauma, but, but that's a life less well lived. So when p- you put yourself out there, traumatic experiences are unavoidable.

Lewis Howes 25:59 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 25:59 That said, okay? So that said, yeah.

Lewis Howes 26:02 What, what I'm hearing you say is-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:03 You get a bruise and you heal

Lewis Howes 26:03 ... what I wanna hear you say is that if we don't have the memory of the traumatic event, we don't have PTSD. We don't have trauma.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:11 Right.

Lewis Howes 26:11 We don't have a trauma-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:12 Yeah

Lewis Howes 26:12 ... tail.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:14 Right. So that, that's the, that's the concept that people, that I want people to walk away say, "Memory is important, but memory is the thing that determines whether the event remains traumatic in your life or not."

Lewis Howes 26:26 Whether it's painful still for you.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:28 Very good. So let's get into that.

Lewis Howes 26:29 So we just need to heal the memory-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:31 Right

Lewis Howes 26:31 ... of the trauma.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:32 That's exactly where I'm taking it. Um, very good. The... So memories are not, uh, files in a cabinet, and actually we-

Lewis Howes 26:41 In the brain. Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:42 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 26:42 Well, how is memory categorized?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 26:43 Again, it's, there are some regions that we, if we remove them, you would lose memory, but memory's not only there. It relies on pulling from memories of smell to new s- Like, for example, smell is very interesting. It's one of the five senses that we can't tamp down with our thinking. So the, a perfume or cologne. Smell and memory are intimately intertwined.

Lewis Howes 27:06 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:07 And so you're pulling from all different parts of the brain. Again, memory is a certain electrical flow in the brain. Um, but it's not, it's malleable. It's moldable. Just because you have a certain memory today doesn't mean that that experience, good or bad, will remain good or bad. Our po- our positive-

Lewis Howes 27:28 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:28 ... vibe right now can be made negative. Our negative vibe right now can be made positive as we look back at our day today.

Lewis Howes 27:34 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:35 So when you see memory that way, then you s- then you say, "Okay, wait a second."

Lewis Howes 27:38 Huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:38 "Uh, I was attacked or I was hurt or something really traumatized me, and when I think of it, when I smell that smell, when I see that color, I'm, uh, I'm re-traumatized again 'cause-"

Lewis Howes 27:52 I clench up.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:53 I clench up.

Lewis Howes 27:53 I have, like, stress or fear-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:54 Yeah

Lewis Howes 27:54 ... anxiety. Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:56 S- so the emotional-

Lewis Howes 27:57 Huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 27:57 ... the emotional context to a memory is what you can change. You don't wanna, you, you don't want dementia. You don't wanna-

Lewis Howes 28:04 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:04 ... delete the memory, 'cause that's a different problem.

Lewis Howes 28:06 Yeah. [laughs] You don't wanna block it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:08 You don't want... Yeah, but you, what you wanna do is change the emotional context attached to that memory.

Lewis Howes 28:14 What happens if we... You hear this from people a lot who might have been traumatized as t- as kids where they forge- they kind of block the memory and then they remember-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:22 When it resurfaces

Lewis Howes 28:23 ... and it's, they resurface it-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:24 Still raw

Lewis Howes 28:24 ... it's very raw.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:25 But they've stuffed it, they've blocked it, they've numbed it, addicted, addicted it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:30 Mm.

Lewis Howes 28:30 Whatever you wanna call it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:31 Driven it to addiction, but-

Lewis Howes 28:32 Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:33 See-

Lewis Howes 28:33 So, so what happens when-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:35 I don't know. I, I don't know about the, the kid stuff as much-

Lewis Howes 28:38 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:38 ... 'cause that, that's a different space.

Lewis Howes 28:39 Gotcha.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:39 And I don't wanna, you know, I wanna stay where I feel real comfortable-

Lewis Howes 28:42 Sure

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:42 ... with what I've been reading and learning. So emotional context of memory-

Lewis Howes 28:47 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 28:47 ... for adults, um, in the right setting with the right person through ex- you know, they have their techniques, you can actually work through the trauma of the memory and the experience by going to certain therapists who help you get better with that. So-

Lewis Howes 29:05 To process the memory.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:07 Yeah, just to take, take the emotional pain, right?

Lewis Howes 29:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:10 The emotional trauma and dampen that so you can say, for example, "Yeah, I was..." You know, if I'm, I'm just bringing examples from my world.

Lewis Howes 29:20 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:21 Yeah, I mean, when I was d- I was diagnosed with cancer. That's a traumatic event. And then you see my, uh, my patients, you see them over time through different ways. When they say, they say, "I was, you know, I was diagnosed with cancer and I did this," it ch- y- their face is different describing it later than it was immediately after receiving the diagnosis.

Lewis Howes 29:43 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:43 So through... That, that is, that's a real life example, right? I'm not-

Lewis Howes 29:46 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:46 It doesn't have to be all the stuff, uh, you know, related to violence and all that. It can-

Lewis Howes 29:51 Sure

Dr. Rahul Jandial 29:52 ... the traumatic experience of a cancer diagnosis a- and how patients cope with that immediately, and then you see them months later, years later, 'cause I'd be a mess, right? I'd be like, "Okay, this is..."

Lewis Howes 30:03 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 30:04 I wouldn't be able to cope. But they surprisingly, not some of them, most of them cope. They get dressed, they come in for their three-month scans, which to me would be a n- a traumatic experience every time. [laughs] "Is this guy gonna tell me it's back or it's bigger?" I mean, think about, like, getting that, that nothing in your mail or email.

Lewis Howes 30:22 Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 30:23 "I gotta go in for this?" ... use again.

Lewis Howes 30:26 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 30:26 But somehow they cope, and that's where i- in, in Life on a Knife’s Edge, I learned so much from them, that it's possible to cope with traumatic experiences. I'm not saying you as an individual can. I'm not saying I can. But when you look at a group of cancer patients, and most of them-

Lewis Howes 30:44 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 30:44 ... cope, live, move on from very traumatic, uh, emotional experiences, as well as physical experience of cancer pain and cancer surgery, right? That's the lesson I want everybody to go through, um, in their mind when they're dealing with their own challenges.

Lewis Howes 31:01 Wow.

Lewis Howes 31:02 What's the biggest lessons you've learned from the cancer patients you've treated on the way they process and handle their journey from first hearing about they have cancer in the brain or a tumor or something, to recovery. What's the biggest lessons you've learned there?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 31:22 It doesn't all end well.

Lewis Howes 31:23 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 31:23 Some, some suffer. Um, many suffer, you know, in their own ways. So it's not this, you know, nobody wishes cancer upon somebody else or on, on, you know. So it's not like, you know, it's not like this thing like, it's not an opportunity and I don't wanna ever present it that way. But those that have coped well, they invariably say, "I wish I would've lif- lived my life the way I am now after a cancer diagnosis."

Lewis Howes 31:53 Oh, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 31:54 Like, "I wish I would've lived my life having seen the finish line relatively." 'Cause it changes how they live, and they're not sad. As a generalization. L- Like I said, some have suffered. Many have suffered. But they, they wish that they would've made quality of life a priority throughout life, not after the cancer diagnosis.

Lewis Howes 32:14 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:14 Something about seeing the finish line on the horizon makes people go, "Eh, I don't like that guy. I'm not gonna see him much."

Lewis Howes 32:20 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:21 "This is something I enjoy. I wanna..." You know, they get, they get, they get after it. They get to, they get to the business of living in the way they want to deep down inside, but often have been encumbered by the, the weirdness of-

Lewis Howes 32:33 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:33 ... interpersonal relationships and careers and so on.

Lewis Howes 32:35 Society and pressure and everything else.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:37 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:37 How d- how do you show up in your personal life after seeing all this for the last couple decades or I guess...

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:44 That's a heavy question. You know, I can't, I can't say that I've always dealt well with it. The human stories were important, but I was just, I was going for perfection of-

Lewis Howes 32:51 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:51 ... of the craft.

Lewis Howes 32:52 You were trying to be a-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:53 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:53 ... a precise surgeon-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:55 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:55 ... just trying to remove it and hea- uh, fix it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 32:57 Yeah. And, and then, and then-

Lewis Howes 32:59 You weren't as connected to the human stories. You were just like, "Let me..."

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:02 Yeah. I wouldn't say I was disconnected, but-

Lewis Howes 33:04 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:04 ... the f- the, the sec- the, uh, from the fifth to the 10th year approximately, when the craft became, uh, occupied less of my, uh, my mind.

Lewis Howes 33:14 Mm-hmm. 'Cause it was more automatic. Obviously everyone's specific, but-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:18 Right

Lewis Howes 33:18 ... it's more automatic.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:19 I was in a rhythm.

Lewis Howes 33:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:20 And, um, I actually enjoyed the challenge.

Lewis Howes 33:23 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:24 Uh, and that's what you want as a cancer surgeon who's trying to be the best for you and be the best for them at this craft. That's an interesting intersection. They want me to be the best.

Lewis Howes 33:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:34 They want me to have ambition at being the best surgeon.

Lewis Howes 33:36 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:37 Which means tackling the biggest cancer, and my, the people who chose me to perform their surgery have the fewest complications.

Lewis Howes 33:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 33:46 Biggest mountain, fewest complications. That, that's a personal ambition that aligns with what the cancer patients wanted. So that, that was an interesting thing. Um, you know, it was... It, it drove me, and at the same time, I could see that, uh, since I take care mostly of stage four cancer and there's no stage five-

Lewis Howes 34:06 Really

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:06 ... that, that-

Lewis Howes 34:07 Stage five means what?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:09 There is no stage five. That means death.

Lewis Howes 34:11 Okay, so...

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:11 So stage four is, the word terminal is not fair, but stage four is the most advanced cancer. So all my patients live a few years, let's just say that. But that means, you know, after a while, you know, I was like, I've, there's, I've cared for, like, over 1,000 people and they're no longer alive.

Lewis Howes 34:28 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:29 And it started to mess with my head, man. And, um...

Lewis Howes 34:32 Because stage four, there's no way to cure it, is what you're saying.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:35 Stage four by definition, other than in blood cancers, is not curable. So the question is, can we, can we get out a few years?

Lewis Howes 34:41 Can you extend life? Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:43 And, and quality life during that time.

Lewis Howes 34:45 Oh my gosh, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:45 That's what I mean by the... Yeah, so after a while I was like, "Man, I got a, I got a, I got a drawer full of, um, invitations to funerals."

Lewis Howes 34:52 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 34:53 And I just, and I just stood back a little bit and, uh, was having some struggles with my own, in my own life. And, uh, so, so the answer to your question is for those, for those who are involved in cancer care, to, um, to make yourself vulnerable, to s- actually, um, sort of in piecemeal go on their difficult journey with them, it can be hurtful.

Lewis Howes 35:23 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 35:23 It was raw. The last five years though, the last three years, I've been able to take that and write about it and see that, like, I have been fortified by, by letting them teach me, and the privilege of them saying, "Come along with me in my difficult times. This airplane must crash, and you will ride with us. I, we choose you to ride with us, but you have the parachute at the end." And after a while, I was just telling my kids that, man, I just feel like I'm, I'm doing, I'm crashing a lot of planes. And so it went from not noticing it to noticing it and having it mess with me to, "Wait a second, that might have been the biggest gift of my craft, is to learn from the people in their most difficult times and how they remain optimistic-

Lewis Howes 36:11 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:11 ... in the face of calamity." So I, I'm in a different space about the last couple of years. Um, but that, that's probably the best question anybody's asked me in the last couple years.

Lewis Howes 36:20 Wow, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:20 And I appreciate both.

Lewis Howes 36:21 Of course, man. Wow. So how do you personally manage your mind and your brain health-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:27 Mm

Lewis Howes 36:27 ... knowing that- I mean, is there, is there any s- I guess, s- survival rates after-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:33 Mm

Lewis Howes 36:33 ... a few years of any patient that you work on?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:36 Few, yeah.

Lewis Howes 36:37 So maybe it's a, it's more of a stage III cancer, I guess, or it's-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:41 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 36:41 It's-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:41 The earlier stages have, have, have cure, cure potential.

Lewis Howes 36:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:45 But when they come to see me-

Lewis Howes 36:46 You're at the stage IV guy

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:46 ... it's usually that it's spread to the brain from a, a cancer in the body that's-

Lewis Howes 36:50 Gotcha

Dr. Rahul Jandial 36:51 ... that's broken out.

Lewis Howes 36:52 Gotcha. And is there no way to see, to do a surgery on a brain that has less cancer, at stage I or II, and, and, and remove it fully? Is that possible?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:01 Some. Some.

Lewis Howes 37:01 Or is it hard to see that?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:03 Yeah. Well, it's, the, there's two types of brain cancers, one that grow from the flesh of the brain, and they come in different stages, and more commonly are those that spread to the brain. Uh, Jimmy Carson or, um, uh, excuse me, Jimmy Carter, president, uh, is 90-something and he's got melanoma that's in the brain, but it was out. You know, so-

Lewis Howes 37:24 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:24 ... it's not always, but for breast cancer or lung cancer that spreads to the brain, it's sort of the, uh, the, the, the final manifestation of the cancer spread.

Lewis Howes 37:34 Oh, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:35 Now, but those are heroic stories to me, right? That, "Oh, man," that you, that-

Lewis Howes 37:39 Oh, man

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:39 ... that look you gave me, that was me f- five, six, seven, eight years ago.

Lewis Howes 37:43 Oh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:43 Like, "Man, this is..." You know? But the last couple of years it's, "Man, they made it to the graduation. They made it to..." You know, moms are always like, "I just wanna get to where my kid is out of high school." And there, there's some that have-

Lewis Howes 37:54 These are kids with it?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:55 No, moms-

Lewis Howes 37:56 Oh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:57 ... who have breast cancer-

Lewis Howes 37:57 Oh, they wanna see their kids

Dr. Rahul Jandial 37:58 ... in the 40s, they got a kid in 15-

Lewis Howes 38:00 Oh my gosh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:00 ... yeah, 15-year-old's in ninth grade and they're-

Lewis Howes 38:02 Oh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:02 ... but so when you see them, it's, uh, like I said, it's, I don't, it's not sad at all for me anymore.

Lewis Howes 38:08 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:08 It's actually how rare of a gift that I can see people at their most valiant.

Lewis Howes 38:13 Oh my gosh, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:14 And it, so now, now it informs me, but back to your original question, there w- there was about five years where it was just messing with my mind, you know?

Lewis Howes 38:22 How does someone, this is more of a educational question, I guess, for people, how does someone prevent cancer?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:29 Mm.

Lewis Howes 38:30 You know, a- and where does most of these cancers come from? Is it random, that people just get it if their, whatever, genetics?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 38:39 Is it their environment, their levels of stress, their food intake?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:43 Mm.

Lewis Howes 38:43 Is it, you know, anxiety they're gonna deal with, trauma that they're not processing? What is the, the cause of most cancer?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:53 There are cancers we potentially give ourselves from our bad choices.

Lewis Howes 38:58 Really? Give me, give me an example.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 38:59 Smoking.

Lewis Howes 39:00 Okay, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:01 Okay. Um, but not everybody that smoke gets it.

Lewis Howes 39:03 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:04 And 20% of lung cancer people never smoked, so.

Lewis Howes 39:06 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:07 Right. Then there's-

Lewis Howes 39:08 What do they get lung cancer from if they're not smoking?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:10 So, uh, do you remember I was talking about the brain being this garden and stuff like that?

Lewis Howes 39:14 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:14 Well, our bodies, they're not an interesting garden in my opinion, you know, but they're-

Lewis Howes 39:19 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:19 ... they're a garden, too. They're-

Lewis Howes 39:20 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:21 ... skin is shedding off.

Lewis Howes 39:22 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:22 Liver cells grow. So when things grow, they can sprout weeds. So ar- parts of the body that don't ever change, like s- strangely, heart never gets cancer.

Lewis Howes 39:33 Hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:34 You know, so things that don't change don't sprout cancers. It's a byproduct of constantly having cells in our bodies die and regrow, and when you do that regrowth pro- process, you're gonna spin off something that doesn't behave.

Lewis Howes 39:50 So when, how do you spin off things that are healthy and, uh, you know-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:55 In-

Lewis Howes 39:55 ... flourishing, as opposed to little weeds here and there?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:58 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 39:58 How do you, how do you do your best?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 39:59 Well, you're doing both.

Lewis Howes 40:00 How do you do... Oh, y- so what phys-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:01 Well, phys- I'm talking about physiologically-

Lewis Howes 40:03 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:03 ... before we get to the mind.

Lewis Howes 40:04 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:04 'Cause thoughts, it's an interesting point. The, uh, thoughts can be thought of that way, too. Uh, the body, when it, um, is, 99% of the time is doing the right thing. We're, we're both here. But when you do it with the sheer volume of a lifespan-

Lewis Howes 40:16 Ah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:16 ... and you do it over seven billion people, you're gonna sprout some cancers. So you get-

Lewis Howes 40:20 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:20 ... cancers in the body, cancers in the brain. Can our thoughts become cancerous? That's a provocative, uh-

Lewis Howes 40:26 And can our thoughts heal cancer?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:28 That's a very provocative thought. I have not seen, um, positive thinking, there's no... I'm not saying it's not possible, and I encourage people to do it, but I think positive thinking, um, meditating, um, optimi- cultivating optimism, all of these things, they do change the global physiology o- of your body, okay? I think we were just-

Lewis Howes 40:57 Not just the brain, but the body.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 40:58 Right. And then that in turn can affect what's going on in the brain.

Lewis Howes 41:01 Hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:02 But I don't know if a thought can send an electrical zap to a tumor and hurt the tumor, but a certain way of thinking can make you have a certain physiologic response-

Lewis Howes 41:13 Sure

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:13 ... which there in turn could, you know, get in the way of cancer's progression.

Lewis Howes 41:17 That's why, I mean, I feel like if we're, if we're breaking this down from what I'm hearing you say, there's a garden in our brain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:22 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 41:23 There's a garden, right? And how-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:25 Think of it as a garden of-

Lewis Howes 41:26 Oh, think of it as a garden or a school of fish, you know, working in-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:30 Dynamic

Lewis Howes 41:30 ... harmony and-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:31 Thriving, yes

Lewis Howes 41:31 ... yeah, all these different things, right? So if our, if we have a level of thinking that is, let's call it positive.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:40 Mm.

Lewis Howes 41:40 Let's call it beautiful thinking as oppo- as opposed to suffering-based thinking. Beautiful thoughts, joy, gratitude, happiness-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:49 Mm

Lewis Howes 41:49 ... peace, appreciation, acknowledgement.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 41:52 Mm.

Lewis Howes 41:52 Self-love and love for others. Let's say those types of thoughts versus the, the opposite, suffering-type thoughts. If we have those thoughts on a consistent basis in the mind, would those then in fact penetrate the brain to flourish more healthy, uh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:13 To nurture that part of the garden

Lewis Howes 42:14 ... yeah, the, the 100 billion jellyfish f- floating in harmony.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:18 Yeah, very good.

Lewis Howes 42:18 Would they be more harmony and healthier, as opposed to penetrating it with these suffering-based thoughts?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:24 Mm.

Lewis Howes 42:25 And then in return, with the brain activated and flowing and not having these breaks and blocks- Then it's signaling down to the body to send a more healthy-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:37 Mm

Lewis Howes 42:37 ... uh, ecosystem-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:39 I like that

Lewis Howes 42:39 ... throughout the body, and then returning the body back to the brain and back to the mind-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:43 Yeah

Lewis Howes 42:43 ... and having a more ...

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:45 Let, let me unpack that for you-

Lewis Howes 42:47 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:47 ... 'cause I've got ... That's a enormous question that I think I have a very specific answer.

Lewis Howes 42:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:52 Because I think when we're t- talking about this earlier, language can be confusing-

Lewis Howes 42:58 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 42:58 ... if it's, if it's used too casually. But let, let's, let's take the cancer part out for now.

Lewis Howes 43:03 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:04 Um,

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:04 but, but yeah, being in a better frame of mind, exercising, eating right, being calm-

Lewis Howes 43:11 Sleep, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:11 ... stress.

Lewis Howes 43:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:11 All of that changes things physiologically that make your whole body better at fighting cancer.

Lewis Howes 43:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:18 Uh, that we, we agree on, that's measured. Now, let's go back to the brain, uh, as a garden.

Lewis Howes 43:24 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:25 So i- can we cultivate, uh, that part of the garden, or can we cultivate a garden that lean towards a positive mind frame, right?

Lewis Howes 43:36 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:36 'Cause if, i- if bombs are falling, even the most optimistic garden will go into-

Lewis Howes 43:41 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:41 ... a threat response.

Lewis Howes 43:42 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:42 You don't al- you don't only wanna be chill. You don't only wanna be positive.

Lewis Howes 43:45 You wanna be aware. You wanna be-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:46 Adaptive

Lewis Howes 43:46 ... yeah, you wanna be flexible.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:48 Right.

Lewis Howes 43:48 You wanna be all these things.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:48 So let's say there is an external stress around, yet you're too jacked up.

Lewis Howes 43:53 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:53 You're too stressed. S- that's a common ailment of city life-

Lewis Howes 43:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 43:56 ... at least here, where we have safety. This is really fascin- this is one of my favorite things that I, that I love talking about. Uh, you remember we talked about the reptilian brain?

Lewis Howes 44:05 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:06 Uh, you get knocked out and it stays, you stay awake, and then we talked about the mushroom canopy.

Lewis Howes 44:11 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:11 Well, there's another one in the middle called the limbic system, but I call it the emotional brain. Categories are not that simple, but it's got its own little anatomy. Like, if there was a slice down the side of my head-

Lewis Howes 44:22 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:22 ... you would actually see the mushroom canopy, and you'd see some unique Star Wars-looking structures in the middle, and then you'd see the reptilian brain, like-

Lewis Howes 44:30 The stem.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:31 Yeah, the stem.

Lewis Howes 44:32 The stem is the reptilia-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:33 Right

Lewis Howes 44:33 ... reptilian brain, and in the middle is the limbic system.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:36 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:36 And on top is the mushroom.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:38 Right. That's the corti- we, we call it the cortical canopy. We used, we use, like, ecological terms-

Lewis Howes 44:44 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:44 ... to describe it in journals.

Lewis Howes 44:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:46 So the cortical canopy and that emotional brain, the limbic system, they have branches towards each other.

Lewis Howes 44:52 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 44:53 Measurable. And so when somebody goes from age 16 to being wild to being 18 and more composed, let's say adolescence, the structure of the brain hasn't changed. It weighs the same. It looks the same on MRIs, but the person's totally different, right?

Lewis Howes 45:12 Why?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 45:12 Well, because of the cultivation of thought from the cortical canopy, the mushroom cap, to the emotional brain. As they integrate more, you're able to say, "Hey, maybe don't run across that freeway," or-

Lewis Howes 45:24 Right, right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 45:24 ... maybe wear that seatbelt. So it c- it, it, it-

Lewis Howes 45:27 It's learning

Dr. Rahul Jandial 45:28 ... it, but it's interacting with emotions. At the same time, you don't wanna be emotionless.

Lewis Howes 45:34 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 45:34 So emotion is making a push back to thought. Like, no, love is an emotion. This pain I'm feeling because Mom is sick is an emotion. I don't wanna be Spock about it or tamp it down. So that cultivation of thought-

Lewis Howes 45:47 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 45:47 ... and emotion is what is, is the l- the most lush way to live because then you're adaptive to stress. Like, hey, this is actually something dangerous going on. Thought is coming in.

Lewis Howes 45:59 Just be aware, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 46:00 Emotion's going on. But at the same time, you have this internal, what they call, emotional regulation. Like, nothing's wrong, and you're just freaked out. And that's where those branches, thought, meditation, therapy, counseling, uh, hugging your puppy, it, it creates a better balance between thought and emotion.

Lewis Howes 46:22 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 46:22 And that, that tone, not on/off ... Thanks for asking this question. I love this. The tone is what life is about. You know, you, you h- you become a new parent, let that, let that emotion run rampant. Cry. You're about to go see your boss and you know it's not gonna go well, and you're starting to do things that you know is emotion running rampant, then use thought and breathing exercises to-

Lewis Howes 46:49 Turn the volume down

Dr. Rahul Jandial 46:50 ... just-

Lewis Howes 46:50 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 46:50 ... just set the tone a little different on that, and then go and see your boss or your lover-

Lewis Howes 46:55 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 46:55 ... or some conflict situation you're in. That is what we're doing throughout life, and the example of it is adolescence, where it happens most, for most of us, automatically, but then we stop, like we're grown-ups.

Lewis Howes 47:06 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:07 That, that, that tone is something you cultivate through the experiences of life. And then when you get older or when the next trauma comes-

Lewis Howes 47:16 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:17 ... y- you're, you're better braced and positioned for how to cope with this. A little more thought, 'cause I'm running hot on emotion, or like, "Man, I'm too cold about this right now. It is a raw situation. I need a safe place to let my emotions run wild."

Lewis Howes 47:31 Right, a safe environment, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:33 That's, that's the way I approach, uh, the intersection of thought and emotion.

Lewis Howes 47:37 Yeah. I think, uh, you said it, emotional regulation, I feel like is, for me, one of the most powerful skills-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:44 Mm

Lewis Howes 47:44 ... that someone can learn in relationships, in career, in driving, you know, on the street with other people around.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:51 But emotions are dominant, by the way.

Lewis Howes 47:52 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:53 Which is great, but-

Lewis Howes 47:54 But learning-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:54 ... so it's usually emotional regulation-

Lewis Howes 47:55 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:55 ... not thought regulation.

Lewis Howes 47:56 Right, but learning how to have emotional regulation-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 47:59 Mm

Lewis Howes 47:59 ... is such a powerful skill for each individual. Um-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:03 And we're never done-

Lewis Howes 48:04 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:04 ... 'cause you don't know what's coming.

Lewis Howes 48:06 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:06 But it's, it's the, it's the, it's the tending to the garden.

Lewis Howes 48:09 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:10 It's the lifelong cultivation, um-

Lewis Howes 48:13 'Cause what's happening, if we allow our emotions, the limbic part of the brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:17 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 48:17 ... is the emotion-based part-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:18 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:18 ... of the brain. Thought is the-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:21 No exact regions, but there is some anatomy, relative-

Lewis Howes 48:23 Right, right. Gotcha, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:24 ... but yeah, yeah. I'm with you.

Lewis Howes 48:24 It's the more, the main focus-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:25 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:25 ... of the brain. Obviously, if it was taken out, it wouldn't regulate, but, um-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:30 Emotional regulation

Lewis Howes 48:30 ... if the emotion is- If you're always in reaction mode-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:34 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:35 ... you see something, ah, you're in freak-out mode, you're in scream mode, you're in, um, a defensive-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:40 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:40 ... attack mode. You're, I mean, someone's hurting me mode. If you're always in that space, what happens to the brain p- uh, physiology?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:48 Mm.

Lewis Howes 48:48 What, what happens to the actual physical aspect of the brain, and how does that affect the body-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:53 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:54 ... and the mind if your emotions are always running high?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 48:57 Oh, I, I love this question, Matt, be- 'cause th- when I was reading about-

Lewis Howes 49:01 [laughs] Let's go. Let's go.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:02 Man, I'm all tequila.

Lewis Howes 49:03 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:04 No, because this is what, this is what, this is wh- k- this is what can empower people-

Lewis Howes 49:07 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:07 ... is an understanding of, of how things lean-

Lewis Howes 49:11 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:11 ... and how things then can be modified.

Lewis Howes 49:13 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:14 Otherwise, it's just, uh, [laughs] I mean, I can't tell my cancer patients, "Just try not to stress out."

Lewis Howes 49:21 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:21 It's just, it's hollow.

Lewis Howes 49:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:22 It's shallow. It's rude, actually.

Lewis Howes 49:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:24 So I think there's too much of that advice going on. What I wanna show people is how we're sorta designed, our natural inclinations, and then you come up with your approach. I'm telling you, hugging my, my, my son got a puppy in the pandemic, that, man, that's my-

Lewis Howes 49:39 [laughs] The therapy dog

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:40 ... I didn't even understand the con- I hugged that animal-

Lewis Howes 49:42 And you brought so much peace-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:43 And-

Lewis Howes 49:43 ... and love

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:44 ... just what, I'm telling you, my physiology changes.

Lewis Howes 49:46 Calm just, ah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 49:47 Yeah. It just, so everybody's gotta have an individual approach to that. So here's the two things about emotions. There's, uh, we could cut out the thinking, just to put it coarsely.

Lewis Howes 50:00 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:00 We could cut out the thinking brain and you'll still be alive. You, you, if you somehow were able to take out that middle part of the brain, there is no life left. There's, the consciousness relies on-

Lewis Howes 50:10 On emotions

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:11 ... things, on emotions.

Lewis Howes 50:12 Consciousness relies on emotions.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:13 I think, yeah. 'Cause what, what, they, they spark through, right? Remember the branches.

Lewis Howes 50:17 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:17 Frontal lobe, deeper branching, intersecting, the global waves of electricity. That's why there's something called deep brain stimulation. Just let me riff on this for a little bit.

Lewis Howes 50:28 Go for it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:29 So when we want people to not, uh, wash their hands 150 times a day, or have Tourette's, or sometimes depression, or sometimes a drive for obesity, or certain tremors, we take a little catheter and just the tip isn't covered in, i- in, in plastic, and we put it into the emotional, it's not-

Lewis Howes 50:48 Come on, the limbic brain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:50 The limbic brain.

Lewis Howes 50:50 You stick it down through the top of the mushroom.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:52 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 50:52 What do you call it, the cortisol-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:53 Cor- cortical canopy, yeah

Lewis Howes 50:54 ... cortical canopy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:55 You can punch, you can punch through that.

Lewis Howes 50:56 You punch through that and it doesn't affect-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 50:58 And you guys can look it up, deep brain stim- DBS. It's around for 40 years.

Lewis Howes 51:01 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:01 So-

Lewis Howes 51:01 So you put it through

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:02 ... so those drives that, uh, like Tourette's, uh, obesity-

Lewis Howes 51:06 Depression

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:07 ... w- we don't tickle the s- cortical, the thought.

Lewis Howes 51:09 You're not just tapping the top.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:11 We have, it's an emot- it's an emotional drive.

Lewis Howes 51:12 Oh, my gosh. So you're sticking it in through the middle of the brain, and what happens?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:15 And then the tip, with just a little pulse like the brain's pacemaker-

Lewis Howes 51:19 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:19 ... and it changes the elect... I mean, it's, it's so-

Lewis Howes 51:21 It- [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:22 ... it's not, it's not brand new.

Lewis Howes 51:23 I understand, but-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:24 But it, but it, so why would it work?

Lewis Howes 51:25 So you can, you can pulse the, the limbic brain?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:27 Mm-hmm. Just-

Lewis Howes 51:27 How long do you do this for? Five minutes, an hour? What is this process?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:30 Uh, they, they wear it under their, they we- they wear it under their, uh, clavicle-

Lewis Howes 51:33 Come on

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:33 ... like you would a pa- like grandma with a pacemaker-

Lewis Howes 51:35 Come on

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:35 ... or grandpa. I'm telling you.

Lewis Howes 51:36 So you keep it in all the time.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:36 Yeah. It's, you were right here.

Lewis Howes 51:38 [laughs] And what, and what do you do? I mean, do you just push-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:41 It's a-

Lewis Howes 51:41 ... a button when you're freaking out and it kind of relaxes you, or?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:43 So the waves on that lake-

Lewis Howes 51:45 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:46 ... if I also jumped in on the other side-

Lewis Howes 51:48 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:48 ... and when those waves come towards each other, sometimes they negate each other, right?

Lewis Howes 51:51 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 51:52 Similarly, the right electrical pulse can reset the electrical waves in your brain that we were talking about earlier. That's how deep brain stimulation has worked for 40 years.

Lewis Howes 52:00 So how do we create deep brain stimulation on our own?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:06 Oh, that's a good question. Let me, let me fa- answer the first one.

Lewis Howes 52:08 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:08 I'll come back to that. Deep brain stimulation on our own is through paced breathing. Let's get back to that one.

Lewis Howes 52:13 Breathing, meditation-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:15 Yeah

Lewis Howes 52:15 ... insane.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:15 And I'll show, and I'll show you the anatomy for that. But-

Lewis Howes 52:17 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:18 ... uh, 'cause, you know, as we talked about, I need to, I need somebody to explain it to me.

Lewis Howes 52:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:21 I can't just say, "Do this." Emotional regulation is tricky in two ways. H- hot emotions lead to high heart rate, surging blood pressure, lots of things being released. We've already heard about them. So you're running your body in overdrive for no reason. You're wearing yourself out.

Lewis Howes 52:37 Got it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:38 That makes sense to people, okay? That's a good reason to be physiologically not stressed if you can, and you come up with your coping maneuvers.

Lewis Howes 52:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:46 What's more interesting is with the intersection of the f- uh, the frontal lobes, the thinking brain, and the emotional brain, is that emotions are, th- they're come in favored. They're always hot. Th- th- this-

Lewis Howes 52:57 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 52:58 The thinking brain has to do more of the work. And at some point, if you are not able to cultivate emotional regulation, it becomes a feed-forward thing, because the connections start to sever, and then you start having this emotional brain that's no longer being tamped down or paced or controlled by the thinking brain. So emotional regulation is the life skill to deal with the trauma coming up-

Lewis Howes 53:25 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 53:26 ... to, to rev your body down, but if you don't try to cultivate it, you'll actually lose control of it. And as you get older, you'll have more rampant uncontrolled emotions and not, not be approaching life the way you want to.

Lewis Howes 53:40 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 53:40 So that's the answer about emotional regulation.

Lewis Howes 53:42 Do emotions have more power over our thoughts, or thoughts have more power over emotions?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 53:47 We start off with, uh, you know, emotions are generally on overdrive compared to thought. So thinking through emotions, thinking which emotions have earned the right to be there, is that lifelong process.

Lewis Howes 54:01 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:01 And people are like, "What, what does that mean?" Well, take adolescence.

Lewis Howes 54:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:05 Teenager goes from 15 to 19, very different person.

Lewis Howes 54:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:10 And that's all emotional regulation, right?

Lewis Howes 54:13 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:14 Uh, thought was losing. Teenagers-

Lewis Howes 54:16 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:16 ... I miss it, actually. It was a wild time.

Lewis Howes 54:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:18 But then thought comes in to balance emotion.

Lewis Howes 54:21 Reflection and thinking-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:22 Yeah

Lewis Howes 54:22 ... and, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:23 So take that thing that you know happens, take my explanations if they, if they're of value to you, and then say, "Let me, now let me take the wheel of that thing that happened without me actually-" Choosing or driving, right? That maturity happens on its own. Now, let me take the wheel of that process and try to do it for the rest of my life.

Lewis Howes 54:43 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:43 Every year, every moment, and not just say, "Hey, whatever I got at 18, 19 is, is who I am." Going back to your first thing, you're new every day, so it's a responsibility to cultivate that emotional regulation through thought and through certain behaviors-

Lewis Howes 54:58 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 54:59 ... uh, for our whole life because you never know what's gonna happen, pandemic, war, and you want to, you know, you wanna be best braced for that.

Lewis Howes 55:07 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:07 And, and not approach that as a 15-year-old.

Lewis Howes 55:10 Right. You wanna have more awareness, and I don't know if you wanna call it control.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:14 Mm.

Lewis Howes 55:14 But I think you wanna have control over your emotions and not let your emotions control you-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:18 Yeah

Lewis Howes 55:18 ... to do something stupid.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:19 Control the ride a little bit. Control the rollercoaster a little bit.

Lewis Howes 55:21 Exactly.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:21 Trim the sails.

Lewis Howes 55:22 So that, that, the emotions are mostly based in the limbic part of the brain, right? Obviously, it's all connected in certain areas-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:29 Mm

Lewis Howes 55:29 ... but if you're talking about an area. And so, uh, what's the best way to train the emotional part of the brain?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:37 So-

Lewis Howes 55:37 So that we are in, we have a personal power over it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:41 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:41 That we're in control.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:41 That's a good way to call it, yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:42 That we, that we have, uh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:44 Or, or, or more.

Lewis Howes 55:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:45 I mean, it depends on the situ-

Lewis Howes 55:46 We can turn it up or turn it down, and we are-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:48 Depending on the, depending on the what's going on.

Lewis Howes 55:50 Yeah. Maybe we need to be more emotional in a moment and not be chill and relaxed when there's an attack.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:54 Yeah. Or maybe the moment is so big, man, it's, of course, you're just emotionally-

Lewis Howes 55:58 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 55:58 ... over the top, and we know that's what's been going on the last couple years and even today. So but that, but that leaves you a flexibility, and it also leaves you without feeling bad, like-

Lewis Howes 56:08 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 56:08 ... "Oh, I was emotional then. Now I'm not in a m- I, I'm not a person that has emotional regulation." You don't have this brain the same forever. It's a constant trimming of the sails-

Lewis Howes 56:20 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 56:20 ... modulating tone. To me, it's a little bit of work if you're in a good spot. Like, hey, don't, this ain't guaranteed.

Lewis Howes 56:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 56:26 But it's also so much power and opportunity that if you're, if you're, uh, not in a good spot, like, tomorrow can be better, and if not tomorrow, then the month or the year after, right? So emotional regulation, um, the shortcut, so now we're getting to, like, is there a tip? You know, 'cause-

Lewis Howes 56:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 56:45 Uh, I hope people feel like, wait a second, this, everything is possible, but it's gonna take a lot of work, okay? That's really what I was trying to get at for the first part. But are there shortcuts?

Lewis Howes 56:57 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 56:57 Because I love shortcuts, what, LA freeways or whatever.

Lewis Howes 56:59 [laughs] Right, Waze is good.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:01 Uh.

Lewis Howes 57:01 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:02 But there are, there is one that has stood the test of time, and that I can now explain to you based on, on things that we do as surgeons. Uh, and that's, I refer to as meditative breathing in, i- in, in my first book, but really, it's, it's pacing your breath. And so what does that do?

Lewis Howes 57:21 And this is something you study with actual-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:23 Right

Lewis Howes 57:23 ... uh, scans or-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:25 No, no, no. It, it's even, it's wilder than that.

Lewis Howes 57:27 How are you studying this?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:28 If you have aberrant brain electricity, and we check a scan, and there's some funky marble type tuft of brain tissue that doesn't look right, we know, like, that's the epicenter. That's where the, that's where the electricity's sprouting from. But some people that have it, some kids that have it, some adults that have it, there isn't a, there isn't anything wrong with the scan, right?

Lewis Howes 57:48 Spot. Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:48 The scan looks pretty. Brain looks perfect, but the electricity's off, right? That's what epilepsy is, right? That's yet another proof.

Lewis Howes 57:56 Seizures.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:56 Mm-hmm, seizures.

Lewis Howes 57:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 57:57 One seizure, uh, two seizures is epilepsy, then you get the diagnosis, but yes, seizures is aberrant electrical activ- activity of the brain.

Lewis Howes 58:05 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:05 The same things we've been talking about. Um, so when we don't know where it's sprouting, um, because if it's from a small space, we can dissect it out and take away the, the epicenter, right, the origin.

Lewis Howes 58:17 You can take it, you mean you can cut it out?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:18 Take, we can cut it out.

Lewis Howes 58:20 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:21 And the patients are seizure-free.

Lewis Howes 58:22 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:23 Yeah. Now, b- but what if there isn't a spot that we find, and their seizures are horrible, and it's well before, uh, thinking about removing half the brain? So what they, we, we do is we make a reverse question mark incision.

Lewis Howes 58:37 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:38 It's just scalp. It's not very tender.

Lewis Howes 58:39 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:39 Uh, that's what they tell me.

Lewis Howes 58:40 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:40 I mean, under, the ribs are more tender, is what they say.

Lewis Howes 58:43 Yeah, sure.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:43 Uh, patients. Then we make our little ice fishing hole. We take-

Lewis Howes 58:47 Are they, are they numb when they're taking this out?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:48 This, this-

Lewis Howes 58:48 How does this work?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:49 For this one, they're asleep. There's others that are awake.

Lewis Howes 58:51 Okay. Do you numb the skull, the skin? You just cut through the skin, no numbing?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:55 They're, they're fully asleep.

Lewis Howes 58:57 Oh, but when they're awake.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 58:58 Then, at the very end, w- I inject the cut.

Lewis Howes 59:02 So-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:02 So the numbing lasts longer

Lewis Howes 59:03 ... with numbing, gotcha.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:04 Yeah. Um-

Lewis Howes 59:05 You're not just sitting there awake, and they're just cutting on you. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:08 There, that's, that is an operation we do, but that's a different story.

Lewis Howes 59:10 Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:11 The, so you take the skull off.

Lewis Howes 59:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:13 Uh, the brain has a covering. You don't see the brain right away. There's, like, a sheath. Um-

Lewis Howes 59:18 Like a, like a skin? Like a-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:19 No, it's like almost a nylon material.

Lewis Howes 59:21 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:22 You can pick it up and stitch it. That's what keeps the water inside the skull.

Lewis Howes 59:26 It's the-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:26 It's not the bone

Lewis Howes 59:27 ... it's a sack.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:27 Yeah, brain sack. [laughs] There you go.

Lewis Howes 59:29 It's a brain sack, right? It's like a sack.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:31 But it's nylon. It's pretty. And we cut it, and then the w- clear water pours out. You can see the surface of the brain. And-

Lewis Howes 59:38 The water's coming out?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:39 Yeah, 'cause the brain is floating in an aquarium, right?

Lewis Howes 59:41 That's crazy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:41 Yeah, it's fl- it's buoyant. Your brain doesn't sit on bone. It's, it's floating. Again, jellyfish.

Lewis Howes 59:46 In water.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:47 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 59:47 So when you're hitting, when you're having a lot of fast actions-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:50 Mm, right

Lewis Howes 59:50 ... and you're hitting something, is it hitting?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:52 Yeah, your skull stops, and then inside, it sloshes into the inside.

Lewis Howes 59:56 That can't be good for you, is it?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 59:58 Well, that's where all the CTE in football stuff is the issue is-

Lewis Howes 1:00:00 And-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:01 ... it's the sudden stops, repeated sudden stops with the brain sloshing and hitting the inside surface of your skull.

Lewis Howes 1:00:07 That can't be good, can it?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:09 Well, people are pretty, people get by, but they, we're seeing that if you do it too much-

Lewis Howes 1:00:13 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:13 ... especially with kids and NFL people, but, so you got it open. Then there's a little, it's size, size of a deck of a card. It's got little 96 or different electrodes on it. You put the deck of the card on the naked brain. You take those wires. You pop them out with little needles through the back almost like, like-

Lewis Howes 1:00:29 That's crazy

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:29 ... yeah. And then you put the bone back on, and you stitch up the scalp, and then you put some numbing medicine, and you, you put, put on a head wrap, and they hang out in the hospital. For weeks, 'cause you're waiting for the seizure to happen

Lewis Howes 1:00:41 You, so you've got a pad on the brain

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:43 A grid, so when the seizure sparks, we can see, uh, it was, it was like in-

Lewis Howes 1:00:46 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:46 ... Connect Four or Battles- Battlezax

Lewis Howes 1:00:48 Right [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:48 What's that board game?

Lewis Howes 1:00:49 [laughs] Battleship?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:50 Battleship.

Lewis Howes 1:00:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:51 Yeah, it's in, it's in two-

Lewis Howes 1:00:52 You know where it's at

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:52 ... yeah, you know where it's at

Lewis Howes 1:00:53 2-6

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:54 'Cause that way, you know where you're gonna dissect

Lewis Howes 1:00:56 So there's this, there's a mesh, uh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:58 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:00:59 ... pad-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:00:59 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:00:59 ... electromagnetic pad or something that can track-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:02 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:01:02 ... with wires that are-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:03 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:01:03 ... coming out of the back of this, this-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:05 Connected to the monitor, uh-

Lewis Howes 1:01:06 That are connected to the monitor at all times

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:08 Yeah. Mm-hmm. And they're there for a couple weeks.

Lewis Howes 1:01:09 [laughs] It's insanity.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:11 'Cause they're, and they're functional

Lewis Howes 1:01:12 And they're functional. They're happy, they're fine. They're like-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:13 Like us. Let's-

Lewis Howes 1:01:14 ... hanging out, let's get-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:15 Yeah. Playing ice cream

Lewis Howes 1:01:15 ... some ice cream, play some video games, watch some TV.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:18 So what happened was a bunch of the PhD-

Lewis Howes 1:01:19 The wires coming out of their necks.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:20 Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, uh, the scalp, yeah. But-

Lewis Howes 1:01:22 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:23 ... we have things, people, you know, you'd be surprised what, what we can-

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 You wrapped it up and what have you

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:27 ... what kind of devices we put in and dangle from people.

Lewis Howes 1:01:29 That's crazy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:30 You know from broken legs-

Lewis Howes 1:01:31 Of course

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:31 ... they come up with those little metal grids, and they move around.

Lewis Howes 1:01:34 So, so then after a few weeks, you, you wait till a seizure happens.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:38 Mm-hmm. And then we know where, under that grid, where it, where it sparked. We found the epicenter.

Lewis Howes 1:01:43 And then from that, you track the data. You have the recording of the data, and then you can go in and then-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:48 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:01:48 ... what? Tweak it, or you-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:49 Remove that little part

Lewis Howes 1:01:50 ... remove... That's, and then they're done. They don't have seizures anymore.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:53 Sometimes.

Lewis Howes 1:01:54 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:01:54 Or they're reduced. Now, here is something that's more interesting for, for you and your audience. Well, that's a boring couple of weeks. So a bunch of-

Lewis Howes 1:02:01 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:01 ... cognitive science students and brain students and all, they come in, and they started hanging out with them. And they said, "Hey, can we go through these lessons of paced breathing and meditative breathing?"

Lewis Howes 1:02:13 Uh-huh. Can we do this-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:14 Now-

Lewis Howes 1:02:14 ... without removing it? Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:16 Well, w- completely unrelated to the clinical work-

Lewis Howes 1:02:19 Uh-huh, uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:19 ... well, we're hanging. I've got a direct feed of the true electricity-

Lewis Howes 1:02:23 Ooh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:23 ... from the surface of your naked brain.

Lewis Howes 1:02:24 While they're, while they're breathing.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:25 Yeah. Let's... While they're sitting there. So they do something new with them. They teach them meditative breathing.

Lewis Howes 1:02:31 Come on.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:31 It's-

Lewis Howes 1:02:32 What is, what is, what are you seeing on the, the brain activity recordings?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:36 The same thing that we see when we give Valium, which is an anxiolytic. Their anxiety level goes down. Their electricity goes from fast to medium. Remember we started this?

Lewis Howes 1:02:46 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:46 And we're talking about athletes not wanting to be in fast-

Lewis Howes 1:02:49 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:02:50 ... wanting to be in the flow state. Meditative breathing led to direct changes in the electricity of their brain as measured not with a sticker on the forehead, but with a grid on the surface of the naked brain. It's true-

Lewis Howes 1:03:03 On the brain

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:03:05 ... it's true measurable changes in the electricity, therefore the mind. So meditative breathing that for thousands of years people have said can help you chill out, he- is an anxiolytic and break anxiety, well, we have proof of that now. And I think that's important for people to know, that it's not just some, you know, it's just not a concept that's being thrown around too casually, that through awake, um, direct electrophysiologic recording of seizure planning surgery at elite centers, uh, while looking for the seizures, there's a lot of data coming out about l- let's play video games, let's do meditative breathing, let's read.

Lewis Howes 1:03:44 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:03:45 And then what changes? And so that's what I love, in book one that I shared, was that's raw data. That's real data, and there's an explanation behind how that happens. And so what I would say to people is that's something you have that's free, 'cause I'm not selling anything.

Lewis Howes 1:04:01 Well, breathing.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:02 And the pace of breathing, and it's-

Lewis Howes 1:04:05 What's the pace that works best? I mean, there's lots of different techniques of meditative breathing.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:10 So they found, you know, it, it doesn't ma- You know, people say through your nose or mouth, and that's kind of the confusing stuff that's out there. Well, the nose and the mouth connect before they get to the trachea, and it goes to your lungs. So it doesn't matter how, but it's about slowing the cadence and making the cadence more methodical. A deep brea- you know, deep breath in and a deep breath out. It's no different than what we do in surgery when you feel the case getting a little out of your control.

Lewis Howes 1:04:35 What do you do?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:36 Well, I, I, first, the first thing is I just slow my breathing down, and that doesn't mean the solution will arise, but I know that puts me in my most calm-

Lewis Howes 1:04:47 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:47 ... and focused state to find the solution for the problem in front of me.

Lewis Howes 1:04:51 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:51 And likely, that's what athletes that thrive do as well.

Lewis Howes 1:04:54 You don't want your brain surgeon being like [panting] .

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:56 Well [laughs] exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:04:57 Like-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:58 But that's what stress does. It makes you-

Lewis Howes 1:04:59 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:04:59 ... hyperventilate, right?

Lewis Howes 1:05:00 Absolutely.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:00 But if you j- that's, that's a great point. If you just hyperventilate just 'cause you're just doing it as just whatever, for whatever reason, you get physically jittery.

Lewis Howes 1:05:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:09 You will give yourself anxiety by just doing that.

Lewis Howes 1:05:13 Yeah, I felt that just for a second. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:14 Well, I'm, I'm showing you the proof on the other side. Do the opposite of hyperventilation, and you'll make yourself less frenetic. Will that solve your relationship problems?

Lewis Howes 1:05:23 No. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:23 I'm not sure. Will that make you not wanna get in a fight with your boss? I'm not sure, but you should know that that puts you at your most in command of your emotions-

Lewis Howes 1:05:32 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:32 ... your emotional regulation. That's a great, great question from you.

Lewis Howes 1:05:35 Gosh, the emotional regulation, it sounds like a big part of the, the, the health or the lack of health of our brain-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:43 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:05:43 ... and our bodies is what I'm hearing you say. The emotional regulation is at the center of our potential, let's call it sprouting of healthy, uh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:05:54 Connections

Lewis Howes 1:05:54 ... brain activity and connections and also healthy cells throughout the body and organs. Or a lack of emotional regulation could potentially damage the brain activity or could have it so up and down as opposed to a calmer activity, and the body as well, to create potentially more, I don't wanna call it cancerous cells, but-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:18 You wear yourself out-

Lewis Howes 1:06:19 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:19 ... if you let the emotions run too high.

Lewis Howes 1:06:20 Exhaustion, stress-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:21 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:06:21 ... anxiety, depression, all these different things.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:23 Yeah. You wear yourself out.

Lewis Howes 1:06:24 What I'm hearing you say is emotional regulation is at the core of these things.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:27 I think so.

Lewis Howes 1:06:28 And-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:29 And it's the rarest skill to cultivate and the most important one, and it's in your control.

Lewis Howes 1:06:34 And-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:35 But it's not easy

Lewis Howes 1:06:36 ... it's not easy. It's taken me a long time to learn this process

Lewis Howes 1:06:40 So we've got thoughts. Do thoughts come from the brain or from the mind?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:46 [laughs] That question, that, that's a deep question. Um...

Lewis Howes 1:06:51 And, and is the mind... But the mind is only activated when the brain is activated, right?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:06:56 It's like saying does a roar come from the person in the stadium, you know, or is its own thing? You, you'd need the neurons to, to roar-

Lewis Howes 1:07:09 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:07:09 ... to connect with electricity to have the mind. The mind is that roar outside of the sta- of the stadium. Interestingly, [laughs] they tried to... They did this experiment again with direct, like, if... I need some, I need hard science.

Lewis Howes 1:07:21 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:07:21 I don't want s- I don't want fluffy language. Somebody says, "In the next five minutes decide what to, decide on your own, at your own, whenever you want, that you're gonna move, you're gonna grab this coffee cup."

Lewis Howes 1:07:31 Uh-huh. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:07:32 And then they're measuring me. The electricity pops before I report wanting to move this coffee cup.

Lewis Howes 1:07:41 What do you mean?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:07:42 Meaning that, that the electricity happens before-

Lewis Howes 1:07:47 You make a move

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:07:47 ... uh, before I think I'm ready to make a move. You know, the ambition comes from the electricity. It's not like, "I'm gonna grab this coffee cup," and then electricity. It's the electricity, "I think I'm gonna grab this coffee cup."

Lewis Howes 1:08:01 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:02 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:02 So this is something you can-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:03 That I can... Yeah, it comes first

Lewis Howes 1:08:04 ... You can, you've scanned this. You've seen this.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:06 More than scan, right? 'Cause a lot of brain scans going on these days.

Lewis Howes 1:08:09 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:10 Everybody in a car accident with a headache is getting a brain scan. I'm talking about direct electrical measurements.

Lewis Howes 1:08:16 You mean with, on the brain. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:18 Yeah. So the-

Lewis Howes 1:08:19 So, so, so electricity-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:20 ... the electricity is the thought.

Lewis Howes 1:08:21 So before I move my hand to grab this coffee cup, there's an electrical-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:26 I can measure, I can measure a little fl- like your light bulb-

Lewis Howes 1:08:29 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:29 ... I can measure something before, without you telling me when.

Lewis Howes 1:08:32 So-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:33 So, so if you-

Lewis Howes 1:08:33 ... so you can tell me when I'm gonna move for it based on the elec-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:37 Well, I can tell you when electricity changes. I can't tell you your intentions. I can't read your mind.

Lewis Howes 1:08:41 Gotcha.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:41 But the electricity pops before you actually think, "I'm having a thought." The electricity is you having the thought now.

Lewis Howes 1:08:48 [laughs] What does that mean?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:49 I don't know.

Lewis Howes 1:08:49 That's crazy.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:08:50 [laughs] But that's measurement that we can, we can, we can, uh, you know, it's, uh... That's why it's fascinating, the intersec- You know, let me tell you something about this, man.

Lewis Howes 1:08:58 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:09:00 The electric... We are electrical beings.

Lewis Howes 1:09:05 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:09:05 Like eels and... Right? You can... The nerves to your legs, you can put electrode in there. You know, we're, we're electric. Um, we're flesh. We have chemistry, right? Electrochemistry. There's a, there's a battery. Um, and you separate these little ions and... What's a, what's a battery? We are batteries. Our, those neurons are essentially batteries. They're things that are separated that currents can run through. And people say, "Oh, man, that sounds so..." I know. I say, "I know. We're measuring it." Seizures are aberrant electrical activity without any changes in brain anatomy. I'm trying to get people out of flesh, people out of being wired to electrical flows. And then think about this. In a bipolar disorder when you can be really manic or really depressed, the treatment is an ion, lithium. It's on the-

Lewis Howes 1:09:57 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:09:58 It's, it's-

Lewis Howes 1:09:59 For bipolar?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:09:59 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:10:00 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:01 And for decades. It's on the periodic ta- uh, table next to all the other ones, like hydrogen and... It's an ion. It's, it's stardust. Stardust.

Lewis Howes 1:10:11 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:11 Lithium. It's cheap.

Lewis Howes 1:10:13 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:14 It's a pill, and it can bring down your mania, and it can lift your depression.

Lewis Howes 1:10:19 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:20 So there are... I'm seeing-

Lewis Howes 1:10:21 Oh my gosh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:21 ... a lot of different things that point to, uh, that we are electrical flows.

Lewis Howes 1:10:26 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:26 Our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, and behaviors. 'Cause that's what we're talking about today, right? Like, the bigger stuff. Um, not how do I move an arm or how do I move a leg.

Lewis Howes 1:10:34 Right, right, right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:35 And again, um, if you see, if you see your thoughts as billowing through your skull, um, if you see them moving like aurora borealis, like a school of fish or birds-

Lewis Howes 1:10:47 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:48 ... that, that leaves us with potential that, uh, we can think differently, we can feel differently-

Lewis Howes 1:10:54 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:10:54 ... uh, that we can transform. That, that takeaway is for you to make, but I'm trying to give you a lot of evidence that the world of neuroscience is starting to see things that way-

Lewis Howes 1:11:06 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:06 ... um, and not about gears or wires.

Lewis Howes 1:11:09 So how do we train our brains and our minds to live a more abundant life?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:16 You know, everybody's got their own drive. I mean, I've got people who don't like to be on lithium, 'cause they think they're more creative when they're manic, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:11:21 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:21 So I'm not... I can't... I don't judge. Um, I inform.

Lewis Howes 1:11:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:27 It's ev- up to people what they wanna do. But if you-

Lewis Howes 1:11:29 I guess abundant and peaceful, loving life, you know?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:32 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:11:32 Just, like, all that.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:32 Well, I mean, I... If that's your ambition, I think you would, you know... Because it isn't for some.

Lewis Howes 1:11:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:38 Actually they want a wild life, or they wanna-

Lewis Howes 1:11:40 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:11:40 ... you know, they're, you know, they take risks or they climb mountains or they like the thrill, you know? It, I don't, uh... That's up to you, but to optimize brain function, y- I think, whichever direction you wanna steer it, is to first look at the flesh, 'cause it is flesh. And so keeping the arteries open and irrigating that garden, that flesh, is important.

Lewis Howes 1:12:03 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:03 So things good for your heart keep the arteries open in your brain. You know, you want blood flow going. You want water going to your garden. That's easy enough.

Lewis Howes 1:12:10 And you get that through how?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:12 Uh, the same things that, uh, keep your heart arteries open.

Lewis Howes 1:12:15 Exercise.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:16 So, uh, exercise has double benefit. But yeah, but, you know, you're c- if you're my age, 49, cholesterol pills. You know, you gotta keep the plumbing open.

Lewis Howes 1:12:22 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:23 Exercise, eating right, keeping your cholesterol down, all those things they tell you so you don't get a heart attack, well, keeping those arteries open on the surface of your heart also keep these arteries open to the, into the, into the garden of your brain. So that's easy for people to get. Like, okay, heart health is good for brain health. Well, heart health is good for brain flesh.

Lewis Howes 1:12:42 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:42 But we are more than flesh, right?

Lewis Howes 1:12:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:44 And so then you have to leave the world of, of heart behind. Um, and come more into sort of the mind. Then there's-

Lewis Howes 1:12:53 Thinking

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:54 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:12:54 Thoughts. Not just brain health-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:56 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:12:56 ... but thinking health.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:12:57 Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Exactly. Uh, 'cause it's not a pump, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:13:01 Right, it's thought health. Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:13:03 Yeah, I like that. And now, before we get to the electricity up here that we've touched on a lot, and we've talked about now heart health is good for brain flesh health-

Lewis Howes 1:13:12 Yes

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:13:12 ... there's something in between that we haven't touched, and that's the chem- that there are chemicals, neurotransmitters, often used, I hate the word, you know, but dop- oh, it's a dopamine hit, it's not that simple. Um, so now there's chemicals there, too. So in this garden, the piece that I didn't tell you about, is that those 100 billion neurons, when they are trying to branch with each other, when successful, um, they never actually touch. There's always gonna be a gap. And in that gap, they spray chemicals at each other. So you have electricity coming down this neuron, and to get across this cleft to the other neuron, it sprays dopamine, it sprays serotonin, it sprays other things, GABA. And so you are electrochemical, and that's why things like Prozac, as an antidepressant-

Lewis Howes 1:14:00 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:00 ... is out there. Um, that's where lithium works. You can change the global electrical pattern and flows of your brain by modifying the chemistry in those little clefts.

Lewis Howes 1:14:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:12 So we're gonna give you a specific example. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. A lot of people are on antidepressants. When serotonin is sprayed, the reuptake inhibitor is a little vacuum, and it doesn't clear the cleft of serotonin as m- you're messing with the vacuum, so there's more serotonin in the cleft-

Lewis Howes 1:14:31 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:31 ... that tends to work as an antidepressant. So-

Lewis Howes 1:14:34 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:34 ... chemicals have to be thought about also. There's the flesh, there's the chemistry, and then there's the electricity. What seems to help everything, uh, and people aren't gonna like this answer, but it is, is, uh, exercise. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:14:48 Right. Yeah, of course.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:49 And exercise on, um, uh, i- in a way where you're also thinking. There are these cool things, like they had of people running on a treadmill and, and, dodging wild game-

Lewis Howes 1:14:59 Oh, wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:14:59 ... as, like, a video. Like, thought, you know, thought and movement together, uh, i- is the-

Lewis Howes 1:15:06 So, like, a, I mean, like, a racket sport where you're like-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:15:09 ... hand-eye coordination, you have to move, ping pong-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:11 Pickleball

Lewis Howes 1:15:11 ... tennis. Pickleball's amaz- I just started playing last year.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:14 [laughs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:15:15 I've only played, like, five times.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:16 Love it.

Lewis Howes 1:15:16 But I'm like, this is an incredible sport.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:18 I played with my sons, we were dropping them off in San Francisco-

Lewis Howes 1:15:20 Dude

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:20 ... for Berkeley, and we, they got in, I hadn't played.

Lewis Howes 1:15:23 Dude.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:23 And my, my sons were like-

Lewis Howes 1:15:24 It's fun

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:24 ... "This is why, Dad, you don't play board games with us, [laughs] or sports with us, 'cause you're insanely competitive."

Lewis Howes 1:15:30 Oh, man. [laughs] Yeah, yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:32 I always just, they're like-

Lewis Howes 1:15:32 Dude

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:33 ... "Okay, Dad, it's, it's funny."

Lewis Howes 1:15:34 It's a fun game. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:35 But so w- but that's powerful, right?

Lewis Howes 1:15:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:38 Because people sitting at home don't wanna hear, "Man, get on your treadmill. Get active, get engaged."

Lewis Howes 1:15:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:44 "Go out and do stuff."

Lewis Howes 1:15:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:46 Board games, moving, thought. So th- the, the thought cultivation is really important, so-

Lewis Howes 1:15:51 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:15:51 ... uh, brain, uh, you know, the keeping the flesh going. But once you get out of thinking just about the flesh, it's about engagement, it's about stimulation, it's about, you know, the results don't happen the next day, it's a life pattern-

Lewis Howes 1:16:05 Mm, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:16:05 ... right? It's not knowing how to play the violin, but trying to learn how to play the violin. It's not, you don't have to learn the sec- next language.

Lewis Howes 1:16:11 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:16:12 Just gotta try, just gotta try to pull from all the corners of that garden as a habit. I'm not saying 100, I'm not saying all day every day. But that, nobody told us those habits should also be introduced.

Lewis Howes 1:16:26 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:16:26 Nobody told us that cultivate our thought is something kids should learn, something we should have dedicated time to. We learn, learn a lot about heart health, you know? And now it's time to get onto brain and mind health-

Lewis Howes 1:16:37 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:16:38 ... especially with the pandemic, especially with, with other things that are going on, is that, so I think, um, when I was in medical school, it was just heart, heart, heart all the time, right? And in fact, heart surgery, uh, was one of the most, the second most competitive, along with brain surgery.

Lewis Howes 1:16:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:16:54 In the last three decades, as they've gotten better with catheters and stents, and the pills have been better, heart surgeons have significantly been reduced, because there isn't the need for it. And I think when you look at the dent that has been made in cardiac health through a couple of decades of messaging and-

Lewis Howes 1:17:15 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:15 ... I mean, you go in there, they check your blood pressure, they check all this stuff for your heart, but nobody asks you how you're doing. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:17:20 Right, the emotional-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:22 Right

Lewis Howes 1:17:22 ... therapeutic side of things.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:23 Mind health.

Lewis Howes 1:17:24 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:25 And so-

Lewis Howes 1:17:25 So our emotions is mind health.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:28 Well, I think it depends. So some people, l- let's stay with that for a second.

Lewis Howes 1:17:32 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:32 Because for some people, the lack of emotional regulation is leading them to suffer or not have the mind health they want.

Lewis Howes 1:17:39 But they're feeling it in their body, the emotion. When you think about-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:41 Oh, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:17:41 ... emotions, you feel like in the body, it's-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:42 And that book will continue to do well, The Body Keeps Score.

Lewis Howes 1:17:45 Oh, my-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:45 It's a clever title, too

Lewis Howes 1:17:45 ... it's amazing book.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:46 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:17:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:47 It's, it's, especially in these times.

Lewis Howes 1:17:49 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:49 It's number two on the bestseller list in New Y- I mean, New York Times Bestseller list. But-

Lewis Howes 1:17:52 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:17:53 ... but that, that space is true, but there's also other people whose mind health is a l- a lack of focus or attention. Like, they feel good, they just can't get the words out.

Lewis Howes 1:18:00 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:00 And so my cancer patients that have chemo, um, they can sometimes develop chemo fog, and there's things like, you know, COVID brain fog.

Lewis Howes 1:18:08 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:09 So, so yes, mind health and emotional regulation likely the, the most important thing. But also other things like concentration and attention, uh, is, is all under the umbrella of mind health.

Lewis Howes 1:18:21 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:22 So, like, if I had a, attention coach when I was younger, I could have done better in school. I see my boys, my, one of them, I'm just like, "You, you're the sharpest, you're the sharpest tool in the shed. You just can't l- you know, look at a problem for longer than 20 seconds."

Lewis Howes 1:18:35 Right, [laughs] then you're distracted.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:36 So, so stay in the, stay in the striking distance. When that naturally comes to you in your 20s-

Lewis Howes 1:18:41 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:41 ... you're gonna be the boss, man.

Lewis Howes 1:18:43 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:18:43 And so, uh, realizing attention and focus is one part of mind health. Realizing emotional regulation is one part of mind health. Uh, realizing that if they eat a certain way, uh, and you teach them to eat a certain way, there is a, there is a proven mind diet. It's Mediterranean, mostly plants-

Lewis Howes 1:19:00 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:19:00 ... fish. If you put these habits in them now- Think about where they will be at age 49, having the tools-

Lewis Howes 1:19:09 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:19:09 ... some of the tricks, uh, having had the diet that h- has preserved their flesh the best, likely to have staved off dementia a little bit. Like, those things we do now, as a less- in my opinion, as a lesson for the pande- let's not wait to see how this pandemic has just rocked the kids' minds.

Lewis Howes 1:19:29 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:19:30 Let's put this stuff in now. Let's front-load this, and get in fr- and, and then let them develop and see how this, how this generation happens, um, after this, you know, cataclysmic event.

Lewis Howes 1:19:41 As a parent of three boys, what-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:19:44 Big boys

Lewis Howes 1:19:44 ... a- and after all the information you've learned, personally from life experience, but also as a surgeon, neuro, uh, brain surgeon and neuroscientist, if you could only share three pieces of wisdom for-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:19:57 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:19:57 ... parents today to raise their kids to have opt... an optimal life-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:02 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:20:03 ... what would you say were the three things you, three things they should do?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:06 Uh, the, the answers I give, I wanna back it with-

Lewis Howes 1:20:09 Sure

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:09 ... the, the, the... Even now, saying the science is, um, doesn't mean as much as it used to, but-

Lewis Howes 1:20:15 The science is fluid.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:20:16 It's, like, always evolving and changing.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:18 Right. I wanna back it with an explanation-

Lewis Howes 1:20:20 Okay

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:20 ... that you can understand, and, uh, take home, and, and grasp. Um, the third thing is just what we talked about. I'd love to equip them with mind health tools.

Lewis Howes 1:20:31 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:32 Um, so that would be a certain type of diet. Good food. I'm not talking about being skinny or fat or f- heavy or obese or, or, or underw- I'm not talking about any of those things. The things you eat, regardless of your weight, um, can help preserve the flesh of your brain, and that's the Mediterranean diet. So I would have added salmon a couple of times, and if you're vegan, um-

Lewis Howes 1:20:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:20:57 ... you, you could, there are vegetables that add that, that sort of omega-3s in there.

Lewis Howes 1:21:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:01 I would have said, "Look, this has to be a part of what you eat, even if you're eating french fries every day."

Lewis Howes 1:21:05 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:05 I'm not telling you what not to eat.

Lewis Howes 1:21:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:07 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:21:08 But make sure you have this at least.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:09 This, yeah, this vitamin. It's nature's true vitamin-

Lewis Howes 1:21:12 All right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:12 ... for your brain. I would have taught them that and the, and, and sort of the emotional coping skills. Um, and then we've gone over why that's important. But for these things to work, they're a multi-decade, they're a glacial process.

Lewis Howes 1:21:26 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:27 It's not, "Can w- what can we take tomorrow? Can I take this pill and it'll fix everything?" If there was one, I'd be taking it. I'd share it with you.

Lewis Howes 1:21:33 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:33 I'm not against it, actually. I just, there isn't one. And when you think of the brain and the ways we've tried to conceptualize them today, you can imagine one pill ain't gonna fix all of that.

Lewis Howes 1:21:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:21:42 Um, the other thing that I find interesting is, when they're born, they actually have more neurons than they hold onto, and that was one... You know when you said in surgery, like, there was an aha moment, and I was like, "Can you do that?" Well, in neuroscience, there was this one aha moment for me. It's like, they have more of those neurons, those jellyfish, when they're young than when they're older? So you're born with the biggest block of marble-

Lewis Howes 1:22:11 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:22:12 ... and you shave, you shave off what you don't use, 'cause the brain is a energy hog, right? So it wants to be efficient. So if you see that there will be a pruning of the diversity of neurons-

Lewis Howes 1:22:25 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:22:26 ... and then certain things will be, have better connections, and, and re-... and stay in there, if you know there's a, a culling coming for, for the diversity of neurons, the, the most broad types of neurons, um, I think it's important to let them have the most broad types of life experiences so they hold onto those as they get older, and then they can choose what they wanna do and shave off a few they ain't using anymore, right?

Lewis Howes 1:22:53 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:22:53 So that, it's called pruning.

Lewis Howes 1:22:55 Huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:22:55 Um-

Lewis Howes 1:22:56 Okay

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:22:56 ... the human brain i- in kids will go through pruning. And people are like, "What does that mean?" Well, you know, we're born and we can't walk, and then we learn to walk, so some changes are going on.

Lewis Howes 1:23:05 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:06 Well, the changes are also going on up here. You're born with a lot and you're shaving certain things down. Diversity of experiences, I think, are, are very important. So I took them traveling with me all around the world, like, each of them, eight trips to, eight trips around the world each.

Lewis Howes 1:23:22 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:23 Um, and that's when we did all our vibing, bonding, talking, hanging. Of course, took them to all the practices and games and stuff like that-

Lewis Howes 1:23:30 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:30 ... you know, but the diversity of experiences was important to me.

Lewis Howes 1:23:34 That helps.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:34 And that could be with grandma, who cookies-

Lewis Howes 1:23:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:36 ... different cookies. I'm not... It doesn't, it doesn't have to be all international.

Lewis Howes 1:23:38 That helps prune the brain and optimize the brain.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:40 Yeah. So that helps. Um, a diversity of experiences will keep, will let them have the, the widest repertoire of neurons.

Lewis Howes 1:23:50 As opposed to what? Limiting their experiences-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:23:52 ... one to one?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:23:52 Because then the brain will shave off the stuff it doesn't do. If you, if you tie one hand behind the back, certain neurons will s- will, will fall away. So-

Lewis Howes 1:24:02 We wanna keep those neurons as long as we can

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:04 ... and that's my second point. I got a buddy who's an Olympian in, uh, in, um, uh, in England. He's a deca- uh, pentathlete.

Lewis Howes 1:24:11 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:12 Greg White. And he, he made a great point. He's, uh-

Lewis Howes 1:24:14 I was a decathlete in college.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:15 Oh, were you?

Lewis Howes 1:24:16 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:16 [laughs] It's just fascinating to see.

Lewis Howes 1:24:18 It's, uh, it was amazing, man. It's a great experience.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:19 I like the... I'm, I've always tried to be sort of a, a decathlete in life.

Lewis Howes 1:24:23 In life? Me too, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:24 Yeah, I wanna be, I wanna enjoy... It's not that I wanna be good at a lot of different things. I wanna, I wanna see what it looks like-

Lewis Howes 1:24:30 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:30 ... when you get to be good at something-

Lewis Howes 1:24:31 Yeah, exactly

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:31 ... 'cause you get into different worlds, like this one, right? But, uh, the other thing is that, um, proprioception, which should be cultivated in my mind, which is the knowing your arm is up or down. And so Greg and I, we talked about it. It would be fun for... Everybody should play, as much as to their capacity, because I know people have children with intellectual, physical disabilities. But similarly, getting them physically is teaching them how to do somersaults-

Lewis Howes 1:24:58 Mm, mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:24:58 ... putting them in a... Not that they're gonna be gymnasts, but-

Lewis Howes 1:25:01 Handstands and backflips and, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:03 ... uh, but some sort of sporting... They call it sporting over there, like, you know- ... exposure

Lewis Howes 1:25:09 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:09 So they're fully coordinated with their bodies. I think that's an important... Whether that translates to less falls as Grandma, when they become grandparents, I don't know. But the, the full integration of, of brain to physical coordination, I think would be an interesting one. You know, using the mouse with their left hand, using the fork with their left hand. Forcing-

Lewis Howes 1:25:32 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:32 ... forcing those, uh, those neurons to stay relevant, right?

Lewis Howes 1:25:35 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:36 So that's, uh, in experiences, and that's, that... Number two, I would say movement. And then number three is, uh, you know, what we talked about, is teaching them what should be eaten. I, I think-

Lewis Howes 1:25:46 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:46 ... it's easy to say... I had this conversation with one of my sons the other day. I was like, "Um, try to eat this, regardless of what else you eat."

Lewis Howes 1:25:54 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:25:55 Um, because there are things in, in fatty fish, certain vegetables, and plants, um, that's separate from the junk food, separate from all the other bad stuff you might eat, or good... I mean, it's delicious, man, happiness is born. I, I eat some, I eat some junk food, but I have tried hard since I learned about this to-

Lewis Howes 1:26:14 To be on the Mediterranean diet.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:26:16 Yeah, or to add, to add plants and omega-3s-

Lewis Howes 1:26:19 Ah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:26:19 ... however you wanna do that.

Lewis Howes 1:26:21 Ah. Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:26:21 Um, as a... Not to lose weight, not, not for all of that, but to preserve the flesh of my brain. So I think, you know, um, diversity experiences to keep your, your neurons around. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:26:36 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:26:36 ... lots of movement and coordination training to keep, uh, to keep those neurons engaged. And then, um, um, eat plants-

Lewis Howes 1:26:46 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:26:47 ... to keep the flesh going.

Lewis Howes 1:26:49 What do you feel like is, uh... I, I've heard from one, I've heard from different neuroscientists that, tell me if this is accurate, that the bigger your body gets, or more obese it gets, the smaller your brain becomes. It shrinks the brain, or there's a correlation there with obesity and brain size. Is that accurate?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:10 I haven't heard of that.

Lewis Howes 1:27:11 Okay.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:11 And just on a regular level, I operate on patients who are obese, and when I open their skull, it... They're fine.

Lewis Howes 1:27:17 There's-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:17 There, there's not, "Oh."

Lewis Howes 1:27:18 Gotcha.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:19 I haven't seen that.

Lewis Howes 1:27:20 You haven't seen smaller or bigger?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:21 Yeah. And actually, that's, that can be, you know... I have seen withered brains work perfectly.

Lewis Howes 1:27:27 Really?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:28 And I have seen juicy brains have issues with epilepsy or autism.

Lewis Howes 1:27:34 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:34 So, the flesh is the starting point.

Lewis Howes 1:27:37 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:38 But it's, it's the mind and the function that drives it, right?

Lewis Howes 1:27:41 Gosh, that's so fascinating.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:42 So trying to go f-... You know, if you're heavy, then your brain is smaller. Brain's smaller, bigger, this spot, that spot, uh, hardwired, not hardwired, I'm geared for this.

Lewis Howes 1:27:51 Right.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:51 I just-

Lewis Howes 1:27:52 But if you have a perfect-looking, juicy brain, let's say, right? That you're like, "Wow, that's a beautiful-looking... It looks healthy."

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:27:57 And that's what epilepsy is. Most people, it's just beautiful-looking brain. But the electricity that it's sparking is off, and sometimes they pass out, sometimes they smell certain things.

Lewis Howes 1:28:07 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:08 Sometimes they have visions. But it's all from the electricity, right? Like, that's a real, live example.

Lewis Howes 1:28:12 Gotcha.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:13 I mean, there's stuff-

Lewis Howes 1:28:13 That can-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:13 ... about there, like, uh, authors and writers-

Lewis Howes 1:28:16 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:16 ... that in their s- before having the seizures, when they felt most connected to God. So that's an electrical thing. Their brain MRI looks the same as this brain MRI.

Lewis Howes 1:28:24 I love those three pieces of advice you'd give to parents, which is physical, optimizing the phyla- physical body with coordination-type activities and, and doing that. And the second one, diversity of experiences in life.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:37 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:28:37 Just providing a range of opportunities to experience life, uh, at its fullest. And then nutrition, there for mind health. Mind health tools, including-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:28:46 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:28:46 ... nutrition, emot- emotional coping skills, and emotional regulation skills. Um, God, I feel like I could go for a few more hours with you. This stuff's fascinating to me.

Lewis Howes 1:28:57 What do you feel like you're gonna be shocked to learn over the next five years as a surgeon and a neuroscientist?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:07 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:29:07 With the capabilities of where you see the brain, mind connect- emotional connection heading.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:15 The thing that has fascinated me l- recently, um, a bit out of my wheelhouse, because it doesn't require a surgeon, which is good. I'd love for my career to be obsolete.

Lewis Howes 1:29:27 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:27 You know, if we can help people, um, without having to cut them open, that's-

Lewis Howes 1:29:32 Right. Prevention, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:34 Or non-invasive treatments. Like-

Lewis Howes 1:29:37 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:37 ... I'm, I'm trying to invent those. I'm trying to make myself obsolete.

Lewis Howes 1:29:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:29:42 But right now, the stuff that, some of the stuff, you know, the patients are... They come looking for, for surgeons. I, I don't do the type of surgery where I try to, uh, offer you improved something. People come to me with a scan or a feeling. They say, "Can you help me?" And I have to decide if I can, and I guide them through that. So I, I, I enjoy my craft, but I also want there to be a time when opening a skull is no longer needed.

Lewis Howes 1:30:07 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:30:07 That said, um, NPR did... Uh, so out of Stanford or Karolinska, I'm not sure, but, uh, I love the way science communicates. You can see the, you can see the work. But the, uh, transcranial... S- and again, I, these words can be easily manipulated, so I'm trying to give you the explanation.

Lewis Howes 1:30:29 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:30:30 So when you read it when, some other time, you could say, "Wait, I remember he was talking about the electricity of the brain." Uh, they have figured out, the thing looks like the size of a camera, and they put it, you know, it's on a frame on the outside of your skull, and they pulse mild electrical currents. Not the sky-high ones from shock therapy, like Jack Nicholson-

Lewis Howes 1:30:54 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:30:54 ... in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but the fact that if you understand that we are electric, the same deep brain stimulation, the little pulse, the heavy pulse of many electrodes, o- of shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, the, that they can do it at a more- They could turn the, the, the, you know, the voltage down

Lewis Howes 1:31:17 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:18 ... and they can direct it more. And recently, in a rigorous journal, they were able to get it down to five most of the day sessions, and they had a 80% reduction in, in refractory depression. So you're depressed, you've taken all the pills, things are difficult-

Lewis Howes 1:31:37 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:37 ... you've considered things-

Lewis Howes 1:31:39 Suicidal thoughts or, yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:40 ... Oh, well, that's, that's an interesting one. Let me get on that one though for-

Lewis Howes 1:31:42 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:42 ... just for a second. Because when, when people have suicidal thoughts and they, they go into a hospital, they can't wait six weeks for the pills to work, if they work.

Lewis Howes 1:31:50 They need relief now.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:51 Or in five days, like with this kind of little, just the softest shock therapy. The patients report it feels like a, a wood picker.

Lewis Howes 1:31:58 Huh.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:31:59 And so-

Lewis Howes 1:31:59 On the brain

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:00 ... On the brain. It... That's not something a neurosurgeon will do, but to me, that is where things are headed.

Lewis Howes 1:32:06 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:06 I would caution, don't buy the stuff from Amazon with the-

Lewis Howes 1:32:09 Sure. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:09 ... the gizmo... There's always a, there's always a dark-

Lewis Howes 1:32:11 So-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:11 ... side of being manipulated by some of these-

Lewis Howes 1:32:13 So what you're saying is-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:14 ... for sci-fi technologies

Lewis Howes 1:32:15 ... they've already been doing studies on this where 80% reduction on depression.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:19 Yeah. Powerful.

Lewis Howes 1:32:20 From just the electronic shock.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:23 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:32:24 A gentle... For what?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:26 Well, shock therapy is for severe depression.

Lewis Howes 1:32:27 For what, 30 minutes or five minutes? Is this an hour?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:30 It's 10-minute episodes spaced by time over most of the day, but, you know, you gotta spend-

Lewis Howes 1:32:34 Wow

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:34 ... some time. But five days. It's powerful.

Lewis Howes 1:32:38 And then, and then it stays, or it's for a period of time?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:40 It w- Very good question. They've... Some of the patients found it to be durable. Maybe in that time the pills come in. Maybe that time the therapy-

Lewis Howes 1:32:47 Interesting

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:47 ... comes in.

Lewis Howes 1:32:47 Interesting.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:32:48 But the point is, um, and they can do it with magnets too, so be careful o- on YouTube what the magnets can do, but it's electromagnetic, so, uh, um-

Lewis Howes 1:33:00 God, it's fascinating

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:01 ... yeah. And it's not completely in my space. That's why-

Lewis Howes 1:33:03 Right, right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:04 ... I'm also more fascinated.

Lewis Howes 1:33:05 You're not... Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:05 I'm a surgeon. I stimulate the brain. I use electric wands, I put electric pulses. But the whole space of doing it from outside the skull is a non-surgical space, but to me it's very fascinating. It reinforces the concept that our highest levels of thinking, feeling, and emotions are all sort of electrical flows and phenomena.

Lewis Howes 1:33:24 Oh my gosh, this is, this is my jam.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:27 Yeah, man.

Lewis Howes 1:33:27 I love this stuff, man. I'm so excited. [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:28 But there's a lot of room for a m- you know, there's a lot of room for exploitation-

Lewis Howes 1:33:32 Of course

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:32 ... when you use language like that-

Lewis Howes 1:33:33 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:33 ... 'cause it's easier to say gears and wired, but it's not.

Lewis Howes 1:33:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:36 Otherwise, otherwise, you know, Dostoevsky wouldn't report writing his best work pr- the moments preceding his epilepsy, right? That's... You're, you're talking about art and literature.

Lewis Howes 1:33:49 Wow.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:33:49 Otherwise, you wouldn't put a, a little battery un- in the controlled medical sus- s- uh, environment and break depression. And otherwise you wouldn't, you know, be in shock therapy at still some of these centers, and it can be useful, where you, you literally, bzz, you s- you shock the skull and people wake up non-suicidal. Even if it happens once-

Lewis Howes 1:34:12 Right

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:12 ... all three of these things from ancient literature-

Lewis Howes 1:34:15 Uh-huh

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:16 ... and the world of epilepsy to a new study out-

Lewis Howes 1:34:19 To modern science

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:20 ... to m- to modern m- It's... A lot... The theme that connects it all is all juicy brains, but all different people because the electricity that sprouts from those juicy brains.

Lewis Howes 1:34:29 Oh, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:30 Yeah. So that... It's a bit to, to wrap your head around, but that's our current understanding. It'd be easier for me to come in there and say, "You're wired this way. You're wired that way."

Lewis Howes 1:34:39 Ah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:39 "Change your wiring by eating a blueberry." Look, uh, it's just not, it's just not where our understanding is.

Lewis Howes 1:34:45 This is fascinating, man. We're gonna have to have you come back on for part two sometime.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:50 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:34:50 But I wanna ask you a, a couple final questions.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:34:52 Yep.

Lewis Howes 1:34:54 Uh, this is a question... Well, actually, before I do ask you the couple final questions, I want people to check out your work. You've got a new book called Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon's Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival. Um, you got a, a number of books, but people can check out that one. It's the recent one. If they go to your website is... What's your website where they can learn more about it all?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:17 Um, obviously just, I would just, you know, just Google, 'cause you see a s- a lot of different things like that.

Lewis Howes 1:35:22 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:22 You know?

Lewis Howes 1:35:23 Okay.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:23 My, my website isn't really a conduit. But I, I'm, I'm a cancer surgeon at City of Hope.

Lewis Howes 1:35:27 Yes.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:27 And then there's different stuff I've been doing and, and

Lewis Howes 1:35:30 Are you on social media at all?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:31 I am on Instagram actually. That's where I put my, my good stuff.

Lewis Howes 1:35:34 Okay, cool. So we'll follow that. That's Dr.-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:36 @drjandial, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:35:37 ... Jandial. Yes. J-A-N-D-I-A-L. So go check you out over there. Um, and the book's on Amazon and everywhere else, but again, check out the book, Life on a Knife's Edge. This stuff's fascinating, man. I'm, I'm so intrigued by this. I feel like in another w- life I would've been a neuroscientist.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:56 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:35:56 Probably not a surgeon, but a neuroscientist.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:35:59 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:35:59 Um, 'cause I just think... Yeah, surgery for me, that might be a little too much, but I don't know how you do it, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:05 Yeah, appreciate it, man.

Lewis Howes 1:36:05 Every week, it's, that's gotta be intense. But, uh, really fascinating stuff that you've been studying and practicing, and, and I want people to, to get the book and, and learn more about you. Um, how else can we best be supportive of you in what you're up to right now?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:22 I mean, this is, um... I never take it lightly to have a voice and to share my opinions.

Lewis Howes 1:36:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:28 So that, right away, you've, you know, you've already done me a tremendous favor to invite me on your show.

Lewis Howes 1:36:33 So sure.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:34 So we're all good.

Lewis Howes 1:36:35 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:35 Um, and I think, you know, I, I don't, you know, I don't ask for... I- There's nothing I'm selling. I don't have-

Lewis Howes 1:36:45 Yeah

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:46 ... anything like that. But I'm turning 50 this year, and, um, um, you know, my pops and other people I've seen, you know, s- this run ain't forever.

Lewis Howes 1:36:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:36:57 And, um, I think, um, I think I'm just super happy, um, that I'm still, I'm exploring and investigating and tearing myself apart, you know, putting my soul work, uh, in this book.

Lewis Howes 1:37:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:37:13 And, and just to have the opportunity to- Uh, to have that as a component of my life is, I never expected that.

Lewis Howes 1:37:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:37:22 And so by, uh, by being given that opportunity, that's support enough, brother.

Lewis Howes 1:37:28 That's cool, man.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:37:28 Yeah, man.

Lewis Howes 1:37:28 I'm excited. I'm excited for people to get the book. Uh, this question is called the three truths. It's a question I ask everyone at the end of the interviews. Hypothetical scenario. Imagine you live as long as you wanna live, but it's your last day on Earth. You've accomplished everything. You've done the stuff you wanna do. You have happy, healthy life, family, all that stuff. But for whatever reason, you've gotta take all of your message with you to the next place.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:37:53 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:37:53 It's your last day. You gotta turn the lights off. There's no more electricity-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:37:57 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:37:57 ... in the brain, and you move on to the next place. You take all of your work with you, all the message, the content, anything you shared, your lessons, no one has access to anymore. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true, three lessons you would leave with the world, and that's all that we would have to remember you by are these three lessons. What would you say are yours?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:38:16 I think the first one would be that, uh, uh, life is short, but art is long. I never fully understood that, but through the last few years where I've become an author, I've, I realized I can impact a lot of, a lot of people.

Lewis Howes 1:38:33 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:38:33 And that the words in this book and the, the soul work in this book can actually last onward.

Lewis Howes 1:38:40 Yeah. That's cool.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:38:41 Uh, so life is short, but art is long. And, um, having an opportunity to leave a bit of art-

Lewis Howes 1:38:47 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:38:47 ... has been a tremendous opportunity, and that w- that would be a message I would leave the world.

Lewis Howes 1:38:52 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:38:53 Um, the second thing I would say is, uh, it really touched me. I think people think he was being facetious, but Kafka said, I think, uh... And I learned about these, these, you know, these authors and stuff later. I never read... Actually, I didn't read much at all when I was young.

Lewis Howes 1:39:08 [laughs]

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:09 Just rocking out. And then, um, but in the last four or five years of trying to put this, trying to talk about the human brain and mind, you have to bring in artists and literature.

Lewis Howes 1:39:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:19 But he said the, the meaning of life is that it ends.

Lewis Howes 1:39:23 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:23 And my cancer patients have, have shown me that, is, um, when you get that feeling of, um, mortality, that it can be fuel for you, uh, to live.

Lewis Howes 1:39:37 Absolutely.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:37 So, and, um, and the third thing is, um, if you can, um, this one's mo- m- more mine. If you're, if you're fortunate enough to find true love-

Lewis Howes 1:39:48 Mm

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:49 ... um, take care of it so, um, so you don't lose it.

Lewis Howes 1:39:53 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:55 And that's on an interpersonal level between-

Lewis Howes 1:39:57 Of course

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:39:58 ... between friends and lovers and, and parents even, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:40:01 Mm.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:40:02 With their children. That's what I got, baby.

Lewis Howes 1:40:04 Man, uh, I wanna acknowledge you for a moment for putting your message out there in a way that we can understand it.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:40:12 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:40:12 'Cause I think it's, it's confusing to understand the brain and the mind and the emotions and how it all is connected, and I think people are communicating in a way of rewiring. I've said these things, and it's understanding how do we start to change the language around this and understand the brain and the mind and the emotions and the body and the flesh-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:40:33 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:40:33 ... and the electricity of it all. And so you com- you doing the practical work as a surgeon and a cer- neuroscientist and bringing both fields together to then educate in more simplified ways of something that's extremely complex that we'll probably never fully understand-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:40:49 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:40:49 ... how it all works is, is really helpful. And for me, this has just been really inspiring, so I appreciate and acknowledge your work and your ability to wanna continue to grow as a human-

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:40:58 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:40:58 ... and serve people with your message. It's really inspiring, man. Uh, my final question is what's your definition of greatness?

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:41:05 That elusive goal that no one achieves but keeps us striving for more.

Lewis Howes 1:41:09 My man. [clicks tongue] Thanks, sir.

Dr. Rahul Jandial 1:41:11 We have to change our narrative. We have to forget what the world said about all these scary words and see those as very helpful. It's a complete 90 degree or 360 degree change. Despair, anxiety, shame, thinking I am shame, thinking I have no self-esteem, thinking I can't do this, that's okay.