A Doctor's Prescription For Happiness - Dr Rangan Chatterjee

1. 0:00 – 0:53

   Intro

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      So people at the end of their life, they all pretty much say the same things: "I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me." (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:17

      Rangan Chatterjee, welcome to the show.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:19

      Chris, delighted to be back on.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:21

      Welcome. How is it in the UK? What's happening?

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:24

      It's hot at the moment. It's sunny. I'm, uh, I'm very warm in my studio at the moment, so tha- that's a good thing. You're, you're definitely missing some British sun at the moment. But, um, yeah, life's pretty good, mate, if I'm honest. Life, life feels good a lot of the time these days, and, um, yeah, I gotta say, I feel this kind of level of calmness and contentment that I don't think I've really had before. So, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm feeling in a pretty good place, if I'm honest.

2. 0:53 – 8:23

   Happiness as a Skill

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:53

   2. CWChris Williamson0:53

      You say in your new book that you think happiness is a skill, and it seems like that's been something that you've worked at here as well, right? That calmness is something that you've had to cultivate, it's not something that you've randomly stumbled upon.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:06

      I've not felt this way for most of my life. Absolutely. Um, I don't think I've really thought about happiness in the early part of my life. I, I think like many people, I thought happiness was this kind of vague concept that I knew I wanted, but, like, I didn't know how to get it. I kind of thought, you know, at some point in life when everything goes my way and I've got a smile on my face the whole time, you know, I'll probably be happy. But, you know, as you've, you know, from, from reading the new book, it's, it's not that at all. I think we get happiness wrong. I think society gets happiness wrong, certainly a lot of society. I think society confuses happiness with success. Or we often think that happiness is, it's that billboard image where we see, you know, the smiling couple, uh, on a beach, uh, with their kids and the ocean behind them, and we think that's happiness, and that's our aspirational idea of where I want to get to one day. And I am convinced more and more that happiness is a skill. It's a skill that we can develop. It's a skill that we can get better at. We can practice it every day. And the more we practice it, the happier we feel. And I think fundamentally, especially when we be very clear what we mean by happiness, I think fundamentally that's what every human really wants.

   4. CWChris Williamson2:32

      What do you mean by happiness?

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee2:37

      For me, happiness has three core components: alignment, contentment, and control. And this is the model of core happiness that I've really been working on over the past couple of years, and that I've been writing about. Because a lot of people say things like, "You know, it's not about happiness, it's about meaning and purpose." You know, "It's not happiness, it's joy." "It's not happiness, it's this." And, and I thought, well, okay, you can say the word happiness to 10 different people, and I think they will have 10 different interpretations of what that word means to them. So I thought it's really important at the start of a conversation or a book that you define what you mean. So for me, I have this concept called core happiness, as opposed to something that I call junk happiness. So junk happiness, I think is what we often mistake for real, deep, meaningful happiness. And that's, you know, stuff that we might, you know, have a few beers with our friends, or, um, spend a few hours scrolling Instagram, or going to the casino and gambling. And again, to be really clear, context is everything, because I'm not saying that those things are necessarily good or bad. The problem with those things, I think, is if we do them too often, so too frequently, and if we confuse them and think that that's what's giving us that deep level of happiness, I think that's where we run into problems. So core happiness has these three components, right? Alignment, contentment, and control. So what do I mean by that? Alignment: This is when your inner values and your external actions match up. It's when the person who you really want to be, the person who you actually really are inside, and the person who you actually show up as in the world are one and the same. That's alignment, right? So the more we can become aligned in our life, I'm saying that we're gonna strengthen that alignment leg of this core happiness stool. The second leg is contentment. So contentment is about feeling calm, feeling at peace with your life and your decisions. So what are those things in your life that give you that sense of contentment? And then the third leg is control. Now, uh, now Chris, I thought long and hard before using the word control, because control, again, is another word that can feel problematic to some people, and can be misinterpreted. When I say control, I'm not talking about us controlling the world, right? The world is inherently uncontrollable. I mean, it always has been, but the last (laughs) couple of years have really shown us that, right? No matter what we may want to happen, the world is gonna just keep going the way it wants to keep going, right? So this is about a sense of control, right? What is it that you can do in your life that gives you a sense of control? And, you know, we know from the research, a sense of control is linked with academic success, social maturity, uh, health, longevity, happiness. So I, I designed this concept of happiness to try and... I really wanted to come up with a complete model, but also a practical model, because I do think sometimes we have this vague concept of what these things are, and we can, you know, be philosophical about it and think about these things as ideas.... but my drive to write this book was to help myself and also to help my patients, right? 'Cause there's a strong link between happiness and health, which I think is very much underappreciated in society. It's very much underappreciated in my profession. So I wanted to make something practical that people can, you know, kind of take with them in their back pocket and take around with them in their life and try and figure out, "Oh, this is why this ... Oh, this feeds the contentment leg of the stool. That's why it's helping me w- with my happiness. Oh, when I do this, man, I'm not acting in alignment. That's why afterwards I feel really crap and I can't sleep and I keep replaying that over and over again in my head." And so, I've used this model with people, and most people I've come across who I've, I've talked about s- this model to love it, and they find it a very simple and practical way of helpin- of helping them get more out of their lives.

   6. CWChris Williamson6:59

      I think you're right. When you say happiness to different people, it means different things. And when you've got such a big, ephemeral, diffuse concept, breaking it down into just anything that's more component parts is going to help you to be able to work out what contributes to it. I think that the alignment part is an interesting one because everybody plays different roles and puts different masks on depending on what environment they're in. But after a little while, if you're not careful, you can sometimes lose the distinction between what is the mask and what is you, especially if you've felt like you have to play a particular role for a long time-

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee7:34

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson7:34

      ... maybe being in a relationship that you haven't been particularly happy in, and you've been lying to your partner so much for so long that you don't actually know what you feel about the relationship anymore. Or (clears throat) maybe you've been at work in a job that you feel very unsatisfied in or very, very overly satisfied in, or you want to go somewhere else, whatever it might be. This distinction between persona and personality or real us and fake us, that line begins to get blurred, and I think that's definitely one of the places that I can see ... And that, th- the thing that's real and nefarious about that to do with happiness, it won't impact your happiness straight away. It'll slowly degrade it over time.

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee8:11

      Yeah. Whe- when you're not aligned, for sure, bit by bit, it just, it erodes at the core of who you are, like acid. It just sits there. It just sits there. And the truth is, Chris,

3. 8:23 – 18:08

   Personal Experiences

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee8:24

      like this book is incredibly personal. I have shared stuff in this book about my life, about my insecurities, about my struggles that I would never have shared even two or three years ago. I wouldn't have had the courage to do it. I would have been scared of judgment and what will people think.

   2. CWChris Williamson8:43

      What was the scariest story?

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee8:50

      I think at the start of chapter three, which is entitled Treat Yourself With Respect, um, I started off talking about when I was at university at Edinburgh Medical School. And on a Sunday afternoon, you know, after a couple of nights out, we'd often end up at Dianne's Pool Hall at Edinburgh. We'd, you know, put some pound coins in the jukebox, have the tunes playing, be playing pool. And here's the thing, mate. If I was ever losing against one of my mates, and I thought, "Man, I may lose here," I would go into the, the bathroom, and look at myself in the mirror, and slap myself on the face a little bit, call myself a loser, and then I'd come out. And most times, it would give me that drive to sort my head out, and I would normally end up winning. Not always, but usually. And at the time, you know, I just thought that was who I was. I thought, "Yeah, I'm just super competitive. I don't, you know, I like to win." That's, that's who everyone around me thought I was. That's who I thought I was. Now interestingly enough, I am no longer competitive, and we can maybe talk about that later if you want. But, I shared, you know, how I felt in that moment, what I would do in the mirror, how I would talk to myself, and it... You know, a few years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to reveal that part of myself. Like I'm a, you know, I'm a doctor in the public eye. I'm a well-respected medical doctor, you know. It didn't fit with that idea that I had in my head of what a medical doctor should be talking about in public, but again, that's a story, because all of us play roles in our life, you know. A doctor is not who I am. It's simply one of the many roles that I play in life-

   4. CWChris Williamson10:37

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee10:38

      ... and, you know, letting go of that identity has also been a big thing for me in terms of feeling happier, more calm, and more content. So, even sharing that at the start of chapter three, I honestly don't think I would have done that even two or three years ago. And actually, interestingly enough, like my wife, who, you know, she, she's amazing. She used to be a barrister. She helps edit, well, she, she doesn't help. She edits my podcast, um, and when I'm writing and I want her to help me, and I say, "Hey babe, listen, I've got this idea. Look, can you just read these paragraphs and tell me, does that make sense?" She refuses point-blank. She goes, "No, I'm gonna wait until the end." And she always wants to wait until I've basically completed the manuscript so she can come with a, you know, a clear, you know, unfiltered mind. She can basically look at it with complete clarity, and she always makes some really, really insightful comments and gives brilliant feedback. And I'm like, "Oh, I hadn't noticed that. Okay, thank you. That's awesome." But with this book, the first thing she said to me was, "Hey, babe, listen, um, are you sure you want to share all of this in the book?" And it was really interesting 'cause I thought about it. You know, she wanted to protect me. She's like, "Are you sure you want to share some of this stuff about your personal life? Do you want that out there? You know, you have a large public profile." And I thought about it, and you know what? I just said, "Yeah, I'm, I'm okay with it." Like I'm, I feel really comfortable with it now. I've, I've done the work. I've gone through. I processed it. I'm not...... scared of that, like I'm not scared of showing that part of me. In fact, in many ways, and I've learned this through my podcast, Chris, I'm, I'm sure potentially you have as well, you know, o- on your show, but I quickly learnt four and a half years ago when I started my show that the best way, the easiest way to (laughs) do this week after week is just to be yourself. If you are trying to perform each week and, you know, present a certain image of yourself to the world of what you think a doctor should be, that's gonna be knackering. It's gonna be tiring. It's gonna be exhausting. And I soon learnt that if I was just myself and opened up and shared the things that I was struggling with, uh, what I found hard, where I've learnt something in life, I found on those conversations not only would more people listen, but the feedback I got, people were like, "Oh, man. It's so awesome to hear that. So it's great to hear that you've got the same struggles as I'm going through." And so I couldn't have shared like this a few years ago because I was scared of judgment. And that scare... That, that fear of judgment, Chris, it really comes into that question that you asked me about what was one of the most revealing things about me, and as I say it to you, you... I'm, I'm thinking, "Well, maybe Chris is thinking well, that's not that revealing." (laughs) Do you know what I mean? It's not that revealing and I guess it's all about perspective, but certainly for me it would've felt too hard. But, but, but Chris, I'm really trying to figure out where this comes from in me, and I really think a lot of it, like many of our personality traits and what we think are our behaviors and our, and our, I guess, our personalities, a lot of the time they are adaptations to what happened in our childhoods. You know? They're like defensive adaptations that we used to help us get through certain times. So for me, you know, my parents were immigrants from India to the UK in 1960s and 1970s, right? So they come over. You know, Dad comes over in 1962 when the UK government are trying to recruit doctors from India to fill the gaps in the UK, and, you know, he works, and he faces struggle. He get... You know, there's discrimination. There's all kinds of stuff they had to put up with. To be really clear, my dad never ever complained once until pretty much his deathbed did he share and open up to me. Like, he just got on with it. But what I've learnt-

   6. CWChris Williamson14:38

      That's such a, that's such an immigrant mentality as well that, isn't it?

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee14:41

      Totally.

   8. CWChris Williamson14:42

      Yeah.

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee14:42

      And actually one thing Dad did say to me before he died, Chris, is he said, he said, "Son, look. I put up with it. This wasn't my country. I came here from India. I put up with it, but you're not gonna put up with it." And man, I remember that because, you know, Dad was so busy working, like when I say working, m- he killed himself working. I opened the book with, with Dad's story. There's no question, Dad slept three nights a week for 30 years. You know, he... it was literally... You know, as I say in the book, like happiness and success often gets confused. Society's definition of success drove my dad's. He worked hard. He provided in many ways a great upbringing certainly from the outside for my brother and I. Um, I didn't really see my dad much growing up, um, but I, I don't resent my dad in any way for it. Dad did what he felt he had to do. But what's really interesting is that when I was a kid, Chris, I'd come home from school and if I got 19 out of 20 my parents would say, "Well, why, why not 20?" If I came second in the class it was always, "Well, who came top? Why didn't you come top? What did you get wrong?"

   10. CWChris Williamson15:56

       Again, like this is just the most... For me, from the outside looking in, uh, Indian immigrant family with father as a doctor, like son about to be a doctor, this is just straight from the playbook.

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee16:07

       Well, exactly. And the- these all m- these cliches are all cliches 'cause they're real, right? They're, they're exactly what happens. So one, one key lesson I've learnt for happiness, which w- we'll maybe talk about later, is perspective is everything. Perspective is absolutely everything. And so this situation, right, little Rangan showing up after school pretty chuffed that he's got 19 out of 20, I felt... I took on this, um, belief about the world when I was young that I'm only worthy, I'm only worthy of love, I'm only enough when I'm top of the class, when I've got straight As. When I've succeeded, right? And there's no one above me. That's the idea I took on and I've only realized that in the last few years I've actually... pretty much since Dad died and then, you know, I stopped looking for my answers out there and I started to put the mirror there and start look inside and try to figure out who I was, whose life was I leading, why do certain things trigger me in certain ways. And, you know, I took on that belief that's driven me to, you know, get to medical school, be a doctor, get a good job, um, you know. Uh, by society's definition of success, I- I've got it, right? I've got the respectable job. Um, you know, I've written four international bestsellers and this fifth one is about to come out now. Um, you know, my podcast is the number one health podcast in the UK and Europe, right? From the outside it all looks fantastic, right? It looks, it looks wonderful. But for a lot of my life there's been a feeling of discontentment underneath it, right? And that's why when I was in that pool hall at university why I couldn't stand the thought of me losing, it wa- it... I realized that it wasn't that I enjoyed winning, it was too painful to lose.

   12. CWChris Williamson18:07

       Well,

4. 18:08 – 28:05

   Fear of Insufficiency

   1. CWChris Williamson18:08

      'cause if you lost, that was a comment on your self-worth as an individual, right? That-

   2. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee18:12

      Exactly.

   3. CWChris Williamson18:13

      ... the, the reason that the world wants me, the reason that I am valuable is contingent on my ability to perform and to be the best. And I think this is a, this is a very common pattern that I see with a lot of my friends that are high performers, right?

   4. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee18:25

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson18:25

      That-I would say as much if not more of the drive from the people that I know that are high performers comes from a fear of insufficiency rather than a desire to do more, right?

   6. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee18:37

      100%.

   7. CWChris Williamson18:37

      They're filling a hole inside of themselves. I always use this story, Eddie Hall, um, I remember I watched this documentary about him, and he said if he hadn't won the World's Strongest Man in 2017, 2018, that he would've been, uh, dead, divorced with no relationship to his kid because the training protocol and the substances that he was on, he was six foot three, 200 kilos, uh, and murdering himself on a daily basis in the gym. Uh, because of how hard he was training, he had no relationship with his wife and his marriage was on the rocks, uh, and he had no time or patience to see his kid, and his relationship with his child was ruined. Now, Eddie went and won World's Strongest Man that year, and off the back of that, he's much healthier, he has a better relationship with his kid, a better relationship with his wife, and, you know, kind of everything's fixed. But the way that we looked at Eddie Hall's success, we applauded the fact that Eddie succeeded within that very narrow domain of being World's Strongest Man. There's glory, there's accolade, there's sponsorships, so on and so forth.

   8. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee19:35

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson19:36

      But no one actually sees the externality of that. No one sees the price-

   10. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee19:39

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson19:39

       ... that you need to pay to be Eddie Hall. Or Tiger Woods is another example, you know. Greatest golfer of all time, but world's most public marriage failure, can't bear to be in a relationship, been in multiple car crashes whilst he's been on antipsychotic drugs, fallen asleep at the wheel, spent half a decade out of the sport because of how hard he was pushing himself due to injury, all that stuff. And you go, okay, would you pay that price to be Tiger Woods?

   12. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee20:01

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson20:02

       Like, what's the price of success? And if the price of success is happiness, en route to succeeding in an attempt to make ourselves happy, you go, hang on, so I've stopped the thing that I'm trying to get as a part of the outcome that I'm trying to achieve en route to achieving that outcome. So you go, okay, so if we remove the chase of success from that situation, you're just left with happiness. And it's so strange because there is still this tension, we want to feel like we're enough, we want to feel like we're contributing to the world, and yet a lot of the time, the route that we take toward that contribution kills our ability to be happy in the moment.

   14. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee20:38

       Yeah, 100%. I mean, ha- we see this story played out over and over again. Tiger's a great example. I write a section on Tiger in chapter one, and I think I've called it Worshiping the Wrong Heroes. As a kid, I did really look up to Tiger. If I'm honest, I still do now. Like, that doesn't mean I condone or don't condone his behavior. It's not for me to judge another human being in terms of what they have or haven't done. The point is, as a kid, I put him on a pedestal, m- like many people do. We think we want to be Tiger Woods, but I'm not sure we really do. Like, we think we do, but it's like, how relevant is Tiger to my life, honestly? Like, I may want to play golf like him, but A, do I have his talent? Let's even assume I did have even 10%, 1% of his talent, which I don't, but let's say I did. Have I got eight hours a day to practice? No. (laughs) Can I do my job and look after my family and practice? No. It has no relevance. We put these people on a pedestal that have zero relevance to who we are, and we, we worship the wrong heroes in society, 'cause if I'm gonna worship Tiger, I gotta worship every part of him, the failed marriage, the, the, the, the problems with painkillers, the, the deep internal pain and suffering. You can't have one component and not the whole thing, and that's the mistake we make. So these days, you know, I've really been thinking whether heroes are a problematic idea in general for society. I, I, and I think that because if you are... I guess it's- i- it depends what you mean by hero. If you're putting someone on a pedestal, then by default, you are lowering yourself in comparison to them, right? So they are higher than you, they're not equal to you, and I think that can be really, really problematic. And it's funny, I, I was chatting to my wife about this recently because she never did hero worship growing up. Never. It- sh- she, she doesn't get it. She didn't get it when we first met that I had this kind of tendency.

   15. CWChris Williamson22:39

       I wonder if that's a male trait.

   16. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee22:42

       Potentially. I mean, I don't know any sort of research or science on whether that is the case, but it would kind of make sense to me that, yeah, I think certainly the way society is now-

   17. CWChris Williamson22:52

       We're minimal, minimal status driven overall.

   18. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee22:55

       In general.

   19. CWChris Williamson22:56

       Yeah. So I think that it would make sense for us to try and model ourselves off the people that we see that have the most status. Women don't tend on average to be competing on status as much as men. So, I think that it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

   20. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee23:10

       Yeah, so I think, I think the kind of Tiger story is, it's kind of... How many times do we need to hear this stuff before we get the message? Because we can keep hearing this stuff, yet we still then get seduced by this idea that actually this is what we should be chasing.

   21. CWChris Williamson23:28

       So let me add in how I think would be a good way to model this. I, I agree that putting somebody in totality on a pedestal and saying, "This is a person universally worthy of admiration and I want to try and model their life as much as possible," I think that you're correct to say that that's probably not a good idea. But as soon as you understand this red pill, which is that you can't take part of someone's life, you have to take the whole, and the goal is to be able to find somebody who has elements that you want to be able to model yourself off, you wanna say, "I like Tiger's work rate and dedication-

   22. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee24:03

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson24:03

       ... to his sport." Okay, I can take that. I can take that as an individual element. As soon as you realize that, the- we're all playing at different levels, right? There's certain things that people are better at. And you are not subservient to them, but you, you are kind of in their shadow a little bit until you can get to be as good as that person at that thing. The line that we don't need to cross is, "This makes me less worthy as a person. This means that I have less value to society or less worthy of love," and so on and so forth. But if you can pick it apart-... and say-

   24. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee24:34

       Exactly.

   25. CWChris Williamson24:34

       ... "I like their dedication to their craft. I like the way that he, uh, always makes time for his kids. I like the fact that him and his wife have a really fantastic communication strategy," or whatever it might be. You know? Like those are things that we can pick apart and you can tease the components of success in that way.

   26. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee24:52

       Yeah. I completely agree, mate. It's like, it's the nuance that we need. It's not the, "It's all bad or all good." It's like, no, there, there is, there is potential here to go, "That's a really awesome personality trait. Okay, you know, I'd love to have a bit more of that." And, you know, to conclude that section in the book, I, I wrote about my father-in-law, right? Because I said... I, I talked about Tiger, and then I said, "Do you know what? Someone I really, really look up to these days," not in terms of putting on a pedestal necessarily, but I, I think, you know, going back to the core happiness tool, right? We've got alignment, contentment and control. So alignment, we're talking about values, your inner values and your external actions. Are they, are they the same? Are they getting closer and closer to being the same? You know, are you aligned in that component of your life? And, you know, as we speak, my three core values, and I'm, I'm constantly looking at them and refining them and seeing if anything sits better with me, but these have been pretty static for a good few months now. And they are integrity, compassion and curiosity. These are the values that I think... not I think, that I, I really believe I bring to every aspect of my life, whether it is as a husband, as a father, um, as a podcast guest with you now, Chris, as a podcast host, as a doctor, whatever. These values represent a huge part of who I am. And then if you apply that then to my father-in-law, like he's one of the most incredible men I've ever met. He has so many qualities, but one in particular is I've never seen him ever raise his voice to anyone. He always speaks with this beautiful, soft, compassionate tone, and he has a smile that literally lights up every room that he goes into. He makes people feel better, not 'cause he's trying to, just by nature of who he is, he lifts everyone up around him. And I think, well, rather than, sort of, idolizing Tiger Woods, like I'm, I'm... (laughs) I don't think we should idolize anyone necessarily, so I'm not saying I now idolize my father-in-law, but I'm like, "Well, these values are much more relevant to my life, right?" So why can't I look up to those guys and go, "Yeah, wow, that's a great model of how to interact in these settings that I can take and start utilizing"? So again, going into that nuance piece, I think that's a really important... I think it's a, an important way that we can start thinking about it. Who do we have in our life around us? Maybe not even people on TV or YouTube where we're only being... I guess we're only really seeing one side of their personality 'cause that's what's been presented to us. Sure, you do long form podcasts like I do. One of the things I love about this medium is that you get to see those multiple sides to people's personalities that- in the way that you often don't do in conventional media. So-

   27. CWChris Williamson27:46

       There's also less, less place to hide, right?

   28. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee27:49

       There's less place to hide. Yeah. You, you, you... Exactly. In a one-hour conversation, in a 90-minute conversation, you're gonna get a good feel for who someone is by-

   29. CWChris Williamson28:00

       Yeah.

   30. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee28:00

       ... by the way they answer all these different questions. But, but also the thing that comes to mind, Chris, is

5. 28:05 – 40:49

   5 Regrets of the Dying

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee28:06

      have you heard of Bronnie Care? Um-

   2. CWChris Williamson28:08

      No.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee28:08

      ... the palliative care nurse?

   4. CWChris Williamson28:09

      Nope.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee28:09

      She wrote the book Fi- Five Regrets of the Dying, and she basically spent years caring for people at the end of their life. And she wrote a book about what they told her, and there were these five key things that kept coming up over and over again. So people at the end of their life, they all pretty much say the same things. "I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me." And I can't... I don't think I quite remember the fifth one off the top of my head, but again, it's the same theme. At the end of our life, we know what's important. We look back and regret often that we didn't do these things. Yet so many of us and I was this person, I've, I'd like to think I'm no longer that person in many ways, but, you know, this is wha- and this is where... You know, meaning and purpose, I don't know if you've spoken to guests on, on your show before who said, "Look, happiness really isn't what it's about. It's about meaning, it's about purpose." I've certainly heard that a lot. I've seen that a lot on social media. And I was trying to put that through the lens of this core happiness model that I've come up with, and I was thinking, "Well, I know meaning and purpose is important, but is it the same thing as happiness?" And again, it can be interpreted in different ways by different people, but I thought, "Well, I don't think it is," right?

   6. CWChris Williamson29:37

      I don't think it is either. No.

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee29:39

      I don't think it is. I think meaning is a helpful ingredient for happiness, but I don't think it's happiness in and of itself, and I think it sits under the alignment leg of the core happiness stool. Because if you are... if you find a sense of meaning and purpose in your life, you know, you are going to be doing something that's consistent with your values, that's why it has meaning and purpose for you, I think, in most cases. Um, you could also... and this is why I like this core happiness stool, I think it's, I think it's relatively complete. It... So far, I haven't found a situation where I can't apply it and have it make sense. I'm not saying that doesn't exist and that might come up at some point, but I, I have tried to test it in a whole variety of different scenarios, and I sort of feel that, like, you could have a job that you love, that gives you that strong sense of meaning and purpose, that's helping the world and you love doing it, right? Brilliant. Sure, you're aligned in that moment. You're strengthening the alignment leg of this core happiness stool. But you could also be working so hard and getting so stressed out in this job that you love that you end up neglecting...... seeing your partner or your children or seeing your friends. And what do people say at the end of their life? "I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family." So, what, what I love about this is it helps create a bit of balance to happiness. Sure, have meaning and purpose in your job, if that's where you can get it, but don't also work so hard in it that y- that you neglect those other things. Or you could make the case, you know, I don't mean to be controversial and I hope people don't take this the wrong way, but you could make the case that a soldier fighting in World War II, you know, against the Nazis was living a life of meaning and purpose. Right? Y- someone might make that case. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're happy. So, I think there's a bit of nuance here. The other thing I like about taking it away from meaning and purpose a little bit is when my second book came out a few years ago, it was called The Stress Solution, Chris, and I remember the first live event I did, it was at this big hall in London, and I gave the talk and I was doing Q&A at the end. And part of the talk, I spoke about ikigai, this Japanese concept, you know, where, you know, th- this idea that we hopefully should be trying to find something in life that we're good at, um, that pays us money, that we enjoy doing, and it's something that the world needs. And I remember the first time I read about it, I thought, "Oh, I like that." You know, I want some ikigai in my life. And I was talking about it on stage three or four years ago, and at the end of the talk, this, this, uh, 20-year-old lady had her hand up at the back and I, I gestured to her. And she said, "Dr. Chant, can I ask you something?" I said, "Sure." Said, "I'm a Japanese student, uh, living and studying in London. I grew up with this concept of ikigai, and I always found it very off-putting. I found it too high a bar to achieve, so I got very demoralized by it." And I thought, "Isn't that interesting?" I'm talking about this concept that I've learnt about, that I think is wonderful, and she grew up infused with that around her and said, "Man, it's just too high a bar to reach." And, and that conversation has always stuck with me, Chris, because I always try and make things accessible to as many people as possible, and I thought, "Well, meaning and purpose sometimes i- i- if, let's say, someone doesn't enjoy their job, let's say, I don't know, they're working in a call center somewhere in a job that they don't like, but that's the only job that they can get at the moment and it pays the bills, keeps a roof over their head, puts food on the table, they can watch that social media post and go, 'Yeah, meaning and purpose. What, what on earth are you talking about? I haven't got time for that, I- I've just gotta get through my day.'" And I thought, "Well, how can I unpick that and put it through the lens of this core happiness stool?" And it comes down to alignment and values, because if anyone, no matter who they are, no matter where they live, if they can spend a bit of time trying to understand some of their core values, they don't need to put pressure on themselves, they can start with one, but if you start to identify what that is and you can live your life, whatever you're doing, with those values, well, I think on some level you are living a life of meaning and purpose. So, if that person in the call center has a core value of kindness, right, and they go, "Yeah, that's really important to me." Okay, well maybe you don't love your job, but if when you leave the house in the morning and you pick up your takeaway coffee, you're kind to the barista, if when you get on the bus and you're kind to the bus driver, if when you're at work you're kind to your colleagues, well, you may not love your job, but you're still living in accordance with your values. You are living with meaning into your life. And I feel that the more people do that, that will help them over time change that job in the future, but if they start to act in a way that's not aligned with who they are, they create this big void, and it's in that void, right, that's where the junk happiness habits start to come in. The booze, the drugs, the gambling. Do you know what I mean? That's, it's to fill that void when we're not being who we are. So, that's kind of how I try in my head and put that all together for people, and I hope that's a much more accessible message for a lot more people.

   8. CWChris Williamson34:59

      One of the problems that you have with the ikigai lady that asked you the question, as soon as you posit an ideal, you immediately begin to measure yourself in reference to that ideal.

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee35:09

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson35:10

       And that basically means that every ideal is a judge, and your ability to be idealistic is always going to outstrip reality's ability to deliver that to you. Right? You're never going to be able to get to that potential all the time, and this is why chasing down a, a potential that's always moving is like running toward the horizon, right? Every step that you take toward it continues to move it further away. That being said, I don't think that that means that we shouldn't have ideals and we shouldn't have goals and potentials that we want to try and achieve. Yes, it's going to make you feel uncomfortable because you think, "Well, my job doesn't perfectly align between what the world needs, what I can be paid for, what I love to do," and-

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee35:48

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson35:48

       ... whatever the other one was. However, I understand why that makes people uncomfortable. Something else that's interesting, a model of happiness that I think is, is quite useful is the difference between Daniel Kahneman and Daniel Gilbert's look of happiness. So, Kahneman's, uh, justification is the goal of life is to live a life which, in retrospect, you're glad you lived. That's meaning. Uh, Daniel Gilbert's definition is momentary happiness, every single moment, more hedonic is a, a, an optimal strategy. So, an example here would be you could live the remaining 50 years of your life on a liilo in a beach somewhere with a cocktail in your hand, and that could be you for the rest of time. Now, you might look back on that situation and say, "I don't think that I had a lot of meaning or contributed to a higher purpose," but every moment during that was happiness, right? Yes, it was momentary, yes, it was fleeting, yes, it was very shallow, but there was some sort of very immediate shallow joy that you got from that. Conversely, you could go through a situation where you are the w-... soldier in World War II. You believe in the cause that you're fighting for, you're doing something that you know that's good. It's hard, there's camaraderie, but it's not happiness in the moment. You're not the guy that's on- Yeah. ... the lie low in the middle of the pool with a cocktail. But when you look back on your life, you find that was incredibly meaningful. And the more that I've thought about it, I don't think that these two concepts can be blended together particularly easily. I think that many of the things that cause us to feel meaning in retrospect aren't things that can provide us with, in the moment, hedonic happiness at the time. And this is why having different elements to the way that you live your life is important. That you have a job that maybe you really work hard at and you contribute to, uh, something that you feel that gives you meaning. And then you go home and you get to, you have some friends that you can just have a laugh with- Yeah. ... and you have joy in the moment. And this is a more, um, multifaceted view of how happiness and meaning play together, and there's definitely a tension in it. Uh, so-

   13. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee37:55

       Yeah. I, I think that's a beautiful way of putting it, and I agree, it's, on one level it's hard to have those two things sit neatly side by side. For me, it comes down to kind of intention. You know, my role and my desire is never to tell people what to do. I, I've never done that as a doctor. Like honestly, I've never told a patient to give up smoking, like they have to give up smoking. It's been... As a fellow human being, if that patient comes in to ask for my opinion, then I will give them an opinion and say, "Well, this is what I think smoking is doing to these various metrics of your health." And I, you know, I, I make it really clear. And if they've understood that and they've retained that, and I'm very clear that they've understood it, and they then say to me, "Hey doctor, listen. I hear what you're saying, uh, but I get so much enjoyment out of this that I'm absolutely prepared to put up with the downsides," I'm like, "Okay." Well, as a, as a fellow human being, I have to respect that. My job is not to say, "No, you can't. No, you mustn't do that. You don't understand." It's not... No, well, at the moment, he does understand and he's made that choice. And actually, you know, so far, I managed to get pretty good compliance with my patients in terms of the things I recommend, and I think one of the reasons is, is because I really do try and treat them with a level of respect that they are partners with me. I'm trying to help them but I'm not trying to tell them what to do. And then, sort of take that approach to this happiness model that I've tried to create. I'm not here to say this view of happiness is the perfect one and you have to utilize it in your life and this is the one that, uh, blows every other one out of the water. No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that I fundamentally believe that all humans at the end of their life want to look back and go, "Yeah, that was a, that was a, was a pretty happy life." Or, you know, I, I really do feel we want happiness and I've tried to define what I mean by happiness, so this core happiness, and I've tried to make it practical just as if, you know, we know, we, we understand very clearly because we've been told this message in society for many years, that if we, you know, if we do bicep curls every day in our house or in the gym, we are going to get bigger and stronger biceps. We know that. Right? That's going to happen. We're strengthening that muscle by working on it. And the point in me creating this core happiness stool model was to also show people that, hey, listen, happiness is also a muscle that you can strengthen. You can work on alignment, you can work on contentment, you can work on control. You're not actually directly working on happiness. This is what I'm trying to do, and the book is break down simple things to people that they can do that work on these different legs. And if you keep strengthening those legs with various practices in your life, the default side effect is gonna be, you're gonna feel happier more of the time.

6. 40:49 – 55:25

   Do Dreams Bring Happiness?

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee40:49

   2. CWChris Williamson40:49

      Why don't you think that dreams will make us happy now?

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee40:54

      So that was quite a, uh, provocative, uh, subheading in chapter one, Your Dreams Won't Make You Happy, and I think for many of us, I don't think our dreams do make us happy. I think our dreams often come from a place of lack rather than a place of love and abundance. It's like, "I don't feel good enough so when I get that goal, when I get that job, when I've made that money, uh, when I can, um, sell my company for this, you know what? I'm gonna show everyone. Yeah, I, I was that person who can make it." And as you've already demonstrated with the strongman, um, Tiger, um, Jonny Wilkinson, right, came to the studio last week. We had a long conversation. Jonny Wilkinson, I know for people who, who, you know, outside the UK who may not know Jonny, in the early 2000s, one of the most famous rugby players in the world. In the 2003 World Cup Final, he kicks the winning goal for England in the final minute of the game. Right? Fairy tale ending. When he was a kid, right, when Jonny was a kid, he wrote down on a piece of paper, "I want to play for England. I want to win the World Cup." Right? So by 24, this guy has achieved his dreams, but he describes this deep sense of emptiness, loneliness, anxiety that accompanied that dream. Literally the morning after, the morning after he's delivered his country the World Cup for the first time in God knows how long, he feels empty. Nothing. Literally nothing. And so, this is a story we see repeated over and over again, where people get their dreams. They, they sacrifice who they are. They sacrifice the important things in their life. They think, "When I get that, when I've got more money, when I can stay in a nicer hotel when I go on holiday, when I can buy a nicer car, I'm going to be happier." I'm not saying we shouldn't go after those things, but if those things are coming from a place of lack, actually when you get them, you will find (laughs) that actually that lack is still there. You know, I spoke to Pippa Grange on my podcast a couple of years ago. Pippa was, um, a psychologist who worked with the England Football Team-... yeah, maybe 2016 to 2018 she was certainly in the media, credited with being hugely influential at changing the mindset in the England team, and she has this gorgeous concept, Chris, called winning shallow or winning deep, and it's really lovely, and it's this idea basically that how are you gonna win in life, right, shallow or deep? And she would talk about all these Premier League footballers who would talk to her. She never revealed any names, of course. Some of the most highly paid footballers on the planet, right, on the planet, they thought when they were kids, "When I win the FA Cup, like, my life's gonna be made." And then they're there. Literally, they win the FA Cup at Wembley, they lift the trophy, and as they're walking down the stairs at Wembley, they feel an emptiness inside. So what I mean by our dreams won't make us happy if we're not careful is basically let's make sure that our desires, our goals, our dreams are the right dreams. Let's make sure they're coming from a place of fullness and love, because otherwise you'll end up getting to that place and you may look back and go, "Oh my God. What was the price I had to pay to get here?" Like you say with Tiger. You know, if I ever, ever get the chance to interview Tiger, which is one of my dream guests on the show, let's put it out there to the universe, uh, right now, I'd love to know from Tiger, you know, was it worth it?

   4. CWChris Williamson44:27

      Was the juice worth the squeeze? Yeah.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee44:29

      Wa- was it worth it? Or, you know, um, when you watch the Michael Jordan documentary on Netflix and, you know, I don't claim to know Michael's story intimately, you know, I- I just don't, uh, but I- I've watched the documentary. I found it really, really powerful, and every time he was talking about, you know, using a slight from an opponent as a way to create a story in his mind about why he had to get to that next level, I just thought, "Man, that can't have been a (laughs) nice way to live." The tension-

   6. CWChris Williamson44:59

      No. It doesn't sound healthy, you know? But again-

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee45:02

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson45:02

      ... this is, this is because we have such a... modern society puts fame and success on such a mountaintop that we're prepared to accept any sort of price that someone pays. I wrote this newsletter the other day that I wanted to read to you actually that I think kind of relates to this. So I was talking about the strange way that we applaud fame, right, in the modern world. Do you want to be someone or do something? Now the two aren't mutually exclusive of course, but they're a lot less cohesive than you might think. Fame ain't what it used to be. Traditionally, people became famous because they achieved something great, maybe even heroic. Because fame was such a powerful signal, we all started wanting it. Well, who wouldn't? But this was the downfall of fame. People stopped wanting to do something and started wanting to be someone, regardless of why. The goal is not to deserve fame, just to be famous. Once upon a time, fame was bestowed on those who earned it, such as a heroic general who risked his life in battle or the famous doctor who restored sight to the poor and afflicted. It was heroic deeds that made them famous. Today, fame is only granted to those who seek it. That's from The New Philosopher. Fame itself has been separated from what it was supposed to indicate. It's no longer a trustworthy signal of honor, courage, creativity, or anything else except maybe an above average need for attention. So why do we chase it? Because modern fame is the promise of obligation-free status. If you could shortcut the work bit and just get the reward bit, why wouldn't you? And when people become famous for drinking juice while skateboarding on TikTok or being picked out of obscurity to go on reality TV, why wouldn't we try to game that system too? Fame roots our happiness in other people's heads. When a person is inflated with fame, the rest of us have it in our power to deflate him. "Other people's heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man's true happiness," said Arthur Schopenhauer. To be famous is to volunteer to be a scapegoat. You're treated like a king until you screw up or people get tired of you, then you're sacrificed at the altar, giving the public someone to hate together. When we put this kind of power in the hands of those around us, our whole sense of self becomes an abstraction. We have to check our Twitter engagement to measure self-worth instead of the action that we took. Fame can make you happy if what brought you fame also brings you happiness, which means-

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee47:23

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson47:23

       ... you would remain happy if your fame were to diminish.

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee47:26

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:27

       To be somebody or to do something, in life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision to be or to do, which way will you go? From John Boyd.

   13. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee47:38

       I love it so much, so much there. That is... there's so much truth, so much to reflect on there. You know, as you were, as you were saying that, Chris, like the things that were coming up for me were this idea of, you know, fame for fame's sake, you know, fame without doing the work, uh, which of course can be done these days in a way that it could never happen before, and it- it also reminded me of something that happened last summer. So last summer, uh, there's a- there's a sort of big event twice a year, s- sorry, twice a summer that Chris Evans, um, the- the sort of, uh, media personality, radio DJ in the UK has been running for years to raise money for charity, and it's really interesting. So over the last few years, you know, I've been on television. My public profile has grown significantly to the point where I- I- I probably get stopped on most occasions when I leave the house these days, but I always try and keep my kids and my family as much as I can separate from it. So my kids really haven't seen Daddy out doing his work and his job, right? So when I'm with the kids I'm, you know, I'm unshaven, in my shorts, just hanging out in old T-shirts, doing whatever, you know? I'm not bothered about that kind of external type appearance. And last, um, last summer, Chris h- Chris invited me to join, uh, them at CarFest and do some sort of health and wellness talks on the hay bales in front of the- the audience for the festival. I thought, "Okay, this is..."... yeah, this would be pretty cool. And the family were invited as well to go and camp with everyone and stuff. And I thought, "Okay, this will be a fun experience." So anyway, we go and do the event, right? Me and Chris and a couple of others talking, taking questions, talking about health and wellness, stuff that I love doing. Sun was shining, beautiful festival. At the end of the event, there was a huge queue of people to talk to me and I was still there maybe two and a half, three hours later talking to people and signing things. And it was interesting watching, my kids were watching, and you can see my daughter didn't give two hoots. She was just like, "Who are these people getting in the way of my time with daddy?" (laughs) Like she was just, you know, kept wanting me to, to leave. And I got the impression my son was quite liking it. Um, it was just interesting to watch and I suddenly started to get really self-conscious and I thought, "Oh, what are my kids thinking here?" You know, I wanted to talk to my wife. I did have a conversation with the kids later because I wanted them to be really clear on something. I said, "Look, what did you think of that?" They go, "You know, Daddy, there's a lot of people who want to talk to you." I said, "Yeah." And I just said, "Listen, what's Daddy's mission? What does Daddy try and do? We try and help people." I said, "Yeah, my mission is to help 100 million people over the course of my career live happier and healthier lives around the world." So, I was really trying to get into their head that I have a mission. I have something that I'm really passionate about doing. If I get some way towards that mission and I help more and more people, the side effect is going to be that more and more people know who I am. The goal isn't for more and more people to know who I am. That's a side effect of Daddy doing his job properly. So that's what came up for me because I think it's an important thing to, I think, teach the younger generation, particularly in this social media kind of world in which we're now growing up, where a lot of people do want to get more followers and more influence-

   14. CWChris Williamson51:02

       I think the number one job, uh, desired job for primary school kids is YouTuber.

   15. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee51:09

       Yeah, I mean, there you go.

   16. CWChris Williamson51:09

       It's not fireman, policeman, astronaut, rocket scientist.

   17. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee51:13

       And, and again, look, and again, just to be really clear, going back to what we're talking about, about alignment, control, and contentment, and this kind of deep level of happiness, well, there's nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to be a YouTuber. I guess you're a YouTuber, I'm a YouTuber. That's a role, that's one of the roles that we play in life, right? But it's where does that desire come from? Have you got something wonderful that you want to share with the world that you're passionate about and you happen to put that on YouTube and the side effect is that you grow that YouTube following? Or is that, the only goal is, "I'll do whatever I need to do to get 10,000 followers on YouTube"? There's a big difference. And also at that festival, Chris, I can... another story that comes to mind there is, at the end of the first day, this lovely young lady came up at the end and she wanted to talk to me about anxiety. And I helped her, I gave her some advice on what I thought, simple things that she could try and do. And then the next day, when we were doing the event, she also came and she was watching and I saw her. And at the end, she was in the queue again and I said, "Hey, you know, really nice to chat to you yesterday. You know, um, what's going on?" And she said, "Listen, you know, I was thinking about this. Um, in September, so after the summer, I'm going to study physiotherapy at uni. Um, I want to do what you're doing. Like you're here spreading wellness, you know, you're, you're on stage with Chris Evans talking to thousands of people. I want to do that." And I said, "Hey, l- l- look, what are you passionate about?" She goes, "I'm passionate about helping people. I'm passionate about mindfulness. I want to integrate that with physiotherapy." And I said to her, "Okay, listen, look. I grew up watching Chris Evans on TV. I've been a doctor for 20 years at this point. It was only last week that I got a call from (laughs) Chris's team to come and join him on stage at this festival." Right? Before that, I wasn't doing this. I was doing other things. I wasn't doing this. When my BBC One show came out, like I'd been a practicing doctor at that point for 14 years. Right? So what I said to her was, "Listen, I understand that you want this, but my advice to you would be get really good at what you do. If you love physiotherapy, if you love mindfulness, right? Study it. Try and see how you can integrate the two. Get really good at that so you then have something to offer, and I promise you, if you get good at that skill, people will come to you and they will want you to share your message." And I really, really thought both in... that festival really influenced me because I thought, both for my kids who at the time were 10 and eight, but for this 18-year-old young lady who's about to, you know, leave home and go to university, I thought, "Wow, this is such an interesting point. Let's make sure people are, you know, looking for profile if that, if that's what they are looking for, for the right reasons." And in fact, you know, yes, we can be driven by status, but it, it speaks to, I think, what you were talking about there. It's, it's what's your reason? What, what's your passion? Why are you doing it? And ultimately, if you do it the wrong way, that's when your dreams won't make you happy because you choose the wrong thing that you're gonna do. You end up getting a level of success, but it was never who you were anyway. And I've seen that as you have, Chris, happen time and time again to so many people. And I think for much of my life, I've fallen into that trap. That's the truth. You know, that's why I feel so passionate about this book because I feel I've gone in, I've understood it, I've applied the principles to the point now where I genuinely feel as happy, as calm, and as content as I ever have done. And interestingly enough, Chris, as we record this conversation, right? We're seven days out from my new book coming out, right? The last four books over the last four years, the f- the few weeks before the book came out, you know, I'd be feeling a bit nervous. You know, what are people gonna think? You know, I hope they like it. All this kind of stuff. I don't feel it this time. Like I genuinely feel that I've managed to get to the place where I know who I am and my self-worth.... has got nothing to do with how well this book does. I

7. 55:25 – 1:00:46

   Evidence-based Confidence

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee55:25

      hope the book-

   2. CWChris Williamson55:25

      Here's, here's... Let me, let me push back a little bit against there, and this is something that I've seen in myself too. Uh, I, I agree that the lion's share of the work that we need to do in terms of self-work comes internally, right? That the external accolades are not going to fix the internal void. I agree. However, there is an element of proof that you have now, four books deep, when they've come out and they've been well reviewed and people have been happy and you've got success and stuff like that, that gives more legitimacy to your confidence moving forward. You are now at book five and saying, "You know, I feel less anxious," and so on and so forth. And you go, "Well, what did you expect to happen if you just did four bestsellers?" You know? Like this is... So, uh, my point is, yes, I agree, internal work definitely counts, however, we can't detract from the fact that proving your capacities up against challenges in the real world also contribute to this.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee56:24

      And-

   4. CWChris Williamson56:24

      I do think that there's a, uh, an element of external, uh, accomplishment that feeds our ability to trust our own confidence.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee56:32

      100%. So, I think it's a great point to push back on. I don't disagree with that, right? So first of all, let me take that aspect, what, that you directed to me, right, which is, "Yeah, well, you know, you've written four international bestsellers, (laughs) of course you're chilled." Well, that's not the case for all authors, because often what happens, right, is that the bar gets set so high, so now the pressure is on. Then they will say, "Man, I've had three bestsellers. Man, I hope this one hits number one as well." If it doesn't, you will feel like a failure. And that may seem, "Oh, that's a nice problem to have, mate." No, no, that problem for that individual is real. That feels emptiness. That feels like loneliness. I know an author who actually, you know, their book was like number 15 in the charts and the first three were number one, right? And they felt like crap. Like, th- they would drink more, they would stress out more, it would affect their relationships. So I don't think it's a natural consequence of me having proven my worth. And I agree that helps. I totally agree that helps. Having had the level of success that I have had so far, yes, it does give that confidence. But I also feel very proud that I have gone in and I've worked really hard to get to this point now where I know, honestly, and let's see what happens (laughs) . But genuinely, I, I feel... See, what I do, Chris, there's a whole chapter in the book on this, Chapter 5, which is my favorite chapter, which is... Every day for me is a learning day, it's a learning opportunity, where I look for friction in my life to teach me something about myself. So when I rub up against something that frustrates me or I wish was other than the way it is, instead of wishing that the situation was different or that someone was behaving differently with me, I put the mirror up and I go, "Okay, Rangan, what is going on with you? Why is this bothering you? Has this highlighted an insecurity in you? You know, wha- what is going on that you can grow from?" Because otherwise, you're dependent on the actions of others and the world around you for you to have happiness and inner calm. And I was that person for 30, 35 years, where I needed things to go a certain way to feel good. And so I practice... It's like going to the gym, mate. Instead of doing press-ups in the gym, I press up against other people. When, when I press up against other people, I use it as a way of learning about myself. So I feel anytime I get these pangs of jealousy or comparison or these kind of emotions that I've had in the past, I use it as a way to go, "Oh, what's going on here?" And, and-

   6. CWChris Williamson59:04

      That's interesting.

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee59:05

      ... and, and so therefore, I feel I can say with a high degree of confidence now that I'm coming in thinking, "Actually, I ain't just saying this." Like, I genuinely feel if this book was to bomb, right, I'm still proud of it. I still believe it to be the very best book I've ever written and the most important book I've written. But who I am as a person is not dependent on its success. Now it was four or five years ago. It was. I also know that my wife and my kids do not care whether Daddy sells one copy of this book or 100,000 copies. They don't. And I've learned that. So for me, having kids has been incredibly helpful for me. Right? I'm not saying it is for everyone, but for me personally. So, that's how I'd answer the first part of that. And I guess the other part of that sort of comment you had was about, you know, we do need some degree of external validation, you know, that metric. And, and I agree. We do need people to say, you know, to know that, you know, we have value and actually our tribe can see us and they can hear us and go, "Yeah, man, that's a good job." You know? You know, that has real value for us. But again, I would come back to, where does that desire come from? If that desire comes from... Sure, get the external validation, but if you think that external validation is gonna fix the hole that you've got inside you, I'm not convinced it's gonna do that. So... And, and then the, the wider question, (laughs) Chris, is do you need to go through it to learn it? You know, can you just learn it from hearing conversations like this and hearing people, or do you have to have that adversity? Do you have to go through it?

   8. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

      This is a perennial question, man, and

8. 1:00:46 – 1:11:25

   Wisdom from Suffering

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:46

      I, I, I vacillate between it, right? Part of me thinks that a lot of the wisdom that we, uh, attribute to ourselves and our self-work is just coming along for the ride as a byproduct of getting older.

   2. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:00:58

      (laughs) .

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:58

      I, I know that we expedite it. Uh, I find tremendous value in great conversations and insights and things like that. But it's not about knowing more. If it was knowing more, then the most successful people on the planet would be the ones that had read the most books. And although there might be a bit of a correlation, that's not the way that the truth works. It's to do with who genuinely inculcates the things that they read, who applies them in the right way, who resonates with those things, and also who has the most life experience. You know, there's tons and tons of friends that I've got who are...... uh, bookworm idiots, but life sages. You know, they've had endless amounts of interesting life experiences that bleed into them being able to understand the way that the world works. So, I think that you can, you can expedite it, but there's an amount of trials and tribulations that you need to go through in order to-

   4. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:01:49

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:01:49

      ... really make those lessons resonate.

   6. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:01:52

      I think so. Or- or you need to have some degree of life experience to put these lessons on and go, "Ah, yeah, had I, had I sort of thought about it that way, I might have experienced it differently." But, um, you know, Chris, one of the most impactful conversations I've had in my entire life was on my podcast about two years ago. I spoke to Edith Eger. Right, so Edith Eger, when I spoke to her was 93 years old. Right? So, when she was 16, she grew up in Eastern Europe. I think she was getting ready for a date with her boyfriend that night and they got a knock on the door. Her, her sister, and her parents got put on a train to Auschwitz, the concentration camp. Now, she said she'd never even heard of Auschwitz at the time. Right? So, they get to Auschwitz. Within, I think, two hours of getting there, both of her parents are murdered. And then later that day, she was asked to dance for some of the senior prison guards. Right? And the first thing she said to me that I think about on most days is, she said, "Rangan, listen, before my mum left, the last thing she said to me was, 'Edie, nobody can ever take from you the contents of what you put inside your mind.'" And she said, "When I was dancing in front of those prison guards," hours after her parents were murdered, "I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. I was dancing in Budapest Opera House. There was a orchestra playing, there was a full house, I was wearing this beautiful dress. That's where I was dancing. I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz." I was like, "Okay. That's interesting. That's very, very powerful reframe." Then she told me, "When I was in Auschwitz, I wasn't the prisoner. The prison guards were the prisoner. They were the ones who weren't free. They weren't living their life. In my mind, I was free." I was like, "Okay, man, that is, that's just so powerful to think that you can do that in these conditions of absolute hell." And the final thing she said to me, that I honestly think about probably at least once if not twice a day, is this idea that... Rangan, this is what, this is how she said it to me. I think she said, "Rangan, I've lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you, the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your mind." And what I took from that, and it had such a big influence on my life, and this speaks to whether we have to go through stuff. Yeah, we have to go through some stuff, but I think we can also learn from people at the extremes of life who have gone through stuff and come out the other side with an incredible degree of forgiveness, empathy, um, compassion, and calm. And I think, well, if Edith Eger can reframe any condition in Auschwitz, I'm pretty sure (laughs) in my life, most of the things that bother me, I can reframe. And so, this comes down to this whole idea of seeking out friction. I look for friction all the time. I welcome it. I promise you. I know that sounds ridic, I welcome it. I didn't used to. It used to bother me. Oh man, I can't believe they did that. Can't believe they just cut me up on the roads. Can't believe they sent an email with that tone. Do they not know that I'd already done this, this, and this. You know, whatever disempowering narrative you wanna tell yourself. But I've, I've now practiced so regularly that I feel most of the time, I'm not perfect, so I probably don't do it all the time, but most of the time, in the moment, I can reframe a situation to choose what I call a happiness story. Now this goes to a wider point, Chris, which I think I'd, I'd love your view on this. But, it all comes down to perspective. Like, a huge part of our happiness comes from our ability to choose a narrative and a perspective that works for us, that makes us feel good and calm and content. Rather than taking that sort of victim narrative, which many of us have learnt from our parents, we've learnt from society, and actually just creates emotional stress in our body, which is why a lack of happiness can also lead to very poor physical health outcomes in your life. And like, so it comes to this point for me is, what is the truth? Does the truth actually matter for our happiness? And a lot of the time, I don't think it does. Right? Take- take the example of a couple, let's say a married couple who've had an argument. Right? What happens? Well, it kind of depends who you ask. If you ask one party, they're likely gonna give you one story about what happened. You ask the other party on the other side of the table, they'll give you another completely different narrative over the same situation. Right? So- so what- what really did happen? Football fans, there was a- a psychologist studied this. Two different sets of football fans were shown the same incident on a video replay. And they were, you know, this wasn't in the middle of the game. This was when they were feeling calm and I think (laughs) , you know, in control of their emotions. What happens? Two completely different narratives of the same situation. And what does that teach us? It certainly teaches me that any situation has multiple perspectives, so why not choose a perspective that's empowering and makes you feel good? Let's say March 2020, right? In many countries around the world, certainly in the UK, we were seeing images of empty supermarket shelves with no toilet roll on them.... right? People are getting wound up. It's like, "I can't believe ... Who would, who would be taking all the, the toilet roll?" You know, "Can't believe people are now," you know, "coming out with trolleys full of, um," you know, "six or seven packets." Okay. And a lot of people are getting worked up and are judging others and criticizing others. It's like, well, hold on a minute. Let's just think about that for a minute. What, what actually has really happened? How can we create a narrative that actually makes us feel calmer, content, more in control of the world? Well, it could be that every single person who went to the supermarket that day picked up one extra roll and the supermarket had only planned for their usual kind of, uh, consumer habits. Okay. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe no one took loads. Uh, maybe someone did buy 10 packets, but maybe they've got ulcerative colitis and they go to the toilet 20 times a day and they are literally petrified, uh, of the thought of not having any toilet roll and the impact that would have on them socially and with their family. Maybe it's someone who cares for four elderly grandparents and they're like, "Man, I'm gonna need this over the next few weeks," and so they picked some up. Or what if maybe someone bought 20 packets to sell on eBay, right? Can we still have compassion there? Well, what if we look at it like, well, what's going on in that person's life where ... You know what? How bad or ... Maybe that person in their life feels they've got no opportunity, no money, they can't see a way out, and actually thought, "Oh, man, this is the best opportunity that I've had to make some money in the last two years." Right? When we walk round to the other side of the story, I promise, you can train yourself to think like this. I've trained myself to think like this. Not always, but mostly. And the difference it makes is just incredible, because you feel calmer, you have more compassion for the people around you, and it leads to less junk happiness habits, right? We've all got go-to junk happiness habits that we use to kind of numb discomfort or numb pain or distract ourselves. You know, I've had many. You know, in my 20s I'd gamble a lot. You know, never to the point where you would say, "Oh, Rangan's got a gambling problem." But if I think back, it's like, well, I would gamble on anything. Casinos, card games, games of pool, the football matches, whatever. Again, I'm not criticizing that, but I could see now with hindsight, it was to fill the void that I had in my life. But as I've, I think, sort of got rid of most of that void, I have no need for that behavior anymore. So I don't think I've gambled in 10 plus years. I've not tried to stop, I just have no need for that behavior anymore. So the, the way I put it together for people, and I hope this is helpful, Chris, I'd love your feedback on this, is what you think of this, but ... but the phrase which encompasses it for me is, if I was that other person, I'd be acting in exactly the same way as them. Right? What I mean by that is, if I was that person and I had their childhood and I had their parents and I had their bullying experiences and I had their toxic first boss, right? Well, I'd probably have ex- ... Not probably, I would have exactly the same view of the world as they do, and therefore I'd be acting in exactly the same way. I've heard this in many different ways in the past. Um, it certainly was brought home to me in a conversation I had with Peter Crone on my own podcast. I know you've spoken to Peter as well. But I've got to say, that phrase, I think, is ... it's been life-changing for me. And if people really embrace it, and that would be a challenge I had to people, try that for seven days. Any time you get frustrated with the actions of someone else, just try and go down that path in your mind, "If I were them, I'd be doing the same," and just watch what happens. I, I promise you, mate, it's been transformative for me.

9. 1:11:25 – 1:17:08

   Framing Determines Experience

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:11:25

   2. CWChris Williamson1:11:25

      I think that the frame and the narrative that we put around the present moment largely determines our experience of it, right? That the difference between finishing a workout and being sweaty on the floor and gasping for air and high-fiving your friends and spontaneously feeling that whilst sat in traffic is the difference between you feeling satisfied at the end of a workout and ringing an ambulance because you're terrified of, "Why is my heart rate so high? Why is my ... Why am I sweating? Why can't I breathe?" You'd think you were having a panic attack. So the same sensation can be interpreted in two very different ways. And yeah, the frame that we put around the present moment does largely determine our experience of it and what we tell ourselves about what it means, because it's very rarely about the thing that happened.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:12:07

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:12:07

      Right? It's not about the fact that somebody cut you up, it's about the fact that they could have hit you or they could have made you late for work, or they could have lost you money because of the insurance claim or time because of all of the paperwork. It's the story and the implications of what happens.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:12:21

      Yeah. A- a- absolutely. And then let's take that one step further. Why am I, you know, a medical doctor with almost 21 years experience now seeing patients, why, why am I spending my year writing a book on happiness? Right? Do you get books on happiness by doctors? I don't know. I, I don't know one, right? But because this is a very much underappreciated connection, I think, in society and with the medical profession. Let's take that moment, someone cuts you up, right? And you go down the narrative of, "What an idiot. Can't believe they did that. Do they not know how to drive? They shouldn't have a driver's license." Whatever, right? Do you think you feel calm in that moment? Do you think you feel content? No. You feel stressed. That emotional stress will lead to physical stress in your body. It's- That's just the way it works, right? It's not inv- ... It might feel invisible, but it's not. It- it actually has a tangible effect on your body. If you hold onto this kind of stress, this can cause health problems. We see it time and time again. Inability to forgive, holding onto resentment, feeling anger.Right? These things are strongly associated with things like cancer, autoimmune disease, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, right? Yes, I've been very passionate about promoting how important lifestyle changes in the public for many years. You know, small changes to food, movement, sleep, and relaxation have a huge impact on our overall health. But the reason I wrote this book is 'cause I was thinking, "Well, why is it that some people, despite making all these great changes, are still struggling?" Of course, there are some genetic components. I, I, I don't mean to say that that's not the case, but for many things, it's like, "No, there's something else going on here." And I've seen patients who have the perfect diets. They go and move their bodies regularly. They sleep seven to eight hours a night, but they allow the actions of other people and the world around them to adversely affect their internal states. That is why they stay sick. That is why they keep coming in to see me. That is why they can't, you know, break free from some of these health problems. So, why I'm so passionate about these ideas and these messages is that, yes, they've helped me personally in my own life, and I've shared a lot of that journey in the book, so it's not just me... Well, I hope it's never me lecturing people. I always just trying to share information. If people find it useful, great. If they don't, okay, no problem, but I hope they find it useful. I've utilized it with my patients and found, yes, huge improvements for them in their inner... In, in their mental wellbeing, but also their physical health, and I've shared these ideas with friends and family and seen the benefits in their lives, so for me, like, I, I, I kind of feel that these... A lot of these ideas are quite simple. None of them, certainly none of the ones that I've written about, cost any money at all, right? These are super simple ideas that are very, very accessible. All it requires is someone to go, "You know what? Yeah, I think that's me. I think I allow my (laughs) inner peace and calm to be affected probably too much by the actions of other people." Some people think, "Well, how can that not be the case?" A lot of people will say, "Yeah, but of course if someone behaves like this to me, of course I'm gonna feel bad." Well, not necessarily. You can absolutely train yourself to not feel bad. It can be a bit of work. It can take a bit of time. I'm not suggesting for one minute people are gonna hear this conversation or get my latest book and actually apply the principles and suddenly go, "Oh, man. Life's awesome now." No, it's a bit of work, but it's not as hard as people think, and you can get to the other side, and, and kind of when you do, you kind of feel in control of your life, and I, I re- This is what... You know, you asked me, Chris, how was I feeling at the start. I think this is why I feel this deep sense of calm these days, because I've realized that actually, I create my response to the world in my mind. I create the feelings. Like, I'm responsible for them. I used to be reactive. Now, I really do feel I can see that space where I go, "Oh, I can, I can choose a multitude of different responses here. Which response here is gonna make me feel happier and better about the world?" And this is something I really, really try and instill in my kids. So, going back to another point we were talking about, I'm hoping that my kids, although they probably do have to go through some adversity at some point to learn important life lessons, I'm kind of hoping that maybe they don't need to wait till they're 40 to kind of learn some of these lessons. Time will tell, mate. You can interview them in 20 years and see, see if they, see if they think this is a good approach or not.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:17:06

      Uh, let's bring this one home, mate. Where should people

10. 1:17:08 – 1:17:38

    Where to Find Dr Chatterjee

    1. CWChris Williamson1:17:08

       find you if they want to check out your stuff online?

    2. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:17:11

       Well, look, the new book is Happy Mind, Happy Life in the UK. It's Ten Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day. The subtitle in America (laughs) , it's, uh, The New Science of Mental Wellbeing. Different, different titles and subtitles for different audiences, but that's available everywhere. Happy Mind, Happy Life. Probably Instagram if you wanna follow me and contact me, or, you know, my weekly podcast, Feel Better, Live More. So, people like what they have heard and they wanna hear more, yeah, do get in touch. Send me a DM, and, uh, I hope you enjoy the book.

Episode duration: 1:18:00