A New Mindset Of Success - Dr Rangan Chatterjee | Modern Wisdom Podcast 271

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   I mean, it's such…

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      I mean, it's such a hopeful ideology really, isn't it? This idea that for many of us, we're in a position now that we've never been in before, that our ancestors, that even our parents weren't in. So we can now think about, "Why am I here? How do I wish to spend my time? What do I want out of each day?" You know? (laughs) T- to maybe our grandparents that would be laughable what you ... "Just gotta find a way to make some money, get food on the table and have some shelter at night." So i- it is, it is a lovely thought because actually many things that have happened in the world over the past years, including the big lockdowns and the, the sort of restrictions, uh, that were put in place in 2020, they are forcing a lot of these existential questions to so many of us. You know, how are we living our life? What was I really doing? Did I enjoy just constantly chasing all the time?

   2. CWChris Williamson0:48

      (wind blowing) 2021, we're finally out of the absolute nightmare that was 2020. Are you a New Year's resolutions guy? You got any resolutions for this year?

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee0:58

      I used to be a resolution guy, um, back in the olden days. This year, no, haven't made any, really. I, I find, I find resolutions have helped me in the short term in the past, but haven't really helped me in the long term. And I guess that's also what I've seen with many of my patients. I, I'm not against resolutions, right? I, I get that everyone has got a different approach. Different things work for different people for sure. But for me, I think about values. What are the values I want to live my life by this year? What actions do I need to take regularly that is going to help me act in accordance with those values? And I guess if I'm honest, 2020 has probably shifted things for me in the sense that, like for many people, there was a lot of reflection in 2020. Um, you know, life came to a stop in certainly the way many of us w- used to live our lives. And I remember in August, I actually went off social media for 18 days. And it was just incredible, mate, because in those 18 days, once I'd got out of the habit of picking up my phone and looking for the Instagram app, which I'd actually deleted from my phone, I really found a sense of calm and sereneness, and I really started to tap into what I thought, not what the world around me thought. Like, what do I really think about these issues? And it, it was, it was, it was like, you know, shutting out the noise from the world and allowing me to hear my inner voice. And I thought long and hard about my values then. What are the values by which I aspire to live my life? And I thought about things like integrity, uh, compassion, uh, creativity, fairness. I, I thought of, you know, family. Big value for me is my family. And I was thinking about, well, are your actions consistent with these values? Are they real values or are they aspirational values? And so I've been doing a lot of that kind of inner thinking over the past few months, and I think that's one of the reasons why I've not set any resolutions this year, is because I feel pretty content these days, mate, if I'm honest. I've been working hard on myself, my health, my wellbeing, my thoughts, my mindset for a good five, 10 years now. And I feel that, yeah, there, there's a few things I want to focus on this year for sure. Uh, I've got a chart in my kitchen at the moment, as my kids do, and I've got three daily practices on there that I'm committing to. And I've thought long and hard, 'cause in the past I would have put eight or nine down, and I, I, I was gonna do one, but I know I'm quite confident with these three. So I've realized that if I do these three things every day, I win the day. I'm doing ?because there's a temptation, I think, these days to go online and say, "Oh, I could do that. I could practice martial arts, I could do breath work, I could do meditation, I could do yoga. Uh, I could do strength training." Uh, I've been that person before. So, you know, that's a long-winded answer to your question. Have I set any resolutions? No. Do I not agree with resolutions? No, I think they can work okay for some people, but for me, I'm at a place where actually this year at least I've made zero resolutions.

   4. CWChris Williamson4:29

      I think that the end of the year increasingly now as we see more sophisticated goal planning and setting strategies coming about is more just a break point for people. It's just an opportunity for them to check in and think about, "Okay, I'm back at my parents', girlfriend's, the in-laws' house," whatever it might be. "I was here this time last year. What's changed between last year and this year?" It's an opportunity to slow down and do a little bit of reflection. So yeah, I, I totally get that, man. Like, our daily habits and actions are a manifestation of the values that we're supposed to be enacting, right? They're the embodiment of whatever those values are. But if we never slow down and take that time away from social media, like you mentioned, to actually reflect on what are our values, you're never gonna get there. What are the three, uh, the three daily practices you're doing?

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee5:13

      So the three ones that I decided on at the moment, and again, this may iterate, this may evolve. I may reassess every month. Uh, I'm not gonna lock myself into the prison that, "Oh, I decided these three for the year. These have to be the three for the entire year." So they are 15 minutes of meditation, okay? And the fif-

   6. CWChris Williamson5:34

      What's your, what's your practice or what's the support of choice with that?

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee5:38

      So there, there's a couple things to say about this. So I don't have a particular formal practice that I do. I have tried various methods over a number of years, uh, whether it's via apps, um, whether it's sort of learning TM when I was 14 when my mom taught me when we were on holiday in India, and actually I thought this is a load of rubbish at this time. Man, I wish I paid attention back then. Um-... but the, you know, 'cause now I would have, I would love to go on a course and actually learn some of these things properly. I just wasn't ready for it, unfortunately, at the age of 14. But what I have found over the past few months is when I just sit there in silence, I'm able to access ... Sometimes I have to go through three or four minutes of, of noise, but I can drop in now to quite a calm state without necessarily trying to do anything. But I must say, that's come from years of experimenting with different forms. And I used to, you know, love using things like the Calm app, and I'm not against that, I think it can be super helpful, but for me, it's a case of just sitting there with no tech, with nothing, and just trying to, you know, accept anything that comes up in my mind. Now, why 15 minutes? 'Cause I'm a big believer that you don't need to make these things that complicated, they don't need to take that long. And actually, sometimes we try and make them too hard, and I have done one minute meditation a day before. I've made deals with patients before to say, "Well, what can you agree to? What can you commit to? Two minutes? Okay, yeah. Do two minutes a day, every day, I'll see you in three weeks." But this is the, I want to call it the end stage, this is me along this journey for a number of years, so I have done the five minutes every day, I've done the 10 minutes every day. And for me, I feel 15 minutes is just pushing me a little bit, 'cause after about 10 minutes I can get a bit twitchy and I think, "Well, if I make 15 minutes a commitment, I think I can manage it, think I'm ready for it, and within a few weeks, 15 will be my new norm. And maybe in February I might go up to 20, but maybe I'll stick to 15." So 15 minutes of meditation, five minutes of breathwork, uh, is, is what I'm doing currently. Now, I'm doing this new spiral breathing thing that I've learned from this running coach who, who's been helping me at the moment. Because at this time last year, I went on the Chris Evans Show to talk about my last book, and he challenged me on air, on Virgin Radio, to do the London Marathon in 12 weeks within. And I accepted even though I'm, you know, at the time, not really a runner. I do the odd 5K park run. Um, and so I got introduced to this amazing running coach in Amersham called Helen Hall, and she is just incredible. Now, obviously the marathon got postponed, um, which-

   8. CWChris Williamson8:29

      Were you secretly thankful about that?

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee8:32

      Uh, it was tricky because I do like a challenge, and I was actually looking forward to, "Can I go from nothing to a marathon in 12 weeks?"

   10. CWChris Williamson8:43

       Yeah. I'd have enjoyed that challenge as well.

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee8:45

       Yeah. So I think part of me relishes those sorts of things, but at the same time, I wasn't really ready for it. And so, when it was moved to October, I thought, "Okay, this gives me more time to actually get ready for it." And then it's been postponed and it's due to happen in October. So one of my, in inverted commas, goals for this year is to do the London Marathon in October. Now, I'm very relaxed about it. It may happen, it may not happen. Whether it happens or not, I'm not gonna suddenly have an up or down of emotion. It's simply, "Okay, cool. I would like to do that." And one thing I've been doing with this running coach is she's been helping me with my diaphragm and my breathing. So I've got a few exercises that, um, I'm working on at the moment. And then why I think that's so useful around this idea of resolutions is that, that, I don't have a resolution, but I do have a goal to do that marathon if it comes about. So therefore, I want to take daily actions that I know are getting money in the bank for me, that when it is marathon time, if it goes ahead, well, when I get to that start line, I know that I've done that five minutes of breathwork every day that's getting my breathing better, that's getting my respiratory system, uh, working more efficiently. That is going to help me in whatever I do. Yes, the marathon, but it's also going to help me in my life. So meditation, uh, breathing, and the third one at the moment, and it's not the usual one for me, is affirmation. So one minute of affirmations. So just something positive to say each morning to get me in the right mindset for the day ahead. Now, if you'd asked me six months ago, it would be completely different, right? So this is just where I'm currently at and what feels right to me.

   12. CWChris Williamson10:25

       Breathwork has been one of the favorite additions that I've brought into my routine. I know that we're both buddies with Brian Mackenzie and then his State app that, um, he was part of the team that developed, is a sponsor on the show. Uh, anyone that wants to check it out, bit.ly/statewisdom, and you can get it for free for two weeks. Um, and it's just awesome, man. Like, I challenge anybody to do a good breathwork session and tell me that they don't feel a change. And I think that marrying... With meditation, the challenge that you have with getting people to do it is that it's inherently uncomfortable. You don't actually have a state change. Uh, sorry, you don't have a trait change immediately afterward.

   13. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee11:01

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson11:01

       It's a lagging state change over time. Whereas if you do Wim Hof or if you do State app, Brian's application, there is no way that you can't say you don't feel different immediately afterward. It's like a cup of coffee or a cold shower.

   15. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee11:15

       Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's a key part of, uh, any behavior change is getting that sort of emotion, that positive emotion immediately once it is done. And you don't always get that in meditation. Sometimes the benefits of meditation are at 2:00 PM later on that day when-

   16. CWChris Williamson11:32

       (laughs)

   17. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee11:32

       ... you don't react, um, when someone cuts you up on the road or, you know, you don't react when your partner says something to you that you think, "Ah. Actually, normally I react to that. Could that have been because I've been meditating for the last few days?" Do you know what I mean? So, um, whereas breathwork, yeah, you will feel... If you're doing five minutes of Wim Hof breathing, you know, you can feel energized and charged afterwards. And so I'm, I'm very keen to sort of emphasize, as I, I've already said, I think, that...... me sharing that doesn't necessarily mean that I think everybody should be doing that. I've been kind of playing around and experimenting, and I think it's, I think it's on all of us. Yeah, we can take inspiration from people we follow or people we read, but at some point, you got to start taking ownership yourself and going, "Yeah, that works for Brian Mackenzie, that works for Chris, that works for Rungeon. Does that work for me?" Because maybe yeah, but maybe, "Hey, you know what? That one just doesn't vibe for me." And you mentioned Brian, and I love Brian and his work. I think it's awesome. And what I love about Brian and what I particularly resonate with is he- his approach to breath work and the body reminds me a lot about my own approach with my patients, and that is a very generalist perspective. Like, Brian is familiar with the Wim Hof breathing. Uh, he's familiar with, uh, holotronic breathing. He's familiar with, uh, Patrick McKeown's, uh, breathing. He's, he's familiar with Buteyko breathing. And what I think Brian does so beautifully well is he is able to combine what is the right breathing technique for this individual that wants this goal rather than saying, "Oh, I'm a proponent of Wim Hof breathing," or, "I do the Buteyko method," or, "I do this method." It's kind of like, well, they all have pros and cons. They all have benefits in the right situation. And I love that because, um, you know, I- I- I spoke to Brian on, on my show, I spoke to, um, James Nestor, um, Patrick McKeown, and then people were asking, "Well, which one is the best one?" And it's kind of like, yeah, maybe I haven't made it clear, but that's kind of not the point for me. It's kind of like these are all brilliant tools. Uh, and actually, I have tried... So I can't remember which breathing technique it was now, but I've got an Oura Ring, and you can do for about 10 minutes or so, you can measure heart rate variability and you can see what happens. And I've tried different breathing techniques and seen what happens. And some breathing techniques that are regarded as being good for you, actually, they tank my heart rate variability, and I've realized, "Ah, so maybe that's just something for me to keep an eye on. Maybe that's not the best one for me in this current state." Um, yeah, so, so a few thoughts there from me.

   18. CWChris Williamson14:31

       The thing that I think is interesting that I really like about what's happened with health and fitness, probably over the last, I would say, three years or so, maybe a little bit more, but definitely the last three years, is this movement toward a minimum effective dose, a much more sort of realistic and simplistic view of how people need to do health and fitness. I think that you're part of that. I would class James Smith as another one of them, perhaps on the more sweary side. Um, and what we're doing is... There was a period 10 years ago, all the guys that are listening who are

2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      sort of in their early 30s will know this, bodybuilding.com forums, and you were desperately scouring through whatever you could find, like, "How do I build biceps?" And no one really knew. No one really actually had any idea. You're taking some dude's push-pull-legs split off the other side of the internet on a random forum from some guy that lives in Dallas, Texas, and you'd just go and do it and, and see if it worked. Whereas now, all of that explore situation where people have tried, "Oh, should I be doing five-three-one? Should I actually be doing higher reps? Should I be doing cardio three times a week?" All of those, uh, opportunities that people have had to make new ground, to kind of look at all of these different tactics has been synthesized. And it's now, I think, the goal of the generalist as opposed to the specialist to actually compile all of this together. Like Brian, to look at all of the different elements, all of the different breathing techniques. How can you synthesize it down? That's why I love the STATE app, because it's only four exercises. There's four different ones that you can do, and they're built on four different pathways that Brian obviously backs. So I go, "Right, okay, that's simple." There's not unlimited customizability.

   2. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee16:03

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson16:03

      And the same with the way that you put your stuff across, and especially James Smith as well. Like, you know, he's trying to break things down to the simplest possible terms. Like, just how easy can I make this? And I think what that's identified is that compliance is the number one indicator of how effective a habit, especially behavior change, diet, fitness training, health is going to be. If your habit is so complex and so convoluted and so hard to understand that you either don't get started on it or don't stick to it, then it can be the best training plan in the world, but it means fuck all. What actually matters is can you create a plan that that person understands and sticks to? And if that's the- if that's what you can achieve, you will get results.

   4. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee16:48

      Yeah, no question. I think, I think it's a very astute observation. Um, simplicity is, is, is key. You know, keep it simple, stupid. There's that phrase, isn't it? K-I-S-S, keep it simple, stupid. And it's... You see this over and over again. This is, I think, one of the reasons why... Let's say we talk about, you know, the dietary tribes. Um, you know, let's say like low carb, for example. Low carb can be a fantastic approach for some people, um, but it's not the be all and end all for everyone. Uh, certainly that's from my clinical experience is that the different approaches work for different people. But I think one, one of the good things about it and other dietary tribes is there's a real simplicity to it. It's like, "Okay, when I'm following this way of eating, I don't eat many carbs," right? So it just, it just helps decision-making when you're faced with all these options. It's not, "Oh no, I can't have that because I don't do carbs." Um, you know, I- I'm not pro or anti low carb. I use it with some patients, but I- I don't identify as being in or out of any one of these dietary camps.

   5. CWChris Williamson17:54

      It's the, uh, attraction of time-restricted eating as well, right? It's just so simple.

   6. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee18:00

      Yeah. And again, you know, uh, Professor Satchin Panda from the Salk Institute, who's probably the, the leading researcher on time-restrict eating, he... When I, when I spoke to him, said that, "Look, you know, the- the... trying to change what people are..."... eat ha-has really been a bit of a failure for the last (laughs) 20 years or so, we've been trying that. Maybe changing when people eat might be a simpler option. And again, for some of my patients, yeah, it just, they don't have to worry so much about what they eat. They go, "Okay, I eat every day from 8:00 A.M. till 6:00 P.M." And it just simplifies their life down and they know, "Oh, after 6:00. No, I don't eat now." And again, we need to find what are those, what are, what are the right rules that deeply resonate with us that we feel, "Yeah, I can follow that." Um, you say minimum effective dose and I think that's really interesting, 'cause if you look at behavioral science research, it's pretty clear that actually the best way to make a habit stick in the long term is to make it easy. Uh, Professor B.J. Fogg talked a lot about this. H- he talks about the motivation wave, so motivation comes up, motivation goes down. Many of us, particularly in January, Chris, we forget about the motivation wave. We assume motivation is going to be limitless for the whole year and we go, "Right, I'm going to go spinning four times a week now for the next year." And for the first two, three weeks of January, we may actually go. But when real life gets in the way, when our motivation starts to fall, if something is difficult to do, we won't do it. We only will do it... Like motivation, uh, and ability to do are, are, are, are sort of teammates, where if motivation is really high, yes, you'll do something that's really hard to do. But if motivation's low, it's got to be easy. So rule number one for me for behavior change is you've got to make it easy. Um, and you know, business understands this. So, you know, Amazon, when Amazon moved to one-click ordering a few years ago now, we don't know this for sure, but estimates say that their profits went up by $300 million a year. Wait, a year. That's-

   7. CWChris Williamson20:10

      Can you imagine if you were the guy in the office that came up with one-click ordering? Like you're on s-

   8. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee20:14

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson20:14

      ... you're on such a fat bonus.

   10. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee20:16

       Yeah, you would hope so, wouldn't you? You would, you would hope so, but they all do it because it's kind of like instead of four or five screens, putting card details and expiry dates and stuff, which every, every single step you take is a reason to pull out of that behavior. Boom, before you blink, something's coming the next day. And so, you know, rule number one is that you've got to make it easy. Netflix, YouTube, they all do the same thing. They roll one video into the next video. That is not done by accident. That is done so before you realize it's midnight, I need to be up at six o'clock for work, before you've had time to process that, you're straight into the next episode and you're like, "Oh man, just one more." Right? And I'm not criticizing those companies, right? They're doing what they need to do. They're applying the best behavioral change science for their businesses. And I'm saying when it comes to our health, why do we throw that stuff out the window? Why do we think it's got to be about deprivation, punishment, restriction? Let's follow some of those rules, make it easy. And the, the other rule that I, I love talking to people about is where are you going to put that habit or that new behavior in your day? A lot of us don't think about that. We go, "I want to meditate," or, "I want to work out." When? And it's really important because every single behavior we do needs a trigger, right? So a trigger could be your memory. Oh, I remember I've got a call tonight with Chris at 6:30 to record this podcast. Okay, it works, it just happens to be the most unreliable trigger there is. Uh, the next best trigger is a notification. So a thing on my phone saying, "Hey, 6:30, you've got a call with Chris. You need to be on your mic with the studio lights on and ready to go." Okay, that's better than your memory. But the very best trigger as shown by the research is when you stick on that behavior, that new behavior onto an existing habit, because that habit is already wired in. And this is, this is what I do, Chris. So I, I've, I've spoken about this before, but I think it's, you know, I, I, I always love t- sharing this with people because it's been so impactful for me. I make coffee every morning. So when it comes to the kitchen, I weigh out my coffee, um, because I'm pretty precise with how I like it. Put it in the cap-

   11. CWChris Williamson22:27

       What are you, what's your current blend? What are you having at the moment?

   12. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee22:29

       Current blend is, uh, a grumpy mule. Um, oh, I think it's a grumpy mule or it's, it's a, it's an organic grumpy mule blend. I couldn't tell you the name because it's the same-

   13. CWChris Williamson22:39

       Pre- pre-ground or are you grinding it yourself?

   14. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee22:42

       No, it, it is pre-ground. It is pre-ground. I, I did think about going down that path, but actually I thought, you know what? I'm obsessive enough about things.

   15. CWChris Williamson22:50

       (laughs)

   16. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee22:50

       I'm not sure I need to add that in as well. Um, but I do weigh it out. I weigh out 15 grams and then I pour 250 grams of, uh, water. One minute app-

   17. CWChris Williamson23:00

       Oh, so are you using a, are you using a CO2 bloom method? Are you allowing the carbon dioxide to bloom out first?

   18. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee23:06

       Hey, I don't go that far. I don't go that far. I just weigh out the grams.

   19. CWChris Williamson23:08

       My housemate, my housemate's been on furlough all summer and has been really, really bored. He started watching videos of this Japanese barista that won the World Coffee Championship or something.

   20. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee23:19

       (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson23:19

       I came in the, came into the kitchen and he's like pouring the, the filter paper, he's warming the filter paper up, the glass, the, the, uh, cafetiere gets warmed before as well. He went really, really deep. I think it was excessive.

   22. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee23:31

       And I love that. Now, uh, the thing is, right, it's the right addiction or the right behavior for the right person. I could have gone down that route. And I'm actually slowly trying to unwind from coffee. I'm reducing how much I'm consuming because I think it is my crutch that I turn to when I'm under pressure. Um, but the point is, is that I come down and I make it and then... and I time then for four minutes, I time... That's how long I like it to brew, then I've got this consistency. I know I like the taste, I know I like the flavor like that. In those four minutes, I have a workout every morning, like in my pajamas. I've, I've got a dumbbell and a kettlebell in the kitchen. Sometimes I do a body weight workout, sometimes I'll do some kettlebell swings.... but w- I make it easy, right? I don't have to get changed, I don't have to buy any equipment, I don't have to find anything from anywhere. I don't ... I, I, I'm in my pajamas. I have that set routine where the coffee gets made. I don't need a reminder to make coffee. I don't need my PA to phone me in the morning and say, "Hey, Rangan, don't forget you've got to make coffee." No, that's, that's an automatic behavior. So, if I stick on my workout there, it means every single day ... And this has been the case for maybe about three years now. I've hardly missed a day. It's that I have coffee every day, I work out every day. Only for five minutes, right? But you can do a lot in five minutes.

   23. CWChris Williamson24:55

       One of the things that I've been absolutely blown away by is how impactful habit stacking can be. Like, my morning routine habit stack now ... This year, I've made the biggest leap yet, which is to try and roll my morning routine straight into a morning session of deep work, which would be around about two hours. Um, but including my morning routine, it's like three and a half to four hours. And today was like ... Everyone's done this. It's the 4th of ... Monday the 4th of January. Everyone's New Year's resolutions have like been delayed from Friday the 1st until Monday the 4th, which is kind of hilarious. But, um, and I'm, uh, such a huge advocate of trying to give people that beautiful unencumbered time on a morning. I find it, like, the best part, the most productive part of my day. And over time, you can build up and just continue to add on, move from that system two thinking to that system one thinking, and start to automate those habits. Now, if you were told after three years of doing it that you weren't allowed to work out while your coffee was brewing, you'd get fidgety and you'd feel weird and you'd be like, "Uh, I'm sick of this." Like, "I don't know what to do." Like, "I'm, I'm supposed to pick the kettlebell up or throw the dumbbell around." And over time, this is how you see these people who have unbelievably well-disciplined lives from the outside, but to them, it's just automated.

   24. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee26:05

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson26:05

       They've just slowly built this up over time, and they've managed to drill what to you looks incredibly precise and well thought out, but to them has just been a series of very small behavior changes over time.

   26. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee26:19

       Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it's, it's a great point to make. Um, we look at the end product or the end version of what we're seeing and we go, "Wow, how have they done all that?" But we don't realize it was probably 10 years in the making of small one percent improvements. Um, very much like that 15-minute meditation thing, for example, that I do each morning now. I wasn't going to be able to stick to that even two years ago. That was, that was too much for me. I had to start small and build up in five minutes each day, and building these habits and really understand myself a lot better. Um, I ... Yeah. I mean, someone asked me recently on my podcast about, um, how do you get so much done, right? Which is really interesting for me because, I guess from the outside, the person who asked that question has a perception that, w- how are you getting this much done? You're seeing patients, you release a podcast each week, you're releasing a book every year. You've got two young kids. You know, what, what's the secret? And it's really interesting because to me, I was kind of like, "Yeah, what is the secret?" And I, I, I struggled a little bit to, to think about what it was because to me, I do have quite a disciplined life, but that, that discipline is a bit of a cliché. It does give me freedom. It gives me what I need. And I think for me, it was when I, when I had kids that things started to change for me. And I'll tell you why it was so transformative for me in terms of my routine is, my son has always got up early, even when he was like really, really young. And I like getting up early, but I like more than anything time to myself each morning before the rest of the household rises. I, I, I've always been a morning person. I love that quiet time. And I soon realized, well, wow, if I'm gonna get up before my son, I need to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. Right? So I was getting up silly early at one point, but I love it. If I'm getting up at five o'clock, I love that one hour in the morning before anyone comes down where I can, you know, do some meditation, have a coffee, have a little workout, do some stretching, um, do some reading. I've got a few books that are kicking around that I keep in my living room, like three or four. I'm always changing them and I'll, I will always sit with my coffee and read, you know, for 10 or 15 minutes. Just something positive, something that gets me thinking every morning. And I find when I do that, when I nourish myself physically, mentally and emotionally every morning, not only am I a better human being, not only am I a better father, a better husband, a better doctor, I also get a lot done. Right? When I'm writing, I, I go straight from my morning routine into writing, and if I get a good three hours writing done then, writing-wise, I'm done for the day. That is so much more valuable to me than actually trying to start writing at 11:00 PM and still slogging away 8:00 PM. Those eight hours are nothing compared to a really good three hours first thing in the morning. So ... And, and I'm really disciplined with my time in the sense that if it's dinner time and I'm with my family, my phone is nowhere in sight. I'll leave it in another room and I'm trying my best to be really present with the kids. And so, you know, how do I get so much done? I, I don't really know, don't really know how to answer that apart from just share the things I do. I, I absolutely will prioritize sleep. Like, that I know when I sleep well, everything is better the following day. Sleep is something I prioritize.

3. 30:00 – 45:00

   But do we not,…

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee30:00

      Solitude is something I prioritize. When I get these things, I feel I can get a lot of things done. Um, but also, I think there's also a perception from the outside of what someone else's life is like. You know, I'm a, I'm a busy guy just like anyone else, you know. I've got lots of work commitments. I've got family. I've got an elderly mother n- nearby who needs looking after.... like, what I post on social media and what people see of me in the media is just one small portion of my entire life. But an assumption is made on what I share that that is my entire life, but it really isn't. I'm very intentional. Yes, I share a lot of myself, but there's plenty I do not share on social media, plenty I keep reserved and it's just for me, my family and my friends.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:45

      But do we not, all of us, see our own failings from a front row seat, right? From the outside looking in, it might look like you've completely got your life sorted, but you'll struggle not using your phone too much. You mentioned before-

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee30:57

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:57

      ... I had to go so far as to delete the app and to go cold turkey for 18 days. These are challenges that we all s- that we all have. The difference is, if you've built up slowly over time, if you've constructed a routine that's robust and has a nice foundation to it, your worst day will be better than someone who hasn't done any of that stuff's best days. So this is something that I actually wanted to ask-

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee31:17

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson31:17

      ... uh, to ask. Let's invert your day. You've talked about what you do to make sure that you have a good day. What could you do that would ensure that you had the worst day? What are the habits or the actions that you take that, if you do them, you end up wrecking everything?

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee31:34

      Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a great question. Okay, I like that. How, how can I make sure I have a really bad day tomorrow? Okay. I could do Skype calls in the evening, uh, and look at screens-

   8. CWChris Williamson31:48

      Is that a date?

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee31:48

      (laughs) No, no. No, that's not-

   10. CWChris Williamson31:49

       (laughs)

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee31:49

       That's not a t- that's a joke. Um, no, I'll, um... Okay. It, it, it wa- it wa- it was fun, but actually what's really interesting me is me having a bad day tomorrow starts at about 5:00 PM the day before, right? So, if I, if I work late into the evening, so if I'm still wired in my brain even at 8:00 PM, which is late for me 'cause I do get up early, that can affect how long it takes me to switch off and then fall into, uh, a nice deep, relaxing sleep. How can I make sure tomorrow day's- tomorrow's bad? I could, after this call, I could get, uh, some crisps and some biscuits and go and put Netflix on and still be watching it at 1:00 AM. I could still be doing that. And I would enjoy myself, I'd love watching it, I'd love in the moment that feeling, but then I wouldn't sleep well. I'd still wake up early because my body clock is totally locked in. So, I don't use an alarm, but I will still wake up at 5:00 tomorrow morning. I'll feel a bit cranky. My meditation won't be very good. I'll be a bit ratty with the kids. I won't be as calm and as present over breakfast tomorrow. Um, those are the kinds of things that I could do this evening that would ensure I have a bad day tomorrow. And to break it down, eating late for me is a big one. I- I've seen this and I've tracked it as well, that if I eat within two hours of going to sleep, for me, it's not the same for everyone, but for me, I just don't sleep as deeply. So I may fall asleep, I may sleep for the same amount of time, but I don't feel as well rested the following day. Uh, for me, I know I'm pretty sensitive to screens before bed. Again, I've tracked that. So, it's very hard to resist sometimes. I have a rule that I don't... I try... It's not a rule because I don't always manage to. A, it's an aspiration to not take my phone into my bedroom. If it comes into the bedroom, I really struggle to not look at it. So, I tend to charge it in the kitchen or charge it in another room. Um, but also that one hour before bed, you know, what I do then. You know, do I amp up my brain with thinking about things and, uh, consuming things either on social media or on Twitter or online or the, you know, on television, that gets me wired? Or is it, is it kind of like a switch off? Uh, that one hour before bed for me is golden. If I really can switch off, no screens, dim lighting, maybe reading, it makes... It is probably the most important hour in my day in many ways 'cause if I get that hour right, the next day will fly. And if I get that d- that hour wrong, I could really pay for it the next day.

   12. CWChris Williamson34:46

       Yeah. I would say the hour before bed and the hour upon waking are the two most important for me as well. I don't know, man. Like, it, the one thing that I fear with creating a routine that I love so much and that I rely on as much as I do now, and every year, right, I'm adding stuff onto it. It gets longer, it gets bigger. I'm now trying to actually make the first basically until midday part of a morning routine. And I guess that there's no, there's no chance for variety at the moment. We're all locked down in our houses, right? Um, but one of the fears that I have, one of the challenges that I come up against is when part of that falls away, avoiding a catastrophic tumble down, "Right, that's it. I've missed my meditation. Everything's out of the window now." Or if I do end up sleeping in, uh, not getting to sleep until late for whatever reason, maybe because I'm recording, maybe 'cause I just have a bad night's sleep, not waking up in the morning and thinking, "Well, I've only slept for six hours because my Whoop strap tells me I've only slept six hours. Oh, I, I, I looked at my phone before 9:00 AM," which is one of the rules that I'm not supposed to do. And you actually can end up almost becoming superstitious, like the old football player that used to have to put his left sock on than his right sock on-

   13. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee35:53

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson35:53

       ... and double knot his laces in this particular way. You can almost have, uh, a domino effect in terms of being so overly reliant on your routine that as soon as one thing falls off, that you get very catastrophic thoughts down the line.

   15. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee36:08

       I've definitely been guilty of that in the past. Um, like it was all or nothing.

   16. CWChris Williamson36:14

       But let's not forget as well that the point of the routine is to be more robust, more anti-fragile, not less.

   17. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee36:23

       Yeah, you're right. And, and I, and I think it's something you are sharing, something I've, I've certainly struggled with in the past. I've got to say that's changed in the past year for me. But I, and, and I, I try to sort of unpick why that might be is... I've done a lot of work with a therapist about my upbringing, my childhood, you know, these certain patterns of behavior that I have and where they may have come from. And I think for a lot of my life, I've felt good about myself only when I had external validation of what I had done. If other people say you're doing well, "Hey, you're doing great," even if inside you're, you're dying, it doesn't matter. People are saying it's good, oh, it's good. And I really unpicked where a lot of that has come from, you know. I, I believe that actually, um, as a kid, I was under the impression that in some ways you're only really worth something when you've achieved something that's good. And I think therefore your identity becomes pretty fragile actually, you're very much a prisoner to the world around you. You're a prisoner to what other people think and what other people say. And I've had to really go in and understand that because, you know, in 2015 I had my own BBC One primetime show called Doctor on the House, which runs for two seasons, which has been watched by five million people a week. You suddenly are putting yourself out there, and with social media the way it is, hey, people can say whatever they want about whatever they want, whether true or not. And I really found that difficult because initially it was like, "I don't really understand, I mean, where's some of this criticism coming from? I've just helped all these families with complex health problems who've not got better seeing GPs and specialists in the past, and without fail I've got almost all of them either fully better or significantly better in six weeks just by making, or helping them make changes to their lifestyle." I was like, "Why, why, why is this 1% of people attacking me and saying that you didn't do it the right way, you didn't do this?" Now, you can either let that bury you or you can go, "Okay, this is an opportunity to learn here. This is an opportunity to understand why am I so bothered by what other people are saying?" And, you know, being in the media and having a public profile of sorts for five years in some ways is the best crucible to learn because you either sink or you swim. You either-

   18. CWChris Williamson38:52

       Baptism of fire.

   19. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee38:54

       Yeah. You either sort this stuff out or you become a very unhappy individual who doesn't feel good about themselves, and I've had moments like that. I remember when the second season of Doctor on the House started, first episode, I think I didn't sleep for a week properly after that I was so affected by what people were saying. Even though it's the, one of the proudest things I've ever done in my entire career, professional but also personal life. And I understood once you unpick where that comes from and you, you come to terms with it, you start to really become more at peace with who you are. So I don't really have that all or nothing mentality anymore that I used to. Whereas in the past it's like, "Oh, you failed." You know, "You said you were gonna meditate, move, do a bit of mindset, do this, you didn't do it today. Forget it. Forget it. Let's just go and get some chocolate and crisps." The old me might have done that, but I, I, I would like to say it's been about 12 months now, certainly the last six months, where there has really been a noticeable shift, Chris, uh, with me. Uh, I think if we had done this interview two years ago and you said, "Have you made any resolutions?" I'd have said, "Yeah, absolutely. Here are my five resolutions." Right? And it's really interesting, nobody's really asked me that for a long time. So, I guess during this conversation with you, I'm kind of processing that thinking, "Oh, that's interesting that I haven't made any resolutions this, this year." And I think it comes down to the fact that I'm just more comfortable in my own skin. I understand that my worth as a human being is not dependent on whether I meditate every morning or not. Right? I still... You know, I've, I've come to terms with the fact now... Not come to terms with, I, I like the person I see when I look in the mirror each morning. Right? I actually really like myself now for who I am, warts and all. And I've got to say, mate, and I don't know if you feel the same way with your podcast, but having my own podcast I think has been one of the best things I have done for my own personal well-being because I'm very raw and open and honest on it. And I feel just by sharing myself, not trying to curate an image of who I am, really sharing every aspect of me, you think, "Well, what can people criticize?" It's kind of like I, I share the things I struggle with, I share what I'm not so good at, I share it all. So it's kind of like you've almost taken that away from other people, but also from yourself. You're like, "Oh no, I am an imperfect human. That's okay." Right? Do you know what I mean? And so I kind of feel, I feel in a really good place these days, but it has not been easy getting here. Um, and so coming back to what you were talking about is I don't feel that sense of failure anymore. If I stop for a few days, I don't play the old record, which is, "Um, you're a failure. You can't stick to this stuff." It's like, "Oh, oh, you know what? It was really busy, um, I needed to help my mom, kids were busy at school, I didn't really go to bed on time. Okay, that's cool. I can change that tomorrow." So that, that is a very noticeable shift in me and it's very, very recent.

   20. CWChris Williamson42:01

       Man, I'm really happy to hear that. That's, like, so beautiful to find that you've taken something that perhaps once would have been a, a, a difficulty or a vice of that sort of personal lambasting, that very negative inner monologue, and that you've managed to align that with the lifestyle that you've got now. I think that's, like, a really, really great change that you could have made. I wonder how many people... I've been thinking about this so much recently...Um, I wonder how many people that are type As, that are go-getters, that are on the personal development and the self-creation growth journey, I wonder how many of those people are motivated by the fact that inherently they don't like the person that they see in the mirror. Like, you can either run away from something you don't like or run towards something that you do. And I would guess that a significant minority, and maybe even the majority, is actually running away from a situation that they don't want.

   21. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee42:55

       I think you're spot on. I th- I think it's the majority actually. And, uh, you know, if I had to guess, I would say it's the majority because I think in some ways that dissatisfaction, that internal dissatisfaction with who they are in many ways provides the drive to overcome that. They go, "No, I am someone. I'm gonna show you with this level of success, with this level of income, with this level of whatever it is, I'm gonna show everyone around me that I am worth something, that I'm not worth less." But the problem is, I think that can work up to a certain point, and then it can start to become really, really toxic. And I, uh, I have to question that, and I cracked it in my head, that is it possible to gain those really high levels of success or what society defines as being successful, I should say, 'cause that can be very, very different than what actually, what success can really mean to us on an individual level. It's like can we really achieve that without some real inner demons that we're trying to overcome? I think about this with athletes a lot. I think about, you know, Tiger Woods or, you know, all kinds of pro athletes who've gone and done inhumane or seemingly, uh, super human, um, feats. A- and actually, you know, Michael Jordan, interesting, you know, when you, when you watch the new, um, well, it's not new anymore-

   22. CWChris Williamson44:24

       Last Dance.

   23. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee44:24

       ... but the series, The Last Dance on Netflix. Ands, you know, and, and that, that story when he was, was at the Hall of Fame a couple years ago where he goes up and then he almost just shows how much he's h- this anger and hatred and sort of, he's had to hold onto all these years to be that good. Or certainly that's my perception of what I've been reading about it. It's so interesting that would he have been that "great," in inverted commas, without that? Could he have been-

   24. CWChris Williamson44:55

       None. Not at all. Not at all. I, I, I think there's absolutely no way that he could've done. And I think

4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I, I, I, I…

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

      when, especially in sport, and sport's a good example of it, the conditions for success in sport are very tightly defined. It doesn't matter if Tiger Woods is the most miserable, poor, self-hating anything man on the planet. If he gets the ball in the hole with less hits than the other guy, he's the best golfer in the world. So, the, the particular judgements, the parameters that we use are so tightly defined that it doesn't matter. And anything that you do outside of the sport, which actually assists you in the sport, means that you're gonna out-compete the people that are around you. And I'm not sure if you know much about Tiger Woods' childhood and the way that his dad-

   2. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee45:42

      I, I, I, I do. I, I, I, I've, I've been fascinated with Tiger for the last 15 years, and I read everything about him. I'm... He's probably my dream podcast guest. I mean, who wouldn't love to interview Tiger? I would love to talk to Tiger-

   3. CWChris Williamson45:54

      Tiger, if you're listening, if you, if you're listening, get, get, get Rangan on, on, uh, Twitter.

   4. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee45:58

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson45:58

      But, I mean, man, like I heard a story, I think it was in, um, one of Ryan Holiday's books talking about the things that his dad used to say to him. So, his dad used to call him the N-word, used to say that he was, uh, like be outwardly racist to him. Did you hear that he used to have an, uh, a safe word like people have during rough sex? He used to have a safe word that was called enough.

   6. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee46:20

      Oh, yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson46:20

      And they referred to it as the E-word. And his dad would say to him, "Look, you know, if you can't take this, if you don't think you're good enough, then just say the word and I'll stop." And he never once said it. And you think that is... I mean, is it child abuse? It probably would be, certainly in today's... in the way that it looks at it today. If you had a patient, a young 11-year-old fledgling golfer come to you and say, "Dr. Chatterjee, uh, my dad's being overtly racist to me and, and forcing me to play golf and doing all this stuff," it's only in the light of what he's achieved that we're able to even see any tiny little bit of perspective or sort of justification for that. And really, I don't know, I'd, I'd love... I'll tell you what the first question that I'd a- not, maybe not the first one, it'd be a bit heavy to open with.

   8. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee47:05

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson47:05

      But, um, uh, to ask Tiger, would you rather have not won everything that you won and not have the programming that inevitably will have carried over from your upbringing? Or is the, is the juice worth the squeeze?

   10. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee47:21

       Yeah. Uh, absolutely, mate. The same, same question, uh, that I have in my head for him, you know, was it worth it? Is it worth it? And I think there's a wider point there about this definition of success, right, because we look up to people like Tiger. Now, I'm a Tiger fan, right? And I'll explain what I mean by that is I don't think that... You know, as a sports fan growing up, I found Tiger intensely fascinating. Who, I mean, lots of, you know, I'm not unique in that regard. But as someone who grew up to an immigrant family in the UK, you know, my parents were Indian immigrants, came over, my dad came over in the 1960s. You know, golf wasn't something that featured for me. It's not something my parents played, it's not something in their network. Golf was not played. I, as a, uh, you know, from an immigrant family in the UK, I don't think I would've played or be interested in golf if Tiger Woods didn't exist. There was something about Tiger that suddenly made everyone from all walks of life, from all different colors and races suddenly interested in the sports of golf. And then when Tiger sort of goes off the rails and it all comes out, right-You know, there was this huge disappointment in Tiger from the media, from his fans. But then when you look at his story and his childhood, you go, "Hold on a minute. Was any of this really a surprise?" Of course this was going to happen when you look at his childhood. No girlfriends, no social life, schooled from the age of, well, from out of the womb to be the number one golfer in the world. Apparently, um, you know, his dad, you know, didn't really want a kid at that age anymore, and so Tiger's in a high chair and just watching his dad hit golf balls all day. And then suddenly, you know, he pops out at some point and actually can hit a golf club himself. You know, it's ... Golf must have held such a powerful emotional pull for him in terms of, "Well, I can't get attention from my dad. All he does is hit this golf club. Man, I want, I want to do that as well so I can connect with Dad." Then as you say, racist abuse because he's trying to train Tiger. He says, "When you get up there in those tournaments, you're going in, into a white sport, people are not gonna like you, they're gonna throw abuse at you. I am training you to be able to deal with that." And then you think about all the criticism where Tiger is, you know, in the final round of the Major, people say he's ignoring them and he's not signing autographs and not doing things. But actually, the guy's a trained assassin. You know, he would say in interviews that, "I don't hear the noise. I don't hear what people are saying." Like, in that final 18 holes of a Major, in his prime, he's just in the zone. He's got one goal and that is, next shot, get the golf ball where he wants it to go, get it in the hole. As he says, "Get the world, get the W." That was what it was always about for him. And so I'm fascinated that when he wins the Masters a couple of years ago, after that huge time where he won nothing, there was something different about him in his interviews. He was ... You know, his, his shoulders were, were, were lower. He was smiling. He was cracking jokes. It was like a different Tiger. It was like a, it was like a Tiger, to me, who had faced his demons, who ... You know, he said in an interview, "You know, I, I, I said to my kids, I said the reason, um, Daddy doesn't live with Mummy anymore is because Daddy made some big, big mistakes, and that's why we're not together." And to hear someone like Tiger, who I think has been trained to never show any weakness, to start opening up, I wonder how that Masters victory felt to him compared to all his other Majors in the past, because he feels like he's someone who went to that extreme, he had to stare his demons in the face, the world's media are literally printing things about the most intimate details of his entire life. I challenge any one of us to like that process and to actually not be harmed by that process. You know, it's, it's ... We're, we're very good at judging other people and going, "Oh, man, he's really let us down." Really? Well, why did we put him on such a big pedestal in the first place? Maybe in society that's one of the major problems we have is that we're idolizing people who actually achieved, as you said, that tight metric of sporting success, but maybe, you know, aren't the best husband or the best father or the best whatever, right? We're, we're, we're idolizing these people, but what if ... and this is something I reflected on in 2020. Well, what if we started to define success a little bit differently? What if success was how much time this year did I spend with the people who I really value? How many meals this year did I spend or did I have with my children and my wife and I wasn't away? What if we started to look up to people who actually achieved those things? Because if that was what we, uh, aspired to as a society, well, maybe suddenly the whole of society suddenly starts to look differently straightaway. But if, if, if all we're looking up to is your Tiger Woods, is your Michael Jordan, are those the posters we have on our walls or young boys have on their walls, well, actually, is that not the inherent problem, or is that not one of the inherent problems in the way society is set up? Maybe we're idolizing the wrong people.

   11. CWChris Williamson52:43

       Man, it's a really deep point and it's something ... I don't know. Uh, I've read far too much evolutionary psychology over the last year to hope that that would ever happen. I think that we're inevitably going to stratify out into hierarchies.

   12. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee52:55

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson52:55

       And those hierarchies are almost always going to be on socialized measures of success, externalized measures of success. I can't look at you and see just how mindful you are, see who y- just how satisfied you are, see how, just how loved you are and how loving you are and how awakened and aligned and present and all the rest of the stuff. But I can probably see how many followers you've got on Twitter, and I can guess at your net worth, and I can do other things. Like, those are the games that people play. They play status games.

   14. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee53:23

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson53:23

       And the goal for almost everybody is to completely step out of that game. But the problem is that most of the things that we do in life that are deemed as successful, and we're mimetic creatures, right? We do what the people around us do. We live in tribes. Most of the things that we do are reliant on other people affirming our sense of worth, and that's what we get. But, um, I don't know, man. I, I, I certainly think that increasingly now, this more Western version of mindfulness, this sort of awakened, aligned, mindful content, and, uh, the ability to be present and people ... Like Naval Ravikant is a, a perfect example of this. Someone who is winning at the game and also not caring about playing. Like, he's somebody who has gone through that process. And it reminds me, I keep talking about this, His Dark Materials, the trilogy by Philip Pullman. It was my, my favorite set of books when I was a kid, and in this set of books, the, um, big story arc for one of the two main protagonists is the journey from unconscious competence-... to conscious incompetence, and then to finally to conscious competence. So, that's what we talk about with Tiger, that you have this person who is an absolute assassin, a total trained killer as soon as he's out on the tee, but is doing it all totally unaligned without having m- managed to absorb or work out any of the other stuff that's going on in his life. And then the journey that he really needs to go on is not to become the best in the world, it's to become happy with himself-

   16. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee54:58

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson54:59

       ... and to actually fully internalize all of these things and to work through. And similar to you, you know, you've managed to get yourself to a- a primetime BBC two-season show, and yet if you, two years ago, hadn't meditated, there would have been a voice in the back of your head saying, "Oh, like, Rangan that's- that's a- another reason why today's gonna suck, or why you're worthless today, or why you haven't done this, that, and the other." Like, that is the journey. It's not about that externalized, socialized metrics of success. It is about how happy you can be just being you.

   18. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee55:33

       It is, but it's the- it's- it's often the hardest journey to make, it's the hardest thing to see. I'm so conscious. You know, my kids are t- a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl, and I talk about this stuff with them, you know. Every breakfast time it's like, you know, "This is Daddy's philosophy lesson for the morning," and we talk about this stuff 'cause, you know, the- the truth is I never spoke about this stuff when I was kid. I, you know, as I mentioned, you know, my parents were- were immigrants to the UK, and their metric of success is, "We're gonna work really, really hard and give our kids a better life than we had." And their way of doing that was sending us to good schools, making sure that we got As in everything so that actually we would then "succeed" in inverted commas and, you know, not have to face the hardships that they faced, right? And I love and respect my parents for that. The problem is, or one of the downsides of that is you think your only worth is whe- is when you're getting straight As and when you're top of the class and when, um, you're achieving those things, and if you don't, you kind of feel like, "Oh, well, what does that mean about me? What is my identity then if I'm not that guy who's top dog?" And it kind of, it's... I th- as I said before, for me, I feel I've had the luxury and the- the, in many ways the luxury of the public profile because the scrutiny you then put yourself under, it is sink or swim. You either sort this stuff out... And I know lots of people in media now, and I think there's a huge amount of fragile egos in media who actually get their sense of self-worth from the perception from the public, but on the inside, there's some very unhappy people. And I- and I say that with compassion. I'm not judging. I- I'm genuinely not judging when I say that. I'm saying this is just what I've observed. And I feel that actually, as you say, it's that alignment, isn't it? It's that alignment between who you are internally and what you're doing externally. When we can bring that into alignment, that's calm, that's peace, that's contentment. Um-

   19. CWChris Williamson57:43

       Well, man, um, can you imagine if there was a social network, some sort of social media where the follower count was actually based on how virtuous and how much of a, uh, a life filled with integrity and presence and alignment with your actual values and what's good for the world, if that was the metric? Like, I would go as far as to say that I think it would probably almost be inverted, that the people who end up winning at the absolute extremes are also the people who probably ha- would have the lowest score in terms of that. I'm- I'm saying this as someone who's been on Take Me Out and Love Island and bluetick on Twitter and free charcoal toothpaste, you know, like all the big things. And I know, I know it for, uh, a fact, I know it from firsthand experience that the people who are applauded by easy wins and for being someone not doing something, most of them are miserable.

   20. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee58:36

       Yeah. Uh, I don't disagree. I- I- I see that a lot. And- and it would be interesting to see if we did invert that, what would actually, what would actually happen? But as you say, you know, when you study evolutionary psychology, you think, "Well, could it be that way?" You know, co- are- are we wired that way as humans? Is this just not the way we have been built for so many years? But- but- but as I say that, we have been built... Because I, I'm- I'm an optimist, I do believe that there is the possibility of change. I do believe... Like, and I know I mention a lot about children, but for me, uh, and I know it's quite an obvious thing to say, but as a- as a parent, you know, having- having kids has really changed who I am and what I value in my life. You know, suddenly you just can't be as self-absorbed, as self-absorbed or into yourself as you might have been pre-kids 'cause there's, you know, people who are relying on you, who- who are looking up to you. And the- the- the- probably the biggest lesson I've learned in 10 years of- of being a dad is that kids don't do what you tell them to do, they do what they see you doing. And that's been a huge motivation for me to, you know, kind of sort this stuff out is kind of like, I don't want to pass on this baggage onto my children and wait till they're 40 to start unpicking this, you know?

5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Man, I, I think…

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:00:00

      Uh, and I talk about these concepts that I talk about on my podcast, what I'm talking about with you today, with the kids, and you know what? They kind of get it, mate. I kind of genuinely feel a lot of this. Kids actually can get a lot of this. But it's interesting to see what happens with society and schooling and how it starts to condition a lot of this out of them, and it's something that I really struggle with as a parent. It's like, well, I'm trying to instill certain values and i- uh, and ideas, uh, and philosophies, or I shouldn't say instill. I'm trying to have a conversation. I don't want to instill them in my kids, I want them to be free to choose...... how they want to behave, how they want to engage with the world. But I, I love the thought of having these conversations with a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl and hearing what they have to say. And often I'm like, "Oh, man, I just learned that at 43. You guys are kind of getting this already. This is, this is pretty cool." I hope that stays with you and you don't have to relearn or, or learn for the first time as I am in my early 40s.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:01:01

      Man, I, I think that's a really interesting point. Um, firstly, having more frictionless information access means that now we're not partitioned off based on where you are in the world or the religion you have, or the upbringing you have. Everybody has free access to the entire history of humanity's knowledge. So, what that should mean, or what that could mean from an optimistic standpoint is an evolution of ideas should end up with what people value rising to the top. I think, if I'm being an optimist, which I'm not usu- I'm not usually am, but I will be this time, I don't want to go back to the status playing games that I used to play. Sometimes I fall into them, but I know that the values that I want to pass on to my children when I have them, and the way that I want to lead the rest of my life is to do with the internalized scorecard, not the externalized one. And that will make me happier. So I'm not going back to the old game, even though I might fall into it sometimes. So if I then pass that on to my kids, and that game and the evolution of ideas beats, the internal scorecard beats the external cor- scorecard every single time. So, over time this should infect society. I also think that because, uh, the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs has now been fixed, we're actually given the opportunity because we're not fighting for air and water and food and shelter and warmth. We're actually given the chance to think about these more abstract higher level goals, and think about, "What do I want to be? Who do I want to become? How should... What does it mean to live a good life?" What does it mean to live a good life is the source of an existential crisis, but also a really luxurious position to be in. Like to be able to ask that question means that you have so much freedom because all of the stuff that your ancestors for the last two million years have been fighting over has been sorted.

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:02:51

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:02:51

      So perhaps we are at the inflection point. Maybe the free movement of ideas will allow people to infect, in a good way, their children, and from that, not have to worry and scrabble and fight as poverty, world poverty goes down at like insane stats. I saw about that recently about how the World Health Organization's made like 50 years of progress in the last 15 years or something like that. They've eradicated so much of it. You know, over time, if you roll that forward, where does the trajectory take us? It takes us to a much more aligned population.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:03:25

      Yeah. I love that. I mean, it's such a, such a hopeful ideology really, isn't it? This idea that for many of us, clearly not everyone in the world, but for many of us, we're in a position now that we've never been in before, that our ancestors, that even our parents weren't in. So we can now think about, "Why am I here? How do I wish to spend my time? What do I want out of each day?" You know, (laughs) to, to maybe our grandparents that would be laughable. "What are you, what are you thinking about?" You're think- (laughs) just gotta, you've gotta find a way to make some money, get food on the table, and have some shelter at night. So, it, it is, it is a lovely thought because actually evolution is always happening, right? We're constantly evolving. It's hard to see it when we're in it, but evolution is happening. So maybe we are evolving into that time period now where actually, you know, we can fundamentally change the values in the society. And I kind of feel that, you know, many things have happened in the world over the past years, including, you know, the, the big lockdowns and the, the, the, the sort of restrictions, uh, that were put in place in 2020. They are forcing a lot of these existential questions to so many of us, you know, how are we living our life? What was I really doing? Did I enjoy just constantly chasing all the time? Uh, you mentioned that, um, that, that, that the E word that Tiger and his dad used to use, but that word enough, I think is something that I find when I... I often journal in the morning and I will often think about enough. Wh- what does it mean? What is enough? At what point can you stop? Or what point you go, "Yeah, I kind of like the pace of my life. I- I'm kind of pretty cool with this. I, I, I'm good." You know, I don't think many of us ask ourselves that question. We're constantly chasing more, more money, more status, more fame, more followers, more holidays, better holidays. But I think certainly for me, and I know many people share this in 2020, certainly in the first lockdown, I kind of... You know, in the UK we had great weather during our first lockdown in March. And, uh, of course, I, I will acknowledge that everyone experiences this in a different way. You know, I was... I'm in a lucky position where I could do a lot of my work from home. I was... You know, I have a garden, so my kids were able to play in a garden and not be, you know, stuck in a studio apartment. Right? So I, I understand that that gives me a certain lens through which to look at this through. But I thought, "Wow, I should get in for walks or bike rides every day with my wife and kids. There's some quite nice country paths near where I live. Like, maybe I don't need to go off on a beach holiday every three months to, to go and find happiness." Actually, I realized that actually just spending time with the people close to me and actually engaging and, and spending time with them in nature each day, I thought, "Man, I'm not sure I've ever felt this happy or this content." This is what it is all about. So, I don't know, I, I kind of feel there's a lot going on in the world at the moment and the hope is, and, and I, and I think you, you possibly share this from what you're saying, but hope is that actually maybe something beautiful is gonna come out on the other side of this where we think-... actually, what is really important in life? Is it money, fame, and success, or is it love, relationships, compassion? Do you know what I mean? It's kind of, um, it's kind of what I spend most of my time thinking about these days. What, what, what does that all mean and can we get there? Because I think we can.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:07:03

      If you can't be happy with a coffee, you won't be happy with a yacht.

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:07:09

      Love it.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:07:09

      That's something that I picked up last year from Naval. Final thing, man, I, I, I have to bring this up. Have you seen the new covers of Cosmopolitan, this, this is healthy, wellness does not come in one size cover? Have you seen this?

   9. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:07:23

      I haven't. Has it just come out?

   10. CWChris Williamson1:07:24

       Okay. So, it's a variety of different body shapes of women. There's 11 different covers on it. Um, there's a rugby player on there who's obviously, like, much more muscular than usual, and there's a sprinter on there, and there's some plus-sized girls, one of whom is in a wheelchair. So it's the f- the full gamut. Now, people who are overweight, as far as I'm concerned, can be perfectly happy and live fulfilled lives. I absolutely do not think that fat-shaming people achieves anything. But categorizing someone who is obese as healthy is dangerous. Being morbidly obese is not healthy and it has never been healthy, and the condition of good physical and mental health, especially when actively maintained by a proper diet, exercise, and the avoidance of risky behavior, is the definition of wellness. It's the complete opposite. So I pulled up this matter analysis on the association of all cause mortality with overweight and obesity using standard body mass index categories. So relative to normal weight, both obesity of all grades and grades two and three obesity were associated with significantly higher all cause mortality. So that's a 95% correlation between being obese and dying sooner from everything. That makes being fat the most wellness-reducing thing that you can do. The, uh, uh, uh, Cosmopolitan telling people that this is healthy isn't just wrong, uh, as far as I'm concerned, it's dangerous and stupid. Like, Cosmopolitan are purposefully misleading their audience so that they can jump on the newest trend of signaling that they're body positive. Like, imagine if one of your patients came in to see you and said, "Dr. Chatterjee, um, I've been gaining a lot of weight recently, but this role model on the front of the cover of Cosmopolitan said that it's healthy and well, they're, uh, in wellness and health, to be morbidly obese." Like, I don't understand how we've managed to get ourselves so confused to a world where we can't criticize someone for their body weight, which again, I don't agree with, but we can't criticize someone with their body weight because it's going to hurt their feelings, but we can call over, being morbidly obese well or healthy so that that is going to set a trend for people down the line. Surely that's the more dangerous route.

   11. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:09:39

       Yeah. Look, I haven't seen that and I'm definitely gonna make an effort of it tomorrow or the next couple days to actually have a look and see what's going on there. But this is something that I sort of tackled in the introduction of m- of my new book, which I decided to write on weight loss or healthy, sustainable weight loss for a number of reasons. And one of the reasons is that I think it has got to this point in society, as you say, for some people, not everyone, where you can't have an honest conversation. I am against fat-shaming. We can absolutely have compassion, full compassion and no prejudice against people who are carrying excess body weights, okay? No... I... Absolutely. But some people go one step further and these are some proponents in the body positivity movement who will go one step further and say, "Actually, it is..." I shouldn't say completely okay, because okay can mean many things to different people, but it is completely healthy to carry lots of excess weight and you don't need to do anything about it. And that's where, certainly as a medical doctor, I actually have a sort of split from what some of them are saying. I agree with a lot of it, which is, let's embrace people for who they are, let's love people for who they are, let's not call them lazy or lacking willpower or blame them. There are many complex reasons behind why people end up being the weight that they are. That is... There's, there's really good science on that, and it is not as simplistic as it's made out to be. But we still have a responsibility, I think, to say, "Well, listen, if you carry this much excess body fat, you are increasing the likelihood of, you know, poor health outcomes from a variety of different conditions." So it's... Everything is ****** now, Chris. It's, it's got, uh, polarizing extreme. It's like we go... We, we, we take a point of, um, compassion and not fat-shaming, which is great, and take it to an extreme which is, it's completely okay, we should never tell anyone who carry excess weight that actually it would be in their health interests to reduce it. And I sort of... Uh, there's a couple of paragraphs in the book where I actually mention this and say, "Listen, I get, I get that we don't wanna fat-shame, and I'm very supportive of that." But what we also need to be able to do is start to look at the science and actually be honest with people and say, "Listen, I get it that it's been tough for you and you've ended up in this position." Right? You're a great person. Your identity is not that you are fat, right? You have an identity that you're a kind, compassionate individual. Yes, you also are carrying excess body fat at the moment. That's why I think the language we use, particularly the language we talk about to ourselves, which again, is a big part of, of one section of the book, which is to try and help people go, the way you talk about yourself is really, really important. Some people who say, "I am fat," they're wrapping up their whole sense of identity in this idea of being fat. So actually, to lose their fat, in some ways would be to lose part of their self and who they are. Um, now, for some people it's not a problem, right? But for some people it is. There is really good research, Chris, now... Uh, I don't know if you know the ACEs trial that, um, Dr. Vincent Felitti did, uh, about a decade or so ago, where he showed a very strong correlation between people who've had adverse childhood experiences, like physical or emotional abuse, uh, as kids...... and obesity, a very, very strong correlation. And I share in the book, uh, a case study that I remember really well, this, um, th- this, I think she was 16 or 17 when I, when I first saw her, um, in clinic, uh, and I got to know her as a patient. And, no, actually it was later than that, it was maybe she was 18 or 19, and she was really struggling to lose weight. She'd tried everything. And I was spending time with her trying to understand what was going... She never was overweight before till about the age of 16, and then it turned out that actually she had... well, she, she was in an abusive relationship, uh, just after she turned 16. And I really felt there was something to unpick there and, uh, we, you know, I, I, I sent her to a therapist to get some help. And it turned out that actually, for her, what happened was that it was a defense mechanism for her. So she was basically, "I don't want to be in this position of being in an abusive relationship again. If I put on body fat," she thought, "I am no longer going to be attractive to men."

   12. CWChris Williamson1:14:01

       Less desirable.

   13. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:14:03

       Less desirable.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:14:04

       (laughs)

   15. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:14:04

       "I'm going to be unseen." And actually, when we started to address that, unpick it, and it was, it was challenging to unpick that, actually, then the weight loss started to come sustainably, healthily-

   16. CWChris Williamson1:14:17

       (whistles)

   17. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:14:17

       ... in a way that made her feel good. And the reason I bring that up is we should have full compassion for her. We don't need to blame her and tell her she's being lazy and she's not following, you know, as Boris was saying, you know, do this for the NHS. It's hold on a minute, she was trying her best to do it, but she was... she hadn't identified the right problem. So she was trying to solve the wrong problem. Once we helped her identify the right issue for her and then she started getting help, she was able to lose that excess body fat. And going back to your first point around the Cosmopolitan covers, which I will say, to be clear, I have not seen them yet, so it's very hard for me to comment on something I've not seen, but

6. 1:15:00 – 1:20:05

   That's the word. That's,…

   1. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:15:00

      I don't think we should be promoting it and saying, "This is healthy." I think we should be... there is nuance to all of these things, right? And we should-

   2. CWChris Williamson1:15:08

      That's the word. That's, that's precisely the word that I was thinking about, man. Like, there are gradations between fat shaming and calling being morbidly obese healthy. Like, it's not just... and the fact of the matter is that it's such an absolutist media circus out there that it can't be... it's got to be either you want to kill all fat people and they're worthless-

   3. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:15:29

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:15:29

      ... or you have to be completely behind it, deny any of the incredibly robust claims from all walks of medicine that show that being obese is not good for your health or your longevity. Like, there is a, a, a middle point in there where we can accept people, we can say, "This doesn't make you any less of a person, any different of a person, but it would be much better for your health outcomes if you were able to lose some weight." And I, I, I don't know if anybody... I'd be interested to hear in the comments, does anybody actually think that Cosmopolitan genuinely believe that this is healthy? Or does everybody see through the glass front door, which is just this is the new sort of newsworthy body po- positivity movement that we're all on the back of? Like, I'm all for Gymshark varying the range of models that they use, but they're not claiming that this is the optimal health or wellness outcome that you should have. The difference and the, the line, I think, that's been crossed here by Cosmopolitan, which you'll see when you finally get to see it, is it says, "This is wellness, this is healthy." Like, those words are directly under people who are not well or healthy. I, I, I don't know. I don't know.

   5. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:16:44

      Yeah, it's, it's... You know, it's so interesting, Chris, because, um, as we were mentioning just before we, we, we started recording, this, this new book on, on weight loss that I, that I've written, I didn't go into it lightly. I didn't need to do it, frankly. The truth is, I didn't need to go into this area. Like, I, uh, I, you know, my first few books are making really good impacts. I'm talking about promoting health, well-being, physical health, mental health, emotional health. The easy thing to do would have been not to touch weight loss, right? Because it's so controversial, right?

   6. CWChris Williamson1:17:27

      Fiery topic.

   7. RCDr Rangan Chatterjee1:17:27

      And I don't need to, I didn't need to... Yeah, it is. But you know why I did? Is actually part of the thing that you're bringing up with these, with these magazine covers, is that I've been seeing patients for 20 years, right? I have seen... As a GP, you see everything, right? You, you have... you... Well, I'm not saying you see absolutely everything, but you see a lot more than potentially other specialties. And what I mean by that is, let's say, if you're a PT, if you're, if you're a, um... if you... you know, you're a personal trainer, you are likely to see people who believe that actually working out hard is going to help them lose weight, right? They're coming in with that belief system in place, and therefore, you're gonna see this subset of people who really believe that's the way that it's going to help them. And you're going to have your own experience of what works and what doesn't work, right? And that's completely fine. If you're a psychologist, you're probably going to see people who've got complex emotional issues around weight and foods. Uh, and they're... you're going to be... you're going to have potentially a bias around that this is kind of the main issue that I'm seeing when I see people who are trying to lose weight. I will have my own bias because I'm a human being and I've got my own experiences, but I think as a GP, what happens is that we tend to see people from all different walks who are struggling with all kinds of different things. So we see the full gamut. And I thought, "You know what? I really feel I've got something unique to share here in a slightly different tone and a different way that I think will help a lot of people out there who are being shamed..."... who are being made to feel bad about themselves, who do think that they are failures and that they can't stick to any plan. But at the same time are being told and are thinking, "Well, actually maybe it's okay to have a BMI of 40." And I thought, "Well, hold on a minute. It's not either/or. We can be medically accurate, scientifically accurate, and have full compassion at the same time." And, you know, the truth is, is that this book was probably the hardest book that I wrote because trying to keep the, the ideas simple, trying to make them actionable, trying to get the tone right, was something that took a lot of time to do. Um, but it, it's partly p- part of the reason for doing this because I actually think there's a lot of people out there who are being mis-served and are being made to feel like failures and worthless. Um, so yeah, s- s- I mean, I don't know if that made sense or not. It's kind of few thoughts-

Episode duration: 1:30:49