USE THIS MINDSET To Achieve Anything You Want In Life TODAY! | Peter Crone

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:04 So look, Peter, uh, welcome to the Feel Better, Live More podcast.

Peter Crone 0:08 Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:09 I'm glad we managed to get this date in the diary finally-

Peter Crone 0:12 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:12 ... and make it, you know, lock it in.

Peter Crone 0:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:14 Um, there is so much I wanna talk to you about.

Peter Crone 0:18 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:18 And it's quite hard to know where to start.

Peter Crone 0:20 Y- yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:21 On your Instagram page-

Peter Crone 0:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:22 ... at the very top it says you are a mind architect.

Peter Crone 0:25 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:27 I love that phrase.

Peter Crone 0:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:29 I talk about this podcast, uh, the purpose of it is to empower the, each and every listener to become the architect of their own health.

Peter Crone 0:38 Love it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:39 And now I have the mind architect on my show, so-

Peter Crone 0:41 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:42 Maybe we could start by explaining, you know, what is a mind architect?

Peter Crone 0:48 Great question. Well, before I answer, I just wanna say thank you for having me. I know you've got a, uh, a beautiful platform, a great audience back, especially in the UK, which is refreshing for me being, uh, you know, from Blighty and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00 [laughs]

Peter Crone 1:00 ... uh, having been here in LA for a couple of decades. So it's nice just to hear an English accent face to face. So thanks for having me.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07 Not at all.

Peter Crone 1:07 Um, mind architect, the reason I came up with that moniker was because I'd been called many things, um, you know, s- some flattering, some perhaps not. Uh, but from spiritual teacher to happiness guru, to hitman for the ego, and nothing really sort of resonated because all of the titles that are sort of somewhat more commonplace in the marketplace were contaminated with meaning. So clearly I was working with the aspect of the mind, and particularly the subconscious, the deep levels of programming that humans are sort of confronted by. And I loved architecture. It was something I was fascinated even when I was a kid. Um, and so it just sort of was a natural organic birth by virtue of the fact I'm looking at people's minds and I'm sort of doing some tenant improvements, like rethink, you know, re- uh, redesigning your inner thinking space. So it just landed and then society seems to have run with it. So, um, it's working for now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:00 It is working for now, and I, I think it's a very apt description of what you do actually. I really do.

Peter Crone 2:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:06 And hopefully we're gonna unpack that over the course of this conversation.

Peter Crone 2:10 For sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10 Um, I guess what has led to a kid from Blighty-

Peter Crone 2:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18 ... or the UK for those people who are not sure-

Peter Crone 2:20 From Dover, mate. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:21 Uh, yeah, from Dover.

Peter Crone 2:22 From Dover, son, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:23 Yeah. So now you-

Peter Crone 2:24 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:25 You know, you grew up in Dover-

Peter Crone 2:26 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:26 ... and you're now here living the dream, as it were, in sunny California.

Peter Crone 2:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:30 So I guess that's the long answer to this question, but ultimately, what does that journey look like growing up in Dover, ending up practicing as a mind architect in California?

Peter Crone 2:41 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:42 What's going on there?

Peter Crone 2:44 How long have we got for this podcast? [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:45 We've got as long as you want.

Peter Crone 2:48 I mean, I, I sometimes feel like I've literally said I feel like the most blessed man alive, and it would not seem that way if you were to know the events of my life, right? It's really an experience I have of myself and living versus what actually transpired growing up. So the early years, my mum... I was an only child, my mom died of cancer when I was seven. Um, and then you may even remember this 'cause it was sort of a national disaster, but my dad worked on the ferries that went between Dover and Calais and Dover and, uh, Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:22 Yeah.

Peter Crone 3:22 The Herald of Free Enterprise. Yeah, so my dad was the senior chief engineer on that boat, and when it capsized in Zeebrugge, he, he passed.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:31 Uh, yeah, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.

Peter Crone 3:33 Yes. That was my, my dad was on that. So he went to work one day when I was 17 and never came back. So they were the early years. Um, obviously quite trying, but certainly formative in terms of who I became and I would assert I'm one of the most loving, compassionate people just by virtue of what I've had to go through. Um, everybody's sort of carrying their version of suffering and trials and tribulations, and for that reason I, I never pass judgment and I ex- I understand that people are bearing their cross as best they can. And so I think for the f- for the first sort of entry into having a better life for yourself with better health, it's really to eradicate any form of judgment from self or others. Um, so they, they were the early years. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's unique 'cause I haven't spoken to somebody in a podcast format who's from the UK. So most of the big podcasts I've done over here have been, been stateside, so with Americans who they can obviously relate to the, the size of it 'cause hundreds of people died, but it's the first time I've told the story [laughs] with somebody-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:37 Yeah

Peter Crone 4:37 ... who's familiar with it. So-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:38 It was a big incident. It was the-

Peter Crone 4:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:40 ... clearly it was, it, it, it was every, every... It was all that anyone talked about for a long time because-

Peter Crone 4:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:46 ... it was such a significant event-

Peter Crone 4:48 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:48 ... with so many deaths.

Peter Crone 4:49 For us, you know, it's sort of hard to compare to other major events around the world, but it was sort of our equivalent at that time. So it's obviously many years transpired, but, uh, that was, that was the early years. Um, and that certainly interfered with my education process. I, I was at the time at secondary school, grammar school, and so I lost a little bit of time there, but then I, I finished my A levels and I went to, uh, Loughborough University, uh, which I loved and I did, uh, undergrad in human biology and exercise physiology, which really gave me a foundation of, of the, the physical part of who we are. Uh, I stayed and did a master's as well. And then, uh, I pretty much from that moment went straight to, uh, the US. I had, during my college years I coached tennis in a camp in upstate New York, so you know we had those sort of exchange programs.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:41 Yeah.

Peter Crone 5:41 You could... They would buy you a plane ticket and then give you $50 a week [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:46 [laughs]

Peter Crone 5:46 Just for the novelty of coming to visit America and I bought in and it was a wonderful couple of years coaching tennis during, just during the summers. And sort of during that period I, uh, had made a couple of great friends and one who lived in New York moved to LA, um, who, 'cause he knew he wanted to pursue filmmaking. So after I finished my master's, I hadn't been to the West Coast of, uh, America, so I went to visit him. The intention truly was to visit, 'cause a friend of mine who was finishing his master's at South Hampton, but he was one of the world's greatest procrastinators, so rather than sitting at home twiddling my thumbs, I thought I'd come to LA and see California. But within about 10 days, I became the third partner in a production company.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:30 Oh, wow.

Peter Crone 6:31 Yeah. Yeah. Don't [laughs] it's not that exciting. It was, uh, it was a pretty awful film that we made, but it was an incredible experience for three 24-year-olds. It was two Americans and myself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:41 Yeah, sure.

Peter Crone 6:42 So we made this full-length feature. One of the, one of the guys I was involved with, his family had good contacts to get some money. It wasn't much, couple hundred thousand dollars, and we made a full-length feature. So an incredible learning experience but s- clearly wasn't gonna be anything that I could retire on. So then I, um, I pursued my training because my undergrad in exercise physiology gave me such a depth of knowledge about, you know, how to transform our bodies. So I got a job at a gym, um, in Malibu, and, uh, was only there for five months, but I was getting such significant results that one of the trainers... This is, this a long story, but I guess [laughs] it gets us to where we are today. Um, he was re- he was renowned for being a, a celebrity trainer, and he would work people out in that gym. So the general manager of the gym one day came up to me and said, "Look, Bob," who was the trainer, "has got two new clients for you." And at the time I was, I was just killing it, so I was like, "Fine," you know, "bring it on," like, more and more clients. And he said-- she said, "No, these are two very special clients." And then the penny dropped 'cause I knew who he worked for. And, um, it's sort of common knowledge that doesn't really matter, but it was Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. So that then was the next chapter of my life. I got the job despite they were recruiting from many places, and I think there were seven or eight trainers they were interviewing. But, so I got that job and immediately I came back to London actually and we shot Eyes Wide Shut and then, um, we were just traveling around the world. I went, did all the Mission Impossibles with them in Australia and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:13 In terms of training them

Peter Crone 8:14 ... training, yeah, just making them look good for all the movies. So at that point I'd also become a Pilates instructor and a yoga instructor, so I was just pulling from all of these different disciplines in the physical realm. And for me, again, I was 25, 26 at that point, so it was just an incredible opportunity. Uh, they were incredible to work for. We had so much fun and I got to see the world by virtue of their filmmaking and, uh-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:37 I mean, e- even that's an incredible leap-

Peter Crone 8:38 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:38 ... to go from a kid growing up in Dover to-

Peter Crone 8:41 [laughs] I know

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:41 ... traveling the world with, at the time I'm sure-

Peter Crone 8:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:44 ... two of the most famous A-list celebrities and, and, and living that life. [laughs] That-- how old were you at the time?

Peter Crone 8:51 26-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:52 I mean-

Peter Crone 8:53 ... when I got this

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:53 ... most 26-year-olds would be-

Peter Crone 8:55 Vaping. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:56 Yeah. I mean-

Peter Crone 8:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:57 ... that's pretty incredible in itself.

Peter Crone 8:58 Yeah. No, no, I feel, again, I feel very blessed and these are obviously things I could never predict. I mean, if you told me, you know, after my mom died at 7, my dad is in a major shipping disaster at 17-- when I'm 17 and passes, that, "Oh, no, don't worry, you're gonna end up in LA and training, you know, a couple of celebrities and going around the world on a G5 jet," I would've thought you'd smoking a happy pipe. Um, so, [laughs] so it is, it is quite unique. It, it does feel like almost a different lifetime, you know, because subsequent to that job then I, I quit, um, 'cause I knew I had bigger fish to fry, so to speak, and my real passion was about the power of the mind. So that's-- even though I was transforming their bodies and then the bodies of other people in that realm in, in the entertainment industry, I, I just was so, um, excited to explore some of these deeper behavioral patterns that we all had. And so that's when I started my business in 2001. So that's-- that-- at the time I wasn't called The Mind Architect, but I was doing very similar work, so.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:01 I mean,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:02 let's just go to that story at y- 26-

Peter Crone 10:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:04 ... where you're in Malibu, you're training people, and you're getting incredible results.

Peter Crone 10:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:09 The people around you-

Peter Crone 10:11 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:11 ... uh, including colleagues of yours, can see you're getting incredible results.

Peter Crone 10:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:14 So I'm gonna bet that the reason you were getting incredible results... I'm speculating-

Peter Crone 10:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:25 ... but I imagine it's because you weren't just looking at their bodies. You were also, I'm-- I, I imagine influencing their thinking and their minds in some way. Is that fair to say?

Peter Crone 10:41 That's a fair observation. You, you know, you're a pretty smart guy. [laughs] Uh, yes. I mean, it-- for me everything comes down to relationships, right? Like, I'm working with people at the highest level of their industry, whether it be entertainment or business or sports, and it's how do we relate to ourselves, how do we relate to life, how do we relate to others, is really what generates our experience of life. So for me, I love relating. Like, I love to listen. I think that's my superpower, is people will come to me with all manner of what they think to be issues, but I listen from a place of love and compassion and acceptance, which first of all makes them feel safe to share things that maybe they don't even share with their spouse. But then secondly, I can reverse engineer it now because of what I do and help them see what is the root cause of their anxiety, their depression, their addiction, their, their, their health issues so that then they can undo that. So that form of being able to relate to people was certainly apparent when I was working with people training them because much of what they wanted to accomplish was, it sounds cliché, but, like, just a sense of happiness, right? Like, you know, they might think that, well, when I get a six-pack and I'm in better shape, then I'm gonna be better. But just to have somebody who really listened and listened from a point of view of care versus just like, you know, I'm disinterested but I'm trying to get you to do more pushups so I can get paid.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:05 Yeah.

Peter Crone 12:05 Like sometimes over a coup- you know, a couple of sessions I'm-- we, we might just sit down at the juice bar and have a smoothie and talk because there was just stuff on their mind. That to me is the greatest precursor to healing versus, you know, doing all of your, uh, cardio.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:19 Yeah. I'm starting to realize, Peter, why I'm drawn to your work so much because many of the things you're, you're saying are... It's almost like a mirror back to me in terms of what I see. I mean, how old are you now, if I don't mind asking? Sort of-

Peter Crone 12:34 I just turned 50.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:35 Ah. I mean, that's hard to believe, but so-

Peter Crone 12:37 I know. No, most people don't, so we'll keep that off the podcast. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:39 We'll keep that off the podcast, yeah. We'll, we'll cut that. Uh, I am, I'm sort of in my early 40s.

Peter Crone 12:44 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:45 Um, and I guess the point I was getting to is, or the point I was trying to make, is that I've been seeing patients now for, you know, almost 20 years-

Peter Crone 12:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:58 ... seeing patients, and you've obviously been seeing people and clients for longer than that. Um, but I have found more and more that the skill I have to offer people when people come and see me-

Peter Crone 13:11 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:12 ... the most important thing I can do is to listen.

Peter Crone 13:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:16 And is to listen without judgment.

Peter Crone 13:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:18 And I can tell you that I, I learned this very early on pro- I think it was in my first week as a GP. I used to, I had done, um, I, I was going down the specialist, uh, pathway. I'd done, uh-

Peter Crone 13:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:30 ... my exams for that and was called a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

Peter Crone 13:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:34 I was doing a locum registrar job in nephrology-

Peter Crone 13:38 Okay

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:38 ... uh, so in kidney medicine.

Peter Crone 13:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:39 And, you know, for a variety of reasons, I changed. I, I just felt, you know what? Medicine for me seems to be getting quite disconnected. We're starting to look at different parts of the body in isolation.

Peter Crone 13:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:54 I don't just want to see kidney problems for the rest of my career.

Peter Crone 13:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:58 I want to see the whole person. And so-

Peter Crone 14:00 Beautiful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:00 ... uh, much to my dad's dismay at the time, I took the step to move from the specialist path to being a generalist.

Peter Crone 14:06 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:07 And I can tell you today, I am super, super proud of being what I consider to be an expert generalist.

Peter Crone 14:13 I love that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:13 Um, and I'm, I'm... One of the things you keep talking about, or, or I'm hearing from you, is that you have... Yeah, you went to, you know, arguably the best sports medicine university in the UK. You learnt about the physical body.

Peter Crone 14:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:26 But then as you were getting older, you started to go, "Oh, let me learn about yoga. Let me learn about Pilates." Um, always, it sounds as though you are, I think like myself, a learner.

Peter Crone 14:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:37 Somebody who is always looking to learn from different fields and pull in what you feel is relevant for your practice, and I think that's what an expert generalist is, actually, and I think we have overly emphasized, there's been this cult of the specialist.

Peter Crone 14:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:54 And again, specialism has its value.

Peter Crone 14:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:57 I do not dispute that. But I do think we're moving into an era where people's problems are so chronic and in some ways, although I suspect you would reframe this, are so complex and there are so many different inputs into them, I think this is the era of the generalist. How do you take this person in front of you and figure out what are the various things going on in their life that is relevant?

Peter Crone 15:23 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:23 So I've always looked to learn from other people. I remember at medical school reading things from personal trainers thinking, "Oh, that's interesting. Why am I not learning about that? That might help one of my patients."

Peter Crone 15:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:32 Or, you know, other, other traditional branches of medicine like traditional Chinese medicine or Ayurveda medicine and-

Peter Crone 15:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:38 ... um, so there's so many things that I resonate with that you just said.

Peter Crone 15:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:43 You know, being a good listener.

Peter Crone 15:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:45 Pulling from different fields.

Peter Crone 15:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:47 Um, so yeah, it, it's super, super interesting to me, and it, and it sort of is clicking in my head why I think I like your content so much.

Peter Crone 15:55 Well, thank you. And, uh, Ayurveda is a big part of my work, too, because I became qualified as an Ayurvedic practitioner for the same reason that you're speaking about, which is to look at a human being spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. You, you know, Western medicine, which does its job, right? I think it gets a bad rap because obviously in acute cases, emergencies, phenomenal, right? But for these chronic conditions, to me, such a disservice to human beings because they're not interested in root causes, they're interested in managing symptoms, right? It's a disease care system, it's not a healthcare system. So to your point about this segregation, this separation of organs from gastroenterologists to neurologists, whatever it might be, cardiologists, the, the... We're looking at people fragmented. I'm biased because of what I do, but if you don't take care of what's going on in the subconscious of people's minds, at best, the term I use is you're gonna be the, the, the greatest version of your limited self. Now, if you really get that statement, it's very profound, right? So you, you're stuck within the parameters of your blind spots, right? These beliefs of inadequacy, insecurity, and scarcity, which to me are universal. They're primal. They're very deep. Then we develop survival mechanisms, adaptations, compensations. And then on top of that, our physiology is going to, just by natural cascade, reflect whatever's going on internally, which is, as you know as a doctor, usually a mild state of fight or flight. Sympathetic nervous system, cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, that whole storm of hormones that really is doing us a disservice. It's inf- affecting people's sleep and weight gain. All, all, all of the things that people are dealing symptomatically on the surface to me are a byproduct of the fact that human beings currently are designed to survive. Everything is a potential perceived threat, whether it's being what your boss is gonna say or your spouse is gonna say or your parents are gonna say, or am I gonna be able to pay rent, or am I gonna be okay in the future? Am I gonna realize my dreams? Am I ever gonna quit smoking? Am I ever gonna lose weight? All of these sort of unanswerable questions inspire this internal sort of fight and battle that people have that to me is the dis-ease, the absence of ease, that then manifests over time into some physical symptoms. So that's why I get super passionate about this because you can do all the work externally, and it's not a knock on your industry, and thank God you listen, you know, and that's why you're making the difference you are, because if you don't address what's going on mentally and emotionally for somebody- At best, you're just making the window dressing look good while the back of the shop is just on fire. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:30 And I guess, you know, we are in prime territory for that, aren't we? We're in the heart of Santa Monica-

Peter Crone 18:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:35 ... which is, you know, potentially the wellness capital of the world, and there's a lot of people walking around here who look good. Right?

Peter Crone 18:43 Looking good is definitely one of the greatest products of this town. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:46 Yeah. And again, it doesn't mean that they're not good on the inside, but I would bet that many of them-

Peter Crone 18:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:53 ... have sacrificed their inner sense of wellbeing and satisfaction in that external pursuit-

Peter Crone 19:01 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:01 ... of what they consider to be physical health.

Peter Crone 19:03 Yes. Yeah. Well, because human beings are designed fundamentally, as far as I'm concerned, to be loved and accepted. We're s- we're seeking belonging, you know? This is, this is primal, universal psychology. We wanna fit in. So one of the means by which we believe we fit in is based on our appearance, right? Like, so for the man to sort of, as a stereotypical archetype of a man, is to be strong and to be fast and nowadays to be wealthy, and for the woman is really to be beautiful and pretty and sexy. And you see this just on Instagram accounts, you know? Like, how many guys are there with their shirts off, and how many women are there displaying, you know, their latest bikini outfit for the umpteenth time. So none of it's wrong, but if you understand what are the underlying motivators, it's really a human being individualized thinking that they are separate and that their ultimate accomplishment is to feel love and acceptance from their environment. What most people don't understand is if I'm seeking love and acceptance from others, what I'm actually saying and reinforcing is that I'm not loved and accepted inherently, and therein lies the survival-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:08 Yeah

Peter Crone 20:08 ... the disease, and the exhaustion that people are dealing with. So it's cliche, but what I'm helping people find is complete comfort in their own skin, total self-love and acceptance, and that to me is real health and real success.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:23 Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. Um, it's interesting that sometimes when I talk about these topics on this podcast-

Peter Crone 20:34 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:34 ... um, it's not quite the same thing, but I spoke to Gabor Mate a little while ago. Um-

Peter Crone 20:39 Okay

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:39 ... I, I don't know if you know Gabor's work-

Peter Crone 20:41 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:41 ... but it's-

Peter Crone 20:42 Absolutely

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:42 ... I, I, I'm sort of a big fan of Gabor and what he's doing. These things for many people can be quite challenging.

Peter Crone 20:48 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:49 Most people, I think, loved that podcast.

Peter Crone 20:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:52 Some people didn't.

Peter Crone 20:54 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:54 I think my, my perception on that would be that sometimes things are too close to the bone that we're not ready to hear.

Peter Crone 21:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:02 Um, I know there would be in various stages in my life where I possibly couldn't hear that.

Peter Crone 21:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:06 But, you know, uh, and that's what evolution is, right? And that's how we change-

Peter Crone 21:10 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:10 ... uh, depending on life experiences. Um, but I do agree with you that the health of your mind, your subconscious mind in particular-

Peter Crone 21:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:20 ... is critical for even if what we think we're looking for is physical wellbeing, I don't really think you can have physical wellbeing without that mental wellbeing. I'm not sure it's possible.

Peter Crone 21:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:32 And you know, I was telling you just before we started this, um, 'cause obviously you've been out here for, for, for a number of years, um, my first TV series, uh, Doctor in the House, when I went to live alongside people-

Peter Crone 21:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:45 ... who had chronic illness, chronic complaints that-

Peter Crone 21:48 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:48 ... usually they were under their GP and often a specialist as well.

Peter Crone 21:54 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:54 They were on multiple medications-

Peter Crone 21:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:56 ... yet they were still not doing well-

Peter Crone 21:59 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:59 ... which is why they wanted help. I've reflected so much on what I managed to help these patients achieve-

Peter Crone 22:07 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:08 ... um, which is pretty much get all of them better, some completely better, some significantly better.

Peter Crone 22:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:14 Uh, one of, one of the ladies was on 20 pills a day. She had eight diagnoses.

Peter Crone 22:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:19 She couldn't work anymore. She couldn't be with her family.

Peter Crone 22:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:22 You know, she'd been to specialists. In six weeks I'd got her pain-free-

Peter Crone 22:25 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:25 ... and reduced her medication down significantly.

Peter Crone 22:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:28 And two years on now, she's on zero medication.

Peter Crone 22:31 Amazing. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:31 Right? And I've reflected on no matter what the condition was, whether it was type 2 diabetes, whether it was fibromyalgia, whether it was anxiety, whether it was sleep problems, relationship problems, hormonal issues, actually, what did I do? Yes, I addressed four core areas of their lifestyle, food, movement, but equally important, sleep and relaxation.

Peter Crone 22:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:54 But I, but I realized the ones who really owned their problem and broke free from it-

Peter Crone 23:00 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:01 ... were the ones where the mental outlook changed, when there was a shift.

Peter Crone 23:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:07 So-

Peter Crone 23:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:08 ... what, what in- what intrigues me is that you mentioned the, the subconscious mind.

Peter Crone 23:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:15 Okay. So there will probably be people listening to this-

Peter Crone 23:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:18 ... who are thinking, "Well, I know my own mind. Right? I know what I think. Uh, what does Peter mean-

Peter Crone 23:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:25 ... when he talks about the subconscious mind?"

Peter Crone 23:28 Okay. Great question. I just want to, on the coattails of what you shared, just couple of bits of feedback. You said, like, it's a real shift in perspective, and one of my quotes which I think sets a nice context for what we're about to talk to is by Marcel Proust, and he said that, "The journey of true discovery lies not in finding new lands but in looking through new eyes." So it's one of my favorite quotes-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:52 That's lovely

Peter Crone 23:52 ... 'cause really my work is about shifting perspective, 'cause w- there's a quote, I think it was by Wayne Dyer, but he said, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:02 Yeah.

Peter Crone 24:03 And we could get into quantum physics and the observer effect, et cetera, et cetera. So subconscious mind to me is sorts of, w- as human beings, we've got different levels of programming, we could say, right? Now everybody knows about the genome, or if they don't know about the genome, they certainly know about chromosomes or DNA. Everybody's heard about DNA. Nobody is going to be on the streets going, "You know what? My eyes, like yours, are very dark brown." M- mine are light, light blue or gray. We can't go, "You know what? Tomorrow or over the weekend, I'm gonna shift my eye color." Most people would think that was preposterous, right? They understand. Yet that expression is because of the way that your code or your DNA is expressing itself physiologically, right? Your height, I mean, you're like, what, 6'5", 6'6"?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:52 6'6" and a half, yeah.

Peter Crone 24:52 Right. Okay. Now, that wasn't your choice, right? That is by virtue of the DNA. I'm 6'3", 6'3" and a bit of change, right? So that's one part that people understand. Then there's different tiers of conditioning. You could argue at the more superficial level, somebody who walks into a coffee shop, one of the parts of their conditioning is somebody goes for, you know, a cappuccino, but somebody goes for a chai latte. It's more superficial, and they get to change that more readily. They might go, "Oh, you know, I'm with somebody, and they actually don't drink coffee, so I'm gonna have a mint tea," 'cause out of respect or something. So that was a relatively easy change. So we can start to see there's this sort of this hierarchy of programming, but it's a form of conditioning. So much closer to the DNA, I would say the subconscious is deep programming that I would assert is both universal and it's primal, meaning there is this survival instinct of, of a human being. And so those codes, which to me exist in language, were formed in our childhood. So the first time that you found out that not... Being you was not enough, right? So for a baby, a baby isn't conscious of what, what are you thinking about me? It's not, there's not that self-concern or worry for what other people's interpretation is of your behavior. So a baby will literally being, maybe being held, they've been fed, and they'll throw up down someone's back because it's just what they're doing. They're not, "Oh, God, I look like an idiot," [laughs] right? And they don't care if the dress, the dresses are Gucci. It, th- none of that has been installed into their programming of these social norms and how you're supposed to behave or be polite. So but the first time when we're young, usually, you know, around one and a half, two, three, when we can understand words, maybe we get scolded a little bit. Doesn't have to be physical. It could be just, "Hey, stop that. That's bad," or, "You did that wrong." And there's this first sense of being me is no longer enough. I now have to behave in a certain way in order to keep getting the love, the support, the security of my, my archetypes of male and female, which is mom and dad, usually. And so that's when we start to create our subconscious patterns of like, oh, I have to act in a certain way in order to stay part of this tribe called my family, or it could be a community, it could be my school. And so now we start to get slowly programmed. Now, training the subconscious is amazing 'cause when a baby starts to walk, obviously it doesn't come out of the womb and it's like running like, you know, Usain Bolt. It, it takes a minute to develop the central nervous system. But you fall over, you get up, you figure it out, and eventually, you know, by one year, one and a half, y- y- you can walk pretty s- pretty convincingly, right? So but that's now all conditioned. You don't have to every morning when you're 30 or 40 or 50 get out of bed and go, "Oh, shit, I forgot how to walk." [laughs] "I've got to figure that out again."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:49 Yeah.

Peter Crone 27:49 It's already programmed. So certain parts of the subconscious which are deep code are incredibly useful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:56 Yeah.

Peter Crone 27:57 Where we get tripped up and where my work comes in and is pivotal is what are the deep-seated programs that are, they're self-critical, where I feel that I'm not enough, or I feel that I'm not loved, or I feel that I'm not worth anything? These are these insidious pieces of program that people will adapt to. So somebody, for example, who thinks they're not enough might become the perfectionist. Somebody who thinks they're not valuable could become a people pleaser, and then they wonder why they're exhausted or they're never quite, um, accomplishing what they want in life because the actual energetics, the frequency, you know, without getting too esoteric, the vibration they're functioning from is the precursor to their thoughts, their feelings, their behaviors, and then their actions. There's a natural cascade. So if I live in a world as sort of a mental prison of I'm not enough, then what I might think is, "Well, don't mess this up," right? It's, I might be conscious of my thought. Like you said, well, people will say they know their mind. I would assert what you're aware of, conscious thinking, is not what I'm pointing to. Conscious thinking arises out of subconscious programming. So somebody who fundamentally, meaning at the deepest level, thinks they're not enough, what they might think about is, "Oh, there's attractive person over there, a guy or a girl, and I want to go over there, but why would I? They, they're not gonna be interested in me." That might be their conscious thought quietly to themselves, but it arises from a deeper feeling of they, they're not worth it. So then the actions they take are, in this case, inaction, and so they get the results, which is they go home alone and they can't find someone again. Or conversely, we adapt to it, right? And we, we develop courage or we, we try to force our way through it, but we might be nervous. We get physiological responses, damp hands, we start sweating. We go into that fight or flight response, which again, is an indicator that I'm coming from a place of inadequacy and fear.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:53 Yeah.

Peter Crone 29:54 So I could go on about this obviously [laughs] for hours 'cause it's very profound. I literally, I was telling you I was doing a podcast two, three days ago with this am- amazing Australian guy, very smart, traveled the world, done a lot of work on himself. He was sitting there with incredibly, like almost scarlet red rashes around his eyes. Like a dermatologist, I'm not sure it's rosacea.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:17 Okay.

Peter Crone 30:17 It was almost a form of psoriasis. But even looking at him, it would sort of inspire someone to want to scratch their eyes. It just looked so irritating. So halfway through the interview, God bless him, he said I know you obviously understand the power of the mind and how it influences our health and physiology, but you're also an Ayurvedic practitioner. What would you say about what's going on with my eyes? So I said, "Well," I explained from an Ayurvedic perspective, the excess heat. He's a pitta type, meaning fire type. Um, and I said, "You know, there's obviously a bit of toxicity in your blood. It affects your eyes, your liver, where the pitta sits inside of our body." Pitta is P-I-T-T-A, for anyone who doesn't really know what Ayurveda is. But it's basically f- heat. So he could relate to that and some of the things he was doing in terms of food and the stress and alcohol, spicy foods all contribute to that heat in our body. But I said, "The thing that I'm picking up most is the emotions." And he said, "Go on." I said, "Well, do you want me to go there? 'Cause this might be a bit uncomfortable," to your point about sometimes you gotta use a bit of tough love. And he said, "No, I'm open." I said, "Well, what I see is there's a lot of hurt in you. You're a very sensitive guy." But he was built, like it's almost a bit of a compensation, you know, the sort of quintessential scrawny kid who becomes a bodybuilder. Not to that extreme, but there was an element of that involved here. And I said, "You've clearly been hurt. Well, first of all, you're human. Welcome to the game. But I can see that you've protected yourself, and one of the ways you protect yourself is anger."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:43 Mm.

Peter Crone 31:43 So when people get angry, usually it's a survival mechanism against being hurt. You- if a dog's been hit too many times and you go near it with a hand to stroke it and it growls, it's not that it's a bad dog, it's just collapsing past conditioning with a potential threat, and now it's protecting itself. Does that make sense?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:00 100%, yeah.

Peter Crone 32:01 So what he realized, and I- then he started talking about his childhood and, uh, it's all, it's all on a podcast anyway, so he's gonna be airing everything.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:09 [laughs]

Peter Crone 32:10 But he's talking about his parents separated when he was very young and the impact that had on him, and he was talking about how when he grew up he never wanted to mess up like that. He wanted to get it right. And you could feel the pressure in the fact that he's wanting to avoid what he'd been through. So basically, like most people, he's literally trying to avoid his history, which is impossible and futile. But in that energetics, there's also a massive judgment of his history. He's saying what happened was wrong and bad. So now he's collecting all of this judgment. Judgment is like friction, which creates more heat. So anyway, I broke down the whole thing, got him to completely reconcile and accept his history. There were a lot of tears, which was so powerful for the cameras. You know, it makes for great TV, but it's also very moving for his audience. And so that was, that was that, some tears. Anyway, he texts me, that was about 4:00 in the afternoon, 3:00. He went to dinner. He said, "This is unbelievable," but to me it was totally physics. He said, "I've come back." He said, "It's not completely gone, but it's about 50% already." Then I saw him the next morning 'cause he wanted to come and just meet, uh, somebody who works with me at my house, and it was probably down to about 10, 15% of what it was previously. Now, that to me looks like magic, and some people may even question it, but from my perspective, that is shifting the subconscious, releasing a lot of deep trauma and emotional, that's, uh, emotional harm and hurt that's been trapped and, and letting that go is one of the most liberating experiences anyone can have-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:40 Yeah

Peter Crone 33:40 ... and immediately the cascade will affect your physiology, whatever your dis-ease is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:45 Oh, Peter, I love that story.

Peter Crone 33:46 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:46 I totally, um, I don't question it at all actually. I, I have seen time and time again surprises or what the convention would regard as surprises-

Peter Crone 33:57 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:57 ... when looking at people, when helping people-

Peter Crone 33:59 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:59 ... when helping patients. Um, I do think modern medicine gets a bad rap. I, I agree with you that modern medicine is doing what it is meant to do, which is be very good at acute disease.

Peter Crone 34:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:11 Frankly, I can say this with a lot more, uh, courage, uh, than I could've done a few years ago, but we are way off track when it comes to chronic disease.

Peter Crone 34:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:22 Um-

Peter Crone 34:22 Massively

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:22 ... and again, why could I not have said that five years ago?

Peter Crone 34:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:25 Because I wasn't secure enough in myself.

Peter Crone 34:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:28 I had my own insecurity issues-

Peter Crone 34:30 Absolutely

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:31 ... and as I peel those layers of the onion away-

Peter Crone 34:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:35 ... it's like you said, it's, it, you mentioned prison, when you're living in that prison, I feel free-

Peter Crone 34:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:41 ... these days. And-

Peter Crone 34:42 It's my number one product, freedom.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:45 Yeah. And who doesn't want that?

Peter Crone 34:47 The funny th- everybody. The funny thing is a lot of people don't know it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:50 They don't know it, and they don't know that-

Peter Crone 34:51 And that's the pushback.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:53 That is the pushback.

Peter Crone 34:53 It's like, what are you talking about? I'm free. I'm like, you're not. No- nobody is, and that's okay, but there's degrees of freedom. Like I use a sliding scale from fear to freedom. You know, one of my quotes that I've got picked up on a lot, and actually who, you know, our dear friend Drew, who introduced us, a lot of people recycled the quote that I, I use quotes, it's how I write, and that's gonna be the format of my book, and I'll expand on the quotes. But anyway, one of the things I said a couple of times during the interview with Drew was, "Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you're not free." Meaning, if you get triggered by anything, and triggered, all I'm saying is you get upset, you get pissed off, you get scared. Wherever there's some kind of emotional response to external stimulus, person or event, that is showing where you're not okay with the, the situation. I'm not okay with the situation means I'm scared at some level. I feel threatened. When you're not threatened, you're at peace.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:48 Yeah.

Peter Crone 35:49 And that's, so freedom and peace and vitality, these are all my gifts to people. Not because I have them to give. I would never have that audacity. But I do have the gift to remove what's in the way of them being exposed as our inherent nature. Uh, now that's a powerful thing for people to understand. I make the distinction between that which is inherent versus that which is inherited. So the codes, the programs I was talking about in the subconscious and then all the behavioral adaptations, they're on top of the freedom that already exists, which is your birthright. I'm revealing that, and to me there is no greater gift a human being can experience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:24 Yeah. 100% agree with that. I'm actually tingling hearing you describe that-

Peter Crone 36:28 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:28 ... because it is the deepest truth.

Peter Crone 36:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:31 And, um-

Peter Crone 36:32 Thank you for the reflection

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:33 ... it is one that, it is one that, you know, for m- it's We could go down this path in many ways.

Peter Crone 36:41 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:42 But, um,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:44 it is one of those things, isn't it, where human beings often need to be presented with adversity-

Peter Crone 36:50 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:50 ... before they start going down this journey.

Peter Crone 36:53 Absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:54 Um-

Peter Crone 36:54 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:54 ... for me, listeners have heard me talk about this before, but one of the most significant moments in my life was when my father died-

Peter Crone 37:01 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:01 ... six and a half years ago. And I, my whole adult life, I moved to back to where I grew up to help look after Dad-

Peter Crone 37:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:08 ... with my mum and my brother.

Peter Crone 37:09 Beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:10 So I could care for many years.

Peter Crone 37:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:12 And you know, when Dad died, although it was the best thing, there's no question my dad was suffering and it was-

Peter Crone 37:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:20 ... the best thing.

Peter Crone 37:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:21 Um, you know, I suddenly had time.

Peter Crone 37:26 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:26 Time was something I never had before because-

Peter Crone 37:28 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:28 ... I was so busy seven days a week-

Peter Crone 37:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:31 ... uh, you know, 12 months a year, you know, not a day off.

Peter Crone 37:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:34 Phone's on 24 hours a day-

Peter Crone 37:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:36 ... in case there's gonna be a call, "Dad's fallen, can you come round, pick him up?" You know?

Peter Crone 37:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:41 So I was living in a, in a heightened fight or flight state-

Peter Crone 37:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:44 ... at all times, basically.

Peter Crone 37:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:46 And that is also reflected in some of my behavior around then in terms of what I would do to unwind.

Peter Crone 37:51 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:51 Um-

Peter Crone 37:51 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:52 But going down this journey has revealed so much to me. So you mentioned this idea of perfectionism.

Peter Crone 38:00 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:01 So my whole life I've probably been a perfectionist.

Peter Crone 38:03 I can see that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:04 Um, yeah. And I, and I'm interested, you know, obviously it is powerful, but you can probably unpack, uh, bits of my behavior by the language I'm using.

Peter Crone 38:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:12 But, uh, and I, I'm very open to doing that.

Peter Crone 38:15 Great.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:16 Um, but I have been a perfectionist.

Peter Crone 38:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:19 And I think it's driven me to do certain things well. But it's also, um, it's also stopped me from doing other things when I felt I couldn't conquer them and be perfect.

Peter Crone 38:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:31 It's caused undue delay in doing things.

Peter Crone 38:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:34 And then one small part of that, as I was going through, uh, some inner work with someone who now is a very good friend of mine, you know, we were doing something called IFS, internal family systems. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.

Peter Crone 38:46 Mm-mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:47 But this thing pops into my head when I was 12 years old.

Peter Crone 38:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:51 And I hadn't thought about this in 20 plus years.

Peter Crone 38:54 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:55 And I was taken back to secondary school. So I went to Manchester Grammar School. It was a big school-

Peter Crone 38:59 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:00 ... about 1,200 students.

Peter Crone 39:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:02 Um, and I was, you know, I think my friends deserted me, like who I thought were my friends.

Peter Crone 39:08 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:09 I think they just went off and kind of chucked me.

Peter Crone 39:11 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:11 Um, and I was really upset.

Peter Crone 39:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:15 And I think I was crying.

Peter Crone 39:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:16 And you know, I'm miles away from home. I'm at this big school-

Peter Crone 39:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:20 ... and I sort of go back to my classroom and I sort of morphed into, um, another group of friends.

Peter Crone 39:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:27 And this came back so clearly. So I had not consciously thought about this in 20 plus years.

Peter Crone 39:33 Hence subconscious. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:34 But it was clear as day in my subconscious. And when I went through a process that allowed that to start revealing itself, it came up.

Peter Crone 39:40 Amazing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:41 There's a lot more to it, but-

Peter Crone 39:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:43 ... suddenly so many aspects of my life became clear. I was like, "Oh my God."

Peter Crone 39:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:50 "I get it now. You are scared of being rejected. You feel that at any point-

Peter Crone 39:54 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:55 ... somebody could desert you and leave you. So my response is to go above and beyond what I should do. Be the perfect friend. Never say what I want."

Peter Crone 40:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:07 Be at university with your mates and like, "Where should we go?" You know, "Which bar, which restaurant?" "Hey guys, you choose. I'm cool. Wherever you go."

Peter Crone 40:13 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:13 You go somewhere you can't stand, you're there, there's nothing on the menu you want.

Peter Crone 40:16 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:16 But hey, you know what? You know, Rangan's cool. He's like, he, he'll do whatever everyone wants.

Peter Crone 40:21 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:22 And I thought that was a part of my personality.

Peter Crone 40:25 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:26 But it wasn't.

Peter Crone 40:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:27 It was programming, because now that I've cleared that-

Peter Crone 40:29 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:29 ... I still have tendencies towards it.

Peter Crone 40:32 For sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:32 But I would, I would estimate that they are maybe 10% of what they were.

Peter Crone 40:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:37 And it feels freeing.

Peter Crone 40:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:39 It feels amazing-

Peter Crone 40:40 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:41 ... to be yourself.

Peter Crone 40:43 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:43 So that's one experience I wanna share with you.

Peter Crone 40:45 Amazing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:45 And I'd love your view on that.

Peter Crone 40:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:47 The other one, it happened just a couple of days ago. So I've just spent, um, two days in Santa Rosa with Professor BJ Fogg, who is, um, he's probably done, probably regarded as the world's leading researcher in human behavior.

Peter Crone 41:02 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:02 His work's incredible, and I spent two days at a boot camp with him.

Peter Crone 41:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:07 And with one of the other attendees on the... You know, when it had finished, we were all out for dinner, we were chatting about our own stories, and I was telling him about some of this, uh, personal work-

Peter Crone 41:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:18 ... uh, that I'd been on, and he was sharing his stories. And then I said, "Guys, you know what's really interesting for me? With my work, I have been away at various times over the past few years."

Peter Crone 41:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:28 You know, sometimes I come to America for a week to do conferences.

Peter Crone 41:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:31 And I used to always feel guilty.

Peter Crone 41:34 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:35 I'd be here and I'd be thinking, [sighs] "You know, I've left my wife, my kids."

Peter Crone 41:41 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:41 You know, I feel guilty. I'd be phoning a lot. I'd-

Peter Crone 41:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:45 There's nothing inherently wrong with phoning, but now that I've sort of moved beyond it, I can look back and go, you know what? I was not at ease. I wasn't fully present in what I was doing here.

Peter Crone 41:54 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:55 Half of me wanted to be back home.

Peter Crone 41:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:58 And I didn't consciously do this, but this time I've not felt that.

Peter Crone 42:03 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:03 I feel very present and very okay with being here.

Peter Crone 42:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:07 I love phoning and, and chatting and FaceTiming my kids and my wife.

Peter Crone 42:10 Of course.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:10 There's no emotional charge there-

Peter Crone 42:12 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:13 ... like there used to be.

Peter Crone 42:14 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:15 So I feel like I have shed more layers. I feel that I have grown and that I'm becoming more present. What does Peter Crone, The Mind Architect think?

Peter Crone 42:27 I think first of all, it's amazing. It's a beautiful gift both, you know, to your audience listening, 'cause people will get something just, I don't know if you've, you've shared some of this before, I'm assuming, but-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:35 Yeah, but not, but not all of it. And I hope so-

Peter Crone 42:37 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:37 ... that's why I share.

Peter Crone 42:37 Yeah. So that's beautiful. I think it's amazing for you, obviously. It's very liberating is what I hear, right? There's this sense of freedom. There's this epiphanies that you've had, or at least two significantly. Uh, and you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:49 There's way more. There's way more, but that's just two.

Peter Crone 42:51 For the two that you shared, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:52 Yeah.

Peter Crone 42:52 Uh, I think it's a gift to your children because, you know, these, these tendencies are inherited, right? Uh, I often say kids will rarely succeed at listening to you, you know, to the parents, but they will always succeed at becoming you. And so if your energetics and the way that you behave, the way that you speak, the belief systems that you have, they will adopt them by virtue of the fact that as humans, we want to, as I said earlier, belong. We want to be loved and accepted. So just as you were using the perfect example of you going to a bar or a college, you would acquiesce your own personal desires in order to be able to feel f- you belong and fit into the gang. Why? 'Cause as human beings looking through the lens of separation, we are, uh, most scared of not being part of the tribe because fundamentally, these universal principles, if you are kicked out of the gang, so to speak, with our primal DNA, you don't survive 'cause you're out in the wilderness. Now, it might not make any sense today in our sort of urban living, but it's still deep in our DNA and our conditioning. So, so it's a gift to your kids. Uh, it's a gift to your friends. It's a gift to your patients. What I hear, if I can throw in what I hear that might nudge you a little bit more towards freedom, is if we take that 12-year-old boy who thinks his friends have chucked him away, which is a horrible feeling, right? And it buys right into what a human being is already scared of, which is isolation or separation. So that was your experience, right? Literally, you're feeling, quote-unquote, alone, and it's a horrible feeling. Now, I would also collapse both of those experiences, the one you had with the doctor, but the one you went through with the IFS or whatever it was called.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:32 Yeah.

Peter Crone 44:32 So I would say they both arose at the same time because as a 12-year-old, you've got a certain degree of mental capacity. You're obviously sharp. So when your friends, quote-unquote, chuck you or abandon you, that might be what-- That's how it occurred to you. That's what seemed to happen. In reality, what happened was you were standing where you were standing, and they weren't there.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:52 [laughs]

Peter Crone 44:52 [laughs] That's the physics of it, right? You know, so we start to uncollapse, you know, the event and the emotion associated with it. So my assertion without knowing it, but you can reflect it as a truth or not, is at that moment, your brain, because it's designed to predict and protect, probably made the assumption that not only had they gone, but you must have done something wrong in order for them to leave 'cause otherwise there's no logic for them to go. Does that make sense?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:19 Yeah, for sure.

Peter Crone 45:20 Perfect. So now we get into this realm of you always wanting to do something to make sure that people aren't inconvenienced by you. I would put it in the language... Well, I'm gonna ask you, actually. What does that kid think about himself if everybody's left? What's his, his-- How does he occur for himself? What's his-- How does he define himself? If everyone's gone and left you, what does that say about you?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:46 It says many things. On one level, it says I'm not worthy.

Peter Crone 45:51 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:51 It says that if I am the way I am-

Peter Crone 45:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:55 ... that is not enough for those people, so I have to change the way I am so that I am enough-

Peter Crone 46:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:02 ... for those people around me.

Peter Crone 46:03 That's the compensation. So you're close with the worthiness, and I'm saying I'm not denying there's a component of that. But energetically and intuitively, what I actually hear is something a little different. If you discard something, what are you saying about that thing or that object or that person? I, I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:18 I don't want it.

Peter Crone 46:19 Right. So now I want you to consider that moment that little boy felt like he wasn't wanted. Now, just feel into that. That's what I'm getting from you because you're a very sensitive guy, and, and knowing your behavioral adaptations that you had, the compensation of people-pleasing is, "Well, I'm not wanted, so I'm gonna do what I have to to be wanted." Does that resonate?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:42 One hundred and twenty percent.

Peter Crone 46:44 Good, 'cause this will be very powerful for you, right? So I can see it already a little bit behind the eyes. So meaning you're very sensitive. You're a 12-year-old. You had friends, and then all of a sudden you've got the experience of, wow, everybody's gone. And so now I feel like I'm discarded, hence I'm not wanted. We could also say I'm not loved. Now, t- 12-year-old, they're probably not thinking that. It's more the experience of I've just been let go of. So a adult, you know, can maybe compensate in ways that they're like, "Oh, well, if I... You know, screw it, I didn't like those people anyway," or whatever it might be, uh, and they'll justify it. But for a kid, it's very scary. And so you at that point, I'm, I'm asserting, developed the I'm a good guy, I'm gonna fit in. You even said you molded to another group. So you already at that point started to manipulate who you were in order to compensate for the deeper subconscious belief of who you were, which is you're not wanted, and you morphed in order to be wanted. But now the whole thing is completely inauthentic. It's not who you are, and it's exhausting 'cause you're having to maintain a facade in order to try and compensate for something that you made up. That's the mad part. But we have all the love and compassion for that little boy 'cause he doesn't know. He just feels scared, and he feels left alone. So those two things arose as far as I'm concerned. You must have done something wrong for you not to feel wanted. So now you come to America last time, and you're driven by both of those mechanisms. So you have to c- you have to call your m- wife. You have to call your kids. I get you love them, but the undergi- underlying energetics is this sort of exhausting, uh, must, this forceful approach versus a choice. Oh, I love my wife. I'm just gonna call her. Why? 'Cause I want to versus, no, I got to 'cause I've gotta make sure I don't do anything wrong, and I'm a bad boy 'cause if I do something wrong, I get kicked out of the gang, and then it fires that feeling of not being wanted, and you're gonna do everything you can to avoid that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:37 Yeah.

Peter Crone 48:38 That's so slippery. Do you see that?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:39 Hey, well, I absolutely, absolutely see that. And I think for me, I think you've hit on a couple of poignant pieces which are right on.

Peter Crone 48:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:49 Um, but then clearly this is what you do, so you can clearly see this-

Peter Crone 48:53 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:53 ... by the way people use language. And-

Peter Crone 48:55 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:55 ... I can tell, I can, I can, you know, I, I, I wonder what our conversation would've been like two years ago had we had it 'cause I suspect-- Not I suspect, I know I was a very different person then. I think-

Peter Crone 49:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:07 ... I feel my growth has accelerated exponentially in the last 12 to 18 months

Peter Crone 49:14 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:14 I think I was- I've been s- I've been working on myself, been working, I've been shedding layers

Peter Crone 49:19 Amazing

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:19 But I f- really feel it's accelerated recently, and it feels great

Peter Crone 49:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:23 I never felt ... You know, my wife's incredible. Um, I- she would never make me feel bad if I didn't call. It wasn't that so much, but it was, it was a guilt

Peter Crone 49:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:34 It was a feeling that I'd done something wrong, not for not calling-

Peter Crone 49:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:38 ... but for leaving and going to America

Peter Crone 49:40 Doesn't matter-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:40 And I f-

Peter Crone 49:40 You fill in the blank

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:41 Yeah

Peter Crone 49:41 It doesn't matter

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:42 And I felt I probably had to justify what I was doing on that day

Peter Crone 49:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:46 Um, whereas like today I have not, you know, just because I've been podcasting all day-

Peter Crone 49:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:51 ... it's not worked out. I've not called my wife

Peter Crone 49:53 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:53 And so I won't speak to her today. I've not spoken to the kids. And you know what? I feel totally okay with that

Peter Crone 49:58 Well, so you're very bad and wrong

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:59 [laughs]

Peter Crone 50:00 Hey, I'm kidding. I'm sorry

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:01 No, but, but genuinely, I feel-

Peter Crone 50:03 No, I'm, I'm kidding

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:03 I feel okay with that

Peter Crone 50:05 Yeah, no, I get it. I get it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:05 And it feels so freeing-

Peter Crone 50:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:06 ... because I never would have done

Peter Crone 50:08 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:08 And now I feel ... Yeah, I love my wife. I love my kids.

Peter Crone 50:12 Yes, absolutely

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:12 Things are great. And, and what it, what this does, as you become free, as you shed these layers-

Peter Crone 50:17 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:18 ... you start to really tap into what presence is. You start to tap into real compassion

Peter Crone 50:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:27 Um, it changes the way ... Hey, it changes the way you view other people. You know, once you've-

Peter Crone 50:34 Yes. You've discovered, as far as I'm concerned, love, but this time love of self, and that also allows you to have love of others. See, love doesn't have expectation. It doesn't judge. So when you were in the realm of guilt, as you said, which to me, or shame, is a by-product of thinking you've done something wrong. Guilt and shame can only be the, uh, emotional experiences to a psychological belief that we've done something wrong, right? So that was deep ingrained in you from probably about age 12, maybe before. So at that point, again, as I said, you were concerned of doing something wrong, 'cause if you did something wrong, the by-product, the cost of that was you get, quote-unquote, "kicked out of the gang." You're not wanted anymore. But what I want you to understand to deepen this freedom for you, where was the feeling, who was the one thinking they're not wanted? So where was the actual experience of not being wanted? It looked like it was 'cause your friends left. But where-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:24 It was in me

Peter Crone 51:25 It was in you, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:25 It was a story I created

Peter Crone 51:26 So, so follow with me. So where were you born?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:30 I was born in Manchester

Peter Crone 51:31 Manchester, great. So if I cut you open, am I gonna find a manufacturing label in there that says, "Rangan was born in Manchester, he's not wanted"? Am I gonna find that anywhere?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:42 No

Peter Crone 51:43 No. Great. So it's not actually part of your, quote-unquote, "makeup," but where did it exist? 'Cause it was there. It defined the way that you morphed. It defined your behaviors. So where did it exist?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:55 In my head

Peter Crone 51:56 Yes, in your head. And in what form? How does it exist? I'm not wanted. What's its structure, without getting too smart? Your-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:06 What's its structure?

Peter Crone 52:07 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:07 Words

Peter Crone 52:08 I- words, right. Now, stick with me 'cause this is gonna be profound. So you're 12, you go through this experience. I don't ... You know, I have all the love and compassion for that little boy. He felt isolated. He felt-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:17 Can I say that Peter?

Peter Crone 52:18 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:18 I suspect that even though that was the incident that came up in my head, I think there were incidents before that, and I think this just echoed the same pattern, and it just reinforced the pattern 'cause there was stuff when I was four, five, six, little things-

Peter Crone 52:31 I guarantee, and I would actually even assert it was way before-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:35 Exactly

Peter Crone 52:35 ... you know? You actually ... Uh, to me, these are all pre-installed. We arrive with them. And the game of life, this dimension of humanity, is the catalyst for us to be able to reconcile them so that we can be liberated. Now, that's very poetic, but to me it's also very physical

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:48 I, I love it, and you call it the game of life. I think about it when people say, or when I reflect on what is the point of life, I feel the point of life is to actually figure out who you are without all these compensations, without all these reflections from other people, from other experiences

Peter Crone 53:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:07 Actually, who am I when you strip all that away?

Peter Crone 53:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:10 And I guess we're saying a similar thing in slightly different ways

Peter Crone 53:14 Yes. That to me is true freedom, true liberation, where I can transcend the constraints of my subconscious, which are in words, to come back so we can finish the point. They're not truths, they're forms of programming, they're constructs that I've been stuck within as a prisoner, and I may have developed survival strategies on top of it, behavioral adaptations, like you were becoming a nice guy. You'd go to the bar, you didn't want to. You have to call the wife. All of these things were compensations for a deeper belief of inadequacy about yourself, and insecurity that you're not wanted, you've done something wrong. So your whole brain is wired to make sure I don't do anything wrong because the cost of that is too immense. I feel not wanted. What your brain didn't realize is the I'm not wanted was self-generated. That's the madness of the game, is, you know, it's the cliche of the, you know, look in the mirror, that's your only enemy, right? So your not being wanted was an experience that you made up in language, and you would have had evidence, you know, from age 2, 3, 5, 12, as we've discussed, to confirm it. But it's just you're using external evidence to confirm an internal narrative. So the ego's number one priority is to be right about itself, and that's the madness of the work that I've seen for two decades now, is people will defend and fight for their limitations. I will prove to you that nobody loves me. What-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:36 Yeah

Peter Crone 54:36 They're d- they're just wanting to be right about their own inadequacy

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:38 It's always me that this happens to. Why me again?

Peter Crone 54:41 Perfect

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:42 Yeah?

Peter Crone 54:43 So let's just finish for you 'cause I really want you to get this. So you've realized the I'm not wanted exists only in you. It exists in your mind in words. So therefore, I'm gonna ask you a question. You can only answer yes or no. Is it true, therefore, that you are not wanted, yes or no?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:58 No

Peter Crone 54:59 No. Now, feel into that. When you feel not wanted, we've already got a glimpse of what your life looks like. But in the absence, and this may seem like a weird way of doing it, if the I'm not wanted is gone, you, you just don't have that relationship to yourself and life, how do you feel?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:17 Free

Peter Crone 55:18 Total freedom. And how do you feel with the way that you interact with life and other people?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:23 You feel-

Peter Crone 55:24 I. Say I 'cause it's more powerful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:26 ... I feel calm.

Peter Crone 55:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:28 I feel loving, I feel compassionate, I feel non-judgmental.

Peter Crone 55:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:31 I feel at ease.

Peter Crone 55:34 Yeah. The absence of dis-ease, right? Amazing. So that's one. Now, the bigger one, because this is a big one for humans, is when you were 12 and your friends, we're just using this one incident, obviously there were many prior to it, but they disappeared or whatever happened at this schoolyard in Manchester, and you thought maybe you'd done something wrong, or as a little boy, very polite, I could guess maybe your en- environment as a kid, you know, we're all disciplined and don't mess it up, don't do bad, so we think there's stuff we do wrong. At that moment, did you literally, and you can only say yes or no, do anything wrong?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:09 No.

Peter Crone 56:09 No. And I don't care if you threw stones at them. You weren't, you were just throwing stones. It wasn't wrong. I'm not saying it's an ideal way to make friends [laughs] but, but you weren't doing something wrong. Okay, so do you get that? You didn't do anything wrong. When you came to America, let's bring it a little bit more current, last time, and you felt, "Oh gosh, I'm leaving my wife and my kids at, at home," was that, and you can only say yes or no, was that wrong?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:34 No.

Peter Crone 56:35 No. It's what you thought was wrong, but it wasn't actually wrong. I want you to consider, and this is a big thing for you to, to digest, in your life you have never, ever done anything wrong. Ever. Now, this will probably create a little bit of stir amongst people because there's a, it's a bigger subject in terms of crimes and things that people do that really do have subsequent, you know, painful effects on people. But I just want you to consider you've never done anything wrong from, you know, the time you stole some sweets at the local news agents, or you cheated on a test, or whatever you did was what you did as a kid. It's not wrong. I'm not saying it's ideal, I'm not saying it was legal, I'm not saying it was optimal, but I want you to consider it's not wrong, it's just what you did. And in the physical universe that we live, it has consequences. Smoking is not wrong. Is it great for you? No. If you're like an ox, you'll get away with it. If you're very frail, it's probably gonna have bigger, uh, impact on your physiology. Do you, do you understand what I'm saying?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:33 Yeah, 100%.

Peter Crone 57:34 So I'm gonna ask again. Have you ever in your life, yes or no, done anything wrong?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:39 No.

Peter Crone 57:40 Now do you really get that?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:41 I, I, I do get it.

Peter Crone 57:42 N- Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:43 I, I-

Peter Crone 57:43 Now just feel into that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:45 ... I think, Peter, the reason I think I get it, the reason I know I get it, is because I ca- I, I just feel different these days.

Peter Crone 57:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:59 I feel... How can I put it? I feel at ease.

Peter Crone 58:05 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:07 I, I feel-

Peter Crone 58:08 Amazing

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:08 ... you know, I, I'm not... There's still layers of the onions to be peeling off, for sure.

Peter Crone 58:14 Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:15 Uh, maybe to use the prison analogy, maybe I was living most of my life in a maximum security prison-

Peter Crone 58:21 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:21 ... maybe I'm now in a-

Peter Crone 58:23 Solitary confinement [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:25 God, I was gonna put myself in minimum, about to get out, so maybe that's [laughs]

Peter Crone 58:29 30 years ago, I'm saying solitary confinement. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:30 Yeah, maybe I was in solitary confinement-

Peter Crone 58:32 That's most people. Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:32 ... and now I'm in sort of, um, minimum security mind prison.

Peter Crone 58:37 [laughs] Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:38 Uh, it feels, I mean, it always feels as though there's just one more layer to go-

Peter Crone 58:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:41 ... and often there's much more than that. But I've done a lot of work, which I, I'm not necessarily gonna share now in the-

Peter Crone 58:47 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:47 ... interest of time, but I've done this summer-

Peter Crone 58:49 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:49 ... which really has... I, I get this more than y- maybe as, as a parent. I-

Peter Crone 58:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:56 ... I do get it.

Peter Crone 58:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:58 I do get that I've never done anything wrong.

Peter Crone 58:59 Amazing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:00 And what I, what I think is, is super important, it's something I wanted to touch on with you, and it's highly relevant to what you've just been doing with me, is how important our language is.

Peter Crone 59:12 Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:15 Language is so important.

Peter Crone 59:17 'Cause it's programming.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:18 It is programming, but many of us use language in a way-

Peter Crone 59:23 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:23 ... and when I say many of us, I include myself. Although I feel I've improved, I still do it.

Peter Crone 59:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:28 But I feel that language is something that we don't prioritize enough. We don't give it the seriousness-

Peter Crone 59:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:35 ... it deserves. And you, for example, if someone says to you, "I have anxiety," or, "I have depression"-

Peter Crone 59:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:44 ... from what I've heard you say before, I imagine you would rephrase that for them.

Peter Crone 59:49 I would a little bit. I mean, that's a, you know, that's at least a little bit more powerful than someone saying, "I am depressed." Saying, "I have depression" creates a little bit of space, right? Versus saying, "I am depressed." Can you hear the difference in the two?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:01 Yeah, for sure.

Peter Crone 1:00:01 If I'm saying I am, then what I'm- I'm becoming associated with the feeling and the condition versus recognizing it's something that I have. You know, saying, uh, y- when we recognize it's cloudy outside, right, w- there's a deeper understanding that that will transpire, it will change. So being able to associate our feelings, our sensations, even our sicknesses as transitory versus something that defines us. This is one of the issues I have when I help people who have addictions. You know, um, when people declare themselves as whatever they... Like, "I am an alcoholic," I get it, but I don't condone it personally. I feel it's a disservice to that human's opportunity to break free of a behavior which will need work, right? You know, the substance abuse, whatever it might be, opioids, to alcohol, to even just weed and prescription drugs, uh, these are byproducts of internal dis-ease. Like you even said, right, yourself, you didn't speak to it, but you said when you were really struggling or working too hard and stressed, you found your ways of relief or escapism, right? So when, to me, somebody comes to work with me because they have some, quote-unquote, addiction, I'm really not that interested in the addiction because I know that if we change the perspective somebody has of themselves, the behavioral adaptations to that will drop and hence so will the addiction. As long as we're trying to cure the addiction, we're actually reinforcing the belief that somebody deeper down has a problem, and in my world, no one has a problem. They just have pieces of programming that maybe be, you know, not... They're a disservice to that person, and they're inaccurate just as we did what we just did now. You're not not wanted, right? You thought you were not wanted, and you thought you'd done something wrong. In the absence of those constraints, you discover freedom. When you have that amount of freedom, you don't need substance to find escape from the peace that you're experiencing. So that's why I get specific with language, because people are very loose with language. And what people don't understand is our words create our reality, and I'm, I'm very passionate and I care immensely about people, and the, certainly the people I help. So I want them to be powerful in the way that they use their words because I want people to realize their goals and aspirations. How many times on a New Year's resolution does somebody say blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah falls by the wayside 10 days later? Because they don't honor their word. They don't actually realize the power of what they're saying. It's the same as somebody saying, "I'll meet you for a coffee at 2:00," and they get there at 10 past 2:00. No one died, but [laughs] it shows that you don't actually have a relationship to the way that you speak. So if you can't show up for a coffee at time, uh, on time based on what you said, what luck do you think you're gonna have in realizing this new, you know, startup company that you want to get going when you're saying whatever you're saying about it because you're not going to stick to it? This is where people just, they give up too quickly because they don't actually honor their commitments. And it doesn't make anyone wrong, it just, for me, I just want people to be powerful. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:05 It's, it, it sounds like it's about, it's about getting the basics right, isn't it? It's about getting that foundation right. You, you, you know, use the example of someone wanting to succeed in their startup.

Peter Crone 1:03:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:16 But actually, it's the same as you were saying with addiction. Whatever your aspiration is, let's just wind it right back. Let's get the foundation of how you function as a human being-

Peter Crone 1:03:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:27 ... how you talk about yourself, how you act. Let's get that right-

Peter Crone 1:03:31 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:31 ... and then the downstream consequences of that, no matter what they are, no matter what you want them to be, wi- will just fall naturally, uh-

Peter Crone 1:03:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:40 ... as a consequence. I, I guess-

Peter Crone 1:03:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:42 ... it's like addiction. Um, you know, I, I do like Gabor's work and I, I very much enjoy my conversation with him, and I also subscribe to his view that all addiction, no matter what it is, actually comes from some sort of, I think, uh, I don't want to put words in Gabor's mouth now, but I think it's, uh, some form of childhood trauma.

Peter Crone 1:04:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:03 And he defines trauma as either bad things happen to you-

Peter Crone 1:04:08 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:08 ... or not enough good things happen to you. So it's not just that-

Peter Crone 1:04:12 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:12 ... stereotypical event of-

Peter Crone 1:04:14 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:14 ... you know, I was-

Peter Crone 1:04:15 You were abused or hit or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:15 Of course. And, and clearly, you know, I'm not trying to make light of that in any way.

Peter Crone 1:04:18 No, no, no, no, no.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:20 But-

Peter Crone 1:04:20 It's tragic

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:21 ... it's as if when we don't feel whole in ourselves-

Peter Crone 1:04:26 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:27 ... we then use other things to fill that hole-

Peter Crone 1:04:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:31 ... and to fill that void.

Peter Crone 1:04:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:32 And, you know, I've got a few addictive personality type behaviors. I'm gonna, I'm gonna change my language.

Peter Crone 1:04:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:40 I used to have-

Peter Crone 1:04:42 Power

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:42 ... certain behavioral patterns to do-

Peter Crone 1:04:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:44 ... with various addictive tendencies.

Peter Crone 1:04:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:46 And those things didn't go away by me trying to help them go away.

Peter Crone 1:04:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:53 When I did the inner work, as I continue to do my inner work-

Peter Crone 1:04:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:58 ... and I start to peel away layers of the onion and I become more secure in who I am-

Peter Crone 1:05:02 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:03 ... those things have just fallen by the wayside without me even trying.

Peter Crone 1:05:06 Bingo. Right? So, you know, you can't... I tell people, "You can't create the life of someone you don't yet believe yourself to be."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:13 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:05:13 Right? So again, this is one of my quotes that I use in my book, right? So it's like recognizing that if you're wanting to create a certain life externally, then if you don't emulate that internally in the way that you view yourself and the way that you speak about yourself, the way that you behave, then you're, you know, to use the English expression, you're pissing into the wind, [laughs] right? It's, it's not going to work 'cause you're going against the grain of how you're fundamentally conditioned. I'll use a sports analogy 'cause I think, you know, I work with a lot of professional athletes, and it's a beautiful metaphor for life. So I was hired by a very successful basketball player here, and he was struggling from the free throw. Like when one of the players gets fouled, you go to the free throw. You know, it's a relatively easy shot. The league average is 75%. So when a guy is fouled, he goes to the free throw line, usually makes a one-pointer, you know, s- seven, eight times out of 10. This guy's average was 35%. So, you know, it wasn't even close to average. It was half the average. And you can imagine, he was, you know, losing sleep. It was affecting his personal relationships at home because of the stress. Crowds were starting to boo. And here's somebody who's getting paid millions of dollars. There's literally millions of fans. You know, they're fanatical here in, in, uh, the States about their sports. And it was costing him a lot, you know. He was, um, really, really struggling. So the point about addiction and why I'm using this sports metaphor as a comparison is he had become addicted to the fact that he had a problem. So when I met him, I said, "You're probably speaking to everyone you can, from players, coaches, even sports psychologists." He's like, "I'm doing everything I can to fix the problem." I said, "And therein lies one of your biggest obstacles 'cause you keep reinforcing the belief that you've got a problem."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:59 Got a problem.

Peter Crone 1:06:59 Do you remember the movie Men in Black?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:01 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:07:01 With, with Will Smith, and they wave the black wand after they'd seen the aliens to, to wipe their memory. So I said to the guy, I said, "If you had no memory, where's your problem?" Just to start to give him an indicator that what he's fighting is his history. So now he goes up to the free throw line, he isn't even focused on what he's trying to accomplish, which is make the basket. He is trying to avoid his history of hurt, trauma, I'm not a big fan of the word trauma, but past failings or disappointments where we got upset, and now he's standing there literally trying to fix his history, but that's only impossible. [laughs] So, you know, I mean, I played with the guy. I, as you can probably imagine, I'm coming from a lot of love and compassion. He's doing the best he can. It's affecting him dramatically. But I said, once he got to see it, I said, I used the metaphor, "You're like driving a car, but the way you're driving the car is you're looking in the rear view mirror, so all you're seeing is what's behind you, and then you wonder why you keep running into shit."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:56 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:07:57 Right? So anyway, so then I said to him, "What if I told you that for the rest of the season, you shot league average? Let's just be, you know, we'll be conservative. You shot 75% instead of 35, 37." His shoulders dropped, he had the biggest smile on his face. This guy's huge. He's like, you know, seven foot something, and he's like, "That would feel amazing." I said, "What I just presented to you is a future that is as real as the one you're concerned about. The difference is I recognize that as a possibility, whereas you're so busy trying to avoid your history that you're actually standing in the line in a state of anxiety, which is self-perpetuating. It's self-fulfilling. Both the futures, you're worried about one, mine is phenomenal or at least better. They're both made up. Why? 'Cause we're still sitting in your house." [laughs] "We haven't gone anywhere. But mine elicits joy, freedom, relaxation. If you're an athlete coming from freedom, joy, and relaxation, I don't care what sport you're doing, you're gonna do it better than if you're coming from tension, anxiety, and worry." That night he had a game, he shot six out of eight, you know, so that was 75%, and for the rest of the week he shot 68%.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:08 Way better than previous.

Peter Crone 1:09:09 Almost double if you're into that kind of stuff. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:13 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:09:13 Right? So what happened is, going back to the addiction is, most people are completely addicted to their history, and then spending the rest of their life trying to compensate for it versus what are you committed to? What's the future you're stepping into out of pure creation versus reaction? And it's a distinction I make. Most people are reactive versus creative. You feeling you had to call your wife was a reaction to the fear that you generated thinking you were doing something wrong. There's nothing creative, there's nothing new, there's nothing passionate about that. It's you trying to protect yourself and not get into trouble, which is how most people live their lives. Again, not wrong. I have all the love and compassion.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:50 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:09:50 But let's wake up and find so much more joy and freedom for ourselves and come from a place where we're creating an extraordinary future that we're working towards, versus trying to fix a history behind us which we can't do anything about anyway.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:03 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:10:03 Two totally different worlds to live in.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:06 Uh, this thing, this idea that we get addicted to the stories-

Peter Crone 1:10:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:10 ... um-

Peter Crone 1:10:11 They define us

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:12 ... they do define us, and the thing for many of us is we're not even aware that we're telling ourselves those stories.

Peter Crone 1:10:19 Hence it's the subconscious that come full circle.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:22 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:10:22 Blind spots. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:22 Exactly.

Peter Crone 1:10:22 And that's why I have all the compassion in the world. One of my lines I say, "You can't be held accountable for that which you're oblivious to."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:29 Yeah, for sure. And I hope by us having this sort of conversation, I'm hoping, um, the people who are ready to hear this, this sort of information and people might go, "Wait a minute. I, actually, that resonates with me."

Peter Crone 1:10:41 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:41 And maybe that awareness is gonna be the start of a cascade reaction for them to start going and exploring various things.

Peter Crone 1:10:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:50 This whole story piece, um, it made me think of when, when my second, uh, season of Doctor in the House came out.

Peter Crone 1:10:58 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:59 So this is, you know, returning series. I'd spent six months of my life, pretty much seven days a week on this-

Peter Crone 1:11:05 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:06 ... trying to help eight families around the country with very complex problems-

Peter Crone 1:11:09 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:09 ... literally busting a gut-

Peter Crone 1:11:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:11 ... trying to summon every possible bit of knowledge that I've ever accumulated in my life to see how can I help these people.

Peter Crone 1:11:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:17 How can I help them, uh, you know, feel better-

Peter Crone 1:11:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:20 ... so they can live more, basically.

Peter Crone 1:11:22 Yeah. Beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:23 Um, and I was really proud of the results and-

Peter Crone 1:11:30 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:30 ... you know, it was time for the show to air. And I remember that one of the shows came out and, you know, yes, 99 point whatever percent of people were very positive and it was great feedback.

Peter Crone 1:11:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:45 But there was a section who hammered me.

Peter Crone 1:11:48 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:48 Like, literally hammered me on-

Peter Crone 1:11:50 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:50 ... Twitter. Um, and I found it very difficult actually. I didn't sleep that night. I didn't sleep for about a week after actually. I was really, I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand. I've just helped these people. I've not had to use any drugs. I've helped them just-

Peter Crone 1:12:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:02 ... see what they can change in their own lifestyle-

Peter Crone 1:12:05 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:05 ... to help improve them. Um, and I got hammered 'cause I'd taken unconventional methods.

Peter Crone 1:12:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:10 Now, there's a couple of pieces to this. One piece is, let's say there was a lady with fibromyalgia who, um, was pain-free after six weeks.

Peter Crone 1:12:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:23 And she had been suffering with that pain for I think nearly 10 years prior to that.

Peter Crone 1:12:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:29 There was a section of people who would hammer me online.

Peter Crone 1:12:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:33 Um, and what was interesting is a lot of them had fibro in their Twitter handle, so, you know, Fibro Tom or Fibro Sally.

Peter Crone 1:12:41 Right, right, right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:42 And initially I found it very hard, but then I soon turned from being frustrated to actually having compassion-

Peter Crone 1:12:47 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:48 ... because what I realized is actually their whole identity has become their illness.

Peter Crone 1:12:56 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:58 And I am not judging that.

Peter Crone 1:12:59 No, no, no.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:59 I do not know what it's like to live like that, okay?

Peter Crone 1:13:02 Can be very difficult.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:02 But I'm just putting that out there. I-

Peter Crone 1:13:04 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:04 ... and I suddenly started to go, actually, you know what? That must be too difficult to get your head round that you've just seen on a TV show-

Peter Crone 1:13:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:15 ... a lady suffering for years- ... literally go pain-free in six weeks

Peter Crone 1:13:22 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:22 ... it, it's almost too much a cognitive dissonance from where you are currently at to think that that is real, and therefore it's, it- the only way to deal with that-

Peter Crone 1:13:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:35 ... is to attack me-

Peter Crone 1:13:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:37 ... and say, "This was never fibromyalgia. This is nonsense. BBC are a disgrace for putting this on." You know?

Peter Crone 1:13:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:43 "What does Dr. Chatterjee do?" You know, et cetera, et cetera.

Peter Crone 1:13:46 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:46 But once I reframed the way I viewed it-

Peter Crone 1:13:49 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:49 ... and looked at this with, "Wait a minute, I get it. I'm, I'm totally compassionate-

Peter Crone 1:13:54 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:55 ... why they're doing it," it changes everything.

Peter Crone 1:13:56 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:57 And I think that was one piece of that, which is the whole identity piece and how we all, and I am gu- I have been guilty-

Peter Crone 1:14:03 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:03 ... uh, and maybe I am guilty at the moment and maybe in ways that I'm not aware-

Peter Crone 1:14:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:08 ... of creating stories about myself. In fact, I probably am.

Peter Crone 1:14:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:11 Um, so that was one aspect. The, the second component there is on an individual level, and you will be picking this up. You're observing. I'm sure you are picking this up as we go.

Peter Crone 1:14:21 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:22 Um, but why on earth did that bother me?

Peter Crone 1:14:26 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:26 Right?

Peter Crone 1:14:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:27 I can now see why it bothered me. It bothered me because I had insecurity.

Peter Crone 1:14:32 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:33 I was insecure in myself be- and therefore, when somebody, um, you know, attacks me-

Peter Crone 1:14:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:40 ... I take it personally.

Peter Crone 1:14:41 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:41 I feel very bad.

Peter Crone 1:14:42 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:43 And now I can reflect back and go, because I don't get, uh, it doesn't bother me anymore on social media.

Peter Crone 1:14:51 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:51 And I've realized that the reason why that is-

Peter Crone 1:14:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:53 ... is not because I'm ignoring it-

Peter Crone 1:14:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:55 ... but because I've started to be comfortable with who I am.

Peter Crone 1:14:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:59 I've started to, um, I've started to come at peace with who I am.

Peter Crone 1:15:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:04 I don't feel this constant battle to try and create a story around me.

Peter Crone 1:15:08 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:09 I'm just pretty cool with who I am these days.

Peter Crone 1:15:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:12 And suddenly then it changes everything-

Peter Crone 1:15:14 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:14 ... because freedom is a term that I get why your gift is freedom to people because I, I can't think of a better word to describe how I feel these days.

Peter Crone 1:15:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:24 I just feel free.

Peter Crone 1:15:26 Amazing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:27 And it's, like, it's, it's the, the positive comments don't even inflate me and my ego in a way that they might have done in the past.

Peter Crone 1:15:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:37 I just feel, yeah, it's nice to read positive comments.

Peter Crone 1:15:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:40 It's, if it's negative comments, fine.

Peter Crone 1:15:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:43 But I don't let either one of them really-

Peter Crone 1:15:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:46 ... they just don't really, they bother me that much, and it's, it's quite a nice place to be.

Peter Crone 1:15:50 Very.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:50 It's a very nice place to be.

Peter Crone 1:15:51 Very liberating.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:52 Um, I wonder whether you can unpack any of those two stories.

Peter Crone 1:15:54 For sure, because even in the way that you spoke, just to keep the theme so people can really get something out of this, like, uh, first of all, I love where you're at. It's very liberating, right? And that's really why I do what I do. I'm not here to judge anyone. It may sound a bit woo woo, but I genuinely come from love. I understand people are suffering. You know, my parents died when I was young. It's not 'cause I'm a woe-is-me guy, but, like, I get suffering, and I was literally alone. It's like, you know, you had a 12-year-old experience at a school. You weren't quite alone, you know, 'cause-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:21 Yeah, yeah

Peter Crone 1:16:21 ... you had a friend, but I was literally alone. I don't think there's a worse experience for a human being to feel totally isolated, not as a psychological construct, but as a visceral, literal experience. So for that reason, there's no judgment from where I'm coming, and people are gonna have their reactions even to what I'm saying today. But I would like to give you a little bit more power again, 'cause you're doing amazing work. But even as you spoke, the words you used are inaccurate, right? So you said, "I got hammered," you know, "I got hammered on Twitter," and then even, "People were attacking me." These... I get the expression.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:58 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:16:58 But think about it. If I'm getting hammered, you know, which back in c- university-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:03 I can already see, I can already see where this is going. It's great

Peter Crone 1:17:05 ... yeah, university had a totally different connotation. [laughs] I got so hammered, right? But it may seem like I'm being a little bit pedantic, but to me it's very important to understand, 'cause you weren't hammered. What actually happened? And just be succinct. Not a big story. What actually happened? The show came out. You said 99.9%, and then the others, you said, "I got hammered." No, what actually happened?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:30 They made a comment about a TV show.

Peter Crone 1:17:35 Great work. You're a brilliant study. Yeah. They wrote something, whether it be on Twitter, on a bulletin board online, they wrote to the BBC. I don't know, but they said something.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:44 All of the above. [laughs]

Peter Crone 1:17:45 Right. But, but we can really cons- concisely put it into they said something. They expressed themselves, and to them that is their reality.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:55 Agreed.

Peter Crone 1:17:56 And as a human being, I always want to honor people's realities because I don't know why they think that. I might not agree. It's not my perspective to worry whether I agree or not. I just want to understand their reality. But that is distinctly different from you got hammered.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:10 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:18:12 Now-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:12 That's a narrative that I'm creating.

Peter Crone 1:18:14 Yes. But that was unconscious until now it's conscious. You've obviously gotten a- past it a little bit, 'cause you said now you feel at ease whether they say a compliment or a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:21 Sure, but still I can, I can, when I'm telling that story the next time, if I tell it-

Peter Crone 1:18:25 It will be more powerful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:26 ... exactly. I can now-

Peter Crone 1:18:28 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:28 ... and this is the point that I picked up from hearing you talk in the past, as something I'm really, again, have hugely changed.

Peter Crone 1:18:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:37 Of course, there is m- there is more growth to occur. There is-

Peter Crone 1:18:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:40 ... I know that, and I want that, but I think precision in language is probably one of the most important things I've taken from you, Peter, if I'm honest.

Peter Crone 1:18:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:48 It's one of the things I've found most inspiring.

Peter Crone 1:18:51 Cool. Thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:51 Um, and I found it, I found it quite mesmerizing actually-

Peter Crone 1:18:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:56 ... hearing the way you describe certain things, and I think wouldn't it be amazing to be able to describe things ... with that level of precision

Peter Crone 1:19:05 Yeah. It, it, it is amazing in as much as it gives a human being the sense of power, responsibility, and freedom, which to me is what everyone's looking for. They might say they want more money. They might say they want a better relationship or a better job. They might say they want a better jo- uh, body. But to me, they are all milestones or steppingstones towards the fundamental experiences. I just want to feel free, or in lay terms, I just wanna feel good, and most people don't. They feel sick. They feel dis-ease, the absence of ease, and that's why I'm so passionate about this work because I have seen it for two decades now, where lives are literally transformed. They are transfigured, they're transmuted because people are transcending these deep beliefs of inadequacy, insecurity, and scarcity, which are not truths. They're just inherited beliefs that at, at the deepest level are informing everybody's behaviors. And to get beyond that is freedom.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:06 So a lot of inner work-

Peter Crone 1:20:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:08 ... is done in a way, um, why these things are processed unconsciously or without you having to literally talk through various events. You know, there's talking therapy. There's, there's many different modalities.

Peter Crone 1:20:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:21 So I guess what intrigues me about your work is how do you get somebody to reprogram their subconscious mind?

Peter Crone 1:20:35 It's a great question, and beyond reprogramming, it's actually easier because, see, reprogramming still implies that I've got to do something.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:41 Okay, remove the new programming, like restore to factory settings?

Peter Crone 1:20:46 Ri- [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:46 Is that a better way?

Peter Crone 1:20:47 You just gotta hit the, what is it? The volume button-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:49 [laughs]

Peter Crone 1:20:50 ... and the, the power button-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:51 At the same time [laughs]

Peter Crone 1:20:52 ... and it will re- it will reboot [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:53 But it, but is that what it is? Is it resetting to-

Peter Crone 1:20:55 It's-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:55 ... factory settings?

Peter Crone 1:20:56 To a certain degree, but it's, you know, this could be another two hours. But to me, the first, the first s- step into this journey of awakening, liberation, freedom, whatever you wanna call it, is awareness. So with you, just even here in this conversation, I brought, you know, maybe a degree of awareness to, for example, the belief that I'm not wanted. It wasn't how you phrased your story. You know, you said, "My, my friends left me," and blah, blah, blah, "and then I molded myself to another group." But you didn't go, "And I was left feeling not wanted." Now, you didn't articulate that. That was the deep, deep feeling. So now that you have awareness of it, we could both talk about what does it feel to be not wanted? Oh, I'm sad. I'm depressed. I feel lonely. What's the point? Like, these are things that people really feel, but they only feel that because at the deeper level, they're in the world of, "I'm not wanted." That's the prison. So the awareness of the prison, you don't need to reprogram it. You don't even need to get rid of it. You just go, "Oh, wow, I'm human." I spent the first m- almost three decades of my life thinking I just wasn't good enough. My nickname at college was Perfect Pete. Right? Now, that was a compensation. That was a, a moniker given to me because I was always trying to not be not good enough. [laughs] Can you see?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:12 And you, you, you have such a lovely way of describing perfectionism. I don't know if you can remember it. You've probably got so many amazing phrases.

Peter Crone 1:22:20 Well, it's, it's an adaptation to feeling that we're inadequate, right? That we're not enough, but I'm not enough is a lie.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:27 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:22:28 So therefore w-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:28 That was it

Peter Crone 1:22:29 ... yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:29 It's an, it's an adaptation to us feeling we're not adequate.

Peter Crone 1:22:32 Yeah, it's a behavioral response.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:34 It is so powerful, that, even that just one phrase-

Peter Crone 1:22:37 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:37 ... alone, if people, like I have done-

Peter Crone 1:22:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:40 ... if you just sit with that and let it sort of seep into you and just see what comes up-

Peter Crone 1:22:46 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:46 ... there is such a deep, deep truth to that phrase.

Peter Crone 1:22:50 That's why I love what I get to do for people 'cause I'm like you. We're both very sensitive men, and I love that quality. Your sensitivity at one time was also your vulnerability where you didn't want to be exposed, and so you protected yourself. But actually, we're all sentient beings. We are very sensitive. We've numbed ourselves by callousing over with these survival mechanisms. So I just really care about people. I want people to break-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:13 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:23:13 ... free. It's not my job to go on, you know, knock door to door 'cause there's defense, right? Like, um, I work with a lot of sports teams, and the, one of the athletic trainers would ask me, like, "How, how can I help someone?" I said, "They have to come to you." You can make a suggestion. Even in language, I will say, "Can I make a suggestion?" Now, listen to that language. I'm asking them, "Can I come in?" It's like y- you don't just bust through someone's front door. You ring the bell, and if they open it, you can go in for a cup of tea and a crumpet or whatever. You can have a conversation, but you don't bust in and say, "Hey, your furniture's in the wrong place."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:46 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:23:46 They're gonna either pull out a gun if you're in Texas, or in England, you know, they'll call the police. Point is, there's a way to be able-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:52 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:23:52 ... to access people. I just happen to really care because people, to your point, are suffering. People are sick-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:59 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:23:59 ... mentally, physically, emotionally. And so awareness of these codes, and hopefully a lot of people get stuff from this conversation today, that's certainly my intention, is just the start. If I can see, wow, the reason my relationship doesn't work, the reason I have a health issue, the reason I don't seem to get acknowledged in the workplace or make the money I feel I deserve, the reason I don't have the courage to start my business is 'cause I feel fundamentally somehow inadequate. And then to ask yourself, is it true that I'm inadequate? No, it's what I feel. It's what I believe. It's not a truth. And in the absence of that, what becomes available is freedom and, and absolutely pure possibility, and that's what I, that's what I want to appeal to people. I'm not interested in fixing people's problems. Why? 'Cause I know they don't have any, and that's a fundamentally very different way to approach humans.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:51 Yeah. I think this conversation is gonna resonate so deeply with many. I think some people are likely to push back, um-

Peter Crone 1:25:01 I'll get hammered. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:03 Yeah. Um, yeah.

Peter Crone 1:25:04 I'm kidding. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:04 No, but they're gonna create-

Peter Crone 1:25:05 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:05 ... they're gonna-- Let's, if we're gonna be precise-

Peter Crone 1:25:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:08 ... um, and I guess-

Peter Crone 1:25:09 Yeah, they might-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:09 ... this is where I know I've got more growth to do because as I'm saying it, I'm thinking I don't wanna offend people.

Peter Crone 1:25:16 No, of course

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:16 Right?

Peter Crone 1:25:16 Nor do I. I get-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:17 Nor do you. I get that. You don't, and, and one thing I love about you is that you are-

Peter Crone 1:25:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:21 ... genuinely non-judgmental. You are just speaking the truth.

Peter Crone 1:25:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:26 Certainly the, the truth the way you see it, and I actually see it that way as well.

Peter Crone 1:25:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:30 But my point is, is that always saying what people want you to say-

Peter Crone 1:25:36 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:36 ... which I have done at many points in my life, I'm not sure who that serves. It certainly doesn't serve the other person. It doesn't serve yourself.

Peter Crone 1:25:44 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:44 It sort of bleeds into all aspects of your life. Um, so, so I do find, I do find-

Peter Crone 1:25:51 Uh, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:51 ... I, I, you know, as I'm describing this, I know I've got more work to do, but I think the people who don't like this-

Peter Crone 1:25:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:58 ... um, as is very likely to happen, it is probably because I would imagine they're not ready to hear it yet, or it's too close to the bone.

Peter Crone 1:26:08 It's threatening.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:09 It's threatening.

Peter Crone 1:26:09 That's all it i- whenever anyone reacts, you know, first of all to your point, I always say I'd much rather hear an honest criticism than a dishonest compliment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:18 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:26:19 'Cause I can be with that. I'm not here to try and make everybody happy. It's not my job. I'm here to share. I w- I love to inspire. Uh, beyond truth, I like to talk about physics. If you, in your mind, at the deepest level, think that you're not loved, not wanted, not worth anything, I know that you're going to do whatever you have to do to try and survive. That's just physics. I'm not-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:38 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:26:38 ... I'm not saying this is the way it is, like it's Peter Crone's methodology. It's just life, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:43 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:26:43 And I know human beings are scared, and they live in fear, and they're trying to survive, and if I can help people break out of that to find some sense of liberation, then that's what I'm committed to, right? So I get that people may have pushback, but whenever we have any, whenever we have any reaction, all that's ever happening is our beliefs are being challenged. We see a potential threat. Now, that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:11 Neuroscience has shown that your fight or flight response will get activated by that.

Peter Crone 1:27:15 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:15 Not that we need neuroscience to tell us that, but it, it, e- you know, you, if you have a tightly held belief, for example, this is the dietary way to eat.

Peter Crone 1:27:25 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:25 This diet is the right way to eat.

Peter Crone 1:27:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:28 If that is your identity, and then you, somebody presents a, a differing view to you-

Peter Crone 1:27:35 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:35 ... that is threatening, and that suddenly explains, to me at least, a lot of the toxicity that, that appears to be out there on social media.

Peter Crone 1:27:43 There's one powerful line that I'm gonna give from, of all movies, it's the third Matrix, I think. And The Matrix, to me, one of the first movies, is one of the most powerful. I don't think it's a film so much as a documentary [laughs] but in terms of this work, right? But in the third to this point, in the third one, I believe it is, Zion, for anyone who's following Matrix, it's the HQ of all the free souls, so to speak, is under attack from the machines, right? So sort of the external world is attacking these free spirits. And the commander-in-chief at Zion, he calls all of the ships to come back so they can defend their territory. Morpheus, who's the character who finds Keanu Reeves' character, Neo, you know, again, for people who are not watching this, I'm sorry, but hopefully you'll get something from it anyway. Um, he leaves his ship out so he can be in contact with the, the Matrix, the outside world. The head of defense says, "Damn it, Morpheus, I told you to bring all of the ships back." And he said, "I left my ship out there so we can contact the Oracle." The Oracle is the fortune teller who's gonna predict the state of the, the world and Neo if he's the one. So he, he said ... And then the head of defense, and this is a powerful line, he says, "Not everybody believes what you believe," meaning Morpheus believes that Neo's gonna save the world. And Morpheus says, "My beliefs do not require them to." Now, if you ... Not everybody believes what you believe, and he says, "My beliefs do not require them to," meaning if somebody gets threatened by whatever I'm saying, it shows me that their beliefs are a little bit shaky, which is okay, too. Somebody can tell me whatever they think. It's not gonna phase me 'cause I'm comfortable with what I believe, unless what they say is inspiring enough for me to go, "Oh, wow, that actually could shift my life."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:29 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:29:29 "Thank you." But it's certainly not gonna upset me. So that right there is an a tell, it's a giveaway that if someone gets upset, what they believe is actually very fragile, and they're attached to that as a form of their identity versus something that they're truly embedded in as a way of living.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:49 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:29:49 And that's, that's subtle. Like, when, if your beliefs are not shaken by other beliefs, that's a powerful state to be in.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:56 Yeah. It-

Peter Crone 1:29:56 I, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:57 It is the most powerful state to be in, I would argue.

Peter Crone 1:29:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:00 Um-

Peter Crone 1:30:00 'Cause then that's also comes back full lis- full, full circle to our point about listening. See, again, I'm not sitting here going, "Wow, I'm all this, and I can, like..." It's not about that. It's like I let people have their reality, so I'm listening. Even if somebody right now thinks I'm, I'm just full of it, "This guy, oh, he's living in California. He's not British. He's blah, blah, blah," okay. I, I'm sorry you feel that. If you got to know me, I'm very loving, I'm caring, I love to help people, but maybe that's not their interpretation. It might not be what I want to hear, but I can listen and let them have their reality. It's not going to upset me because fundamentally I believe everybody loves everybody. It's just they've got beliefs in the way, and that's what I'm wanting people to w- it may sound a bit utopian and nirvana-like, but to me, if we can wake up, you know, what a world to live in where people are at least respectful. You don't have to be loving, but at least kind and compassionate versus, you know, all the, the, all the violence [laughs] that we live in on this planet.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:52 It is, you know, this, this is not pie in the sky for people. This, I feel, is achievable for everyone.

Peter Crone 1:31:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:00 This is the goal to aspire to.

Peter Crone 1:31:03 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:03 This is the ultimate in meaning and fulfillment in living a, you know, if you want a, if, if a pur- if, if the pursuit of happiness is what you're after-

Peter Crone 1:31:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:15 ... this is what will get you there.

Peter Crone 1:31:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:17 Although, again, I've heard another brilliant phrase from you about happiness.

Peter Crone 1:31:21 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:21 And I love it. I wonder if you could share it.

Peter Crone 1:31:23 Of course. It's one of, one of my favorite quotes in the book that's coming out, is I say, "True happiness is the absence of the search for happiness."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:33 I just want everyone listening to just sit with that for a couple of seconds

Peter Crone 1:31:37 True happiness is the absence of the search for happiness. If you really get that, that is true peace. 'Cause what you're saying is, "I'm totally okay where I am, I don't need things to be different, and I'm not relying on some idealized one-day future where I think that I'm gonna be happy," which would be the pursuit of happiness, which ironically is in the Declaration of Independence in America [laughs] . The pursuit of happiness. I'm like, well, how about you just be happy now? Now, that's not to say we rest on, rest on our laurels. I'm creating a lot, I'm very aspirational, I'm a entrepreneur, I'm building lots of things 'cause it's fun to create. But I am simultaneously completely at peace and content with the way that my life is today.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:18 Yeah. I love that. That is something I will sit with this evening for sure. Um-

Peter Crone 1:32:22 That to me is the greatest precursor to healing because stress, as you know as a doctor, is synonymous with sickness, right? The inflammatory response, the inflammatory response as maybe the precursor to all diseases, right? But stress, what is stress? I'm saying that I am in conflict with my current circumstance. I don't want things to be the way they are, which is a, I use the word resistance. I'm in resistance-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:47 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:32:47 ... with what that person said. I'm in resistance with the way my bank account is. I'm in resistance with the way that my boss deals with things. I get it. I'm not saying any of them are ideal. I'm not saying that they, you want them. But your resistance to the way life is is massively futile, and it is the precursor to the dis-ease, psychologically and emotionally, that then manifests eventually physiologically. If you can find harmony, I tell people I have an intimate relationship with reality, I am at peace with what is. It doesn't mean that it's ideal. I may be working on things to improve, but I'm not in conflict with the way that life is currently, and for that reason my experience is freedom and peace.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:25 Yeah. I mean, stress is the big one. You know, it really is. Um, you may, you may or may not know the World Health Organization calls stress the health epidemic of the 21st century. Um, up to 90% is thought of what a doctor like me sees in any given day is in some way related to stress. This is-

Peter Crone 1:33:43 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:44 ... these are the two of the big reasons why my last book is all about stress. Basically what it is, where it lives, what we can do about it.

Peter Crone 1:33:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:51 Um, and I remember when sitting down to write it and trying to sort of order my thoughts, and as y- you know, you're going through the process of writing a book, one of the most beautiful things about it is that you can have all these thoughts, all th- a variety of thoughts in your head and in your mind. But actually writing a book means you've gotta systematize them. You've got to put them to some sort of order, some sort of coherent structure where it makes sense.

Peter Crone 1:34:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:15 And it's, it's a, although it can be challenging at times, it's one of the most fulfilling experiences I've had, is writing books for sure.

Peter Crone 1:34:21 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:22 And I started off the first quarter of that book not about talking about nature or meditation or breathing. As helpful as I think those things are, I covered them all.

Peter Crone 1:34:32 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:32 I spent the first quarter of the book talking about meaning and purpose-

Peter Crone 1:34:34 Yeah, beautiful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:35 ... because I felt that this is such, you know, it's about what you said, about living that life that you, where you accept the way things are, where you have a reason to get up, where you, you are creating, you are aspiring. You know, um, it is, it is incredible and, and I think at, at the heart of everything really is stress. At the heart of everything is-

Peter Crone 1:34:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:56 ... is that slight feeling of, "I am not safe. I am, I might be in danger," which is-

Peter Crone 1:35:01 Yes, that's the threat response

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:02 ... it's the threat response, and, uh, we, we can see that from our email inbox these days.

Peter Crone 1:35:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:06 We can see it on social media. We can see it everywhere. And two, two things I'd just like to finish off on-

Peter Crone 1:35:11 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:11 ... is, um, you mentioned when we were talking about the potential for people to maybe be, to have an emotional reaction to various parts of this podcast-

Peter Crone 1:35:24 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:24 ...

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:24 saying, well, it's, if they do, that's their reality. I'm okay with that because-

Peter Crone 1:35:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:27 ... my job is not to make them happy.

Peter Crone 1:35:28 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:29 I really like that because a big shift I... Oh, I don't know if it's a shift or not, but I think we, w- you know, I think Hollywood, and it feels-

Peter Crone 1:35:38 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:38 ... quite apt to be saying this here, for me being here in California, um, you know, just a few miles I'm sure away from Hollywood, that I think Hollywood has created stories and narratives and, um, about romance and about what being in a loving relationship is and how two people complete each other and make each other happy.

Peter Crone 1:35:59 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:00 I think it's all BS, and-

Peter Crone 1:36:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:03 ... what I mean by that is, you know, I feel that my wife and I are in a fantastic place these days.

Peter Crone 1:36:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:10 And I think a large part of that is because we are not... We- our jobs are not to make each other happy.

Peter Crone 1:36:18 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:19 We don't complete each other.

Peter Crone 1:36:20 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:20 We're complete by ourselves.

Peter Crone 1:36:22 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:22 We find happiness and meaning ourselves.

Peter Crone 1:36:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:25 And when we do that, the better we can be at that, the better our relationship is. But when, I think a common misconception out there is that people around us, whether it's our kids-

Peter Crone 1:36:39 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:39 ... whether it's our partner, whether it's our friends, they complete us.

Peter Crone 1:36:43 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:45 What do you think to that?

Peter Crone 1:36:47 I mean, 100%. It's funny, you know, 'cause that's that famous line with the first [laughs] movie that I worked with Tom on was Jerry Maguire, and he says, "You complete me." Now, for celluloid purposes, when you're watching on a screen, it certainly appeals to the romantics. I'm a hopeless romantic. I love love. I love companionship. But yes, it's a disservice to the truth as far as I'm concerned, which is, uh, it implies is you're not complete without somebody else, and that is a lie. So when people are under the impression that yes, somebody else or something else, it could be something, right? It could be money, it could be status, it could be a job title, that they think that's going to complete me, then what you're actually reinforcing is that there's something slightly off about me, and that's a lie.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:29 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:37:29 So yeah, I, I mean, we could talk about, I love talking about relationship. I help a lot of couples. I help a lot of people with their relationships, and most people don't know how to relate because they're relating, like you kindly shared earlier in this conversation, from a place of survival. You morphed yourself, was your form of relating to a group to get- The feeling of being belonging and wanted, which was really a compensation for the relationship you had with yourself, which is you weren't wanted. Once you reconciled that, you became free. You actually now can relate to people 'cause you get to listen. You get to be with other people. That's why most relationships don't work, 'cause people don't listen to each other, they react to one another. You have to play the role of the ambassador that you were when you first met because that's now what they're expecting and vice versa, and it becomes exhausting to try and sustain that versus just being you, being loved warts and all, as the expression is, like with all your imperfections. No one's perfect. We're all human. We're all flawed, and that's part of our beauty. But if we can accept that with ourselves, then we can accept that with others, and that to me is, that's love. Love, as I said earlier, does not judge between forms. It just doesn't.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:35 Peter, I've really enjoyed our conversation today. This podcast is called Feel Better-

Peter Crone 1:38:40 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:40 ... Live More.

Peter Crone 1:38:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:42 It is relatively obvious on certain levels, but I have seen over and over again that when people feel better in themselves, they get more out of their lives.

Peter Crone 1:38:51 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:52 I love to leave the listeners with some hopefully simple ideas and tips that they can think about applying into their own lives immediately-

Peter Crone 1:39:02 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:02 ... to start transforming the way that they feel. Now, I appreciate we've covered a lot of ground today.

Peter Crone 1:39:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:07 So I wonder if you would be open to sharing some of your top tips for people, and if you can, maybe, you know, we didn't really cover parenting. Um, many people who listen to this, uh, are parents-

Peter Crone 1:39:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:20 ... and I, I just think you have so much wisdom, and you can probably share some final pieces of that wisdom that are gonna help listeners.

Peter Crone 1:39:29 Okay. Um, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind intuitively I'm just gonna trust is slow down, just for everybody to slow down. The world is moving at a million miles an hour, you know, metaphorically, and people are just rushing around, and invariably it's for this idealized future that everyone's chasing. So to the point earlier, we're under the impression that this one day phenomenon is when I'm gonna have the perfect body, the right relationship, enough money, yada, yada, yada, and what we're doing is we're, we're sort of perpetually pushing away our feeling better 'cause I'm saying, well, that's where it's all gonna work out, but right now it's not so good. So I would say embrace life for who it i- for what it is. Embrace yourself for who you are and embrace others for who they are. I use the expression everybody's a masterpiece and yet a work in progress. So allow people to be who they are whilst we can still be committed to becoming better versions of ourself. That is the process of enlightenment, you know, getting, evolving beyond our current constraints. So slowing down, breathing. I mean, it might seem fundamentally obvious, but how many people are disconnected from their breath? Even as I said the word, you took a deeper breath. Hopefully people as they hear that, they might go, "Oh my gosh, I haven't checked in with my own breathing patterns." To slow that down, there's a strong correlation between our breathing patterns-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:48 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:40:48 ... and our mind, you know, meditation. So that would be probably the first tip is just smell the roses, as cliche as [laughs] that sounds. Secondly, again, I said love is my favorite topic. You know, be gentle with yourself and be gentle with others. Everybody, including ourselves, is doing the best we can. We're all functioning within our own blind spots, our own conditioning, our own programming. I explained on another podcast to judge somebody is completely nonsensical because if you had their DNA and you were raised by their parents and you went to the school that they went to and you got the results that they had and you had the failings that they had and you had the triumphs they had, you had the heartbreak they had and the relationships and the jobs and the firing, everything that human had been through, then whatever you're judging them for at that moment, you would be doing exactly the same thing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:43 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:41:43 Now, if you really un- That's just physics. That's just logic. That's not me just trying to be, like, you know, philanthropic and like, "Oh, let's just love everyone." No, it just makes no sense to judge anyone. So, you know, slow down, connect with your breathing, and just remove judgment as much as you can because it is one of the greatest precursors to sickness, to volatility, dis- disharmony, to discontent, is I'm saying that they and life shouldn't be the way it is and that is a disservice to everything that you're a stand for, feeling better. You can't feel better if you're saying that everything is wrong.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:21 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:42:22 And I didn't get the memo that that person is in charge of the universe. You know, the audacity, if you think about it, the ego that thinks it knows how other people should behave-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:31 Yeah

Peter Crone 1:42:31 ... and how life should be. I would never take on that responsibility or be so audacious to think that I know how somebody else should be driving on the freeway. So-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:40 It's one of the most freeing things that, that has been for me to-

Peter Crone 1:42:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:44 ... to really understand that if you were that other person, you would be acting in exactly the same way as they do.

Peter Crone 1:42:50 And that's not condoning the behavior.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:52 No.

Peter Crone 1:42:52 It's a very-- It doesn't mean that their behavior is optimal. It's someone you might love who truly is struggling with alcoholism or, you know, some sort of addiction, and you want them to be well, and so we're not condoning the behavior, but at least meet them. And this-- Let's tie it up here because this ties in beautifully. It was-- I was actually in Maui, and a woman asked me this question 'cause this buys into or at least relates to your parenting question. She said, "How do I help my son," who at the time I think she said is, like, 18, 19, and he's got an older son, and he said, "I'm just never gonna be as good as Johnny." And so the mother, because she's a mother and she loves her son, said, "No, no, no," and she came in with all the things that you would expect a mother to say. "You're amazing, and you're so good at this," and blah, blah, blah. So she was saying all of the things that on the surface sound good. But to the point that I made earlier, she wasn't honoring his reality. What he was saying is, "I don't feel as good as my brother." Now, I'm not saying that we want to leave him hanging out there, but at least meet him there. I, oh, that I understand. Like, why do you think you feel that way? Get into their world versus reinforcing and instructing, "No, no, no, you're this." Basically what that kid was left with is, "You're not listening to me."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:05 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:44:05 So as a parent, your greatest gift is listening to what your kid said versus telling them what you feel. Now, you can get to that. Of course, she worked with the kid and said, "Where did that happen?" Now you get into his world. He feels loved by the parent, which is actually gonna make him feel just as good as Johnny, who's whatever, the great athlete or whatever he thinks that makes him less than. So now the parent listening is actually affording that p- that child love, 'cause they're saying, "I care about you enough to listen to your reality. I might not agree with it, and I'm gonna help you break out of it." So then to ask, "Well, where did that happen?" "Oh, well, Johnny did this." And, "Oh, okay." So similar to what I did with you, I'd say, "But I understand, honey, that that would make you feel less than. But can I ask you, does that really mean that you're never gonna be as good as your brother?" See, now you get into their world and let them answer the question.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:50 Yeah.

Peter Crone 1:44:50 So that to me would be a parenting tip. Parenting is a, another, a whole nother to- topic. But even that, hopefully parents will understand listening to your children is one of the greatest gifts you can give them because ... Or more often than not, what does a kid say? "Why? Why? Mommy, Mommy, Mommy." It's a repetitive stream of conversation because the parent's not actually present with their kid.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:10 Yeah. Peter, I love those. I mean-

Peter Crone 1:45:13 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:13 ... all of them ring true for me. All of them I think the listeners are gonna absolutely love if they really listen and really, you know, think about how they can apply those into their own life. I think it will make a huge difference. I am so excited that you're writing a book. I cannot wait for this book to come out.

Peter Crone 1:45:30 Thank you. Me too.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:30 I think it's gonna help a lot of people.

Peter Crone 1:45:32 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:33 Um, I hope, um, you will consider coming back on the podcast-

Peter Crone 1:45:37 Love to

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:37 ... around the time of the book release to-

Peter Crone 1:45:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:39 ... to share some of the messages in the book.

Peter Crone 1:45:41 Maybe come home back to Blighty and, uh-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:43 Hey, for sure

Peter Crone 1:45:43 ... that would be fun.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:44 Come o-

Peter Crone 1:45:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:44 ... come over. We'll do a podcast. Maybe we could do a live event together or something in London.

Peter Crone 1:45:48 That'd be fun.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:49 And, um, thank you for making time today. I think you're doing incredible work. Peter, for people who wanna connect with you, where can they find you?

Peter Crone 1:45:56 Um, just... It's very simple. Two places, either my website, which is just petercrone.com, very easy, or I'm now on the dizzy heights of Instagram @PeterCroneOfficial, so keep it simple. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:07 Fantastic. So we're gonna link to all of those things-

Peter Crone 1:46:10 Amazing

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:10 ... in the Show notes.

Peter Crone 1:46:11 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:11 Uh, Peter, thank you so much for making time today.

Peter Crone 1:46:14 Pleasure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:15 Thank you for joining me on the podcast. I hope to see you again very, very soon.

Peter Crone 1:46:18 My honor to be here. Thank you. [laughs] [outro music]