E127 - Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: Become the Architect of Your Health, Happiness, and Purpose

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee unpacks the pillars of health and happiness that determine the quality of our life. Beyond the daily habits we implement, he discusses the impact that our mindset has on our health outcomes and how by getting to the root cause of this we can heal our bodies from the inside out. He reveals the most powerful practices he's discovered in his 20 years as a medical doctor: from cultivating deep introspection and knowledge of your body, to the secret to easily making big changes in your life. He dives into the concept of purpose, discussing that our society's current view of it limits us and doesn't allow us to find meaning in every day life. He shares a fresh perspective on this and how each of us can determine our core values and create a meaningful life. He also opens up about his personal journey of finding fulfillment beyond success, overcoming perfectionism, and living with an open heart. André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ 0:00 Intro 2:44 Becoming the Architect of Your Health & Happiness 5:36 The Inner Drivers that Keep Us Unhealthy 16:40 Daily Practice to Cultivate the Skill of Introspection 21:25 Ask Yourself These 3 Questions Every Morning 30:34 Rewiring His Relationship to Success 41:32 Becoming the Author of Your Own Story 50:48 Society Is Wrong about Purpose 1:03:47 Discovering & Living By Your Core Values 1:11:20 How Our Energy Determines Our Outcomes 1:20:22 Why New Years Resolutions Fail 1:27:02 Podcasting & Releasing Perfectionism 1:34:36 Changing the World By Changing Yourself 1:39:39 How to Make Small Changes that Lead to Big Results 1:49:50 You Can Change Today 1:51:17 Living with an Open Heart 1:53:22 Conclusion ___________ Dr. Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. His mission is to help 100 million people around the globe live better lives. He hosts the most listened-to health podcast in the UK and Europe, ‘Feel Better, Live More’ – which regularly tops the Apple Podcast charts. The podcast has received over 200 million downloads to date and is consumed by over 8 million people every month. He is known for his ability to simplify complex health advice and find the root cause of people's health problems - he highlighted his methods in the ground-breaking BBC One television show, Doctor in the House, which has been shown in over 70 countries around the world. He is the Number 1 selling health author in the UK - each of his 5 books are Sunday Times Bestsellers in the UK and international bestsellers across the globe. His latest book Happy Mind, Happy Life was published on March 31st, 2022. Website: https://drchatterjee.com Books: https://drchatterjee.com/all-books/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCDnwlb3IQDPJtFysPUJbDFQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drchatterjee/ ___________ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I believe that we can all be the architects of our own health and happiness. In this world where we've been bombarded with information now, yet despite all this knowledge, people are sicker than ever before. Physical health problems are on the rise. Mental health problems are on the rise. I don't think the question should be, which expert should I trust? I think the more helpful question, the more powerful question is, why do I no longer trust myself? You don't have a knowledge deficiency. You have an action deficiency. If you feel stuck and you don't know where to start, I came up with a few questions. They help you start to listen to yourself. Okay, so question one is, I have seen people in the darkest places truly transform, and I've seen it time and time again.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  I do not believe that most people know what life can feel like when you sort out your inner world. When you have a clear internal world, you will find it easy to change your diet. You'll find it easy to motivate yourself to move every day. When you are living in alignment, you are bulletproof.

• 1:05André Duqum?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Know Thyself. Our guest today is a medical doctor, bestselling author of multiple amazing books, and podcast host of the renowned show Feel Better Live More. He has been inspiring countless people for decades to transform their health and their happiness through simple changes and their lifestyle. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, thank you for being here.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Andre, thanks for having me.

• 1:31André Duqum?

  It's, uh, it really is my honor, man. I've been seeing your content online for some time and seeing you do the, the good work out there, inspiring people and bringing forth powerful conversations. So just excited to connect.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Me too. And likewise, back, back at you. I really, really enjoy your show. I feel You bring such a wonderful presence to each and every single one of your conversations that I I find really compelling in a world where there's more and more podcasts. And I'm really drawn to people who take an intentional approach to their art and their conversations. And my feeling has always been that, well, that's a guy who really puts in the work and really tries to have that deep conversation. So I'm really, really excited to be on your show and see what comes out.

• 2:18André Duqum?

  Yeah, me too. Thank you, man. And again, reflected back to you, I see the intentionality you have with the prep. And we were even just geeking out a little bit beforehand about our prep process before podcasting. And this is a very unique job that we get to do, you know? And so I always love getting to talk with somebody who's in a similar position. You know, you look at the hundreds of podcast conversations that you had, the many, many dozens of chapters and books that you've written and the people that you've worked with. How do you summate what your current mission is and really the impact that you wish to have on humanity right now? How would you verbalize that?

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Very simply, my mission is to help each and every single individual who interacts with me in some way to feel that they can be empowered to be happier and healthier.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  I believe that we can all be the architects of our own health and happiness. And I believe that many of us have given up our power. We don't think that it's possible. We think that the way we are, the way that we feel is down to external events and things on the outside. And I've been a doctor now for 23 years. Okay, so I've seen tens of thousands of patients. And I've learned through that process that health is not separate from our lives. Health is related to happiness. Health is related to relationships. Health is related to us living a life of purpose. So although on the label, I'm a medical doctor. I actually feel that what I try and offer people goes far beyond what is traditionally

• 3:53Speaker 00

  thought about as medicine, or certainly more recently thought about as medicine. I believe that I can help people, yes, be healthier, but also happier, by helping them understand that it's the small things you do each day that bit by bit, little by little, very quickly add up to big, quite profound transformative change. So that's quite a long answer. Having said that, if I try and now summarize, I think my mission is to help every single person who interacts with me believe that they can be the architects of their own health and happiness.

• 4:34André Duqum?

  It sounds like everything, it sounds like something everyone would sign up for, you know? Everyone would like to be the architect of their own reality. And yet there are fundamental pillars. Like you spoke to how the, the physical vitality of our body and the health of our mind, like, these are things that are fundamental towards whatever career we want to build, whatever relationships we want to cultivate. Like there, there's the foundation of our life that is not aligned, then the rest is going to be an uphill battle. I think we've all experienced times where we're sick and it's like everything in life does not have a priority because becoming healthy is, just takes forefront immediately, you know?

• 5:17André Duqum?

  And so when you look at the foundation and the fundamentals for health and the, you know, pillars that you speak to, because again, you've been deep and study, been with so many patients, written many books, had a lot of conversations around this very topic, you know, of discovering true health and vitality. What in your eyes are the most important pillars?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  I used to think

• 5:44Speaker 00

  that lifestyle and the way we're living our lives was the cause of most of our health problems, and I still do, but I've evolved my views on that. So if I could just take you through that, I think that might be the best way to answer your question. So, a few years ago, my very first book outlined what I consider to be the four pillars of health: food, movement, sleep, and relaxation.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  And at that time, and I still maintain this, I will say that eighty to ninety percent of what a medical doctor like me sees in any given day is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. Okay, I'm not putting blame on people. I understand that many people have tough lives. What I'm trying to illustrate through that is this idea that

• 6:32Speaker 00

  the conditions that we suffer with in modern, western society, most of these things do not exist in traditional societies. Okay? So it's very clear to me that our modern ways of living, and we can look at that in a multitude of different ways, is resulting in the health issues that many of us are struggling with. Yes, obviously, things like type two diabetes and obesity, but also like stress, burnout, anxiety, depression. All these things, in my view, are natural consequences of the way that we're living. So I've always tried to say, guys, listen, you don't need perfection in any one of these four areas, but you do need to pay attention.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Now, I still maintain that food, movement, sleep, and relaxation are four core pillars of health. But over the last few years, I've realized that they're not the core root causes. You can go further upstream. Because often our behaviors, let's say our food choices, they're downstream from other upstream factors. So I believe our mindset, the way we interact with adversity, our beliefs about the world and what the world is, influence our behaviors. And yes, I'm sort of heavy into this health and wellness space with all of my work. I think this is a missing pillar in health and wellbeing that we're not talking about.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  We think that what people need is more external knowledge. Okay? Some people do. But Andre, what I've really come to realise is, in this world where we've been bombarded with information now, there's more health podcasts and health information online than any time in history. And the number of these blogs and articles and books is growing. Yet despite all this knowledge, people are sicker than ever before. Physical health problems are on the rise, mental health problems are on the rise. So I've been thinking over the last few years, what's going on here? There's more and more knowledge. Everyone says that knowledge is power, yet despite the increased knowledge, it's not translating,

• 8:41Speaker 00

  certainly across society, to better health. What's going on there? And I think, back to my patients, which patients truly transform their lives for good? Not for a few weeks or a few months, anyone can do that. Who made a fundamental change in how they saw themselves in the world and changed the way that they live and therefore changed their health? And you have to go further upstream than food, movement, sleep and relaxation, in my view. Our behaviours are very much belief driven. And until we go and examine ourselves and our inner beliefs, because most of our beliefs are things that we, we

• 9:22Speaker 00

  weren't, we didn't come out of our mother's womb with these beliefs, right? We have developed these beliefs based upon our lived experiences, based upon our culture, what our teachers said at school. And so what I'm passionate about these days, and I say that as a so-called expert, is that we need to stop relying so much on external experts outside of ourselves and start trusting our instincts a little bit more. Go inwards. We need internal knowledge, we need self-awareness, we need insights. And the reason I believe that so many people are confused with what they should do now, I don't know if you get this on your show,

• 10:05Speaker 00

  Andre, I very commonly get comments or people contacting me in DMs on Instagram saying, hey, listen. Dr. Chasi, I love your show, but that guest that you had a few weeks ago, they had all the credentials, but they were promoting this kind of diet. And they gave me evidence as well to support that. But then last week, you had this other expert who also had the credentials from a top institution. And they also quoted research, but it was a different diet. Dr. Chasi, I don't know which expert I should trust. Can you help me? And I've really reflected on that entrée and I've come to the conclusion that they're asking the wrong question.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  I don't think the question should be, which expert should I trust? I think the more helpful question, the more powerful question is, why do I no longer trust myself? Because I passionately believe, let's take diet to make it really practical for people. We know when we're on the right diet for us. I really believe that. You can listen to experts and I encourage people, listen to experts, but then put them through your own filter and experiment. If you're getting confused by two people, but you like their message, I would say, you know what?

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Why not for four weeks, you try one of their approaches? And whilst you're trying it, you pay attention. What is your energy like? What are your relationships like? How calm do you feel? What is your digestion like? What is your gut like? Okay, you've paid attention, you've been present with yourself. And then for the next four weeks, try the other expert's approach. And again, ask yourself the same questions. And I guarantee in 95% of instances, you will know when you're on the right diet for you. And I think this is where we're going wrong with health and wellness personally. And I really feel that, you know, most people who are drinking too much alcohol

• 12:13Speaker 00

  and it's having an impact on their health, they kind of know that. They don't need another podcast telling them the problems with increased alcohol intake. They kind of already know that. What they need is not more external knowledge. They need an awareness of their inner drivers. Why do I keep going back to alcohol? I mean, we're talking about like how we view ourselves before.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  If you are truly in alignment with who you are as a human being, and your external actions start to match up with your inner values, I believe you naturally make healthy choices in your life.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  I've experienced it myself and I've seen it with countless patients, that poor quality choices in their life come when there's a misalignment. Because when you're not being who you really are, you create a fracture inside, an internal fracture, and in that gap, you will engage in whatever you need to to fill that void. That could be sugar, alcohol, pornography, online gaming, three hours doom scrolling Instagram, whatever it might be. Those things are symptoms. And we're trying to change our behaviours by going, "Oh, I'm having too much sugar. I need to cut down. I'm spending three hours on Instagram every night. I know I shouldn't do, but I can't help it."

• 13:38Speaker 00

  We keep trying to change the behaviours, but the behaviours are downstream. We have to go upstream. And what I often say to my patients in January, and again, let's use the example of alcohol.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  So many people, Andre, in January, will stop drinking alcohol for 30 days. And they can do it. But many of them, by the end of February, will be back to where they were before. Why? I've seen this with so many patients. I used to ask myself, "Why?" They've quit for 30 days. They've experienced the benefits in their life. They've got more energy. They're more present with their partner. Their sleep is better. All these kinds of things are better. But we keep getting told that knowledge is power. That's all we need. We need knowledge. But they've got the knowledge. They've even got the lived experience. But then they revert back, and I would scratch my head and go, "Why? Why do they have the knowledge? Why have they lived it? They felt better? And why have they gone back? And it's because they haven't gone to the root cause

• 14:35Speaker 00

  of why they're engaging in that behaviour in the first place. So very simply, if stress, if your alcohol consumption is your way of managing the stress in your life... You've got two options. If you really want to change that behavior, you either have to reduce that stress in your life and then you'll have less need for that alcohol, or you need to find an alternative behavior to alcohol to manage that stress. So that's kind of how I'm seeing health and wellbeing these days. I want to help people. I want to help people become the architects of their own health and happiness. And the only way you can do that is by becoming your own expert.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  You have to go inwards and figure out what are your own internal triggers. You can, if you can do that, your life will effortlessly start to change. I've seen it in patients and I really have experienced it myself.

• 15:35André Duqum?

  Well said. We really are living in a time where

• 15:40André Duqum?

  we are drowning in information and lacking wisdom on so many levels. That integration of knowledge, which is abundant, and you can find sources of science and peer-reviewed papers to back anything.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  Anything.

• 15:55André Duqum?

  And it feels very confusing for people, understandably. And I just love the perspective. And I want to dive deeper into going a more upstream, right? Which starts, I think, with examining your internal landscape. Because we're so, I think, data-driven, like externally information-driven. And those can be powerful tools, the aura ring or whoop that, you know, we have, you know, those can be great. But there is this, like, we are our own best doctor in so many ways.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 16:27André Duqum?

  And I think we've just, like you said, have kind of lost sensitivity and the really ability to trust listening to the signals our bodies already giving us in every single day. And so when you look, when you think of interoception and when you think of the, our innate ability to know what's going on in our body, how do you guide people to really develop that relationship, which is there, but they maybe just don't have the awareness of it?

• 16:54Speaker 00

  It's a great question because people are confused and people can be listening to us talk now and think, yeah, that's all very well, but how do I start listening to myself? It's a skill. It's a skill that we have to develop and cultivate if we have spent our entire lives not listening to our bodies. We're not going to just listen to one episode of a podcast and go, oh, I need to listen to my body and now I'll know everything. No, it's going to take time. You have to practice. And I believe we all got unique lives. I don't think the same approach works for everyone, but if I had to say what I believe is the most helpful practice for most human beings in this modern world for their health and

• 17:38Speaker 00

  their happiness, because I don't see these things as separate at all. I think they are strongly, strongly linked together. I think we all need a daily practice of solitude.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  I think so many of us wake up first thing in the morning and we pick up our phone and we're consuming. We're consuming so much information, even good quality information. You're still consuming. And because that information is coming in from the outside and often that continues all day and whilst we're lying in bed in the evening, it means that all the signals that were there in our body, we weren't listening to. They were always there, but we've untrained that ability because we're focusing outward. So with my patients, what I've always said is, guys, listen, let's just start with five minutes each day. If you don't feel you've got time, where you start paying attention to yourself.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Okay. So that could be anything. It could be journaling. It could be meditation. It could be breath work. It could be going for a quick walk. It could even be making yourself a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and not also scrolling Instagram at the same time, right? Tasting that coffee, really feeling it mindfully. Like if you've never tried that and you drink coffee every day.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Like, your whole experience of drinking that coffee changes. You actually will find you need less because the flavour starts to, you really taste the flavour in a way that you don't when you're also doing your emails at the same time. Now, to be clear, I'm not perfect. I will sometimes drink my coffee and do my emails, okay? So I'm not saying I've got it all figured out. But a daily practice of solitude can come in a variety of different ways. And that's how I encourage people to start. Because we can use the term interreception and go that it's this sixth sense where we can start to tune into our bodies. But for some people, Andre, that's really confusing. They're like, what, inter what? Interception?

• 19:40Speaker 00

  And I guess my experience and my view is very much informed by my 23 years of seeing patients. So I've worked in all different kinds of practices. I've worked in well-to-do affluent areas. I've spent years in more socially deprived areas. And I, I believe with all my being that every single person has the right to good quality information about their health. And so I always try and give advice that is relevant for everyone. Because I understand not everyone has the resource and the ability to, you know, I'm here in LA at the moment, right? The wellness capital of the world. You could look around and see what people are doing here for wellness with their,

• 20:24Speaker 00

  their saunas and their plunges and their red lights. And hey, man, I love all that stuff. But that is not accessible to most people on the planet. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing those things or researching those things or enjoying those things. But for me, I'm always very conscious when I'm giving advice. Or I try my best, maybe I'm not perfect, but I try and think, how can I give advice that works for someone who might be listening now? And they're really struggling and they don't have much money. But they're listening to your show because actually they think, yeah, that, you know, Andre's on to something. I know I can live a better life. I know I can start making changes. So I would say for anyone, if you feel stuck or lost and you don't know where to start,

• 21:09Speaker 00

  start with a five-minute or a 10-minute daily practice where you just sit with yourself and allow thoughts to come up. Now,

• 21:18Speaker 00

  There were a few patients a few years ago who were like, yeah, but what do I do with that time? I don't know what to do, doctor. And so I came up with a few questions that they could start asking themselves each morning. Would you mind if I share them?

• 21:30André Duqum?

  Please.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  They're actually the three questions I answer every morning as well. And I think they're really simple and powerful and they, they help you start to listen to yourself. Okay. So question one is, what is one thing I deeply appreciate about my life? Okay, it's a very simple question. It's a gratitude question, but gratitude is very powerful. If we want to look through the lens of science, which I don't think science tells us everything, but if we do want to go there and some people want to hear the science, okay, there's evidence showing that a daily practice of gratitude can help you with anxiety, with depression, with your happiness, with your wellbeing. It can help you sleep better. It can help with your decision making. There's so many things it can do. Okay, great. If I just take a slight offshoot for a moment, the problem is though, as we become obsessed with

• 22:17Speaker 00

  the research and what does the science show, often people use that as a way to procrastinate and not take action. They're like, oh, the science isn't decided yet. I'm not sure that that paper really accurately studied this properly. The people who actually do the things and don't worry so much about the science and research, they actually end up doing better, right? Because actually, it's all very well knowing the research, but if you don't do it, your life is not going to change. Whereas somebody who doesn't have all the knowledge of all the papers and the studies, but actually practices gratitude every day, they're the ones who are going to get the benefits. And what I often say to people is, you don't have a knowledge deficiency, you have an action deficiency.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  You've got to take action. So if we go back to that first question, there's science on gratitude, but what that question does, and I do it with a coffee in the morning in my journal, what's one thing I deeply appreciate about my life? You've covered this on your show before, that humans are hardwired to look for negativity. We have this negativity bias in our brains. It's kept us alive for so many years. But that is now working against us. Many of us are living physically safe lives. Not everyone, but many of us. If you're constantly looking for threats and problems, right? That's gonna have an impact on your wellbeing. So what's one thing I deeply appreciate about my life? It's a very simple way to just practise gratitude each morning and go, oh yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  No matter how tough life feels, there's quite a lot I can appreciate about my life. Okay, that's the first question. The second question. What is the most important thing I have to do today? That is one of my favourite questions because it cuts to the chase of what's important. We're living in a world now with infinite competing priorities. And I don't know if you know this, Andre, but when the word priority came into the English language in the 1500s, it was a singular word. Did you know that? You could only ever have one priority. Priorities didn't exist.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  That's a modern thing now where we're like, oh, you know, all of these things are important. But if everything in your life feels important and urgent, it probably means nothing really is. So what is the most important thing I have to do each day? It forces me, if I let me rephrase that, I don't like the word force anymore. Like I try to be more intentional with my words these days. Force implies that I don't wanna do it, but I have to do it. No, no, I do this because it helps me in my life, right? So it encourages me to focus on the most important thing. So on one day, it might be a work deadline. On another day, it'll be, I haven't seen my wife for a few days. I need to spend some quality time with her.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Last week on Wednesday, I remember this really well because I was working from home and I knew I was about to go to LA for a couple of weeks and I wouldn't see my family. I thought, wrong. And when the kids come home from school at 4pm, make sure your laptop's shut and your phone's in the other room so you can be fully present for what they have to tell you so you can listen and be there for them.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  It doesn't mean that other things in my life weren't important on those days. But by making a decision first thing in the morning that this is the most important thing today. And then if I go and do it, the day becomes a win. Even if I have 10 things I didn't get done. Again, it's a bit like gratitude, you're focusing on the important thing. And you're getting done what you have specified is most important. And I pretty much guarantee if people take nothing else from this conversation, and I hope they do. But if they do take nothing else. If they feel slightly stuck in their life. I challenge them to for seven days. Start each day asking yourself, what is the most important thing I have to do each day?

• 26:19Speaker 00

  And make sure you do that thing and do it for seven days in a row. I promise you. That you will feel differently about your life. You will have a degree of intentionality. You will feel good that you're getting things done. You've specified the most important thing. You're doing the most important thing. And that builds momentum. It changes the way that we view ourselves. So that's one of my favorite questions. So that's the second one of the three. And there's plenty more I could talk to you about on that question. But let me move to the third question. The third question and how I finish off my own personal morning routine. Is with, again, what I believe to be a very powerful question.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  What is the quality I want to showcase to the world today? And again, all these questions really are about intentionality. So much of who we are each day, Andre, is it's just repetition. We think that the person who we are today. Is the person who we have to remain, but it's not. Often the person we are today is the person who we became in response to certain experiences in our life. But we can change that. I used to be very, very competitive, intensely competitive. I'm not anymore because I know where that came from. And I've little by little started to change that. So this question is really about visualization.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  It's often I will write down, I want to show the world the quality of patience today. Or compassion or kindness. And what it means is because I've had that intention in the morning and I've written it down.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  It means that later on in the day, if I'm tempted to not show that quality, like maybe an email's come through that I didn't like, or I don't know, something happens out in a coffee shop and someone's in front of you in the queue, whatever it might be, I'm much more likely to remember, oh, Rong, and you said this morning, you want to show the world the quality of patience today. Okay, I'm not going to react. I'm going to be patient, I'm going to be kind. So your initial question was, how do we start tuning into ourselves and developing the skill of interoception? There's many ways we can do that, Andre. I think we need to spend time with ourselves each day. But if people are stuck and they're not sure where to start, I'd encourage them to start with those three questions. Do that for about seven days or so.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  And I honestly believe that people will start to have a bit more of an insight into what's going on inside them.

• 28:52André Duqum?

  Those are great frameworks and I think the, it's what they kind of all do in my eyes, like it's inviting more intention to the way in which you do things. Cause if everything in life is infused with the consciousness in which we do it, starting your day with the energy of gratitude, intentionality of what is most important, the priority of your life, these things like really help you bring yourself in a certain, in a certain way. One of the questions of which is like, you know, what is, what is the most important thing to do today? I think a lot of times in different periods of our, of all of our lives, we're kind of ignorant to what actually our deeper values are. And we're kind of in the motions of what has been important,

• 29:34André Duqum?

  not yet letting whatever is new to emerge from our life. And this kind of goes back to the, you know, back upstream, from our behaviors to our beliefs to some many say, the core of it is the identity and the identity structure, which got shaped and molded through adolescent and has got reinforced through our teenage years. And now we kind of often are just under the presumption of who we have been.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 30:01André Duqum?

  And so that really informs so much and the, our motives of what we think is worth doing most, you know? And so I want to examine this a little bit more and maybe we can make it a little bit practical in your own personal life. Because I know it, it really feels like, and I've talked to a lot of people in the healthcare space as well, who, and I know you've talked to Gabor Maté as well, there, there can often be this genuine sincere compassion and desire to help people in the health space, right? Coupled with this unending need of attaching your worth to that very fulfillment. And I'm just curious how you've discovered your attachment to deriving your worthiness from achievement and that aspect and how you've kind of healed that and worked with that.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. How long have you got?

• 30:49Speaker 00

  So it's interesting you brought up Gabor Maté. I remember in my last conversation with Gabor on my podcast, which is my fourth conversation with him.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  I remember talking to Gabor about one of my friends who is a spinal surgeon. He's a great doctor, very compassionate, but he never takes his full leave. He never takes his annual leave and he will say that his patients need him. And I put this to Gabor because I kind of know what I think and I sort of knew what Gabor would say, but I put it to him and he goes, is it that his patients need him? Or is it that he needs his patients? And I think many people that goes beyond medicine.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  There's a lack somewhere inside of us. And we feel that our job or people needing us or people validating us.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  We're not even intentional about it. You know, let me talk about it through my own lens, maybe to make it clearer. Okay. I mentioned before that I used to be uber competitive. If you talk to any one of my close friends that I've had since I was at university, they'll say, I don't know anyone more competitive than Rangan. Okay? He's super competitive.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  And they would say that, or I would say that, yeah, that's my trait. That's my personality. I'm competitive. But it isn't. It's not who I am. It's who I became. So my upbringing.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Many, maybe people can relate to this, okay? My parents were Indian immigrants to the UK. My dad came in nineteen sixty-two in search of a better life, okay? So he, he came to the UK without anything. He was a doctor to send money back to his family in India, but also to give me and my brother, when we were born, a really good start in life. Okay. I can remember Andre coming back from school. I was maybe six years old, maybe five, maybe seven, around then. I thought, hey, guys, I got nineteen out of twenty. I don't remember getting a well done. What I remember is, what did you get wrong? Why did you get it wrong? Did you come top? No, I was third in the class. Okay, who came top?

• 33:11Speaker 00

  And it's easy for people to criticize that and go, oh, that's really harsh. No. Every situation in life has multiple perspectives, okay? My parents, like many immigrants, face a lot of discrimination. So it makes sense in my mind now. They want their children to excel academically. In the Indian immigrant community, how you do at school is the number one thing for your parents. They expect and will drive you to get straight A's. It's just the way it is, okay? Certainly, that's my experience. So mum and dad are trying to push me to be the best that I can be. But little Rangan starts to develop the idea that I'm only loved when I'm achieving.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  I'm only loved when I'm top of the class or I get straight A's. And then let's relate that to competitiveness.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  If I wasn't competitive when I was born, and I don't believe any child is born competitive,

• 34:15Speaker 00

  then it's a genius adaptation. Because if I feel that I'm only loved when I achieve while developing the trace of competitiveness, it's going to drive you to achieve, so you're going to get love and validation.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  And over the last few years, I guess I started trying to share information with the public, probably back in 2014, and then I had a TV show on BBC Television in 2015 and 2017. And I have had many of the tics that society would regard as being successful. Okay. I have a very large podcast. I'm a multiple bestselling author. I'm a medical doctor. You know, all these kinds of things that society says, yeah, you're a success. But I realised early on that despite all this so-called success, I don't think I was that happy. You know, when my third book was another number one Sunday Times bestseller, I wasn't happy, I was just relieved. I thought, this is ridiculous.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  10 years ago, I never thought I could even write one book. And now I'm a victim of my own success. And I like to be really honest with myself, Andre, and go, okay, this is interesting. And what I've discovered from this process of self-inquiry, and it's these truths that philosophers and spiritual guides have been saying for thousands of years, happiness is an inside job. Right? So in many ways, for me, that success has been really helpful because it's taught me that that doesn't lead to happiness. And so through a variety of different mechanisms, through a daily practice of solitude, through

• 35:54Speaker 00

  a type of therapy called IFS, Internal Family Systems, through breath-hold work meditation, which I write about in the new book, like, these things have helped me understand myself, understand when do I get triggered? Why do I get triggered? Why does that situation bother me so much? And instead of looking out there for the answers, I try to take 100% responsibility for my life and go, okay, what am I contributing to this situation? I very much try in every situation in my life to go, what am I contributing here? And for many years, particularly after the conversation I had with the Auschwitz survivor Edith Eger, which is still one of the most powerful conversations I've ever had, I was

• 36:39Speaker 00

  going to say on my podcast, but beyond that, in my entire life, that conversation changed who I was. I don't know if you've discovered that in some of your conversations over the last two and a half years of doing this show, Andre.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  I remember that conversation and I remember who I was before. Two hours later, I remember the end and I remember saying to my videographer Gareth,

• 37:04Speaker 00

  I'm not the same person anymore. And I'm not. And there's many things I learned through that conversation. But the fact that Edith Eager, who was a lady who, she was 93 when I spoke to her, when she was 16, she was in Auschwitz and she managed to reframe her whole experience in Auschwitz through the power of her mind. It's just incredible. It really inspired me. And so for a few years, one of my practices that's helped me change. And again, I think it's a really helpful practice because therapy can be helpful for sure. But the reality is not everyone has access. Like, not everyone. I've had patients before who can't afford therapy.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  So many people can't access it either due to availability or cost. And I'm like, well, what are we going to do then? We're going to say that we can't help these people? Because they can't afford therapy? No. Therapists can be helpful, but we can do a lot without therapists as well. I really believe that. So one of the practices I used to do, and I still do it, I just don't need to do it as much anymore, is in the evening,

• 38:13Speaker 00

  I would reflect on my day and go, where did I get emotionally triggered?

• 38:19Speaker 00

  What were the instances where I became triggered? Okay, let's think about that. What was being brought up inside of me? Because it's easy to think that the way we feel is down to other people. Oh, well, that driver cut me up, so I have every right to feel annoyed. Maybe, maybe not. That person left me an offensive comment. So what can I do? Yeah, I'm going to be offended and caught up. No. Nothing is inherently offensive. It can't be. If something was inherently offensive, all of us would be offended to the same thing, but we're not. So what does that tell us? It tells us that there's a comment. Someone has a view, someone has an opinion. But for me, it's lighting a fire inside me for some reason.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  I am choosing to take offence to that. Why? Instead of thinking, oh, I will change when the world around me changes. When people around me start behaving nicely and people don't leave me offensive comments. In some ways, that makes you a victim to life. I can only be well when everyone around me treats me a certain way. That used to be me. Now I'm like, well, then I'm a puppet on a string. Like, people are dictating how I'm gonna feel. No. So every evening I'd go, when did I get triggered? Why? Why did that bother you? And it's that self-inquiry and you start to process that. I go, oh, wow, that reminds me of something that happened in childhood. Okay, that's why it got triggered. Oh, someone criticised me.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  And I actually have an insecurity about that issue. Like, I've come to the belief, Andre, that criticism only really affects you to the extent with which you believe it about yourself. Because if you don't believe it about yourself, someone's just got a different opinion to you. So, okay, great. You see the world this way. It only bothers you, in my experience, so certainly this has been helpful for me, if I kind of believe it myself. And so instead of thinking, I wish the criticism would stop. In my diary in the evening, I'm like, ah, yeah, you still think that you're not good enough in this way. How can you start changing that? Can you meditate on that? Can you work on that?

• 40:25Speaker 00

  So my whole journey of transformation has really been about taking responsibility for everything, the way I think, the way I feel. I wanna take full responsibility because then it means I can do something about it. And going back to your initial question, I can then be the architect of my own health and happiness.

• 40:50André Duqum?

  I love that, man. It's such a revelatory process discovering we all have our own things, but they actually all boil down to like a core set of patterns like, you know, of not feeling enough or feeling too much. Like, I think, and the vulnerability and the authenticity of like sharing your own personal stories is really what connects to people the most because we're all in this human experience and it's a messy ride and we all have our stuff and it just invites a lot more compassion both to self and other. And there's, there's a lot of things that start to free up as you are no longer triggered by those aspects that aren't even you, right?

• 41:30Speaker 00

  They're not even you. I think for me, Andre, one of the most important decisions we make in life is I've been obsessed, ever since I became a doctor, I'm obsessed with root causes. One of the things that has frustrated me the most in my career as a doctor, because I was, you know, I grew up in an Indian family, so I have a certain belief system around health from my upbringing. And then I go to a Western medical school where it's very much about seeing patterns of symptoms, making a diagnosis, and then giving drugs to alleviate the symptoms. And I always felt that we're not getting to the root cause here. We're just suppressing symptoms a lot of the time with

• 42:12Speaker 00

  drugs. I can't practice like this. I don't want to do this for the next 40 years. And through that whole journey and through the things that we're talking about, I believe that if we think root causes, I think one of the most important decisions you make in your life is whether you're going to be a victim to life or whether you're going to be the architect of your own life. And it sounds quite simple, but it's, and it can be simple, but we can also complicate it.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  When I use the word victim, I really need to make sure I'm opening my heart because many people have been victimized and have been the victims of some really horrendous experiences. I acknowledge that. And I know that's difficult. I'm not really talking about that. I'm basically talking about this essence of,

• 43:04Speaker 00

  are we going to always say that who I am and how I feel is because of the world around me? Because if you're waiting for the world to change in order for you to feel good, you're going to be waiting a long time. But there is another way that is,

• 43:21Speaker 00

  there is a choice that you can make where you go, no,

• 43:25Speaker 00

  I'm going to put the empowering story on this situation. I get to choose how I respond to this situation, how I react. I kind of, on the plane over from the UK to LA, I was really reflecting, you know, when you're on a plane, you're outside your life, so you can kind of reflect on your life. You quite literally get a 30,000 foot view on your existence and what it is you're doing and all the kind of small things seem quite trivial when you're up in the air. Do you know what I mean?

• 43:55André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah, you get a little more distance from it.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  You get distance from it. And that's actually what I think a daily practice of solitude does as well for people. It gives them a bit of distance from their life. It takes them out of their life so they can reflect on their life. And on the plane, I was just thinking, what is life? Life is ultimately a set of experiences that we go through.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  And it's the story we put onto those experiences that determine the impact of those experiences on us. It's all, for me, it's all about story. And what we don't realise is that we're the author of that story. We're constantly putting stories onto every experience, but we don't realise that we can change those stories if we want to. We really can. And that's what Edith Eager taught me. Do you know much about Edith Eager?

• 44:50André Duqum?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:51André Duqum?

  I would love to have her. Is she still alive?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  She is still alive, but she's ninety seven now.

• 44:55André Duqum?

  Okay.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  And I'm actually going to see her this Sunday and I'm can't wait to meet this lady who's had such a profound impact on my life. But can I share a little bit more about Edith? Because I think it's, it's really powerful.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  When Edith was sixteen years old, she grew up in Eastern Europe and she was at home with her sister and her parents. And she had a date with her boyfriend that night. So she was excited and thinking about what dress she was going to wear.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  And then there was a knock on the door. And essentially, her whole family were put on a train and taken to Auschwitz concentration camp.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Within one to two hours of getting there, both of her parents were murdered. Okay, she's a sixteen year old young lady and both her parents are murdered.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Two hours later, Edith gets asked to dance for the senior prison guards. They all know that she's a dancer, so she now has to perform and dance for these senior prison guards who've essentially just murdered her parents.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  And there's so many things from that conversation, Andre, that I've never forgotten. You know, some conversations just stay with you.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  The first thing I remember from that conversation I had with her was when she said to me,

• 46:22Speaker 00

  I never forgot Rangan, the final words my mother said to me. My mother said to me, Edith, never forget, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your own mind. So then she says to me, Rangan, when I was dancing in Auschwitz, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. In my mind. I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful dress on, there was an orchestra playing, there was a full house and I was performing. I thought, that's pretty incredible, you're in one of the darkest places that is possible to exist in. Your parents had just been murdered, you're dancing for the people who murdered your parents.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And in your mind, you're in Budapest Opera House. I thought, okay, this is pretty incredible. Then she tells me, while she's in Auschwitz, she started to see the prison guards as prisoners. She said, I could see they weren't free, they weren't living their life. In my mind, I was free. I was thinking, this is pretty remarkable, that a young lady, sixteen years old, was able to reframe her experience like this. And one of the final things she said to me, and I kind of think about this on most days, Andrei, I really feel this is tattooed onto my soul. And this phrase has changed my entire experience of life.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  She said to me, Rangan, I have lived in Auschwitz. And I can tell you, the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. And the penny dropped for me. I thought, we all create these mental prisons every single day with the way we frame the world. We create these stories that the way I'm feeling is because of that person. They treat me like this, the weather's off, like whatever it might be. And it makes us a victim to the world. You cannot be the architects of your life if you're thinking like that. And what Edith taught me and why it changed me so much, this little exercise I say

• 48:27Speaker 00

  that I've been doing for many years, where I go, where were you triggered? Okay, why did that situation trigger you? What's the insecurity within you? What's coming up for you? If I'm ever struggling, and I generally don't anymore, but when I used to struggle, when I first started doing this. I would often go, "Oh, you're struggling with this." "Well, Rong, and you know what? Edith could reframe in Auschwitz. You can probably reframe in your life." And so I use her story as real inspiration. There's very little in life I cannot reframe now in a positive way. And I give a huge amount of credit to her and that conversation that she had with me.

• 49:11André Duqum?

  Those stories are so powerful, whether it's Edith or Viktor Frankl. And you, it's like probably the closest depiction to what hell could be like, you know? And that we've experienced on earth or people have experienced. And yet, people have found ways to bring heaven with their own state of consciousness in a hellish situation. And it just invites the power of responsibility and the power that we have within our own minds. And so I feel like oftentimes, to reframe our life, like you can't see the picture while you're in the frame.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:47André Duqum?

  You know, you kind of have to step, you have to, like you were talking about with the practice and having meditation and creating some distance to be able to kind of really see yourself. You need to be able to create a little bit of distance from it. And I think the more that you start to do that, you start to pay attention to something that is emerging from within you. Not just this achievement, kind of forceful way of moving from point A to point B because of what you think it's going to do, or it's the right thing of how you've been programmed societally. Breaking out the matrix in many ways is realizing how you've been in it yourself. And then what starts to emerge from within you, I think it's Picasso that says, "The meaning of life is to find your gift

• 50:31André Duqum?

  and the purpose is to give it away." And I think the emergent is the emergence that's coming from within us. The more that we kind of reclaim our minds, step out of our own mental prisons, is seeing the gift that emerges from within us, right? And then the purpose being to give it away. Purpose is something, especially in today's day and age, that is thrown around all the time, right? You gotta find your purpose. There are so many different perspectives on it. And from your perspective, how has discovering what your innate values are and like coming back into alignment with what your values are allowed you to unlock your gift and then share it with the world?

• 51:10Speaker 00

  If you don't know who you are,

• 51:15Speaker 00

  number one, you can't make long term changes and you cannot find that gift that you have to give to the world. I really believe that. You have to, it all starts with knowing who you are, which kind of is the theme of much of what we discussed already, right? It's how do you get to know who you are?

• 51:35Speaker 00

  This idea of purpose, it's interesting. I agree with you that it's bandied around everywhere these days to the point where it actually gets quite off putting for some people. Like, they'll see on Instagram or they'll see like a, an influencer with a lot of followers talk about finding your purpose. And I get it. And I think it comes from a good place. But I've really, I've really evolved my views on purpose over the last few years.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  In some ways, I kind of feel

• 52:07Speaker 00

  purpose is not this thing necessarily that you find within yourself. I think the skill is how can you start to find purpose in everything that you do?

• 52:17Speaker 00

  Because I think that takes the pressure off people. Like I know hospital porters who I've worked with before. Maybe being a hospital porter isn't their dream job.

• 52:29Speaker 00

  But they're able to go, actually, you know what? My job's important. My job is really important. If I'm not here, these patients can't get to the scanner. They can't get to the operating theater. And there's lots of research on this in terms of what it can do when you can reframe your experience. I think that's a purposeful life. We can't all be artists or find our purpose to be a podcast host in a beautiful studio and go, unless I have that, I'm not living a life of purpose. I think purpose ultimately is a life in alignment with your values. That's a purposeful life. And again, relating it again to what I said before about making advice accessible. I can remember clearly,

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Andre, when my second book came out, it was all about stress and I was giving a big talk in London, the day of, the week of the book's release. And I think that was like January 2019.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  And I was talking onstage about the Japanese concepts of ikigai. And this idea that, you know, we find something we love, something we're good at, something the world needs, and something that pays us money. And I thought, when I heard about ikigai, I thought, this is just such a beautiful concept. And I was sharing this with the audience. And, you know, I loved the concept and the audience were loving it. And at the Q and A at the end of this event, it was a big theatre in London. I can remember at the back, right? This student had her hand up and so, you know, the mic came to her and she said, hey, Dr. Chachi, listen, I'm Japanese, I'm a student here in London.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  I have grown up with the concepts of ikigai. And the truth is, I found it very off-putting. It's too high a bar for most of us to achieve. And it really landed with me, Andre, because we've been talking about purpose for years online and how important it is. And I agree, it's important. But the dark side of talking about purpose so much is that some people feel, okay for you, that doesn't apply to me. I can't be an artist making money from my arts that's helping the world and that's putting a roof over my head. And it's the first time I thought, wow. I thought ikigai was an amazing concept, but for you, and you grew up in Japan, you're saying it's been off-putting.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  And so I really would get to think about purpose. What is it? What are we missing then? And that's why I believe the most helpful way to think about purpose is a life in alignment with your values. That is a purposeful life, because what it means then

• 55:10Speaker 00

  is if you, okay, let's take a hypothetical scenario. Let's say someone listening to this conversation right now, Andre, is in a job that they don't like. Let's say that they answer calls in a centre and they can't stand it. But it pays for their flats and it helps them feed their family. There'll be someone listening right now who's in that position, I'm sure of it. Okay, they could hear about a purposeful life and go, yeah, but what are you talking about, man? I've got to do this job because it feeds my family. The reason I prefer looking at purpose as a life in alignment with your values is because if that person in the call centre, if one of his values is kindness, let's say,

• 55:55Speaker 00

  then my contention is if that person, when he leaves the house in the morning, if he's kind to his wife, if when he stops up at the coffee shop, if he's kind to the barista, then when he gets on the bus that takes him to work, if he's kind to the bus conductor or the bus driver, if when he gets to work, he's kind to his colleagues all day, even if he doesn't like his job, I contend, I passionately believe that he is living a life of purpose because his life is in alignment with his values and take that one step further, if we do want to live this more broader purposeful life and for that individual find a job maybe that's better suited to who they want to be,

• 56:38Speaker 00

  I contend that by living a life in harmony with your values, so by that guy being kind, you're much more likely to see opportunity, you're much more likely to actually feel good in yourself and see other things when they come up. And so in five years, you will be in a different job. But if you want to be a kind person, but because your job isn't good, that you're you're moody, you're reactive, you're not nice to the bus driver, you're sort of rude to your boss, you think under-values you, you're not in alignment with your values, you create a void in who you are. Remember what I said at the start, it's in that void, that fracture we create inside of ourselves, that's where all the problems come in.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  When you are living in alignment, you are bulletproof. Like the outside world can't affect you as much as it used to. And I'm talking from personal experience, Andre. The reason this means...

• 57:37Speaker 00

  The reason why I'm so passionate about these ideas, the reason why I spent two and a half years writing this book, and I believe it to be the most important book I've written, doesn't mean I'm not proud of my first five, I am. I think this is a different league. Why? Because I think it gets to the roots. I do not believe that most people know

• 57:58Speaker 00

  what life can feel like when you sort out your inner worlds.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  As someone who used to get triggered by things and feel that they needed to be externally validated in order to feel good, I honestly don't anymore. I've done the work. It's taken some time. It probably started when my dad died in 2013. That's the first time I stopped looking outward and started to look inward. And so in many ways, I kind of feel my dad gave me a gift through his death.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  I know that may not land for everyone, but for me, I really, really now, I feel my dad around me all the time, even though this March will be 12 years since dad died. I feel all the powerful lessons I've learned in life came as a consequence of my father's death. And going back to what I said about how we can reframe experiences, instead of now looking at my dad's death as a negative, over the last maybe 12 months, I'm now, oh,

• 59:04Speaker 00

  dad gave me a gift through his death.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Dad's death allowed me to experience certain things and learn certain things that I can now apply. And so, hand on heart, Andre, I'm sitting here before you in your gorgeous studio.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  I've never felt this good.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  But it's not this kind of hyper, external feeling good. It's this kind of, this inner sense of calm and contentment. I, I kind of like who I am. I don't need people to validate me anymore in the same way that I used to. Like, I feel my responsibility as a human being

• 59:45Speaker 00

  is to also look in the mirror each night and go, yeah, I'm happy with how I interacted, I'm happy with who I was today. It was in alignment with who I am. And what I really hope for people who listen to this conversation, and frankly, I think they get this from your show each week anyway.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  I want people to know that you can change, you really can change. And if you do the work of going inwards, there is a lightness on the other side. There is a freedom, like my body feels free. I don't have all the muscle tightnesses and all the, like, they were all a result of inner tightness. And as that inner tightness is gone, I feel a fluidity inside me. And bringing it back to my role as a medical doctor and trying to help people make better choices with their diets, with their sleep habits, with their movement, whatever it might be. Honestly, when you have a clear internal world, you will find it easy to change your diet.

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  You'll find it easy to motivate yourself to move every day because if you are aligned with who you are and you like the person you are, well, the person who really likes themselves doesn't binge eat a whole tub of ice cream in the evening. They don't. I'm not saying that it's not hard if someone's struggling with eating. I, I know it is. But these are downstream. You have to go upstream if you want to make change at truly last. And kind of that is really the philosophy in this new book. It's basically, I feel I've got some helpful things to share that will help people make

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  long lasting transformative change, not just change for a few weeks.

• 1:01:36André Duqum?

  I love that, man. There's so much freedom that, and real growth, I find that comes from the acceptance of your path and like allowing the, the reality that sometimes we just don't know what the path is going to look like and how it's going to unfold. There's that saying that no amount of self improvement will make up for a lack of self acceptance.

• 1:01:59André Duqum?

  And I think, you know, we live in a time where personal development, hustle culture is very glorified, like societally it's celebrated. And at least the more I grow my path, the more, you know, I feel like, you know, the way you're speaking, you resonate as well as that actually a lot of the real growth comes in the letting go and the shedding and the emptying and the making space for and the surrendering. That allows like something truly worthwhile to come in. Because if we're always getting and like making things happen in the world from a place of known of the known and control, then it's only going to be at best a recombination of of what we've had in the past. Like it'll be a slightly better experience in one way or the

• 1:02:44André Duqum?

  other. But it won't be truly transforming. And so, you know, I think when you mentioned Ikigai, you know, it can be this kind of lofty goal for a lot of people to see that there's this center where my purpose lies. And if if it's not making me money, it's what the world needs, it's what I'm good at doing, what I love, then it's not not the purpose. Of course, it's amazing to arrive at a place where you're doing something that that hits all those buckets. But I just want to reiterate, like not knowing what your path is, is part of being on the path. And it's just, you know, I've given this this analogy a couple of times of like driving from here to New York. For example, if you're going to drive at nighttime from LA to New York,

• 1:03:27André Duqum?

  you can't see the full distance, right? You cannot see the full distance. But your headlights illuminate the next 100, 200, 300 feet ahead of you, and you just take the next step. And it's like a revelatory process. And thank God it is, because it makes life way more interesting if it's unfolding in ways you can't predict.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  And if I could just bring it back to that example of the chap in a call center, who doesn't like their job, but is wanting to live a life of purpose.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  You don't know the path ahead of you. But if you start living in alignment with your values, the path will appear. It will. But it's very unlikely or less likely to appear if you start to self sabotage and not be the person who you are. So I guess the natural consequence of that is people need to spend a bit of time with themselves, asking themselves, what are your core values?

• 1:04:22André Duqum?

  Yep.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  And I remember last year, when I was doing a few talks around the UK.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  I would say, hey, how many of you guys have heard me talk about values on my podcast, or other people, or read it in my books, or other people's books? Loads of people put their hand up. I said, okay, how many of you actually have taken the time to write down your three core values? I would say 20% of people had their hand up. Everyone else put their hand down.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  People had the knowledge. They knew values are important, but they hadn't converted the knowledge to action. Right? More external knowledge. Oh, yeah, values are important. I need to know my values. But they hadn't taken the next step of spending a bit of time with themselves to write down their values. And again, I would suggest that if anyone is listening to this right now,

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  and you have never taken the time to write down, I was gonna say your three core values, but if three feels too much, one?

• 1:05:23Speaker 00

  Pause the video, do it now. Write, write down. And if you don't know, it's okay. You can iterate this over a period of weeks.

• 1:05:32André Duqum?

  And I think because maybe another way to help narrow it down for people is because sometimes values can feel like, uh, I have to make this big lofty declaration that feels a little bit detached from my grasp. And I think an important insight is examining what brings us the most joy in life? What are our natural inclinations? What are we really drawn to? I feel like there's something about that, that really, uh, it reveals to us by reflecting on what specifically about that and the way that it helps other people and the way that I enjoy doing it, um, it reveals what, you know, what your values are as well.

• 1:06:14André Duqum?

  Is there any other ways that you found to help really discover what your values are?

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  I think it's about engaging with the process. Okay, it's about acknowledging that, yes, okay, this is important. It's time I actually figured out what my values are. It's not going to be perfect straight away. It might be, it might not. That's okay. Perfectionism gets in the way of us doing anything, frankly. Certainly it got in the way for me doing many things. But I think you just need to start. Like, what do I value? Okay, is it family? Is it nature? Is it community? Is it integrity? Is it kindness? Is it, you know, spending time with my kids? Like, you don't have to make it super lofty. You can just start with, okay, these are things that make me feel good.

• 1:07:05Speaker 00

  Like, I feel really like me when I do these things. Right? Just write it down. And then maybe on a Sunday, if you, if Sunday is your quiet day, and I know it's not for everyone, but if it is your sort of quieter day, maybe you reflect and go, okay, how much of this week was in alignment with that value? How much of my week spoke to that value? Maybe a lot, maybe not a lot. And then go, okay, is it still the right value? Or do I need to tweak it a little bit? And it's through the process of engaging that you get the answers. Like, I've been doing this for years. I said, I know at this stage in my life, I would say that my three core values are integrity,

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  curiosity, and compassion. And why I think values are so important is because otherwise we can get stuck in our fragile identities. So, for example, I would see a load of patients over the years who, you know, there's something called empty nest syndrome, isn't there? Where parents bring up their kids and then the kids have left home. And, you know, I've had many mothers as patients over the years who are like, I don't know what, like, I don't know what my purpose is now.

• 1:08:20André Duqum?

  Yeah, my mom went through that.

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I get it. And it must be very, very hard. And I also know many doctors who, when they've retired, they're like, yeah, but I don't know who I am anymore. Like, that's all I've done. I've given to patients for 50 years or whatever. I think values help insulate you from those natural changes in life because...

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  Your values sit behind everything you do. So if your value as a human is to be kind, well, that kindness shows up when you're bringing up your kids. But then when your kids have left home, and I acknowledge that can be difficult, I'm not saying it's easy. But if you bring that value of kindness to everything else you do in life, you're still being you. Like a few years ago, I did this sort of, I was on a long walk on a Sunday and I was reflecting on my life, as I like to do. And I thought, if I define myself as a doctor, that's a very fragile place to be, because what happens if I get fired?

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  What happens if I get sick and can't work, like happened to my dad? What happens when I retire at some point in the future? If my whole self-worth and how I view myself is that I'm a doctor, I'm gonna really struggle. Whereas if how I view myself is through the lens of my values, then that stays with everything. Those values are there when I interact with my friends, with the barista, with you right now. Am I interact, you know, if those are my three values, I could be exhausted showing up at your studio. I wasn't, but I could be. But as long as I make sure that whilst I'm interacting with Andre and his team in his studio, if I'm behaving with integrity, with curiosity and compassion,

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  then I know at the end of the day, I've lived a life in alignment with who I am. That's a purposeful life. And I really believe values are that important. And it all feeds into this self-inquiry. The answers to your life are not out there, they're inside. The other thing Andre related to this, which I think a lot about, and it comes up for me more and more.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Because I think about human behaviour a lot because a huge part of my job has been trying to encourage, dare I say it, inspire my patients to make different choices. I try not to use the words good or bad or healthy unhealthy because ultimately we make choices and those choices have a consequence. Good or bad is a story and I'm trying to get away from these kind of stories. It's like, okay, you've made certain choices that are leading to your health being like this and you're coming to see me. I believe that if you make different choices, your health is going to be in a different place. Okay, very simple if you think about it.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  But what I've come to believe and come to understand is that it's not necessarily the behaviour that's most important. It's the energy behind the behaviour. That's the key thing. I think that's where all the gold is. So for example, let's take alcohol for example. If, like the blue zones around the world, I know there's a lot of question marks around the blue zones, but nonetheless, these communities around the world where people are living to a ripe old age in good health, a lot of them seem to drink wine every day. Okay, yet we have this narrative now in the West that no amount of alcohol is good for you. Okay, that's blown up in the last few years, that even a small amount is toxic for you.

• 1:12:01Speaker 00

  And I've seen those studies and I understand that alcohol is a mitochondrial toxin. I understand that, at the same time, we have to acknowledge that there are communities around the world who are having this so-called mitochondrial toxin and are living happy, healthy lives.

• 1:12:17André Duqum?

  Not totally factoring the amount of guilt or joy one has in the behaviour.

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  Exactly. So, so the way I try and, because I have to be able to sit with both those realities. I have to be able to read the scientific research and go, yes, alcohol can be toxic and go, why is it that so many of us, myself included, I haven't drunk alcohol for over five years now, okay?

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  But why is it in the West, we seem to have to go from drinking too much to people now drinking nothing? And I'm part of that, I don't drink anymore.

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  But what are these guys doing differently? And I think there's a number of factors, but I think the energy behind the behaviour is different. So I believe from what I understand in these blues, and from the people I've spoken to on my podcast over the years, including Dan Buettner, is these guys have got low-stress lives. They've got a strong sense of community. I think they're using alcohol in a very positive way to bond with their friends. It's a half glass of wine at 5pm in the sun to hang out with their friends. Whereas I believe many of us in the West

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  are using alcohol to manage the stress in our lives. We're chronically stressed and we need something to bring us down. Let's go to alcohol. We feel lonely. If, if you're using half a bottle of wine at home to numb the isolation and loneliness in your life, that's going to have a very different impact than if you're using a little bit of wine to help you connect with your friends. So I believe it's the energy behind the behaviour that's most important. Sugar intake in the evening, very, very common, something that people are trying to cut down on. Certainly in my practice over the years, it's something that people really, really struggle with. They're really good in the day, or what they would call goods. I'm like Dr. Chastity. It's 9pm, I'm watching TV and I feel a real urge to have ice cream.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  You've got to understand what the role is. Okay, so I created this exercise called the three Fs for my patients, where I said, okay, you want ice cream in the evenings, you're telling me that you don't want to have it, you're trying to look after your health, you're trying to, let's say, lose weight, for example, whatever it might be, but you can't stop. Okay, let's, let's figure it out. Okay, so I want you to think about these three Fs. Feel, feed and find.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  Next time you're on the sofa and you feel the urge to have the ice cream, ask yourself, what am I feeling? That's the first F, feel. Is it physical hunger or is it emotional hunger? Okay, am I really hungry or did I have a full meal an hour ago? Is this something else? Am I, am I feeling a bit wired? Have I had an argument with my partner? Did the kids bedtime take too long? Okay, whatever it might be, then go ahead and eat it. But you're starting to develop a self-awareness. Many people don't even have that. They don't know why they're going to the ice cream. I might go ahead and eat it. I don't want any guilt. I don't want any shame. If that energy underpins your behaviour, it's like it did for me for many years, you're going to have a real problem changing.

• 1:15:23Speaker 00

  You won't change long term if guilt or shame underpin your behaviour. I've never seen it work with patients. I've never seen it work with myself. You have to change the energy behind it. Okay, so the first F is feel, what am I feeling? The second F is feed. So I say, okay, next time you're on the sofa and you're feeling the urge to have ice cream, go through the first F again, what am I feeling? And then go to the second F. How does food feed that feeling? Oh, okay. So the first F, I'm feeling stressed. Oh, when I have ice cream, I feel less stressed. Ice cream feeds that feeling by making me feel less stressed, which it does, at least in the short term. Okay.

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  So now you're starting to develop this really deep self-awareness of why you're engaging in certain behaviours. So I say, okay, go ahead and have the ice cream if you want. The next time you're in that position, go through it again, the first F, the second F, and then go to the third F, which is find. Now that you know the first F, what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds the feeling, which is the second F, now can you find an alternative behaviour to feed the feeling?

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  So very simply, it could be. I've been on Zoom calls all day today. I didn't take a break at lunch. That ice cream was just a way of giving me some time to myself. What else could I do to give time to myself? Oh, I could run myself a bath and put a candle on. I could nourish myself in a different way. I'm feeling stressed. Ice cream is going to help me feel less stressed. What else could I do? Oh, well, you know what? I love yoga. Maybe I'll put YouTube on and do a 10 minute yoga sequence. I know that sounds simple, Andre. I would say that's one of the most transformative practices I've helped my patients with over the years. Because it does something very powerful. It helps them develop a self-awareness

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  of why they're acting in certain ways. As I said right at the start, too often we try and change the behavior without understanding the role that behavior is playing in our life. And here's the thing, even if you just do the first F, feel,

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  you immediately start to change your relationship with the behavior. I've seen this over and over again. Ian, if you don't want to go to the feed and find, just knowing what's driving your behavior, it means next time you're there, you may well start to make different choices. Did that all make sense?

• 1:17:53André Duqum?

  Yeah, absolutely. I think we're driven by our unconscious compulsive cravings so much. Not just food, which is a great example that a lot of people can relate to. But the very idea of ourself is the most fundamental addiction, you know? And so rumination about a partner or a situation, the physical behavior of deleterious behavior is for food or smoking or like, I think that framework, just to bring and invite a little bit more self-awareness before you react, it discharges it a little bit and it gives you the opportunity to reroute that energy into a behavior that is actually going to feed

• 1:18:33André Duqum?

  that dysregulation, for example, in your nervous system, but in a way that doesn't have a bitter aftertaste.

• 1:18:40Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 1:18:40André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:41Speaker 00

  And people can apply that three F exercise.

• 1:18:46Speaker 00

  So frankly, any behaviour, I used ice cream as an example, but you could use that for alcohol, you could use that for too much time on Instagram, you could use that for online pornography, which is a massive problem, massive problem. Like, over the last few years, the amount of people I've seen come in struggling with this is huge. Like, this is an issue that no one wants to talk about, but it is huge. And people then are consumed with guilt and shame, which then leads to other problematic behaviours. And again, too much of our approach, even as doctors, like, this is one thing I've really got frustrated with over the years with medicine,

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  is that the public health guidelines that we give, they're so dry. Have this amount of units of alcohol per week, you need this now number of minutes of physical activity. Like, I get it, it may be technically correct, but it doesn't connect with anyone, doesn't connect with anyone on a soul level. And I've always felt that we're missing a big piece in medicine where we don't help people understand the role that that behaviour is playing in their life. Like, I know I've already said that, and I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but the truth is, is that most people I come across are trying to make changes in some way.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  And they can really feel as though they struggle, the changes aren't sticking, why aren't they sticking? And often it comes down to what is that energy behind that change? I think one of the reasons that New Year's resolutions fail, or I should say many of them fail, is because they come from an energy of lack, rather than an energy of fullness and love. If you think that you're deficient and you're consumed with guilt and shame and not feeling good enough, And you're trying to overcome that by pushing hard on your nearest resolutions. They won't last. They never last. You do them for a few weeks. But you're trying to overcome the person who you think that you are.

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  It will never work. You have to change. You have to do the inner work. You have to start practicing self compassion. You have to start liking the person you are. And you can. With all the things that we're talking about, it's gonna help develop that insight. And when the energy behind your nearest resolutions is one of love and one that, yeah, I deserve a good life. I deserve to have more energy and more vitality. You will find that those changes start to become relatively easy. Like a few years ago, Andre, even maybe five years ago. I'd beat myself up in my head. I'd be on January the first, right? Meditation wrong and has been shown blood pressure, mood, focus. Okay, I know all the science. I'm gonna meditate twenty minutes a day this year. And I'd do it every day, every day, every day.

• 1:21:41Speaker 00

  Then I'd miss a day on the eleventh of January. The negative self talk would start. Oh, you couldn't do it. You're a loser. You, you know, I would, I used to talk to myself like that. I really did. And as I've changed that over the years. And I know this is quite unusual for a British person to talk like this. I like the person I am. Dare I say, I love the person I am, you know?

• 1:22:07André Duqum?

  Outrageous of you.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  Brits don't talk like that, right? I don't know how many Brits you know, like, most Brits would have an aversion to someone saying that. Well, like I do. Now, when I try and meditate, I find it easy. I don't, it's not a struggle. If I miss a day. I'm, oh, I missed a day.

• 1:22:25André Duqum?

  I'm happy for you, man. I love it.

• 1:22:27Speaker 00

  But, and this one's so passionate because I want everyone to experience this.

• 1:22:31André Duqum?

  Yeah, I know. Of course, I think that's a natural effect of tasting freedom and finding and discovering how good we really can feel as a human being. The natural byproduct is wanting to serve and give and help people access that same level of vibrancy. It's, it's like the natural effect of when you taste health and wellbeing. Our natural state of, is to give and to support others finding the same.

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  I, I think about the tension sometimes between discipline and compassion.

• 1:23:02André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 00

  And, you know, I, I really think a lot about this and this idea that. You know, someone once asked me on a podcast, you know, okay, Ron, and what are your non-negotiables in life? And I get why that question's been asked. And if I'd answered it five years ago, I'd give a certain answer, oh, my non-negotiables are I'm going to get prioritized my sleep. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. The truth is, I no longer have any non-negotiables. Everything in life is negotiable.

• 1:23:34André Duqum?

  Yeah, no, I love that, man. I used to also have my daily minimums and non-negotiables as well. And many of the same things I do, whether it's reading a certain amount or meditating throughout the day. But I found when it comes a little bit top down of like, it becomes something you have to do to keep up with your identity. It sucks the heart out of doing it, which like, it decreases the potency of the behavior.

• 1:23:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I completely agree. And so therefore it's like, yeah, I have an intention to meditate. Okay, I feel better in life generally when I meditate. I'm going to do it. I could do it two weeks every morning and I couldn't miss a day. For whatever reason, my daughter comes down and she wants to play, whatever it might be. Cool. The old version of me would have beat myself up. Oh, you couldn't do it. And that guilt means that you stop doing the behavior, you're less likely to engage. But when you go, I meditated for two weeks, felt good. I missed it today, I miss it tomorrow. I'm going to go back to it on Wednesday. No problem. And again, that is achievable for everyone and

• 1:24:42Speaker 00

  we're all ready for certain messages at certain points in our life. So if you've never made any changes and you're struggling and your health is out of whack. Yeah, maybe some rules at that time might help you move to the next stage, right? But you have to constantly reevaluate where you are at in life. The approach that worked for you two years ago may not be the approach that works for you today. The approach that worked for me six, seven years ago was great for me back then to get me to the next stage. But then I realized, oh, it's no longer working for me. And then really I feel more and more that even the practice of meditation I think about, well.

• 1:25:22Speaker 00

  What if your whole life could be meditative rather than you needing a practice of meditation? If you have a great 20 minute meditation, but the other 23 hours of your day is mindless and unintentional, is that the goal? No, I don't think that is the goal. Now, maybe you need the regular practice to get you to the point where you can be more intentional and calm. But I'm now really playing with this idea because

• 1:25:49Speaker 00

  because I feel really calm and grounded within myself on most days.

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  I'm now like, well,

• 1:25:59Speaker 00

  your experience of every moment in life can also be meditative. If you can quieten the mind, be present, be intentional, pay attention to what's going on around you, well, that's a form of meditation.

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  And so, you know, I'm still playing with that. Okay, I haven't, I'm still on the journey. I'm on the path. Yeah. I don't know where we'll be, where I'll be on this journey in six months and nine months, but I love the journey. Like, I love learning about myself. I also love letting go and going, oh, that practice was great for three years for me. But I don't need it anymore. It worked. It took me from level two to level three. But now I don't need it anymore to get me from level three to level four, whatever it might be. Do you know what I mean? And it feels really, it's fun. One of my qualities, one of my, not one of my qualities, one of my values is curiosity. I'm curious for what's next.

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't know.

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  Can I ask you a question about your role as a podcast host? Yeah. Okay. And I'm truly fascinated by how people approach conversations. Do you ever finish a conversation? And after the guest has left?

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  Are you like, oh damn, I could have asked them that. I didn't get to that. Oh my God, they set me up and I didn't take the bait and ask them this question. Do you ever like ma- almost have a regret that you didn't do it as well as you could have done?

• 1:27:32André Duqum?

  I don't know if doing it as good as I could have done, but there's definitely times where I was like, oh, I forgot I wanted to talk about this one thing and there was a good opportunity. But we were already going for 90 minutes. I don't know if it was the right timing, you know? And I'm just trying to create the most potent show every single time. And so, you know, some, sometimes it happens occasionally where I'll be like, oh, that would have been good to go into.

• 1:27:56Speaker 00

  But you don't beat yourself up?

• 1:27:57André Duqum?

  No, no, no. I'm, I'm generally like with every podcast, I'm, I'm very happy with them after, after I'm done. I feel very accomplished.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  The reason I ask is because my show's been going for seven years now. And I think in the early days, I would often beat myself up in my mind after conversations. Because I've struggled with perfectionism for much of my life.

• 1:28:24Speaker 00

  And we know across society frankly, that perfection is on the rise massively and it's a massive problem. It's related to things like depression, anxiety, even things like suicide, right? So this modern trait of perfectionism is highly, highly toxic. And I have very much suffered for much of my life with that. But again, I have let go of it. But how that used to play up in my podcast conversations is

• 1:28:49Speaker 00

  afterwards I'd be like, oh man, you forgot that. You forgot that. You should have picked up on that. And then gone here or whatever it might be. And what I've learned over the years is that there's no such thing as a perfect conversation. It doesn't exist. All the conversation can ever be

• 1:29:07Speaker 00

  is who I was in that moment and who my guest was. And so I've really embodied this idea that, oh, all you can ever do is be present with your guest. And the more present you can be, the better the conversation will be.

• 1:29:24Speaker 00

  If that same conversation was happening the day after, or a few hours later in the day, it would probably be different. Why? Because me and my guests would be different then. We'd have a different energy. The conversation will depend on how well I slept the night before, how well my guests slept the night before. And I can't force the conversation into being something that it's not. So we were discussing about podcast prep before and I, I take the preparation for each and every single guest very seriously. I do a lot of prep. Sometimes maybe I over prep and it's something I'm, you know, playing around with. But I do my preparations to understand who is this person that's coming into my studio? What are they about?

• 1:30:09Speaker 00

  And then in the conversation, I let go of the prep. It's all there within me now. It's about presence and following where the energy is within this conversation. And I feel that the ads have been a podcast host for seven years. It's really helped me in life because it's a really beautiful approach, I think, to take to life. There's no such thing as a perfect day or the perfect conversation with your partner or the perfect conversation with your boss. It can only ever be what it is in that moment. And yeah, I guess that's why I asked you the question.

• 1:30:43André Duqum?

  Yeah, I think we can, like the caring that you want to create something of value and that you want to do your best is great, but the worrying doesn't necessarily have to come along with it, you know? And we're, I think we can often invariably be our own worst critic and like pick up on things no one else would notice, you know? Whether it's in a podcast or whatever our careers are. And yeah, I think there are so many crossovers from this whole podcasting thing into life. You know, and having conversations being one of them, being able to show up with a plan and willing to be willing to abandon it in the face of something that's really more alive in the moment, you know?

• 1:31:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. You just have to go, what, you know, what is the guest passionate about? Where are they going? Well, you kind of, you could try and stop them and pull them back to where you want the conversation to be, but I don't think that's what makes. The best conversations, and in fact, the podcasts I really enjoy, like yours, are the ones where I feel the guest is really present and is just being in the moment. You know, one thing I learned early on in my podcast, because as a medical doctor, I used to think, oh, my job is to deliver information to help people. I I realized after a while, no, no, no, it isn't. My podcast is not an information delivery vehicle.

• 1:32:08Speaker 00

  My podcast is all about connection. So my only goal with each and every guest is can I properly connect with them? If I can truly connect with them, there's a certain magic in the conversation. And the side effect is that helpful information spills out, which is going to help people. But the goal is never to deliver information like a lecture to the audience. The goal is to have an intimate conversation. And I think that does several things. One of the most powerful things I think it does is that A, it creates a more, a more intimate interaction, which is more fun for the listener or the viewer.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  But if we talk about things through the lens of making changes in our life, and that's, I think, one of the reasons why many people listen to podcasts like mine and yours is because they, they want to live a more meaningful life, a more purposeful life. They know they could get more out of life than they're currently getting.

• 1:33:06Speaker 00

  No one I've learned over all my years of practice, Andre, wants to be told what to do. Nobody wants to be told what to do. Children don't, patients don't, people don't. We may think we do, but I honestly don't believe that people do. No one makes long term change if it's coming from someone else. At some point, you have to go, no, I want to do this. And by having an intimate interaction with my guest.

• 1:33:33Speaker 00

  You're not talking to the person. So they kind of feel as though, oh, yeah, God, I recognize that insecurity in my own life. Like, you're not directly talking to them, so they actually take it on board more. Do you get what I'm talking about?

• 1:33:48André Duqum?

  A hundred percent, yeah.

• 1:33:49Speaker 00

  It's like when I'm with my kids, if I want to talk to my son, who's 14 now. If I sit him down at the kitchen table and I'm looking, I face to face with him and I ask him about an issue in life, he's, he's, he may talk, but he may not. If we go out for a long run together, which we often do on a Sunday, we'll just go for a really light jog together for about an hour into the, into nature.

• 1:34:12Speaker 00

  Like, stuff just starts to come up because we're not looking at each other. It's like, oh, we're just out there doing something together and we have really deep conversations. And I've kind of, it's, it's really taught me a lot as a parent, actually, about how to keep having these interactions with my children as they get older. I think not being eye to eye and face to face actually sometimes can be really helpful.

• 1:34:35André Duqum?

  Yeah. I think that just across the board, the best way and really the only and most effective way to make change is to become the living embodiment of that which you wish to see more in the world of.

• 1:34:47Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 1:34:49André Duqum?

  I think we've all fallen into the trap of trying to evangelize the new diet, the new exciting thing that's working for us, which is great, you know? But when you're really thriving, when people feel freedom emanating from who you are and your being, they will genuinely ask you, you know, more times than not, and be curious. And I think when it's evoked from that place naturally, then more people are like likely to embody that change. So.

• 1:35:14Speaker 00

  One of the commonest questions when I'm doing live events is, and has been for years, is, or if people stop me in the street, they'll go, it will be some version of this. They'll either call me Rangan or Dr. Chastity, I prefer Rangan. And I'll say, Dr. Chastity, love your content, love your podcast, it's helped me with my depression, or it's helped my mum reverse her diabetes, or whatever it might be, something really uplifting and nice, which makes me feel very lucky to do a job that I do. And then they'll say something like, I know how powerful this stuff is, but I can't persuade my boyfriend or my husband or my mum, how can I change them?

• 1:35:57Speaker 00

  And what I've learned over the years, Andre, is exactly what you just said, which is you can't. People are ready for change when they're ready and not a moment sooner. And often the people closest to us, who we want to help the most, they don't want to hear it from us. I've experienced this in my own life, you know, I've experienced all these changes. I used to try and tell my wife and my brother, my family, hey, guys, you've got to do this. When you cut this from your diet, when you do this. They're not interested in hearing it from me. So my approach has been be the change you want to see in the world. Like Gandhi says, right? Be that change. And what I found, like you found, is if you are that guy

• 1:36:37Speaker 00

  who doesn't get triggered all the time, who's calm, who in a stressful situation can be really chilled, who's got energy, who's got vitality, who's looking fresh, whatever it might be. After a while, they're like, hey, I want a bit of that. What are you doing exactly? I found that so many times, people go, can you tell me a bit more about your time, what you do? Because they want to know. And, and I think that this message is even more powerful in the times in which we live. Every single one of us has a circle of influence.

• 1:37:10Speaker 00

  You've got a large podcast, I've got a large podcast. Okay, so we have a lot of people who listen to us on a weekly basis. Great. We have a large circle of influence. But every single person listening to this conversation right now has a circle of influence in their own lives. It might be their partner, their children, their family, their work colleagues. And I know with every part of my being that if you change yourself by a lot of things that we're talking about and you start to develop and cultivate this inner calm in who you are, you will influence the people around you and enough. And if enough of us are doing that in different pockets of the world and we're emanating that energy around us, we're going to create a powerful ripple effect.

• 1:37:54Speaker 00

  That's the way we change humanity, in my view. We do it through localized action of changing ourselves. And it's very empowering because then you're not a victim to the world and what's going on. You can actually feel empowered to go, yeah, actually, you know what? Yeah. There's things I may not like in the world. There may be things that I wish were different. But you know what? I can change myself and through the acts of changing myself, I also positively change the people around me.

• 1:38:25André Duqum?

  Step by step, day by day, choice by choice, you know, we're getting, we get there closer and closer. And there's been many golden threads throughout this whole conversation. And you know, it's, it feels like a lot of it really boils down to accepting the reality in which you're living right now.

• 1:38:46André Duqum?

  Having self inquiry to examine like who you are, what you truly value. And then it really is the small, sustainable changes in your behavior to be in alignment with your values. And by doing that, man, I feel like definitely in my journey, and I know many people that are listening right now. You look up a couple of years down the road and you're in a completely different place. Even, even a one degree change in direction over the course of a year, you're in a different zip code, you know? And so it really is that compound effect that is, that is so real. And so I just, yeah, I love the, the patience that you're inviting throughout this whole conversation. Because sometimes it can feel daunting to have this huge monumental lifestyle shift.

• 1:39:31André Duqum?

  And it really is the things that we're honestly already aware of, that we know that we could be changing and just implementing them day by day.

• 1:39:39Speaker 00

  And I want to say to people who might be thinking, it feels too much. I don't know where to start. I started this journey in 2013 when my dad died. We're having this conversation in 2024. That's 11 years on. This has been a slow journey of steady progress. There's been fast bits, there's been plateaus. But you know what? I wouldn't want it any other way. Even when you fall along the way, it's gold. You learn about yourself along the way. You don't want to fast track this journey. I don't believe you do because you learn through the journey. You don't want to get to the end. There is no end, first of all, but you don't want to get there quickly.

• 1:40:23André Duqum?

  It's not what you get, it's who you become in the process.

• 1:40:25Speaker 00

  Exactly. And again, one thing I've used with patients for years is this idea of small changes done consistently.

• 1:40:38Speaker 00

  Give you big results. I've seen it myself. And one thing I think about a lot these days, I had a conversation a few years ago on my podcast with Vanessa Van Edwards. She's a body language expert. And Andre, she said to me that when you're meeting a human being for the first time, you're asking yourself two questions. Can I trust them? Can I rely on them? I think that's really cool. Yeah, I like that. I think we are as humans doing that. And what I figured out over the last few years is that we're asking ourselves those same two questions every day. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself?

• 1:41:17Speaker 00

  So I believe that one of the most toxic things that we can do is say we're going to do something and not do it. This is very common in the health and wellness space. I'm going to do yoga. I'm going to do meditation. I'm going to do this thing and then we don't do it. So what happens? We feel less than. We feel as though we're failing. We said we were going to do it and we didn't do it. And it does cause this internal fracture in who we are. And I think the way around it is to say to people, which I often do is, I say, make one small promise to yourself each day and keep it.

• 1:41:57Speaker 00

  And why I found that to be so powerful, and this could be just five minutes, okay? Is if you say you're going to do something and you do it, you show yourself each day that I can trust myself, I can rely on myself. Why? Because you've given yourself evidence. It's not that you said you were going to do it, then you beat yourself up. No. So like one of the things I do each morning, you know, I do have a morning routine, which takes me these days about 30 or 40 minutes. It didn't used to. I've built up to that over time because I've realised I'm a better human being in every single way when I have some intentional time each morning. But one component of that morning routine is a five-minute strength workout.

• 1:42:37Speaker 00

  Okay, so one of the things I do after I've meditated is I come to the kitchen in my pyjamas. And this, this bit is important.

• 1:42:48Speaker 00

  I make coffee, okay, after I meditated. And I know how I like to make coffee. I weigh out the coffee. And I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes, I don't go on Instagram, I don't go on email, I don't look at the news. I do a strength workout in my kitchen in my pajamas.

• 1:43:11Speaker 00

  And at the end of this, I've got the reward for a nice cup of coffee. The reason I've rarely missed a day in five years of doing that, because people go, oh, that's motivation. It's nothing to do with motivation, nothing to do with motivation. Everyone listening to this show right now, Andre, I hope is brushing their teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening, right? So they're doing four minutes a day on their dental hygiene.

• 1:43:35Speaker 00

  Why is everyone managing to do that? It's not motivation, it's because they followed the key principles of habit formation. And for me, there's many rules you can follow, but the two most important rules are, number one, make it easy. Number two, stick that behavior onto an existing habit. And for most people, if you reflect on changes you've tried to make in your life and have not managed to, I bet that you weren't following those two rules. So how does that play in with how I do that strength workout? Okay.

• 1:44:09Speaker 00

  By making it only five minutes, by making it easy, I can never say I don't have five minutes. Never, because I have time for my coffee every morning, right? So I've never not got five minutes. And this comes to the science of behavior change and to do with motivation, right? So one of the reasons we can't make these changes stick is we make them too hard. Now, we know that motivation never stays static. Motivation comes up and motivation comes down. So what we typically see a new year is that people's motivation is sky high. So we say, I'm going to spin four times a week for one hour this year, right? And we do it for the first two weeks.

• 1:44:51Speaker 00

  But then life gets in the way. We have a busy day. We get back home late. Oh, man, one hour? Too much. If you make your behaviour easy, you'll do it when your motivation's high and you'll do it when your motivation's low. So I can never say that I don't have time. So I followed rule one, make it easy. Rule number two is equally as important. Every single human behaviour we do needs a trigger. Okay, so I had to be here in your house today to record this podcast, okay? Now, a trigger could be your memory. Now, memory works, it's just the most unreliable trigger that exists. So the next best kind of trigger, as evidenced by the research, is some sort of notification. So in my calendar, it told me, oh, wrong, and today

• 1:45:36Speaker 00

  you've got to go see Andre, you've agreed to do a podcast with him. Okay, it's reminding me. It's the trigger for my behaviour. But when it comes to our own habits, that the research and my clinical experience both support this idea that the very best trigger is when you stick your new behaviour onto an existing habit. So what's a habit? A habit is a behaviour that we do automatically without any conscious thoughts. So let's play that back in through the lens of my morning strength workouts. I followed rule number one by making it easy. Not only is it only five minutes, I don't even have to get changed and put on my new running gear or my clothes. I'm doing it

• 1:46:16Speaker 00

  in my pyjamas. I've made it so easy that I can, I, I really can't justify not having the time. And then I stick it on to a habit. So my morning coffee doesn't need a reminder. I don't need to check my Google Calendar and go, ah, you must remember to make coffee. I don't need my assistant to phone me at 5:30 saying, wrong, and don't forget to make your coffee today. No, it's a habit. Therefore, by putting the five minute workout onto my coffee habit, it always gets done. Now, let me bring that back to what we're talking about, which is making a small promise to ourself and keeping it, showing ourself with evidence that we can trust ourselves, that we can rely on ourselves.

• 1:47:02Speaker 00

  I've had busy times over the past five or 10 years, okay? Like many people. And sometimes I don't get to do every single element of my morning routine. But what I always do is that five minute strength workout. Always. And what that does is it shows me in a very powerful way that no matter how busy my life is, no matter how stressful things may get, no matter what my wife needs from me or my children need from me, I still found five minutes to care for myself. And I'm telling you, Andre, that is the most powerful thing in the world because it's those small changes that you do consistently. They change the way you view yourself. You build up momentum. You improve your self-esteem.

• 1:47:47Speaker 00

  And on the back of that, you start to make other positive changes. And I've experienced this myself. I've held patients with it. And the reason I share that is I want to make sure that everyone listening to this conversation is inspired in some way to take action. Because inspiration and knowledge without action doesn't actually lead to change. I want every person to hopefully have connected with some element and go, yeah, well, maybe I can do that. Maybe there's someone listening, Andre, who actually really struggles. And they think it only counts if I meditate for 20 minutes. Well, I'm saying, no, no, no. Why don't you meditate for five minutes each day? And the point I'm trying to illustrate is we often try and go to the end too quickly.

• 1:48:31Speaker 00

  We want the 20 minute a day meditation practice and we try and go to 20 minutes. And for some people it can work. But in my experience, for many people, that doesn't work. And so that's why I'm so passionate about helping people understand that it doesn't have to be big. Even a small change. Pick whatever you want. Maybe it's that question from earlier. What is the most important thing I have to do today? Make a promise to yourself that you're gonna ask yourself that question every day and answer it and act on it. Just do that and nothing else. And I bet that your life will feel different in seven days.

• 1:49:10André Duqum?

  Wonderful, man. That's super practical that we can all apply for whatever behavior habit we're trying to form. And yeah, this whole conversation's been very fruitful and serving. And it's just been such a pleasure to connect with you, man. My sponge is full. I feel like we've dove into many terrain. And it's all really aimed at helping us thrive as a human being and reclaim the birthright of truly discovering vitality. And any last words you have with the context of this conversation that you want to share with our audience or in this moment before we start to wrap up?

• 1:49:49Speaker 00

  I think what I want to share with people

• 1:49:54Speaker 00

  is that it's worth making change.

• 1:49:58Speaker 00

  You can live a life where you feel alive and that you're thriving and that you can give to the people around you and that you can give to yourself.

• 1:50:08Speaker 00

  I have seen tens of thousands of patients over my career. And I have seen people in the darkest places truly transform.

• 1:50:19Speaker 00

  And I've seen it time and time again. So I believe that every single person has the capability to change for the better, no matter how dire your current situation may seem. And so I want to leave people with that energy of inspiration. That no matter where you are, change is available to you. Change is possible to you. Your life will not stay the same. Our lives are constantly changing whether we like it or not. The question is, is that change intentional? Or is that change unintentional? But change is happening. We're not the same people day to day. The world is not the same. So I want to leave people with hope that you can do it. I've done it in my own life.

• 1:51:04Speaker 00

  I've had a lot of inner turmoil in my life.

• 1:51:08Speaker 00

  And I've let it go. And I feel great. And they can do it as well. And perhaps the last thing I want to share is

• 1:51:18Speaker 00

  where I'm at in my own journey at the moment.

• 1:51:22Speaker 00

  So the thing I think about the most these days, Andre, is

• 1:51:28Speaker 00

  am I living with an open heart or a closed heart?

• 1:51:34Speaker 00

  Every single thing we do in life either comes from the energy of love or the energy of fear.

• 1:51:40Speaker 00

  And I've realized that the more you come from the energy of love, the better every aspect of your life will be. And so the way I try and implement that is during my morning meditation or when I'm journaling in the morning,

• 1:51:55Speaker 00

  I think about what does it look like to live a life with an open heart?

• 1:52:00Speaker 00

  And when I say an open heart, I mean where there's love, there's joy, there's compassion, there's desire to help people. As opposed to the energy of fear, where the world's against me, there's threats, when I can start to get jealous or envious or competitive. They're all downstream from fear. You know, anger is downstream from fear, but compassion and empathy and kindness are downstream from love. So the thing I'm trying to do more than anything in my life these days is think in the morning and reflect in the evening. How much did you live today with an open heart and how much did your heart close? And if my heart did close, which does happen sometimes,

• 1:52:43Speaker 00

  I don't beat myself up with guilt or shame. I go, oh, wow. Interesting that you chose to close your heart. You chose because it's given me the power. No, not that that situation happened which closed my heart. No, no, no. I made the decision, maybe I wasn't aware of that decision, but I made the decision to close. How can tomorrow I make sure that if that situation arises again, I keep my heart open? So I don't know if that will connect with people or not, but it's certainly the message that's connected with me at the moment. Can I live as much of my life as possible with an open heart and not a closed one?

• 1:53:21André Duqum?

  Thanks for opening your heart and sharing with us today, man. I appreciate it. I feel you. And I just love to see the journey that you're on and that you're unfolding and the evolution of it, you know? And yeah, man, thank you so much for sharing yourself today. And you have a new book as well. We'll link down in the description. Any last words where people can stay connected to you and find that or anything?

• 1:53:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the book's called Make Change at Last. It's in all the usual places, Amazon, your local bookshop. And it's, you know, yes, it's a book version, but it's also an audiobook, which I narrate, if that's what people prefer. And again, like you, I'm very passionate about my own podcast. And so if people want to check it out, it's called Feel Better Live More. It's been going for seven years and it's in all the usual places. So, you know, if that's of interest to people, check it out. And if it's not, that's completely cool as well.

• 1:54:10André Duqum?

  So good to connect with you, man. I really enjoyed this conversation.

• 1:54:13Speaker 00

  Me too, Andre. Thanks for having me.

• 1:54:14André Duqum?

  Yeah, thank you. All right, folks, thanks for joining us. I'll see you on the next one. Until next time, be well. Take care.