Dr. Oz: On How To Create Healthier Habits and Change Your Relationship With Food

In this episode of On Purpose, I sat down with Dr. Oz to discuss how to automate your life and create an environment that feeds what you’re good at and protects you from what you’re not good at. If you struggle with self-control, Dr. Oz shares practical tips you can apply to improve your relationship with food long term. We also dove into relationships and how important it is to love someone for who they already are instead of who you want them to be. This is a great episode with so many practical tips to help you achieve a happier and healthier lifestyle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells,

• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on.

• 2:21Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 3:04Jay Shetty?

  That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  People who hang with healthy people get healthy. People who hang with unhealthy people get sick. That's why when people, when couples marry, the wife will generally lose some health because she takes better care of herself in general than he does. And his bad habits rub off on her. We would have flipped that.

• 3:29Jay Shetty?

  Hello, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so excited for this episode. I know that you are focused on growing your purpose, growing your passion, and improving your life, work, and love every single day and every single week here with me. And I'm always trying to find guests that I believe can truly help you transform that. Today's guest is someone that I've admired for a very, very long time, been a follower and fan of his work for a long time as well. So I'm so excited to have this opportunity to sit down with him here in New York City and ask him about his thoughts, his background, and his story, and of course, his purpose. He doesn't really need an introduction. He's a multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has an incredible show on TV. He's none other than Dr. Oz.

• 4:14Jay Shetty?

  Dr. Oz, thank you so much for this opportunity.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  It's a great pleasure to meet you, Jay.

• 4:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for inviting us into your space. And allowing us to gatecrash?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  We fixed the Feng Shui for you. Got the whole studio back. This is the back part of the studio.

• 4:29Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  But it's working.

• 4:30Jay Shetty?

  It works for us. It works for us. And I, like I said to you just before we started, I've been a long-term fan and admirer of your work. I think it's incredible what you've done. And so again, I'm very grateful for this opportunity. But I want to start by helping my audience just learn about you as a whole. I just find people's stories fascinating. And I think as people grow and continue to have incredible careers, people who find out about them later on, don't get to see that side of it. And so I'd love to go back to seven years old, when you actually decided you want to be a doctor, which seems very, very early. What sparked that in your life?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  So the name Mehmet is Turkish.

• 5:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Last name Oz is my real last name. It has two dots over it in Turkish. My parents were immigrants to this country. And my father is a physician, just passed, actually, ninety-three years of age. And when I was seven years of age, we had moved to a town, Wilmington, Delaware. We were foreigners. I mean, didn't understand the culture. I didn't know some English words, even though I was speaking English with all my friends in school. And as an outsider, my dad was trying to pass along things to me that he thought might be helpful as I grew up. We were in an ice cream shop. I'll never forget, it's called Patterson's Ice Cream. It had the best vanilla fudge. So I'm waiting for my ice cream, and there was a kid in front of me who was about ten years of age. And this young man was just minding his own business, trying to get his ice cream. And my dad asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. And the kid looked back and he said, I don't know. I'm ten years old. I haven't thought about it.

• 5:52Jay Shetty?

  Makes sense.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  That makes very rational. I thought it was a pretty good answer.

• 5:56Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Kid moves on. My dad turned to me and said, I never want to ever, ever hear you give an answer like that.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  And I said, why? And he said, because if you don't know what you're aiming for, you can't possibly head in that direction. This gets back to the very fundamental meaning of the word sin. What's a sin? A sin is a bow and arrow term. You pull your bow back and you fire the arrow. If you don't hit the target, that's a sin. Well, if you don't know what target you're aiming for, how can you possibly hit it? So my dad said, I don't care if you change your mind fifty times. Just have a goal. Tell me what you want to do, and then we'll keep talking about it. You're only seven. You can change it. But you gotta have that in your mind right now. So I said, I love going to the hospital with you. I'll be a doctor. I never changed my mind. And I I'm blessed because there's not a lot of things I could have done.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And the field that I've selected, heart surgery, is perfectly designed for my personality. I mean, ideal. I couldn't be a hematologist or pathologist. I needed to be in there in the battle. I needed to have immediate feedback and gratification. If my operation doesn't go well, I can tell right then because the beep beep becomes beep. All these changes begin to happen. You've spoken about heartbeat, knee cages in your work. So, you know, the metaphor will come back later in this podcast. But for me, as a heart surgeon, I recognized early on that there were aspects of what I was good at that would make me excel at heart surgery. And there are things that I was bad at that would hurt me and hold me back in other fields. And so although I told my dad I'd be a doctor at seven, the nuances of it evolved over my

• 7:26Speaker 02

  life, but it allowed me to begin to head in a direction. And that's an important message for a lot of your listeners. You've done this great job getting people to to think bigger, but also think by stepping back from their perception of what life is and what they're destined to be become. And if you can have a bigger vision for yourself, then you'll be able to head in that direction. And one of the biggest messages I always have my own kids and the folks I try to mentor is you don't want me to have a bigger vision for you than you.

• 7:55Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  If my thoughts about how big you can be are greater than your thoughts for you can be, man, that's not a good match.

• 8:01Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're underserving yourself.

• 8:03Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Listening to you now, you have such a high level of self-awareness, like when you're speaking about why being a doctor was right for you. It's so clear and it's so specific to you. I've heard many people tell me why they want to be doctors and often you will see patterns or you'll hear broad answers, whereas when I hear from you, there's so much specificity. Tell me about when was that time after you said it, you know, at seven years old, at that early age, when was that time where you started to get the awareness to start noticing what was needed to become a doctor, specifically in that field, and then that you had those skills? What was it that revealed that to you?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  It wasn't until I was in college. I I'd gone to a great school. I'd learned a lot of the fundamentals that I needed to have to succeed in life. And I went to college and I was playing football. And I was beginning to understand what excelling at any adventure would require. And I began to study my own body and realized there were subtleties about my body that I'd never Appreciate it. I had taken for granted. By the way, most of you listening out there probably just where I was and I'm not perfect either, but I began to get a little more proficient. And so as I began to appreciate the spectacular wonders of the human body and the fact that I could get my body to do certain things I didn't otherwise expect, I began to appreciate that I could actually

• 9:22Speaker 02

  do this as a career. I like telling people things about their body. It gave me joy to look in someone's eyes, have them know that I was there for them and I could give them insight. They could change their basic assumption of the world around them. I'll give you one example right now. Please. But just stay away from illness, right? Because I could try to diagnose blood pressure, but it's hard to get the stethoscope this far. Sure. Everyone put their hands out in front of them if you're not driving and look at your third digit and your fourth digit, your ring finger versus the middle finger, right? And then look at the index finger. You got those three fingers there, right? Okay, which is longer, the index finger or the ring finger? The ring finger for me. All right. So people who have a ring finger longer than the index finger had testosterone

• 10:00Speaker 02

  exposure in utero. They're usually men, but not always. Women will usually have an index finger, the pointer, longer than the ring finger because they weren't exposed to testosterone when they were in utero. Yeah. Yeah. It's true, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, here's something that's been true your entire life, right? It's so obvious in retrospect that you would think you would have already known it, but you didn't. There are literally hundreds of examples like that, that if you appreciate them, they will be able to help you as guideposts as you get through life. That's just a parlor trick I just gave you, but this is pretty profound ideas. Like, are you a supertaster or not? That's genetically determined by how well you taste certain foods. People who are supertasters

• 10:42Speaker 02

  are very sensitive to bitter tastes like broccoli and leafy greens. They don't like vegetables. So it's not because you're a bad person, you don't like vegetables. Literally, your taste buds don't want you to like those vegetables. And kids have more taste buds when they're young and more of these taste buds, so they don't like vegetables. And there's a survival benefit of that because in the wilds of 10,000 years ago, if you're wandering around eating bitter things, well, poisonous things are bitter.

• 11:16Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need them most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 11:59Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair.

• 12:44Jay Shetty?

  Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality.

• 13:22Jay Shetty?

  You can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  So you don't want to eat bitter things. So you naturally gravitate to sweet things.

• 13:52Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Which is why kids are taught that. And they naturally want it anyway, so it works. But if you don't mature your taste buds, if you infantilize them with fast food and junk food, then they never grow up to become real taste buds. They're no longer going to help you choose the foods naturally that you would want. In the Indian culture, you're exposed to turmeric so early in life. It becomes part of your natural desire to enjoy food. You put it on, make a curry food, right? Turns out that turmeric has a remarkable and powerful effect at reducing amyloid plaque in the brain, which might explain why there's less Alzheimer's in India than we would expect. Now, all these things are ways, long ways of me telling you that it's not just luck that you are the way you are. And because you can understand the way you are better than you thought you could,

• 14:37Speaker 02

  you can hack it to make it easier to do the right thing.

• 14:40Jay Shetty?

  And how do you start that transformation then? So now that you're aware that actually my taste buds are naturally putting me towards these sweet foods, but they may not end up in the best place for me. How do we start molding and transforming our taste buds, for example?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Create an environment that feeds what you're good at and protects you from what you're not good at. Automate your life. I love chocolate. I mean, I really like chocolate.

• 15:03Jay Shetty?

  I'm glad you brought that up. I was gonna say, I have a massive sweet tooth for chocolate.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  It's just, it's just something about, I don't, I don't like cupcakes, but I like chocolate, real chocolate. Not, you know, cocoa, that's 30% dark chocolate. And you put that on nuts, I'm a Turk, I always eat a nuts. I just, I mean, 90% of the hazelnuts in the world are made in Turkey.

• 15:19Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  So you just can't get away from this stuff.

• 15:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  And I know if I put chocolate-covered nuts around me, I will finish the whole bowl. I just don't have the ability to stop. So I just make sure I'm never around chocolate-covered nuts in bowls. I'll eat one or two at a time. I don't deprive myself. I eat the chocolate by itself, the nuts by themselves, but not together, ever. That's a simple example, but there are many others that you could just think about in your own life. There are a lot of folks who very appropriately medicate with food. Because it turns out carbohydrates, simple carbs especially, are incredibly soothing to the brain. They hit that brain like crack cocaine. So if you are prone to that addictive response, you have to be careful about that. So if you get home from work and you've had a fight with your boss or your spouse, or the kids weren't respectful, and the traffic was bad, and you walk in there and you're a little down, and the first thing you see when you open the fridge is a cheesecake,

• 16:07Speaker 02

  you're gonna grab that cheesecake because you're disciplined and cut a very thin sliver up. I mean, so thin you can see through it. It's a micron thick, right? It's like, you know, micro fish, fish. And you cut that little thing and you put it in your mouth. It tastes so good. And then you realize you didn't cut the cake straight. So to straighten it, I'd take another sliver, another bigger sliver, and then it's wedge. And by the time you're done, you've finished the whole thing off. Right, pass that whole thing over here, mama, and you're done. And what you've done unconsciously is feed into your weakness. But if there's no stuff that you're prone to eat in your fridge, you'll eat what you get to. That's why I always tell folks, the crisper is actually a disservice to you. You hide the veggies in the crisper, you don't see them. Instead, you see the soft drink and leftovers and other stuff at eye level.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  At eye level in your fridge, put foods that you know are good for you that you also like. In fact, that's the biggest message. Only eat foods that you adore that happen to be good for you. Because you're not gonna eat the other stuff anyway.

• 17:00Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  And then you'll slowly start to get into a habit. If you're gonna drink alcohol, and you know you're gonna drink alcohol when you get home, the best alcohol probably is tequila. Because it's got a little sweetness to it from the agave anyway. So you don't have to add anything to it. You can drink it straight up, put some lemon in it. So serving is sixty-six calories in it, one ounce, right? So if I, if I'm gonna ever have a drink, that's what I generally will have. So I put it in my freezer at eye level. I open the freezer, I don't see ice cream, which I also like. Right, I'll see the agave, and I'll drink that, and then I'll have a little bit, and then I'm done. And so I haven't undermined myself with something that I know will cause a problem for me in the future. Now, if you're listening, you have your own limitations, your own strengths. Feed the strengths and hinder the limitations, starve them.

• 17:43Jay Shetty?

  I love how practical that is, especially eye level. Because we all know at grocery stores and superstores, the stuff at eye level is the stuff that we all want to buy and is necessarily bad for us. But we can change what's at eye level in our home.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  And they're paying for to get that shelf space.

• 17:57Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Which, again, is good business. I don't blame them. Now that you know, address it appropriately.

• 18:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. That's such great advice. I know that for a fact, that it's why minibars in hotels are so dangerous.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Mini bars or another, I usually take my own food with me.

• 18:13Jay Shetty?

  Yes, me too.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I travel, I travel with a bag of, I've bagged nuts in my briefcase right now.

• 18:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  I never leave home without it.

• 18:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  I think everyone ought to have nuts in their pockets, or men, men and women, by the way. I soak my nuts, I like to put them in a little water, they germinate. And I cart them around, and that way I'm not foraging through vending machines looking for food. Again, simple little hacks like that end up making your life a little simpler because, I mean, they make it a lot simpler, but it's more straightforward. Because what you really want to do is focus your effort, your chi, of the energy decisions that you have to use and consume, have to be focused on things that matter. So I don't want to rediscover what breakfast I want every day. I'm gonna have Greek yogurt and blueberries most days, or a little oatmeal, whatever. I mean, there's other things that, but there are two or three options, eggs, you know, that's it. I'm not gonna go out there wasting all my time in the morning trying to find out what to eat for breakfast.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  You know, I think the smart thing to do is to save your energy making prowess.

• 19:07Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  For the ideas that you absolutely have to do that are in your best interest, but also only you can do.

• 19:12Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  And that way, by the time you get to the middle of the afternoon, you haven't exhausted all that energy making worthless decisions. And then you don't fall prey to the afternoon dilemma that many have, the bewitching hour.

• 19:25Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Because by the time it's four or five in the afternoon, you're so exhausted, your brain is, that you have to supercharge it with carbs.

• 19:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  That's why people crave foods that aren't good for them at four or five in the afternoon.

• 19:36Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, that's such a good point, and we all know that decision fatigue is so real when we're wasting our energy on making these smaller insignificant decisions. I've been having the same thing for breakfast and same thing for lunch for the last 10, 15 years of my life.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  So proud of you, Jay.

• 19:51Jay Shetty?

  And it's made, it's made my life so much easier. No, it's one of those things that you do because it just gives you sanity and space to use your creative energy. I eat oatmeal every single morning. And I usually have avocado on toast for lunch. That's, that's usually my ideal lunch.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  And that's why you look the way you look. And then you can, you know, pull around for dinner and whatever.

• 20:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm a bit more experimental at dinner. Usually it's Indian. I'm very fortunate that my wife's an incredible cook, so I get spoiled every night with something, something good for me. But no, I love that, and I think so many of us put so. Much pressure on ourselves to have to be creative about our meals every single day. And I'm sure what's that doing? Is it also confusing our system? Like if you're always taking different things? I've always had that intuitive sense that I'm actually confusing my own body because I'm just giving it something new every day or every morning.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I think you do confuse your body at times, but even more importantly, your body knows what works for it and what doesn't. And it tells you that in subtle ways and then more loudly says it and then shouts in your ear as you get ill from not paying attention. So most of us will naturally gravitate towards the kinds of foods that are in our best interest. So if you eat oatmeal every morning, there's a pretty good chance that you don't have a problem with oatmeal because you wouldn't do it anymore. Now, there's some folks listening who haven't paid attention. So you're exempted from this comment.

• 21:01Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  So please pay attention. But if you, if you get up in the morning and you're bloated, your eyes are swollen shut, you feel like you've got a cough. You're having a food allergy oftentimes or an allergy to something. So listen to your body. But assuming you get up, you feel rested and you energized, then what you did the day before worked for you. You'll naturally want to reproduce that. And I know that I have a sensitive intestinal systems around certain things. I can't eat super spicy food.

• 21:24Jay Shetty?

  Me too.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  And my wife loves it. She's also a chef. That was one of our, you know, one of the New York Times bestselling books was her book on food. I forgot that one. The, but the, and she, she likes spicy foods. And I see her mouth burning up. And I know when I eat three spicy foods, my bottom hurts when I go to the bathroom. I mean, the entire intestinal system is ravaged. So I've learned not to do that. It's always not fun the first time or anytime it happens.

• 21:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, listen to our bodies. Everyone who's listening and watching right now, there are so many incredible insights in this podcast already. I hope you're taking notes. And if you're driving and you can't take notes, and if you're walking your dog and you can't take notes, then please, please, please make sure you come back to this episode. There are so many great nuggets that Dr. Oz is already sharing with us. Thank you so much for making it so practical and applicable for my audience. You, you made a point a few moments ago where you were talking about how when you're talking about people with their visions and their goals, you're always wanting them to expand them further. You were saying that if I'm speaking to someone and my goal for them is bigger than theirs, then they need to work on that. How have you seen that? Like, obviously you spent a lot of time between Turkey and the US when you were growing up. How were you able to expand your vision?

• 22:28Jay Shetty?

  And how can people who are listening today also do that? Because I don't know about yourself, and I'd love to know. When I started, I never knew. How big things could scale? And I'm not sure when you started as a doctor, whether you believed you'd have this incredible TV show and selling over forty million books. Like, did you have that vision? Or was that something that gradually grew as time went on?

• 22:50Speaker 02

  None of the things you say were on my vision board, ever.

• 22:53Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, that's, yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  And I didn't do any things that I did for that vision.

• 22:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  I had much more measured desires, but there were desires that would address the deep urging, longing inside me. That I felt that while I was on this planet, having this experience, if I hadn't done these things, shame on me. So I began pursuing a lot of things I do with that measured goal. And my wife, who's actually had a much better pulse on what I should be doing and on what America's feeling and needs than I've ever had, was the one who kept nudging me. And she was the one who conspired with Oprah, actually. Because Lisa had helped, my wife had. So I'm practicing heart surgery, minding my own business. You're in New York City, I'm at New York Presbyterian. So sometimes the news agencies would call and say, hey, breaking story, someone's having heart surgery. What do you have to comment? Or maybe you did the heart surgery. Because I did, I had done operations of a bunch of famous people.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  So I ended up becoming part of the news. But it was, you know, around the edges. That wasn't, I didn't do the heart surgery to be in the news.

• 23:49Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  So my wife one day said, you know, you're coming home every day and you're moaning about the fact that people are having heart surgery who didn't need it. If they'd just taken a few proactive steps on their own, they could have avoided the whole thing.

• 24:02Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Instead of complaining about it, let's fix the problem. Let's make a show that teaches people what you guys know. And this is the accusation she launched at me, and she was right. She says, the reason America doesn't have the message about health is because you haven't given it to them. So with that in mind, I started with, working with her. We crafted a show that was, that aired on Discovery Channel. My first guest was Oprah. And Lisa and Oprah bonded. They began talking about things that we could do in a bigger way. Of course Oprah had the biggest platform of all. So, and she loves to teach. People don't always give her the credit she was there, but that's primarily what she wanted to do.

• 24:35Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Whether it's race relations or transgender issues, LGBT issues, or if it's spirituality, or health. In fact, the word doctor means doctora, right? Teacher. The word itself means teacher. So I would go on her show, you know, sixty, seventy times. We'd work stuff together. And Lisa and Oprah began planning out ways we could do it differently and brand it better and get America to believe they could do it. That, because our biggest enemy, your biggest enemy, Jay, is nihilism. People don't think they can do it. And we're both here to say, yes, you can.

• 25:08Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Only you are holding yourself back. And what you want to achieve, that's your decision, but what you but you can do it. So I began talking more and more publicly about the possibilities of health. And that led me into a place where I could talk to folks in the public areas. In fact, I started on radio because I would hope host Oprah's radio show. When I do her show and then I go off and do the radio studio and do that. And that's taught me a lot about how to talk to people about stuff that matters. And I recognized at that point. And actually, I remember the moment that it happened. I was with Oprah and she said, has it happened yet? And I said, what? Said, you know, do people know? And I said, know what? Said, do they see you on the street and know who you are and know what you're doing? And it had just started.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Because most of us are comfortable with anonymity, right? You're walking down the street, no one knows what you're doing. Thankfully, we behave ourselves, but you know, you don't have to. But at a certain point, people begin knowing who you are. They think they went to school with you, they can't quite place you. And eventually it becomes a bit more powerful of a link to what you do for a living. And she said, when you have that, use it for good. It's not about self-aggrandizement. It's really about using that power of the platform, the bully pulpit, the megaphone that you have, and telling a story, sharing wisdom, which is what you're doing, that allows people to find themselves in their own life story. Because listen, we all are in a story.

• 26:31Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  And if you don't know what story you're in, that's a problem. You don't want to be in someone else's story. Because if you're in someone else's story, you're a big player. And they're because they're not going to make you the star of their story, right? So don't be your spouse's story person. You're just a co-star there. Right? And if you're not sure what your story is about, well, you might be headed in the wrong direction. So figure out what your story is, small or big as it is, and then show up in that story. Because you're the star of it, because only you can be the star of it. And that was part of the message we started to go out with on the show. And I tell you, what resonated the most was people's interest in their health.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  I mean, it's selfish in a way because you want to be healthy and it's in your best interest. But at its very core, if you can't take charge of your own health, if you can't, if you cannot control what's going on inside your body, how can you change the world outside of it?

• 27:21Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  And the reason you should care about your body is because it's the first step of everything else that you have to do. If you're struggling with diabetes and high blood pressure and your cholesterol is wacky and you're depressed because you've got continuous inflammatory problems, you can't remember anything because you're heading towards dementia because everything else in your body is in disarray, well, how are you going to contribute to the planet?

• 27:41Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Right? Your parents did not give you the body you were blessed to have, your most vital inheritance, so you can muck it up.

• 27:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  So now that you realize how sacred you are, if you truly appreciate that, take the manage this, you can do all the other things. And the challenge I always give to my audience is think about someone you really adore and really love, just absolutely or spectacularly faithful about. If they were putting in their body what you're putting in your body, what would you tell them? Because whatever that is, tell that to yourself.

• 28:09Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff, too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 29:13Jay Shetty?

  That is great advice. I love that. Tell that to yourself. When you, yeah, when we treat people we love or are fond of or affectionate towards with so much more care and attention than we do ourselves. And you reminded me of, this was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's first ever documentaries. It was called Pumping Iron.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  I've seen it. I know the guy, I know the guy who produced it, Butler.

• 29:35Jay Shetty?

  Oh, no way. Okay. I've only ever seen it when I was growing up, but I remember there's one line in there that stuck with me. And in that, he said, "The reason why fitness goals was so important to him and his health and his physique was so important to him is because he believed that was something you could never cheat." Right? You could never cheat your own body. If you're eating badly, you're going to see the result. You can't cheat it. Like, you can cheat, you can lie to yourself in your mind, but your body's not gonna lie to you.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  What a beautiful insight from a very big man.

• 30:01Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And he said it in, I think it was like 1970 or something? It must have even way before I was born, but I remember, remember watching that. But it was, it was fascinating. I, tell me about this belief principle. I'd love to hear from your perspective, because we hear about it so much, but I'd love to hear it from your medical background. And this is us diving into purpose a bit more now as well. But where have you had a failed belief that you've had to rewire and then seen the benefits of having new belief systems in your own life? Where have you seen that in a big way? A failed belief that you had to transform or upgrade?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  A good example, I think, in my life has been my interaction with patients. So I've got a couple of strikes. I'm a, I'm a doctor. So I'm, you know, sometimes, you know, I think I know everything. I'm a surgeon, which is basically controlled arrogance. Correct? Because if you don't want to have a tepid surgeon in there dilly-dallying around, you gotta take a knife and cut somebody. That's, you have to have unbelievable confidence that's the right thing to do. And I'm a guy, which is a third strike. Okay? Because, so, because we mansplain for a reason, right? Because we think we got it all worked out. Don't ask directions, all that stuff. So you send a male doctor surgeon into a room, talk to a patient, we're gonna tell you the answer, and then expect that you got it and move on. Because I know not you heard me tell you the answer, you'll, you'll act accordingly.

• 31:18Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  And that doesn't happen. Doesn't happen in the hospital, doesn't happen in real life, doesn't happen with school. And relationships or anything else that we really care about. People do not change based on what they know. They change based on what they feel. Hmm, so true. And you can't fix a feeling until you hear it. Hmm. So the failed belief on my part was I could cut corners, be fast about it, tell my kids the answer, bark something to my wife, tell the patient what to do. Stop smoking. Well, I mean, please, I mean, if it was that easy, they would have done it. They know it's not good for them. They don't need to tell them it's bad for them. Quite the opposite, they feel guilty when you remind them that they're incompetent and couldn't stop smoking. And then to deal with their self, their failing and the self-flagellation, they go out and smoke to relax.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  So if you're really going to get people to change, and this gets back into the fundamental psychology of change, which is, it's not the psychology of Freud, which is about how messed up you are because of your parents. It's not about the beautiful, wonderful work that's been done in the mid part of the last century that helped establish the fundamentals of why we think the way we think. And why archetypes are so important to us and why faith is ultimately so essential to our wellbeing. Faith in anything, ourselves, something bigger than us and all the things that go along with that. But, but the psychology of change is about the very seemingly pedestrian issue of how you get people to something different than they were going to do. But it drives all politics. It drives a lot of decisions that are being made today. All marketing is based on this. But it is also the main reason we have conflict in our relationships.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Because men marry the woman exactly what they want, just the way they want her. And then she wants to change. And women marry the man they think he can become, and he won't change. Right? Yes. And then women are, from the moment you're married, you're moving apart from each other. Yep. And you've got to find ways of reconnecting. After the chemical handcuffs come off, which is about seven years. That's about enough time to bear a couple of children and get them to an age where they could actually chip in a little bit and not run off the cliff. Right? But at seven years, that chemical handcuffs fall off, the oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, they go away. And now you actually are left with who you really are. And if you can't figure it out because you don't understand the emotions drive it. Hmm. It seems self-evident, but think about how you communicate with each other. Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  So if I'm going to tell someone to stop smoking, I don't tell them they're stupid for smoking. I tell them. Do you care for yourself as much as the people in this room who brought you here care for you? And if you really loved yourself, you would stop. Even more importantly, if you love the people who are around you, you'll stop so you'll be there for them. Who's gonna walk your daughter down the aisle? Who's gonna keep your wife company when she gets frail because she's gonna need you? So if now with that mindset, here are a couple of tactics that might work. We'll still give you the tools.

• 33:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, sure.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  But you'll use them now with a bit of passion. And that is the fundamental way we get people to adjust their lives. And when we try to ignore that, that's why politics is so fascinating. Because people emotionally already know the answer, their answer. May not be your answer, but it's their answer. Then the facts are just there to defend it. That's why people have the exact same set of facts and have opposite answers, because they can manipulate facts. It's a classic line, there's statisticians, damn statisticians and liars, right? Actually, I said it wrong. I'm sorry, I got it wrong. It's liars.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  I completely mucked that up.

• 34:33Jay Shetty?

  That's fine, say it again.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  It's liars.

• 34:34Jay Shetty?

  We'll re-edit it.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  I don't have to edit it. If we all make mistakes, it's liars, damn liars and statisticians.

• 34:41Jay Shetty?

  Right, right.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  And because the statisticians are ultimately, not that they want to do it, but they can manipulate anything to say anything. And if you don't deal with the underlying emotions of why you feel a certain way about abortion or gun control or inequality or immigration, then you're not, the facts are, who cares? You can change minds with facts sometimes, but it's uncommon.

• 35:02Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. How have you seen purpose linked to health choices in people's lives?

• 35:09Speaker 02

  It's the best, best way for you to identify that part of your purpose is to better the planet, to bring light to us. This is a rabbinical concept, and Judaism can speak to this, that your goal is to bring light. And you have to challenge yourself, are you bringing light to the world or not? And we can get petty, all of us can, we can make mistakes. But if what you're fundamentally trying to do is to lift the burden, then you're doing good. And one of the best ways you can do that is through your own body. Because you either are an albatross or on the neck of the people who love you, or you're leading the path forward. And the big insight that people don't want to acknowledge, but I'll share with you right now, is people who hang with healthy people get healthy, people who hang with unhealthy people get sick.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  That's why when people, when couples marry, the wife will generally lose some health because she takes better care of herself in general than he does. And his bad habits will rub off on her. We want to flip that. Move it the other way.

• 36:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Because once you figure out those basic, simple steps, which are much more tangible and visible. We can all get up and walk half an hour in the morning, and if you didn't walk, you didn't do it. Then from there, your meditation, well, how good's your meditation? Well, you know, you could beat yourself about it. Trying, of course, is the most important thing, but walking the 10,000 steps is easier to measure, quantify, and check the box on. Then did you get to a place in meditation that you were aiming for? And then did that translate to living a life of awareness and fulfillment? Well, that's, you know, that's hard, right? People spend their whole lives and don't get there, which, you know, maybe you're never supposed to get there. Then and on and on until you finally get to a place where, and I've seen this especially in older patients, where you did what you wanted to do. There's a serenity, a peacefulness.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  And I see that especially in people who say, I've done enough. I don't need to have my life saved anymore. Dr. Oz, I know you can operate on my heart and make my valve better, but it's not about that.

• 37:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  People that I loved, I loved. Many are gone. The things I needed to do, I got past. I'm ready for the next chapter, and I pray that I'll one day be able to get there. For most of us thinking through this podcast right now, we're not there. But we better take the steps so that we'll one day be that. Otherwise, what's it about?

• 37:23Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so Dr. Oz, honestly, I could talk to you for hours. Like, you're fascinating. Like, this is, we've got, we've only got the final five left now, which is our quickfire, rapidfire round that we end every episode with, but genuinely, I hope we can do this again.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  I look forward to it. I'm going to have you on the show.

• 37:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I'd love to develop this friendship too, because, yeah, you're fascinating to talk to. I could literally sit and listen to you for hours. So these are the final five. The first question I want to ask you is, your father actually set you up with your wife. Tell us a bit about that.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  The best thing I ever did was marry my wife.

• 37:53Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  And I remember meeting her at a restaurant because my father is meeting her father for dinner. They're both heart doctors, you know, surgeons. And she walked in the restaurant, I was in love with her immediately. She thought I was the maître d'. And I didn't want my father to have any satisfaction with thinking he may have introduced me to my wife. This is a classic discord you should have, I think, if you're in a healthy father son relationship. And I dated her secretly for a while until one day he was giving me a hard time and saying, you know, you're always working, you're not focusing on things that really matter. I introduced you to that wonderful woman, you didn't even talk to her. And I finally acknowledged him, but not only was I talking to her, but we were dating and I was going to marry her. And I did, within a year.

• 38:38Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Great. Question number two, you've been married for over thirty years.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Thirty four years.

• 38:42Jay Shetty?

  Thirty four years, which is incredible. Tell us one of the biggest lessons that has helped you create such a long term relationship, also successful. It seems like you're so happy.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Well, my father in law, this is my father in law, told me that I should give it on the small things, because when the big decisions had to be made, I'd be giving it on them as well. So I should know what it feels like. But the bigger, the bigger message, I didn't respect the yin yang of marriage. I didn't need Lisa to be good at what I was good at. I needed her to be good at what I was bad at.

• 39:12Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Lisa's very thoughtful about deeper spiritual issues. She went to theology school, Columbia. She, you know, if you look at her bedstand, it's deep, the deepest of the deep.

• 39:23Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  And that's pleasure reading. I mean, she's devouring young, just as a, you know, afternoon on a Sunday, just to remind herself about some of the basic premises. And I'm trying to catch up on playing football with my son. I'm very tactical.

• 39:37Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  And I needed her to tell me what to aim at, back to our initial comment about sin. And until I really respected, that's what I needed, to fill the, to color in the lines of who I am. It also puts some responsibility to me to color in her lines.

• 39:51Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Then if you do that together, then we're both satisfied. And so I see, and because of that, I now actively seek out people who are different from me. Because I don't need to get better at, and with people who are good at what I'm doing, I need to get better at things I'm really bad at.

• 40:05Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Love that. Question number three, what is the most used app on your phone?

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Most used app, I mean, it's the messaging apps.

• 40:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Because I'm always talking to folks and I find it incredibly valuable to ping people that I miss.

• 40:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  And I, I don't ping them just to say, hey, you know, you owe me something. I ping them to remind them that there's stuff that's important that we gotta focus on in life. My kids say I'm too clingy.

• 40:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  But, but, but I, but I feel an obligation.

• 40:35Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Number four, walk us through your morning routine.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  I get up every morning around six. I'll do yoga for about seven minutes. I say seven minutes on purpose because I know, I know I always have seven minutes. I'm not gonna admit to myself, I'm so disorganized, I don't have seven minutes. You won't either, Jay, or nor anyone listening. So seven minutes we can always start and by the time you start, you're almost done. I do a sun salutation with some calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups. If I have more time, I'll work out for an hour. I'll go onto the gym and, you know, we have a gym in our, we have, and I'll manage it. If not, then I'll get off to work. Then I don't eat any breakfast, don't have any coffee. I'll have a little lemon juice and water. It's all diabetic treatment, by the way. Get your gastric flus, your juices flowing. Around eight o'clock, eight thirty, a couple hours later, I feel a little hungry. I'll have yogurt and blueberries.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  I don't have any coffee or any caffeine until later in the day and I'll challenge everyone who can hear my voice to do the same. You don't need caffeine when you first wake up. The alarm just woke you up. The toothpaste must have, could have helped and the shower for sure will get you up.

• 41:32Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  That's just a cultural issue and if you can't go for more without, for two hours without coffee, you're addicted. So audit that in yourself. Around nine, 10 in the morning, have a cup of coffee. I'm not against caffeine, but recognize that it's not actually giving you energy. It's withdrawing your energy from your energy banks. So you make it a cultural issue, make it a pleasurable item.

• 41:51Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Not making something you have to have first thing in the morning. And then from then on, I'm automated. You know, I make the shows. I nap every day.

• 41:58Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Let me just share that with the audience. It is the most valuable thing I've, I've, I've done in my life. I used to nap even at the hospital when I had a chance. But you can go, Leonardo da Vinci never slept through an evening, but he would nap every day, a couple times. So a nap is much more effective than caffeine or carbohydrates or any of the other things you may try in the afternoon. Eight hours after you awaken. So for us, it's about two in the afternoon. Take a five, 10 minute nap. It'll change your life.

• 42:22Jay Shetty?

  Wow, I love that. And fifth and final question, if you could set the world An experiment they had to do for thirty days, just one thing that they had to do for thirty days in a row, what would it be?

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Sleep better. And it's much harder than you think. Work at it, it's worth the investment. Your creativity will be dramatically increased. And here's the best part, you'll work hard, because you probably do anyway, you'll work smart. And everything will turn out better, because you'll be able to connect the dots more impactively than anybody else. And sleep is something you do by yourself, only you can do it. But don't shortchange yourself.

• 42:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much, Dr. Rose, that was awesome. I'm sure you all agree that we could listen to more and more of that. So we're hoping that Dr. Rose will come back onto the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. There were so many great insights today. Make sure you grab them, share them on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wherever you like. You know that I'm always sharing the ones that stand out to me. Like I said, go back through this episode and just pick one thing that you can start applying from tomorrow. Just one thing, whether it's changing the height of something in your refrigerator, whether it's trying to get better sleep, whatever Dr. Rose may have said that resonates with you, just pick one thing, test it for the next week. I can't wait for you to listen to the next episode. Dr. Rose, thank you so much again, so grateful to you.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Honored.

• 43:33Jay Shetty?

  We appreciate it. Thank you.

• 43:40Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much for listening through to the end of that episode. I hope you're gonna share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to On Purpose. Let me know, post it, tell me what a difference it's making in your life. I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious community we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.