How To Improve Your Mindset & Reinvent Your Life In 2025

Get my new book Make Money Easy here! Join me for an enlightening conversation with renowned physician Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who after 23 years of medical practice has uncovered the deep connection between emotional well-being and physical health. In this powerful episode, Dr. Chatterjee shares insights from his new book "Make Changes That Last" and reveals how 80-90% of what doctors see is related to stress. Through personal stories and clinical experiences, he explains why most people struggle to maintain lasting changes and offers practical solutions for breaking free from limiting habits. His unique perspective on trusting yourself, managing stress, and the science of forgiveness provides a fresh approach to sustainable transformation. Dr. Chatterjee’s book Make Changes That LastDr. Chatterjee’s book Feel Better in 5: Your Daily Plan to Feel Great for LifeDr. Chatterjee’s book The Four Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier LifeDr. Chatterjee's Feel Better Live More PodcastIn this episode you will learn:Why our over reliance on external experts prevents us from trusting our own intuition and making lasting changesHow unresolved emotional stress manifests as physical symptoms and illness in the bodyThe powerful "3 F's" technique for understanding and changing problematic eating habitsWhy forgiveness is crucial for both emotional and physical health, and how to practice it effectivelyThe science behind how physical touch and breathing techniques can rapidly reduce stressFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1796For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Dr. Ellen Langer – greatness.lnk.to/1578SCDr. David Perlmutter – greatness.lnk.to/1698SCDr. Joe Dispenza – greatness.lnk.to/1633SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. My name is Lewis Howes and I'm so excited that you're here because we have a powerful episode with world renowned physician, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who after 23 years of medical practice has uncovered the deep connection between emotional well-being and physical health. And for years, people have struggled trying to understand how to heal themselves and they've struggled trying to understand how medicine can heal their emotions when it's only been treating symptoms in the body. And we're starting to learn how emotions, how stress, how anxiety, how thoughts are also impacting the body.

• 0:39Lewis Howes?

  And as a physician for many years, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee reveals how 80 to 90% of what doctors see is related to stress and how unresolved emotional stress actually manifests as physical symptoms and illness in the body. So if you're listening to this right now and you've been thinking to yourself, "I'm not crazy. I feel like this anxiety with my relationship, this stress around my career or my, my working situation, or this unresolved trauma that I've had through my parents or childhood, might be causing me some of these physical symptoms that I have, might be causing me these irritable bowel symptoms or constipation, or maybe I have these incredible migraines and headaches that are just causing me so much pain in my head, or I feel this tightness

• 1:24Lewis Howes?

  in my chest, or I have this skin condition that just keeps flaring up and I'm eating all the right things. I'm trying to do all the right things, but for whatever reason, I feel like maybe it's related to stress in my emotions." Well, if that's what you've been thinking, you're not crazy. As we enter this new year, he explains why most people struggle to maintain lasting changes and he also offers practical solutions from breaking free from these limiting habits that have been holding you back. Here's someone who was trained as a medical doctor, who has now learned how emotions, thoughts, habits, your environment, your relationships, how those are impacting symptoms in the body and how you can heal all these different things. He's going to give us a unique perspective on trusting yourself, managing your stress.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  The science of forgiveness that provides a fresh approach to make this your best year yet. I'm so excited for you to dive into this episode. If this is your first time here, please follow us on Apple Podcasts. Follow us on Spotify. Just click that follow button right now. If someone sent you this episode, make sure to follow and share this with one or two friends that you want to see improve the quality of their health in a positive way this year. Go ahead and copy and paste the link, share it, text it to a few friends, post it on social media and make sure to tag me at Lewis Howes as well. Because I want to stay connected with you throughout this entire year on this journey of personal growth and living your best life. Because you deserve to live a healthier, happier life.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  And we are here to bring you the top experts in the world. I'm so grateful that you're here. And again, it is my intention to give you the best information possible and to ask the questions that most people are unwilling to ask. And that's what we're here on the School of Greatness to do. Again, I'm so grateful for you. Make sure to follow the show on Apple, on Spotify. Make sure to share this with one friend if you can. And I'm so grateful that you're here. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. We have the inspiring Dr. Rangan Chatterjee in the house. My man, so good to see you and welcome back to the show. Good to see you Lewis. I'm excited to come back on. New studio. New studio, new life.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  And that's what we're talking about today, which is around your book, Make Changes That Last. Nine Simple Ways to Break Free From The Habits That Hold You Back From A Life That Really You People Have Been Struggling From Or Dealing With Some Type Of Blockage In Their Life. And as we are shooting this and starting out into a brand new year, 2025, There's a lot of things in the last half decade that have been blocking people. And you have been a medical doctor for 23 years. You're one of the most well-known, famous medical doctors in the UK. You've got a massive show. You've treated people for a long time, but you just stopped your practice, which you just told me, after 23 years. Yeah.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  What have you noticed in 23 years of being a medical doctor? And now leaving the medical world and transcending by doing different strategies to set yourself free, to create peace. What have you noticed in the last 23 years that's been holding people back really over this last half a decade? And we'll start with that.

• 4:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  What I've noticed, Lewis, is that every single patient who I've ever seen throughout my entire career,

• 4:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  they've come in for a reason. They've come in because they wanna get well. I know that sounds obvious,

• 5:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  but I don't think we think about that enough. Like, people, why would they take half a day off work to go and sit in a waiting room in a doctor's surgery about a symptom that sometimes might appear to be quite trivial?

• 5:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  I've never thought, why is that person wasting my time? Many doctors do say, why are they coming in with this? I've always thought, why is this person on this particular day ended up in my practice? What has been going on in their life and for how long? That means today they're here in front of me wanting help. And what I've realized over 23 years is that everyone can feel happier and healthier than they currently are. Like, everyone wants to make change that lasts. Anybody can make change for a few weeks, for a few months. But what most people are really looking for, the changes that actually last, true transformation in their life.

• 5:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I believe that that is available to all of us if we know what to look at. So you said, what is holding us back? Well,

• 6:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  I believe there's many things in modern society that are holding us back. But chapter one in this book is called Trust Yourself. Okay? And I believe one of the things that is holding us back is that we are overly reliant on experts.

• 6:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now let me be clear what I mean by that, Lewis, because I'm a so-called expert, right? I have a medical degree, I've got my specialist qualifications, my primary care qualifications, I have an immunology degree, I'm a professor at Chester Medical School. Best-selling author, podcast, all these things. So I have all these things, but I will still say that I don't know what is right for every single individual. Like, I can't do. I know some principles, and I think what's happened today in this era of information overload, there's so much health information out there. I mean, you talk to health experts, I talk to health experts, there's books, there's

• 7:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  blogs, there's podcasts, there's everything. And people are getting confused. Right? I often get, on my Instagram, people will say, "Hey, Dr. Chatschey, a few months ago, you spoke to this expert, and they said this kind of diet was the best diet for health, and they have all the credentials." Yes. "And then last week, you spoke to this expert, and they said this diet is best for human health, and they both had research to back it up. Dr. Chatschey, tell me what to do. I'm confused. Which expert should I trust?" But Lewis, I think that's the wrong question. I don't think we should be asking, "Which expert should I trust?" I think the real question, the more powerful question, is,

• 7:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  "Why do I no longer trust myself?" And I am an expert, but I give people principles, and I feel that what we need to get back to is our intuition, is our inner world. I contend that most people, Lewis, know when they're on the right diet for them, because they can feel it if they're paying attention. So I say, "Listen to experts." I'm not saying, "Don't listen to experts." I'm saying, "Listen to what they have to say." And instead of trying to decide which expert is right, I feel that the advice should be which expert's advice is right for me at this moment in time. And we're not doing that.

• 8:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  And this is why I think people are getting confused because they they've given up their own inner expertise to external experts. And they can all be right. Both experts can be right for different people.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  And they could both be wrong for you.

• 8:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly. And this is where my many years of clinical practice comes in because I've seen tens of thousands of patients, Lewis. And the truth is, I've seen some patients thrive on a whole food, plant-based diet. But I've seen others who didn't do so well on that diet and they thrived on a low carb diet. I've seen others thrive on a paleo diet. And so what I've learned is that there's no one perfect diet for every single individual. And I think when I say it, it sounds quite obvious. But I think many people, they're still waiting for an expert to tell them what's best for their life. And I think that's a problem.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  With all the credentials that you have, with all of the years of experience, with the tens of thousands of patients or clients that you've treated,

• 9:39Lewis Howes?

  with all the knowledge you have, when was the time that you trust yourself the least? Even with all the credibility and the the education and the tools and the success, what was the time that you had the least amount of trust in yourself?

• 9:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's a great question and it's making me think.

• 9:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think it was before my dad died in 2013. I think my dad dying was such a big moment for me, like it would be for anyone, right? But I used to care for my dad. I'd moved back to the northwest of England because my dad was sick with lupus. He had an autoimmune disease. He was on dialysis for 15 years and I moved back from Edinburgh where I went to study and practice. I moved back to help my mum and my brother look after my dad. And when my dad died in 2013.

• 10:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  It was the first time where I had to start asking myself questions about who am I? Like, whose life am I leading? Is this my life or is this somebody else's life? And I think that prior to that moment of my dad dying, I'm not sure how much I trusted myself. Really? Yeah, I think I was looking for what's the evidence saying? What's the external evidence saying? What are people saying? Like, I was very much driven by external validation back then. I, I wanted people to like me. I, I changed who I was to be accepted by other people. So you say, when did you trust yourself the least? That's a great question. I've never been asked that before, right? It's making me think.

• 11:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't think I even knew what it meant to trust myself back then. When I started dating my now wife back in two thousand and seven, and I write about this in chapter three of the book, which is called Be Yourself, right? I write about when I first met Vid. And we were dating and we'd go out for dinner. And, you know, it should be like, you know, what are you gonna order? What are you gonna? And I would often say, hey babe, listen, you can't decide. Why don't you order two dishes that you want? Um, and I'll have the one that you don't want. And on the face of it, I thought I was being kind and compassionate. You know, I, I really like this girl. Hey, you can't choose. Don't worry about it because that's how I was raised, right?

• 12:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Don't make a fuss, you know? Do what everyone, you know, do what you need to do to keep the peace around you. And a few days in, I didn't realize that Vid was getting frustrated. And I didn't get why she was getting frustrated. And she, and she basically, she, she wanted a man who knew his own mind. Hmm. She didn't want a man who was just trying to appease her. And it was quite a powerful lesson for me back then. I mean, I found it difficult because I didn't know what I was doing wrong. But since my dad died and I've gone on this inner journey to explore myself and why I feel certain ways and why certain things used to trigger me, I realized that I was a people pleaser for much of my life.

• 12:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so when you asked me the question, Lewis, when did you trust yourself the least?

• 12:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  It was back then because I didn't know what myself was. I didn't know what I wanted. Everything I did was about what the people around me wanted. But that is something that is possible to change. I changed it. You've done massive changes in your life, you know, in terms of what happened in your childhood and where you are today. I'm not a people pleaser anymore. Like, I do know how to listen to my body now. I do know how to trust myself. And I think there's a wider point there, isn't there, Lewis? Which is, many people, they might hear me and you talk about trusting yourself, but they don't know what that means. Because they've spent their whole lives changing who they are to be accepted by other people.

• 13:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's why I think sometimes we're looking for external advice to teach us, what should I do? How should I live? How should I eat? And I'm not saying, don't listen. I'm saying, listen, put it through your own filter. And that's why I believe that for most of us, the most important practice for our health and happiness is a daily practice of solitude. And I really believe that. Because without that solitude, where you're not getting inputs from the outside and you're actually starting to listen to your body's own signals, you're gonna struggle to know what your body's telling you. You're gonna struggle to trust yourself. And it's... You've really made me think, man. You've really made me think. Yeah, when was the last time that...

• 14:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  When did I trust myself the least? Yeah, it was, uh... It was pre-2013, and I would say it was for most of my life.

• 14:39Lewis Howes?

  When you trust yourself the most, what are you doing? And what are you not doing?

• 14:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  When I trust myself the most, I'm living...

• 14:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Life in alignment with my values. So my last book was on happiness, Lewis, and in that book I share how happiness is a skill. It's a skill that we can all get better at if we know what to work on. And in that book, I created a model for happiness and I say the three key ingredients for happiness are contentment, control and alignment. And alignment is when your inner values and your external actions start to match up. When the person who you really are inside and the person who you are being out there in the world are one and the same.

• 15:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm really aligned these days. Yeah. As I get the impression you are. Yeah. And I think it's much easier to trust yourself the more aligned you are. Right? Now, it's a vicious cycle because, you know, you kind of need to trust yourself to start living in alignments. And the more alignment you can live in, the more you start to trust yourself. So I think it works both ways, but for me, it's when I've got a regular routine in my life. When I'm going to bed at the same time every night, when I'm sleeping well. And for me, it comes down to whether I can, for the first half hour of my day, not go online, not go on my phone and have a little morning routine and ritual, which I do have and I have done for many years.

• 16:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that ritual that I have every morning, it sets me up. It's my time before my wife gets up, before my kids get up. What I send to myself, I ground and I pay attention to how I'm feeling and what my body is saying. And if people did that every single day, even five minutes, if they don't have time, five minutes a day where,

• 16:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  you know, let's say you like coffee and you have a sip, you have a cup of coffee in the morning. Can you do that and not also look at Instagram? And not also check your emails and just start to pay attention and very quickly, you will start to learn things about yourself and then you become less dependent on all these external voices. Hey, listen, I'm a podcaster like you, Lewis. I love listening to podcasts. I love making podcasts. But at the same time, for me, it's very important to have time where I'm not listening. And I'm listening to myself and not external experts. Does that all make sense?

• 17:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. When you talk about happiness, though, you say contentment, control and alignment. What does control mean with happiness?

• 17:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so let me be a bit clearer. Okay, so contentment are what are the things that you can do in your life that give you that sense of peace and calm and contentment? That's what the contentment arm of the three sort of ingredient model is. I mentioned alignment. And then control. Control is an interesting word. This is not about controlling the world. The world is fundamentally uncontrollable. And if we try and control the world, we're gonna really struggle. But this is about a sense of control. What are the things that you can do in your life that give you a sense of control? We know from the scientific research, Lewis, that people who have a strong sense of control,

• 18:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  they're healthier, they're happier, they have better relationships, they earn more money. Right? A sense of control is really important. And arguably, Lewis, I think it's never been more important because if we look around today, the news headlines, what's going on on social media, the toxicity, the division that exists, or we think that exists in society. I think regularly doing things that give us a sense of control is one of the most important things you can do. Right? So that little morning ritual I do every day, that grounds me. And it means even if the news headlines are toxic that day, or I have loads of emails, or the, you know, things are gonna go wrong in life. Right? That's just the way it is.

• 18:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  It grounds me and it centers me. So I'm better able to face the friction and the problems that may exist in life if I have that sense of control. So I think it's really important. And I think that's one of the most powerful things that morning routines and rituals give people is a sense of control in a fundamentally uncontrollable world.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. And if people are trying to change their life, there's a a stat out there that says studies show that eighty-eight percent of people who set New Year's resolutions fail within the first couple of weeks. I would probably relate that to anyone setting any goal at any time in life. It's like, okay, I'm gonna lose the weight. I'm gonna start doing this daily. I'm gonna do whatever. A lot of people seem to fail pretty quickly after they realize how hard it is to make lasting change. You're talking about the habits of lasting change. It just seems like it's so hard to reinvent yourself from an old way of being that is doing things for years. And all of a sudden, change it into becoming someone new.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  There's a quote you have that says, the reason most people are unable to make changes that last for good is because they never actually address the underlying reasons behind their habits in the first place. This means that any changes they try and make are ultimately in conflict with the state of their lives and the person they believe themselves to be. And as a medical doctor for 23 years, someone who studied this for a long time,

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  I'm assuming the goal of a doctor is to get to the root cause, or some doctors, is to find the root cause. How did you learn to apply that to life, to making lasting change? Not just towards a disease or medical condition that people were having? And how can people do that in life?

• 20:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  The way I've learned to apply it is when I realized that people coming to a doctor's surgery for help

• 20:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  are just people, right? All of us are looking for help in our lives. All of us are looking to transform our lives, to have more peace, to have more contentment. So going back to what I said earlier, right? I've always wondered, why has this person ended up in my practice today?

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 21:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Why they ended up today? Why did they not come three weeks ago? Why did they not come three months ago? Assuming that there were problems there. Something had shifted so much in their life that they thought, okay, now I need help, right? But what I've learned over the years, and I think one of the reasons I've learned this is because I've had some quite unique experiences as a doctor, which I'll explain in just a minute.

• 21:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I believe that actually, like this change that we're all looking for. When I was able to help my patients make changes, it wasn't just their health that got better. They also became happier, they became more contented, their relationships got better. So I don't see his health as separate from life. Like it's part of life. I don't see health, happiness and relationships as separate. I think they're all part of the same thing. And if you improve one of them, you improve all of them. And that's what's always driven me as a doctor. So yes, you've you've alluded to something that's really important, that not all doctors look for root causes. Because we're not taught to.

• 22:09Lewis Howes?

  No, taught to treat the symptom.

• 22:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  We really are, and I we hear this on podcasts. But people, I still don't think understand how we're trained. We are trained to hear what a patient has going on with them and all these symptoms. And we're trained to recognize patterns. Oh, that set of symptoms means depression. That set of symptoms means the autoimmune disease lupus. That set of symptoms means migraine. And basically, we're taught to make the diagnosis. Once we can make the diagnosis, then we consult the treatment. And the treatment usually is a pharmaceutical drug. Oh, it's a migraine, let me give you a migraine drug. Oh, it's an autoimmune disease, let me give you an autoimmune drug. You know, whatever it might be.

• 22:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I quickly realized.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  When did you realize that that's not the best way to go about healing?

• 23:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  I've always had a slight discontentment throughout my career in the early days that we were just suppressing symptoms. It never made sense to me. I thought, why am I just giving this person like a drug?

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  A Band-Aid.

• 23:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  A Band-Aids. And I'll tell you, one of the most powerful days to me is I was in general practice in the UK. I'd seen maybe forty five patients that day.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  That day?

• 23:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  Busy day, you know, we would have ten minutes appointments.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  So it's a quick, tell me why you're feeling, let me assess, open up your tongue and say, ah.

• 23:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Boom, give something.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  Okay, you have this, here's antibiotic, here's this drug, here's whatever.

• 23:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and for whatever reason, at the end of the day, I sat back, I was exhausted. I looked at my clinic list. And I said, Rangan, how many people have you really helped today? Like really helped?

• 23:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I went through the list and hand on heart, Lewis, I thought I've only helped twenty percent of people, like really helped them. The other eighty percent, yeah, I was kind to, I was courteous, I did my job. But I don't feel I really helped them. I felt that I just put a Band-Aid on their symptom or I just referred them off for a test. I was doing my best within that system, but it didn't feel right to me. I thought, I can't practise like this for the next forty years. There must be something more I can do.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  And you probably didn't go into medicine to live that life. You probably said, I want to help people heal.

• 24:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, like truly heal. What is the root cause? And then I had quite a, an incredible experience in twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen. I, you know, this is part of this journey. My dad dies in twenty thirteen. I'm on this journey of trying to find out who I am. I come to America to lots of conferences to learn things that I think we're not taught at medical school. Like I want to learn more tools to help my patients. I started applying them with my patients.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  Root cause stuff.

• 24:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Root cause stuff, like root cause stuff. And I love it. I think this is why I went into medicine. Like this is properly helping people.

• 25:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then I got the opportunity to make my own sort of primetime shows for BBC One Television, where I had a series for a few years called Doctor in the House. And that series now has been seen in seventy countries around the world. I think some of the episodes are still on YouTube. But essentially, there were people who were sick. They were under doctors, they were on pills. And I went to live alongside them for four to six weeks.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it's still the proudest thing I've done in my career, Lewis. I helped a lady put her type two diabetes into remission in just thirty days. That was back in twenty fourteen. I helped a lady with panic attacks, reduced them by seventy to eighty percent in just six weeks. Um, I think forty eight year old lady with severe menopausal symptoms who didn't want hormones. That was her choice. I in six weeks helped her virtually eliminate all of her symptoms. And the list goes on, but all of it was done with nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. I didn't use any drugs. And I feel that show was groundbreaking in what it showed.

• 26:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I've often wondered, Lewis, why do I have this view of the human body? Why do I write about relationships? And in this new book, I write about life. But your relationship to life is gonna change your health because I don't see these things as separate. Because when I was filming that series, I got to see stuff with these families that you would never see in practice. I was staying with them, like sometimes overnight in their house, which is pretty remarkable, right?

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  In the UK specifically, yeah.

• 26:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, right. So I was there. And I would see things like, oh, how, how is a husband and a wife interacting with each other? Oh, there's some stress there. Like even if I had more time in my consultation room, they may never tell me that information. So I got to see how every single input in their life is impacting their symptoms. You can't separate health and the rest of your life. It's one and the same. And I think in medicine, we try and separate it, but you can't. And so I saw this stuff and I, I saw how they view the world, how they deal with conflicts, um, what kind of foods they're eating, what time do they go to bed, how do they talk to each other?

• 27:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  Oh, these things are all important. And so I got a real window into people's lives that I think has given me quite a unique view that most doctors don't get.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  How many?

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Physical symptoms or diseases, do you think, arise from relationship and lifestyle challenges? Not nutrition related, but more relationship deficiencies?

• 27:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  I can't give you a percentage, right? Because I haven't done a study where I can give you an accurate percentage. So what can I say? I can say that I believe it's a lot more common than people think, right? If you have relationship conflicts in your life, and many people do in some level, I'm not saying you're ready for a divorce necessarily, but if there's conflict in, I was gonna say a close relationship, but frankly, any relationship, it does impact your health.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  It manifests in your body.

• 28:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hundred percent. And there's an obvious way to make it and a less obvious way to make that case. Okay, the obvious way is, listen, one of the reasons, as you've already pointed out that I I write about, one of the reasons we can't make change that lasts is because we haven't, we we try and change the behavior without understanding the role the behavior plays in our life. Okay, I think it's such a, it's such an obvious point, but we don't think about it. We go straight to the behavior. Okay, in January, we go straight to alcohol. I want to reduce how much alcohol I'm having or how much sugar I'm having. But here's the problem, Lewis. How many people can do Dry January? Quite a lot. How many people can quit sugar in January? Quite a lot. How many people do that?

• 29:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then they actually make long term changes? The number's a lot less, right? Often by the end of February, most people are back to where they were in December.

• 29:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  And here's, let's make it really obvious. If you've got a lot of stress in your life and alcohol is your way of dealing with the stress, right? Because it's a, it's an effective way of managing stress, at least in the short term.

• 29:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can white knuckle it for a few weeks and stop drinking. But you're gonna return back to your previous behaviours unless one of two things happens. Number one, either the stress in your life goes down. If the stress in your life goes down, great, you may need less alcohol. If the stress in your life doesn't go down. If you don't find an alternative behaviour to manage that stress, like something else to relieve the stress, maybe the gym or something else. You're gonna go back to the alcohol. So let's relate that to what you were asking about relationships. If you're having conflict in your relationships. It doesn't feel good. It's a huge source of stress that. That emotional stress you will neutralise.

• 30:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  You have to neutralise it in some way, right? And this is something I think people really don't get, and it's one of the big themes in this book, is that emotional stress is not neutral.

• 30:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're having conflict with your partner. What do we often do? We don't feel good. We go to sugar. We go to alcohol. We spend three hours scrolling Instagram, trying to find some kind of inspiration. Those things are a downstream consequence of the emotional stress that's going on because of your relationship issues. And that's why if we can repair our relationships, learn how to communicate better. You know, be open, be honest, not give accusations, but share how we're feeling. And if we can successfully manage conflict. You will naturally find your behaviour start to improve. And I think this is the missing piece in behaviour change. We don't think about the root cause of our behaviours.

• 31:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  We just wanna change the behaviour, which is why it usually doesn't last in the long term.

• 31:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And when you were treating patients.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  How much would you say were people's symptoms related to relationship conflicts in their life, whether it be with their parents, or their boss, or a friend, or whatever it might be, a family member or something? How much of it was, once they started to have the courage to speak up, or once they were able to break themselves free of a a situation in a relationship, or create a boundary in their life, or whatever it might be, create new alignment with that person? How much of of the patients you saw had emotional pain that flared up in the symptoms on their body? That once they started to make the emotional changes in the boundaries, the alignment in relationships, those symptoms went away?

• 32:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  So many.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, yeah, honestly, there's at least three or four cases in this book where I outline patients I've seen. Let me give you two examples. Okay, so a few years ago,

• 32:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  and tell me if this is directly answering your question or not, Lewis, but a few years ago, I saw this lady. I'm gonna guess forty five to fifty years old, I can't remember her exact age, and she had high blood pressure. And she's seen previous doctors and they were trying to treat it, she didn't like the medications, she was getting side effects. She started to see me.

• 32:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I was, I think that high blood pressure doesn't just happen, it's a response to other things, right?

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  To events in life.

• 32:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, you know, it's a, you know, it's hypertension, it's too much tension.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  It's not a genetic thing, huh?

• 33:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think in most cases it's not, there, there, there can be a genetic predisposition, but

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  You can override that.

• 33:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can usually override it, you can, and, and if we just think about it through the lens of the stress response, okay, let's just take a I'll come back to your question, but let's just look at it from a slightly different angle. We know that stress is responsible for maybe eighty to ninety percent of what we see as doctors in some way.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  Come on, really?

• 33:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, in some way, because chronic stress affects every single organ system in the body, can I explain why?

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  Sorry, say this that again?

• 33:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Eighty to ninety percent of what a doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress. That is crazy. Yeah, that was in an editorial in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, back in 2013. That's where that was published, right? And what's remarkable about that is once you understand that and you understand the stress response, you can see it everywhere. So we have to understand what is the stress response? What is it there for? Well, the stress response is fundamentally there to keep us safe. So let's take a trip down like our evolutionary history. Let's imagine 200,000 years ago. We're hanging out in our hunter gatherer tribe. We're getting on with our day, we're doing our stuff, okay? We're in a nice state of relaxation, we're just getting along with our, we're just getting on with life.

• 34:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then let's say in the corner of your eye, you see a wild predator starting to approach the camp. Okay, in an instant, your stress response kicks into gear because that's what it's there to do. Now, what happens when your stress response kicks into gear? All kinds of things happen. Your blood sugar starts to go up so that we can deliver more glucose to your brain. Your blood pressure starts to go up so more oxygen can go around your body. Your amygdala, which is the emotional part of your brain where all these emotional reactions come from, that goes on high alert. So you're hypervigilant for all the threat around you. Okay, your blood becomes more prone to clotting. Why?

• 35:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because if that predator was to cut you and attack you instead of bleeding to death, it's going to clot and that's going to save your life, right? These are appropriate responses. To stress. To stress when you're in danger. The problem we have in the modern world in which we live is that our stress response has no longer been activated by wild predators. It's been activated by the state of our daily lives. Our email inboxes, the three social media channels we're trying to keep up to date with, the news headlines, the fact that we may have moved away from family for career opportunities, but then we're trying to bring up kids by ourself and look after elderly parents by ourself. Right, these all are stresses on the body.

• 35:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so those short-term things which help you when you really are in danger. They become really problematic if they're day in, day out. So if you're getting chronically stressed by the state of your life, which many people are, okay, we know chronic stress is through the roof these days, right? Your blood sugar going up for thirty minutes is not a problem. If it's going up every single day, it's going to cause you to be tired, weight gain around the middle, and ultimately type two diabetes. If your blood pressure goes up for half an hour to help you deliver more oxygen around your body, or it goes up in your spinning class, that's not a problem. But if that's happening day in, day out to the state of your life,

• 36:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  that high blood pressure is what causes heart attacks and stress. Do you get what I'm saying? It works in the short term. It's problematic in the long term. What about what I said about the amygdala? Right? The emotional part of our brain. If there's a lion that's approaching you, you want that to be on high alert, right? You want to be hypervigilant. If you're walking back to your car on Friday night in downtown L A and you think someone's following you, you want to be on high alert and hypervigilant. But if that's happening to the state of your daily life, well, that's what we call anxiety. Right? So the stress response can affect everything in your body. And so this lady who I saw,

• 37:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  who had high blood pressure, I helped to change her diet. I helped to change her lifestyle, but it wasn't budging. And I always believe that there is a root cause for everything. And my job is to help my patients find a root cause for them. And we were chatting, I was getting to know her over a few weeks and months. I really spend a lot of time on my patients. I like to get to know them and find out about their lives. And then it became clear to me that there was an issue that she wasn't dealing with, right? She had got divorced a few years ago because her ex-husband had cheated on her.

• 37:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  And she couldn't let it go. She was so wound up talking about it. She basically couldn't forgive him. She held on to this resentment, Lewis. She's like, no, well, it was his fault. My life is bad because of what happened. He did this to me. And over time, I built up trust with her and I said, hey, listen, I understand that this must have been really, really difficult.

• 38:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  But that was in the past and you're allowing that past event now to affect your future and your present. I want to help you

• 38:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  try and let go of what happened because I believe that you holding on to this resentment might be contributing to your high blood pressure. And there's actually research on this. Professor Fred Luskin from Stanford. You should have him on your show. He's great. He's done all the research. It's the Stanford Forgiveness Project. His stuff is fantastic and he has shown that when people forgive, your blood pressure can go down.

• 38:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Your anxiety can go down, your depression can go down. Right. Forgiveness has been shown to improve the quality of your relationships, improve your self-esteem. So I helped her. She didn't want to see a therapist. I went through various things with her and various exercises. And over a period of a few months, she learnt to let go. Right. And forgive her ex-husband. And hand on heart, Lewis, her blood pressure came down.

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 39:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So this is one of the biggest.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  So there's no drug you had to give her.

• 39:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  I didn't have to give her any drugs.

• 39:22Lewis Howes?

  She didn't have to change her diet. She didn't have to, it was just an internal reflection. And either opening her mind or opening her heart to the ability to forgive.

• 39:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. And trying to help her understand that it doesn't mean what her ex-husband did was okay. I'm not saying it was okay or it was good. I'm saying you're, you're allowing that. And I say that with compassion. I get it's difficult. Like it can't be nice to have been cheated on by your husband. I get that. But what I helped to see, and it took me a bit of time, but I like trying, like I really try and talk to my patients with an open heart and I think they trust me. And I helped her realize that it wasn't helping it anymore. It was a one-off event. And Lewis, I remember when you last came on my show, right, when your last book was out, we spoke about forgiveness. I actually write a little bit about that in my new book.

• 40:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because you said something to me that I've never forgotten. And I'm sure many of your listeners know your history and what happened to you as a little boy. And the trauma you faced. And you said to me in on my podcast. You said words to this effect. Yes, I had to forgive. The person who perpetrated the trauma on you. But you said, I also had to forgive myself. For allowing that pain to affect you for like twenty five years. And that stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh, wow. Lewis didn't only have to forgive, well, I shouldn't say had to, no one has to do anything, but you chose.

• 40:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I'm sure it was really difficult, and I'm sure it is difficult from time to time, but you had to move on. And then forgive yourself. And people don't realize. How important forgiveness is. Like, I really believe it, that people are walking around with resentment and they're holding grudges on people. And, you know, I've I spoke about stress before, but we can think about stress in two different ways, Lewis. There's. The external stress. Right from our workload. Oh, my boss needs me to do. These ten activities, I don't have time, I've got to rush around, there's traffic. I understand that there is external stress. But I would argue. That most of our stress is internally generated by how we.

• 41:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Interpret things, yeah. How we interpret things. And once you understand that, that's when your life changes for the better. When you realize that. Most events in life are neutral. What determines their impact on us is the perspective we take on that event.

• 42:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's when your life really starts to change. And that's when my life changed.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and going back to one of the first things you talked about, learning how to trust yourself, like, get the wisdom and the knowledge and, you know, learn from experts and science and research and examples. But at the end of the day, you gotta listen to what you need based on the experts or what's available out there. You've got to take action on what your intuition is telling you or what your body or your mind, your heart is telling you. And I don't think you can fully trust yourself unless you learn to forgive yourself.

• 42:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and I would, I, I want to say, Lewis, if anyone's listening right now or watching, and they're pushing back. Right, because I've realized that on my Instagram, you know, I try and share this kind of helpful information with people like you do. And whenever I bring up forgiveness, it's amazing to see the response. Some people love it, and other people push back.

• 42:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. I had Dr. Ramani on. I don't know if you know Dr. Ramani.

• 43:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've had her on mine as well.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  And she says, maybe you don't forgive. Like the narcissist who's like just taken years of your life. Right, and she's like, it gives me peace not to forgive. And that was the first time I'd heard that. And maybe there's something to like forgiving when you feel ready and not forcing forgiveness.

• 43:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  For sure.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  If you're feeling frustrated or maybe it's helping you actually create a boundary for that season of life, okay? And however you need to forgive in your mind or whatever that looks like. But for her, forgiveness of someone who's kind of taken a lot of years from her life, she said, maybe you don't forgive, in her mind.

• 43:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and, and I've heard Dr. Ramani say that. And I think Dr. Ramani's great, and she's helping so many people. And I have a huge amount of respect for people and their views and their opinions. I can only share what I've seen with patients and what I've experienced myself. And I think we misunderstand forgiveness. I think some people think that forgiveness means saying that that was okay. It doesn't mean that. It's saying that I'm no longer going to allow that to have a hold on me. It's totally different. And like, there's so much I want to say on forgiveness, Lewis, because I feel that, I feel so light and free these days because I've learned to forgive.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  Let me ask you this question. As a medical doctor.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  And a researcher, what is the science of forgiveness? What actually happens to the mind, the heart and the body when you forgive? What is that crossover of like, I have a grudge on myself or someone else? And then I choose in a moment and it integrates in my body and I forgive.

• 44:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's a stressor. It's a stressor that when we think about stress and the stress response, we are conditioned to think about external stresses. But holding on to resentment is an internal stressor. Right? So you're still activating your stress response by feeling it could have been different. They shouldn't have done that. That person has wronged me. Right? When you change your relationship with that past event, which has happened, it's no longer happening, right? It happened in the past, but by keeping it active within you, it is causing you internal stress by you not being able to let go. I passionately believe that the happiest people are those who can move on and let go.

• 45:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, some people, Lewis, will say that some things are unforgivable. And you may be better placed to answer this than me based upon your experience. But we've both had a very powerful lady on our show, Edith Eager.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay. I'm coming up to 500 episodes of my show. And people ask me, as they probably do to you, which is the most impactful episode? Right? And I can't really answer that because it's like picking a favorite child. Like I've had so many that have had a profound impact on me. But if I had to choose, the one episode that rises to the top is the first conversation I had with Edith Eager.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  She's amazing.

• 46:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, because here's the situation, let's relate this to forgiveness, right? Why did that? I literally was not the same person after that conversation as I was before. I remember I afterwards, I felt I've changed. I have changed in those two hours. And why was that? So for people who don't know who Edith is, let me just briefly summarize. When I spoke to her, she was 93 years old.

• 46:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  When she was 16 years old, growing up in Eastern Europe, her family gets a knock on the door.

• 46:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's a day where she's excited about going on a date that evening with her boyfriend. What dress am I gonna wear tonight? They're gonna knock on the door, they're put on a train, and they go to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two hours of getting to Auschwitz concentration camp, both of her parents are murdered.

• 47:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I remember, one of the first things Edith said to me was, I never forgot the last thing my mum said to me, which is, Edith, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your mind.

• 47:17Lewis Howes?

  Powerful.

• 47:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? And so, the same day that her parents are murdered, she's a sixteen year old girl, they know that she's a dancer, she got asked to dance for the senior prison guards. And she said to me, Rangan, listen, when I was dancing in Auschwitz, I wasn't in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful blue dress on, there was a full house, there was an orchestra playing. And I thought, wow, this is incredible, right? She's reframing her experience in.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then she said to me, Lewis, whilst I was in Auschwitz, I started to see the prisoners, sorry, I started to see the prison guards as prisoners. They weren't free in their mind, right? I'm free in my mind, they're not living their life. And the final, she said so much to me, right? But the thing that she finished off with, which I think about on most days, she said, Rangan, listen, I've lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind.

• 48:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, when she can say that, having lived through, that inspires me. If I'm ever struggling with something in my life, I go, hey, Rangan, you know what? Edith could reframe events in Auschwitz. I think you can reframe events here.

• 48:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  And actually, I think I asked her, or I've heard her say this, is it possible to forgive Hitler? And I think she's forgiven Hitler. Because I think this is where the misunderstanding with forgiveness really triggers people. She's not saying what he did was right in any shape or form. She's simply saying, I'm no longer going to allow what he did to affect me. Yes. And it's a big difference. Yeah. And I know it can feel hard. I have my own way of dealing with forgiveness, which I'll share.

• 49:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  But can I just tell you one more case that I wrote about, because I think it really speaks powerfully to this, and I think you'll be interested, Lewis.

• 49:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  I can't remember which chapter I start with this story.

• 49:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  But this is one of the saddest cases in my career for me personally. Again, it was a lady, I think, late 40s or early 50s.

• 49:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Who lived a really healthy lifestyle. Okay, she was careful with her diet, she moved her body regularly, she went to sleep on time every night, she, she had the good lifestyle. She had no genetic history of cancer in her family, to my knowledge. But she got diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Like in her, in her late 40s, which is really serious. And she died sometime afterwards, okay?

• 50:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  I remember, because I'd been seeing her for years. I can, I can remember this so well.

• 50:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  When she was, I think, 20 years old, she was in a, a new marriage, they had a young baby. And her husband cheated on her. And they ended up getting divorced. She could never move on from that. Right, she couldn't talk about it. Her family and friends knew that you can't bring up his name. And it'll affect her so much. Yeah, so this is like 25 years on, she's still holding on to what happened when she was 20. Now, listen, I have compassion for that, I understand, that must be awful. But what I tried to help her with for a few years, I, I tried to say, hey, listen. This is before the diagnosis, she, she was my patient for a while. I was like, listen, I don't think this is helping you.

• 51:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Like, I understand that happens, but I don't think this is helping you. At some point, I think this will like have an impact on your health. Now, look, I can't say for sure that her holding on to that contributed to her cancer. I can't say that, right? I can't say that. That would, I would be going one step too far. But what can I say? If you look at the scientific research, there is ample research showing us that people who struggle to forgive and let go, people who hold on to resentments, have an increased risk of things like autoimmune disease and cancer. Right? That is there in the research. There's multiple research papers showing this. Gavol Mate talks about this. He's detailed all the research in his book, The Myth of Normal.

• 51:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, let me be really clear, Lewis, of what I'm saying. I'm not putting blame on anyone. Like, I don't blame people, Lewis. My goal is to come from my heart and to help people. The reason I share this information, even though I know people will be pushing back and saying, what are you saying? But she did it to herself. No, I'm not saying that. If we don't understand, Lewis, the role that our emotions play in our health, we're not motivated to do anything about it. Right? It's easy to go, no, I'll just keep eating an organic whole food diet. I'll be going to the gym. I'll have seven hours of sleep a night and my life will be good. I'm like, hey, listen, I'm all for eating well, moving well, sleeping well.

• 52:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm all for that. That is very, very important, but don't neglect your inner emotional world. Right. Right? That can play a role. And so for that lady, to be really clear, I cannot say that her resentment and her inability to move on caused her cancer. I can't say that. But listen, cancer, like all chronic diseases, is multifactorial. There's never just one thing. There's genetics, there's your environmental exposures, there's pollution, there's your social status, there's food, there's movement, there's sleep, there's stress, but there's also your emotions. So I think we can say, based upon the research and what clinicians like me have seen,

• 53:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  you see certain patterns when you've been practicing for enough years.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 53:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I have seen this pattern before in certain chronic conditions. And so I, I honestly, I share that because I want to help people. I'm simply saying, if you're holding on to resentment, at some point, when you're ready, you feel the resentment, feel the anger, feel the frustration, but don't stay there.

• 53:49Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  If you need help, get help. If you can access a therapist to help you, get, get a therapist. But if you can't, there is still plenty that you can do.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like you can't, you don't want to stuff the emotions, but you don't want to stay in the emotions. You gotta learn to let it out in some healthy, conscious way, hopefully not hurting someone else in the process of your anger or resentment or frustration, or whatever it might be. But you can't stay there also. So you can't spiritually bypass the emotion and just say, that didn't affect me. If it did, let it out and don't stay there. You don't, don't keep reliving the trauma for years to come.

• 54:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  I, I think one of the things we see these days, because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions, as many, you talk about it on your show all the time, there's many people talking about this in public. I think what's happened is that for some people,

• 54:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  they go to, oh, I, I get it now. This is why I'm the way I am. This is because of my mum or my dad. This is how I was brought up. And they stay there and then they start to blame their parents. And I think that's unhelpful. Maybe you have to go through that. But you can't stay there. At some point, you have to come out the other side and go, okay, I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions. Now let me move to the next part where I process them and move on. And I'll tell you a very simple technique that's helped me, Lewis. I don't know if it will help others, but it certainly has helped me is a few years ago, I chose to take on the belief, and again, I use those words carefully.

• 55:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  I chose, I don't have to take on this belief, but I've chosen to take on this belief in life. I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their experiences. And so let me just elaborate on that a little bit because it can be quite triggering for people that.

• 55:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  I choose to believe that if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them. Why? Because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were seventeen or whatever it might be, if I had their life, I'd probably be thinking and acting in exactly the same way as them. Now, it doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right. I'm not saying that. But once you adopt that approach to life, like you can feel this inner calm, Lewis, because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion. It's trying to understand why is this person behaving that way?

• 56:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorrent or wrong. But I choose to take that approach to life and it's really, really helped me because now my first instinct, if someone's attacking me online, if something's happening, if someone disagrees with me, my first instinct now, because I've trained it for years is, oh, I wonder why they think so differently to me. And you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place. And once you start interacting with life like that, I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier because then you're like, oh, if I was that person. I'd be doing the same as them. Oh, their dad cheated.

• 57:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  They grew up seeing that. It doesn't make it right, but I think it makes it easier. And again, do you know when I learned that the most, right? Have you heard of John McAvoy?

• 57:24Lewis Howes?

  I'm thinking John McElroy, the tennis player. No, no.

• 57:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, so John, John McAvoy, I, I had a wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about five years ago. Lewis, you'd love to, you would love talking to him, I promise you. He used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals.

• 57:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? So he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two life sentences, right? With all the terrorists, he was locked up there.

• 57:49Lewis Howes?

  And he got out?

• 57:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  He got out.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  And he's like, he's one of the loveliest people I know, right? I would leave him alone with my children, right? I think he's the most wonderful person. But I spoke to him for two hours and he went through his life story with me.

• 58:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And he told me about his upbringing, that his dad wasn't around. And that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers and they came rounds. They had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars and they had a code of conduct. They treated women well, like they had their own code of conduct. And I remember there was so much in that conversation because he's now a free man inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity. It's an incredible story. But I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast. Oh, my mind was blown and I saw my wife in the kitchen. I said, babe, you know what? If I was John.

• 58:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I had lived John's life. I think I'd be in jail right now. Like I genuinely thought if I had his childhood, I would be in prison.

• 58:56Lewis Howes?

  Or dead.

• 58:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  Or dead. And it really, it really helps me understand that, look, we all see the world differently. It's very easy to judge and I get it. Some things are horrible and really traumatic and you're gonna probably need help to process that. But I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that. So let me go back to what you said about Dr. Ramani, who I really admire and respect.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 59:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals, but I don't. So I, you know, she has every reason to believe what she believes.

• 59:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  My belief, based on my 23 years of clinical experience and what I've seen with patients, what I've seen in the research and what I've experienced myself, is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on, maybe you don't like the term forgiveness.

• 59:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  So I think that can be triggering for some people because they feel it's like, I'm forgiving that person for what they did. I don't mean that.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  We don't forgive it, but let it go and move on.

• 59:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let go and move on is how I describe it in this book, right?

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think you do not realise the lightness in your being that exists on the other side. I mean, Lewis, why don't you, I mean, if you don't mind, like, I'd love to know from you, like, you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggled with this for years, but you have moved through that. How's that been for you when you weren't able to forgive? And now, would you say that you can forgive now?

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I mean, the difference is freedom, it's peace. I think you're a prisoner of the past when you don't forgive. And there's, there's, um, there's a reward for that as well. Like, you get to be righteous, you get to be justice, you get to be right and them wrong. You get to be, you get validation from people having sympathy for you and understanding, and understanding how something is not okay, and that was horrible what that person did, and all these different things. You get rewards. But I just feel like the reward of forgiveness and setting yourself free is far greater than any other reward you could get by holding your grudge.

• 1:01:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:05Lewis Howes?

  And holding a grudge and being angry at someone, or an event, or the government, or the world, or the weather, whatever, for ruining something in your life, or hurting something in your life, or causing a disruption in your life, and however drastic or small it might be, holding a grudge onto that.

• 1:01:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's a cost.

• 1:01:27Lewis Howes?

  There's a big cost, there's a big price you'll pay, there's a big price you'll pay.

• 1:01:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  But you're validated in society for holding it, as you say. Like, if you hold on and you go, yeah, they shouldn't have posted that post, they're wrong, your friends will often support you, yeah, they shouldn't have done it, but what we don't, and I used to be that person, so I'm not judging. I just know what it's like to not live like that anymore. Right, chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offence, and I say many of us have an over-reliance on being right. And I I make the case in that book, I talk about the George Floyd death. Right. That's how I opened that chapter, you know, and I kind of explain how it affected me. And then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it. Because if you remember when the George Floyd death made headline news around the world,

• 1:02:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  it was during Covid. It was, we were in lockdowns. I was in the UK. We were in a lockdown. And this event happened. Horrible event, tragic event, just to be really clear. And it brought up all kinds of feelings for me. Now, I'm a Brit, right? I I was born and brought up in the UK. I've got Indian immigrant parents. I'm not American, right? I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country, right? So I understand that, right? I I have to say this is, I I'm just watching it from the outside. But nonetheless, whatever the narrative was at the time, brought up things for me. And I wanted to share my view on social media, right? Like you have a large platform and I I thought, I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice.

• 1:03:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't always comment on public things. In fact, it's quite rare for me. But I felt like I wanted to. I thought about some of the things that my family had experienced when they came to the UK. And I also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl and living in the north of England. She can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out. And she was just watching TV, I think, and then suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in. That is traumatic. That is really scary. So two or three days after George Floyd's death,

• 1:03:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  I shared a well-thought-out post on Instagram. I explained my perspective and I also shared the impact that racism can have and some of the things that came up for me. And I shared that example of what happened to my wife.

• 1:03:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  And there was a small section who started to take offence at what I said and were attacking me and saying, you shouldn't be commenting, this is not your place, this is a black issue, this is not an Asian issue. And initially, I was like, oh, have I done something wrong here? Like, I was trying to put out a really careful, kind, considered post to try and contribute to this big public conversation. Initially, I thought I did something wrong, and then I meditated on it, Lewis. I thought about it and I thought, wait a minute, I'm not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3,000 miles away. I am perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it.

• 1:04:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I kind of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offence to everything.

• 1:04:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:04:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it comes at a cost, right? Because people need to understand, as I've learnt to understand over the last few years, is that nothing is inherently offensive. Something happens, someone shares something. If something was inherently offensive, every single person would get offended. The fact that every single person is not getting offended means it's not that thing that is offensive, it's something within you that's being activated by that external event.

• 1:05:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  And once you understand that, because I think most of the world don't understand that, they think an event happens, I have every right to take offence to that. Now, people have got every right to do whatever they want. I'm not trying to change what people do, people can decide what they do. I'm trying to make the case in that chat that there is an impact. If you are someone who feels that you're wronged in your life everywhere, and everything's against you, and everything is offensive, you've got to understand that that is coming at a cost to you. You are generating emotional stress in your body that is not neutral. Maybe the reason you can't make change that lasts in your life, right? It's because you're walking around getting offended at everyone.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  And if you really think about it...

• 1:06:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  We're living in a world of eight billion people, Lewis. Eight billion people are not going to share the same view as you. And to think that they will is almost a little bit arrogant. The question is, why do you need people to share the same view as you? Like, one thing that's been transformative in my marriage, Lewis, is when I let go of the need to be right. I'm like, I don't need to be right. I don't need to win this argument with my wife for a while. She's got her view. I've got my view. It's cool.

• 1:06:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Is it better to be right or be happy?

• 1:06:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly. Well, I, I, I would say one of the most important things you can do in life for your inner wellbeing, which will impact your physical wellbeing. And that's the thing that interesting, that's why as a doctor I wrote this book. Because this inner world impacts our physical health. And I still don't think we realise it enough. But there is a cost. There's a cost to thinking the world is against you and that, you know, you can choose to not take offence. You can choose to look at, let's, let's take social media as a prime example. Someone posts something that you don't like and you don't agree with. You could take a pause there. And instead of criticizing or reacting straight away and going, that person has no right.

• 1:07:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you're entitled to do that, but it has a cost. You can train yourself to go.

• 1:07:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  Oh, why does that person have such a different worldview to me? What has gone on in their life that has led to them having that? What might I be able to understand here? And I call it in that chapter, adopting a learner mindset. Right? In every situation in life, what can I learn here?

• 1:07:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Not how can I be right and prove my point? What can I learn here? I've applied that on my own life, like. As you know, the cost of having a public profile these days is you have a lot of opinions about your ability. And whether you're a great podcast host or a rubbish podcast host, or do you know what I mean? We have opinions about us because of the way the world is these days. And I think learning how to deal with criticism. Again, is one of the most important things we can do. Like, I used to really struggle with criticism. Like, I'd wanna push it away. Now I don't Lewis. Now, I've learnt to create that gap between stimulus and response. And anyone can learn to do that. You just need to practise. It's a skill that you can get better at.

• 1:08:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  So if someone is criticizing me now, I go through, well, I do a couple of things. If I'm feeling triggered, I know myself well enough now to go, ah, wrong. And this is not the time. Okay? You need to ground yourself, calm down, before you start thinking about this. Because at the moment, you're stressed out and you're emotional. And that's very rare these days, but that would happen in the past. And when I'm calm, I go, wow, is there any truth here? And sometimes I'll be like, that's interesting, yeah? Maybe I could have phrased my post differently. Maybe I can learn something here. Next time I post about this topic, I can improve.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's really freeing then you're learning. And if I think that there's no truth to that, then I'm like, oh, actually, it looks as though that guy's having a bad day and they're taking out their bad day on me. And then I open my heart and I go, wow, that can't be a nice feeling for that person. They're taking out their inner pain on me. I'm okay with that. They don't know me and I'm okay with that. Do you know what I mean? And it's, why I'm so passionate, Lewis, about this is because I didn't used to be like this. I didn't.

• 1:09:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then, when I didn't, I found making change that lasts difficult. Because it's in conflict with who I was. But when you can cultivate this inner calm, and everyone can, your relationships will be better. Your contentment will be better. You'll feel happier. And I'm telling you, having been a doctor for 23 years, your health will be better as well.

• 1:10:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. It sounds to me like a lot of these habits you're talking about, when people can implement them, they will have less stress in their life. And what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong. Is that chronic stress is related to seventy, eighty percent of most disease? Is that, is that accurate?

• 1:10:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let me phrase it slightly differently.

• 1:10:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Eighty to ninety percent of what we see as doctors is in some way related to stress. It doesn't mean it's the only cause.

• 1:10:41Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:10:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  But stress is playing a role.

• 1:10:43Lewis Howes?

  And so if that's the case, if we can learn to navigate stress with more ease and not let it consume us chronically, maybe it's gonna come, but then only a little bit a day, not every minute of the day for years. What are the top ways then to eliminate chronic stress? So that it doesn't consume us and make us sick?

• 1:11:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so there's, there's multiple ways that you can tackle stress, right? Because there are external stresses and internal stresses. So let's just break it down systematically for people so they can actually take action after this episode, right? And actually start to make changes. So, okay, let's take an example that I've, I've seen patients talk to me about for years, okay? And maybe you can relate to this. They've been good in inverted commas with their behaviors all day and they're eating well and they're, they're resisting temptation for the sweets and whatever it might be. But at eight thirty P M. on their sofa, they're watching T V. They feel like having ice cream. Can you relate to that?

• 1:11:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:11:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's very, very common. And people would say wrong and like, like, I don't get it. Like, I know sugar's bad for me or this amount of sugar that I'm eating. Too much is not helping me, but I can't stop eating ice cream in the evenings. So I created this little exercise called the three Fs, which I would use with patients that I write about to help people understand their relationship with stress and with sugar. Okay. So.

• 1:12:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  The first F is feel, right? So, and Lewis, you can maybe try this in your own life. But next time you find yourself in the evening on the sofa craving ice cream, I want you to have a pause before you get the ice cream. Just have a pause and go, what am I feeling here? Is this really physical hunger? Or is this emotional hunger? Right? It's a very simple question, but often we don't take that pause.

• 1:12:52Lewis Howes?

  Feels like physical hunger.

• 1:12:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, fine. So let's say it's physical hunger.

• 1:12:56Lewis Howes?

  But it's a, yeah, it's not though.

• 1:12:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  But it might be, it might be, and you might want it. And there's nothing wrong with it now and again, right? So it's not.

• 1:13:02Lewis Howes?

  Body's craving sugar.

• 1:13:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, but the more you ask yourself these questions, the more you start to trust yourself, right? So the first F is feel, what am I feeling? Um, I actually, I don't know, I had a really big dinner. I'm not that hungry, but I just had a row with my partner. Or I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't seen anyone or been out for a walk. This is a treat to myself because all day I'll be doing things for other people. Okay, then go ahead and eat it, right? Go ahead and eat it. Next time it happens, do the, do the first F and then go to the second F. So the first F is feel, what am I feeling? The second F is how does food feed the feeling? The second F is feed. Okay, so you've identified, let's say you've identified that you're stressed. You've had a row with your partner, you're stressed,

• 1:13:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  and you've identified that when I feel stressed, ice cream makes me feel better because it does, at least in the short.

• 1:13:54Lewis Howes?

  Temporarily, yeah.

• 1:13:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, then you go, and so you're, you're drawing that connection. Oh, wow. I'm having ice cream because I go to it when I'm feeling this stress. Okay, great. Now you have a degree of self-awareness that you may not have had before. And even simply having that awareness changes your relationship with that event. Like, there's good research on this, but it really does. Even being aware of what's driving your, what's driving your behavior changes your relationship with that trigger, right? And then the third F, which you can do the next time, is find. Okay, now that I know what I'm feeling, the first F, right? Now that I know how food feeds that feeling, the second F,

• 1:14:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  now the third F is find, can I find an alternative behavior to feed that feeling?

• 1:14:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, so, oh, I'm feeling stressed because I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't had any time to myself and Ice Stream's gonna make me feel better. Okay, what else could I do? Oh, well, I love yoga. I could do ten minutes of yoga. Or I could go and run a bath. Yeah. And I could, I could soak in a bath with a candle on for fifty minutes. So you're still dealing with that feeling, but maybe in a more helpful way. And you can apply that three F exercise to most things in life. Alcohol, too much time on social media, whatever it is, it's a very simple exercise. You know, my whole thing is I love to talk about the big ideas,

• 1:15:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  but then I wanna make it really practical for people so that they can actually apply that. So I think for many people, they're gonna go, that's quite a useful exercise for me, right? So that's one way that we can think about stress. I could talk to you about um all kinds of stress reduction practices, like yoga, like journaling. I think breath work is one of the best, right? We overuse the word hack, I think, these days, but breathing and changing the way we breathe, I think, really does qualify as a hack. So a lot of people don't realize that the way they breathe is information for their body.

• 1:16:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, so I don't know if you saw this study, Lewis, or not, but it was from UCLA, actually. That eighty percent of office workers change the way that they breathe when looking at email. Hmm. But they don't know they're doing it. So here's the thing, right? You'll, you, you're, you're engaged in a task. Maybe there's loads of emails and you're on deadlines and you're rushing through them and you're focused. The way you breathe will often start to change. So what will happen? You'll breathe a little bit faster, you'll breathe more from your chest than your diaphragm, and your breathing will be a bit more shallow. Okay, so what does that do? That sends a signal to your brain that there's danger around me. It always comes back to the stress response, right?

• 1:16:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Your breathing signals as telling your brain there's danger and then that encourages you to stay breathing in that way. So you're literally sending stress signals back to your body from your brain because your brain thinks you're in danger. So if you can then be aware of that and consciously change the way that you breathe, and there's all kinds of techniques, one of my favorites is what I call the three, four, five breath. When you breathe in for three, you hold for four and you breathe out for five. Okay, very simple breath that I've been teaching my patients for years. And essentially anytime your out breath is longer than your in breath, you help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system and you activate the relaxation part of your nervous system, right?

• 1:17:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  Very simple, one three, four, five breath will take you 12 seconds. Five of them will take you a minute and you will literally change your state because if you slow your breathing down, you then send calm signals up to your brain and then they send calm signals back to your body. So I have a, you know, first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work before I actually have my coffee. That's the first thing I do and I do it as preemptive, right? So I do it to ground me in the morning, but I also learn about the breath. So if I get stressed in the day, I can just take a step back and do like two or three minutes of three, four, five breathing. And it really helps me. So it's one of many techniques that can help manage stress.

• 1:18:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  Another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch.

• 1:18:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Like consensual affectionate touch is one of the best ways to lower your stress. Yeah. Right. So we've got in our skin, something called C T afferent nerve fibers. It's so interesting. Nerve fibers. Nerve fibers and these nerve fibers are optimally stimulated. Check this out at three to five centimeters per second. Right. Okay. So that's a stroking rate of three to five centimeters per second. Now here's the thing, no one's measuring their stroking rate, but this is how humans naturally stroke, right? So a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate. We're doing that. Yeah.

• 1:19:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  And there's some research from the University of Liverpool that I've interviewed this professor on my show, Professor Francis McGowan. He has shown that when we stimulate those C T afferent nerve fibers with this kind of light affectionate stroking, it sends a signal to the deepest, most primitive part of our brain and levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down. Wow. Right. So.

• 1:19:30Lewis Howes?

  Can you do this yourself too?

• 1:19:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can do this yourself.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  But it's better if someone does it.

• 1:19:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Better with a partner, it can be done with a pet, right, as well? Like, so some people.

• 1:19:38Lewis Howes?

  Like taking your cat's paw and like rubbing it on you or just?

• 1:19:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, but you get, like, there's benefits both ways. Like, even if you stroke someone else, you also get benefits. And what's really interesting, if you dive into that research.

• 1:19:49Lewis Howes?

  I was gonna say, I was gonna get my cat tonight and just there.

• 1:19:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  So stroke you, but, yeah, but, uh, look, I'd never had pets.

• 1:19:55Lewis Howes?

  Ah, yeah.

• 1:19:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  But people who do have pets.

• 1:19:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it is so, it's calming. No, it's calming. When my cat, I was making the joke of like taking my cat's paw and rubbing it on my skin as if she was petting me and the cat, but that, but actually when my cat lays on my chest and she purrs, it's so calming for my nervous system. It's just like, and she just kind of smiles at you a little bit and just rubbing her and almost giving her peace. She's purring into you. I don't know. It's just like a, yeah, very calming. It's almost meditative.

• 1:20:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  It, it, it is.

• 1:20:28Lewis Howes?

  When you're stroking someone, you know, on their, on their arm or you're engaging in that with a pet, it's like very calming.

• 1:20:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and, and, and what's really interesting is that the research on these nerve fibers show that not only do we have them here on our forearms, right, and our arms, where we can stroke, you know, someone else, like our partner or our child or whoever it might be, we also have a high concentration on our upper back. And this is fascinating, Lewis, because why would there be a high concentration on our upper back? Like, it's not as if we're gonna like stroke ourselves on our upper back. And these scientists think it just shows us how dependent as humans we are on other people. They're there to receive love and affection from others.

• 1:21:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:21:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, which is really interesting when you think about it, like how we're made. Why would evolution put these nerve fibers there?

• 1:21:20Lewis Howes?

  Well, also probably like, primitively, if you're hugging someone, maybe you're grabbing the back of their shoulders and you're like, we've generated that over time.

• 1:21:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so we don't know any of these things for sure. We have to speculate, but it's really interesting. So you mentioned to me, you know, how can you manage stress? And there's a million different ways, okay? I mentioned two things, breathwork, which people have heard about. I think affectionate touch, people haven't heard about so much. But that is still what I would call dealing with the external stress.

• 1:21:48Lewis Howes?

  I'm still gonna go inside.

• 1:21:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think the best way is, this is what I've done, Lewis, right?

• 1:21:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  I started this practice a few years ago. I would do it in the evening.

• 1:22:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I ever get triggered, emotionally triggered, like something's happened and I'm feeling bothered.

• 1:22:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I couldn't do it in the moment back then, right? I wasn't. Emotionally evolved. Emotionally evolved enough, emotionally literate enough to do it in the moment. I can do it in the moment now, I couldn't back then, but it's a skill that you can get better at if you practise. And this skill is free, right? You don't have to buy anything. You can just make a commitment to yourself that you are sick of being triggered by everything. And you want to understand what is going on inside you that is driving these things. It will change your life once you start addressing these internal triggers. I'm telling you with a hundred percent certainty. Yes, you might need a therapist to help you, but even if you can't access a therapist because of availability or cost, you can still do so much that will help you, right?

• 1:22:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  So what I would do is in the evening, usually in a journal, I'd go, when was I triggered today? Ah, okay, that happened. That comment or the driver on the way to work. And then I'd go, why did that trigger you? What was it bringing up inside of you?

• 1:23:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  And over time, you learn so much about yourself, Lewis. You learn, oh, oh, that was to do with my upbringing. Or, oh, that triggered me because, I don't know, like, I have a belief that all drivers should stay in their lane and not come out and cut people up, or whatever it might be, like, you start to learn about yourself or, you know,

• 1:23:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  I write about, this is, this is like, I don't think I've shared this before. I, I, I use an example in one of the chapters in the book about criticism. And how in my family growing up, like an Indian family, she can be, people can be quite direct. I remember when I went to university in Edinburgh, so I grew up in the northwest of England, I went to university.

• 1:24:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I'd probably been enjoying a bit too much of the good life, you know, away from home, drinking, eating late night kebabs, partying, whatever it might be. And I came home, either a weekend or for the holidays, and my mum once said to me,

• 1:24:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  like, what are you doing? Like, you're fat now. What are you even doing?

• 1:24:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, I want to be really clear here because that can be a very triggering statement for people.

• 1:24:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  In my family, the way I was brought up, my mum said that from a place of love. Like, I know that. I know that's not the case in every family. I know that. But in my family, it's, there's this great book by this Belgian psychologist called Bach and Mesquite called Between Us, and she talks about I cultures and we cultures. And, you know, very broadly speaking, you can, you could say west and east. Like, the more individualistic cultures, like, let's say, America or the UK are more me cultures and I cultures. Whereas Asian cultures are a bit more sort of we-orientated, right? So how I am is a reflection of the entire family.

• 1:25:15Lewis Howes?

  Which has pros and cons. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's pros and cons of both. Nothing's like all good or all bad. There's, there's benefits and there's downsides. And the truth is, I had put a bit of weight on it, right? So my mum saying that to me, because I knew her, because she very rarely said that to me, I was like, oh, I need to take some action here.

• 1:25:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Now, here's the thing. I also know that in some families, that can be an abusive thing. Or a husband could say that to their wife in an abusive way. So I'm not saying that that holds true for everyone. But the point I'm trying to make is, and this actually did happen to me a few years ago. Someone criticised my weight on social media. I've never shared that before. Like, it, it's someone quite prominent. Started to use a video of me and said, look at his nose, look at his-

• 1:26:03Lewis Howes?

  Shut up, really?

• 1:26:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I'm not kidding you.

• 1:26:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:26:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, but here's the thing, Lewis.

• 1:26:07Lewis Howes?

  And kind of posted it online and said, look at him, he's getting bigger.

• 1:26:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, he was trying to, like, the thing is, he wasn't having a go at me. He was trying to illustrate a point. And he said, there's this prominent dots from the UK. Look at his images three years ago.

• 1:26:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:26:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, oh, man. Or- You can go, wait a minute.

• 1:26:23Lewis Howes?

  Thank you for the feedback.

• 1:26:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  I didn't, I didn't get involved. I only knew about it because some of my followers said, hey, have you seen this?

• 1:26:30Lewis Howes?

  But more internally, thank you for the feedback. And maybe I do need to look at some of this.

• 1:26:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  An older version of me.

• 1:26:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  Which would have been a victim to the world, might have got really triggered. And initially I was like, oh, this is weird. And then I calmed down and I was like, does he have a point?

• 1:26:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I could see what he's saying, actually. I could see what he's saying, right? And I know to some people, they, they will get caught up in an argument that that person has no right to say anything about another person's appearance. And I'm not disputing that that is, you know, it may well be a more polite thing to not do that. But I believe that you can get to a state where you don't take things personally. And so for me, I was looking at it going, does he have a point? I can kind of see what he's saying a little bit, you know? And the truth is, I was really stressed at the time, you know, my, my dad, no, my mum was really sick. And so when you're stressed, you're not sleeping well, you're not eating as well. And whatever the reason is, right? But I was like, hey, yeah, maybe I can just pay a bit more attention.

• 1:27:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  What I'm saying is that a more victim approach to life is, look, I appreciate this is a punchy example that not everyone's going to agree with me on. But it's very easy to get caught up in the narrative. That person has no right to talk about me in that way. And then get your friends around, yeah, that guy's an idiot. He shouldn't be talking about you. And of course, I don't think it's the best thing to be talking about other people's appearance or weight on one. I certainly wouldn't do it. I don't think it's how I want to interact with the world. But for me, I was like, don't start telling me these disempowering stories. It doesn't matter. It's one person's opinion. Is there any truth there? Can I learn from something?

• 1:28:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Can I not? I honestly believe, Lewis, that the reason most people can't make change that lasts, going back to the title of the book, is because we haven't addressed some of these internal drivers. But I've written, my third book was on habit formation and I went through the rules of habit formation and I still stand by that. There are certain things that you can do that make it more likely those habits will stick. But I still believe that that's superficial. Because when you get to a point where you've created and cultivated an inner calm, you naturally make better choices.

• 1:28:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:28:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:28:51Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent, hundred percent. And that's a lot of things you talk about in the book, Make Change That Lasts, nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back. And there's a lot more in here that I want people to dive into. So we'll leave people with that right now so they can go get the book. But a lot of big praise from some amazing people, so make sure you guys pick up a copy. Beautiful images in here as well, which is works for my, uh, my brain to be able to see the images and relate it to the habits. So I really love that. This has been powerful, Rangan. I appreciate you for being here and I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to follow your path and your truth. And, and I wouldn't say leave behind, but upgrade where you're at from being in the medical world

• 1:29:36Lewis Howes?

  for 23 years. And you just said you recently stopped practicing in that discipline. What's the main reason behind that?

• 1:29:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  The main reason why I have stopped practicing, and I don't know how long it will be for, is because I want to live the life that I try and promote, right? I like to walk the walk. And so there's a chapter in Make Change That Lasts, I think it's chapter seven,

• 1:30:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  which is about busyness and this idea that busyness is not success. And I make the case that the reason why so many of us are overly busy in society is because we want to feel valued, we want to feel important. We're, we used to get that value from our tribes, but many of us now are living these quite disconnected lives. And so we want to feel, it's a human need to feel that we're of value. So often we'll do that through our work at the expense of other things in our life. So why have I, maybe temporarily, maybe for good, I don't know yet, why have I stopped practicing? Well, a couple of reasons.

• 1:30:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  One is, I feel that over 23 years, I've seen tens of thousands of patients have, having shared what I've learned on TV shows, in my now sixth book, on my podcast. I have created a course with the Royal College of GPs called Prescribing Lifetime Medicine. We've trained over 4,000 healthcare professionals around the world now, and the principles that I talk about in my books, and so we're having a huge impact on the way medical physicians are now practising. We've had cardiologists, psychiatrists, pharmacists, nurses, physios from all over the world, train on this course that I co-created and are using those tools to help people.

• 1:31:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  Anyway, Lewis, I can't do everything. I can't see patients, write books, record an episode of my weekly podcast, attend to my relationship with my wife, have a great relationship with my children. I also look after my elderly mum. Right, my mum's taught me well for a few years. I live five minutes away. I'm heavily involved with her care. And I don't want to be overly busy. And I've been thinking about it for two or three years, but you know why I didn't do it earlier, Lewis?

• 1:32:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because it was a fear of what people might think. Are you a real doctor?

• 1:32:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:32:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then I thought, that's that whole external validation piece. Like, I don't have to do things that other people want me to do. I have to validate myself.

• 1:32:15Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:32:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm totally a real doctor. I've got decades of experience. I'm now a professor at Chester Medical School of Health Communication and Education. I'm helping medical students there learn these principles. I feel I've moved into this phase of my career now where I want to share and teach people what I have learned to help them practise. So many doctors, so many junior doctors say, can you teach me? Can you teach me? We don't learn this stuff, but you seem to have this unique insight into human health. And I wouldn't say I've got a unique insight, but I do see the human body a certain way. And I, I kind of feel I've had some pretty awesome results with patients over the years with some quite,

• 1:32:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  what would be called untreatable conditions, because I, I really try and get to the root cause. And so I want to teach now. I want to share the knowledge that I've learnt with people and I don't want to be burnt out.

• 1:33:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so I decided, okay, what would my life feel like?

• 1:33:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I don't practise for a little while, and I miss it. Because my favourite thing was seeing patients. But like you, Lewis, you know, I speak to a large volume of people each week on my podcast. Right? And I do my podcast my way, right? I spend a day, a day and a half preparing for each guest because I like doing that. I do a deep dive and then I go along with these guests.

• 1:33:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I am inundated with DMs on a daily basis. People saying, oh, that episode or your third book helped me cure my depression. You've helped me with my anxiety. You've helped my mother put her type two diabetes into remission. I've now got rid of my fibromyalgia pains, which I've had to tend, whatever it might be. I get this every single day. And I have such gratitude that I I do a job that helps people. And I've realised that if eighty to ninety percent of what we see is driven by our collective modern lifestyles. I can have more impact teaching people about how to change their lifestyles through these mediums.

• 1:34:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  And here's the funny thing, Lewis, in the UK, there's probably a few thousand doctors at least that I know about. Who prescribe my podcast to their patients.

• 1:34:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, sure.

• 1:34:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so they they have a ten minute consultation with a patient. And they might suggest a few things and say, hey, listen, if you're interested in this, why don't you listen to episode four twenty? I've got Chachi's podcast and then in four weeks, when you come back, we'll discuss it and how it applies for you. So I feel I'm doing a public service. I feel I'm being a doctor through my books.

• 1:34:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  Through my podcast, through my newsletter, whatever it might be, I'm helping people improve their lives with their health problems. But after twenty three years, I've realised I don't necessarily need to do that. One on one with my patients.

• 1:35:11Lewis Howes?

  Just a hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent. I remember I had Ali Abdaal on a number of years ago and he was holding on to like, I'm still doing, I don't know, ten hours a month of. You know, medical practice because I'm afraid if I let it go fully. People won't take me seriously as a YouTuber and as an author and things like that. And I really just kind of challenged him on that and I go, what would it look like? And he eventually on his own decided to leave the practice and not be practicing medicine, I guess, or not have any patients. And he realized it was just a fear, like he was able to grow even more. He was able to do more of the things that he wanted to and not hold on to something that he once wanted to, but no longer

• 1:35:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Lewis Howes?

  Wanted to anymore.

• 1:35:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I still, and that's powerful and I know Ali's story. I'm still a doctor, I'm still a GMC registered doctor. I'm a professor at Chester Medical School. I've just decided at this stage in my life. And there's other factors that influence us, you know, I, I, you know, and I share a lot of this in the book about, it's a very personal book. I've, I've opened up and shared things that a few years ago, I would have been too nervous to share publicly. Right about how I make certain decisions, certain mistakes I may have made in my life. But I've been very influenced by thinking about the regrets of the dying. You know, the book by Bronnie Ware, The Five Regrets of the Dying?

• 1:36:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, me too, right?

• 1:36:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 1:36:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  She's great. And for people who don't know, Bronnie was a palliative care nurse for a few years. And she noticed that these guys, at the end of their life, they all said the same things. And they said things like, I wish I'd worked less. I wish I spent more time with my friends and family.

• 1:36:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. Right? These things are really powerful because I hear that and I go, I don't want to wait till my deathbed to learn those truths. I want to learn those truths now and apply them in my life so that I don't have those deathbed regrets. And do you mind if I share a little quick exercise that I think will really help people with this? Would that be okay?

• 1:37:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:37:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's called Write Your Own Happy Ending. And it's an exercise that I write about because I, I always try and make these things really practical for people. And it's in two parts. The first part is, and you can try now, Lewis, if you want, we can maybe try it on you with your game.

• 1:37:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Fast forward now to the end of your life. Imagine you're on your deathbed, right? This is the last day.

• 1:37:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  And now on your deathbed, you're looking back on your life. What are three things you will want to have done with your life?

• 1:37:58Lewis Howes?

  For me personally, um, raise a beautiful family.

• 1:38:04Lewis Howes?

  Stay healthy and strong all the way to the end.

• 1:38:09Lewis Howes?

  And pursue

• 1:38:13Lewis Howes?

  every dream in my heart that I feel I was meant to pursue.

• 1:38:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love that. Beautiful answers, right? Okay, so that's the first part. And if people are struggling, you don't have to get this perfect. You can keep reiterating on this. But okay, so you write down on your deathbed. This is what I ideally want to have looked back and reflected on. Okay, now you zoom back into the present and go, okay, what are three weekly happiness habits that I can implement in my life? That guarantee I'm going to get the happy ending that I just wrote down I wanted. And so for me, for example, when I last did this exercise, on my deathbed, I'm looking back, I'm thinking, okay, I will want to have spent quality time with my friends and family.

• 1:38:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  I will want to have spent, uh, I will want to have had time to pursue my passions, like what's in my heart. And the third thing is I will want to have done things that contribute to the wellbeing of other people. Right, that's my deathbed answer. That's the happy ending I want. So now I come back to the present. And I go, well, what are three weekly happiness habits? And I literally have them written down on my fridge, Lewis, okay? And I'll tell you what I have written down. I want five meals a week with my wife and kids where I'm fully present and not distracted by work.

• 1:39:33Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:39:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, it doesn't mean that's the right answer for anyone else, but for me, in the context of my life, that helps me know that I'm prioritizing my family, right? So I write that down. The second thing I have on my happiness habit list is if I've had time to go for a long run, or I've had time to play my guitar and write a song or sing, I know I've had time to pursue my passions. And then the third thing is if I release a weekly episode of my podcast, which I've been doing for seven years, then I know at the end of my life, I'll have contributed to the wellbeing of others. It's a very, very simple exercise, Lewis. But if you've never done it, it's extremely powerful because it brings into sharp focus what is truly important in life.

• 1:40:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:40:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  And we're all living these busy lives where we've got lots of things competing for our attention. Too many people wait for all their to do list to be done before they focus on the important things in life. And I'm saying that will never happen. If you're waiting for your to do list to be done before you do the important things in life, you're going to be one of those people on your deathbed with those regrets. So that exercise helps me go, actually, my family are the most important thing to me. How can I make sure I had time for my family each week? How can I make sure I had time for my passion? And listen, it doesn't mean that every week's perfect, Lewis. One week I might only do three meals, but I don't go down the guilt and shame route anymore.

• 1:41:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  I go, ah, that's interesting. That's three. If that continues, you're going to start fracturing those relationships. So next week I might be for that to six or seven. And it's just a very simple way that helps you refocus on what's important in life.

• 1:41:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's beautiful, man. We all need those exercises to start practicing for sure. And I think life goes by very quickly. You know, I'm forty one. I always forget my, I'm forty one, but it's like, when I think back, in the last five years, it was like a snap. You were here essentially five years ago in L A.

• 1:41:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  That is not, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:35Lewis Howes?

  March twenty twenty, right? Almost five years ago.

• 1:41:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Lewis Howes?

  It's like a snap.

• 1:41:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Lewis Howes?

  It's gone. And, you know, in five years, hopefully we see each other before then, but in five years, it's going to be like this. And we want to be able to look back and say, was I doing those main core? Things on a consistent basis that get me closer to an end of life, peace, gratitude for how I showed up, that I lived that life that I wanted. And I think it's a great time that you're sharing this where this will be out at the, at the new year season for people to have that reflection. Am I taking those weekly actions that are getting me closer to the life I want to live now? And something that I will be happy that I did in the future as well.

• 1:42:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and that exercise, right? That exercise, if people do that at New Year,

• 1:42:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  I promise you that the way you interact with your life will start to change. Your behaviors will naturally start to get better. If you think that this new year, somehow miraculously, your life is going to be different from every other new year because you want it more this year. No, it isn't, right? The reason in my view that most New Year's resolutions fail, Lewis, is because they come from an energy of lack rather than an energy of fullness. It's the energy behind the behavior that's most important. If you feel bad in your life and you're full of guilt and shame, and you try to overcome that with your willpower and your motivation, I'm telling you, because I've had it before and I've seen it in thousands of patients,

• 1:43:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  those changes will not be long lasting.

• 1:43:15Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:43:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  That guilt and shame will drag you back. But once you do these exercises and the exercises that are in Make Change at Latin, they're all simple, free exercises, right? You don't have to buy stuff, watch the book, you don't have to buy stuff. I really feel strongly about that because I've worked, Lewis, in practices where there've been some really deprived communities I've worked with. Like I was once in a practice in Oldham in the north of Manchester for seven years. These guys had hard lives, a lot of immigrants, a lot of single parents, a lot of struggle. And I believe that each and every single one of us has the right to good quality health information. And Honestly, like, people say that wellness is for the wealthy and the affluent and the middle

• 1:43:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  class. I don't buy it. Like, it really isn't. And I've always made it a priority throughout my career to try and make sure that the advice I'm giving works for everyone, including the people who are struggling the most in society. Like, it really does make a difference. And I'm really proud that everything in this book is free.

• 1:44:19Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. I love it. I want people to get the book. Make Change That Last. Make sure you get a copy. Get a copy for a friend. Powerful stuff here. And also, you have an amazing podcast that people can subscribe to. We'll have that all linked up. But the main site is drchatterjee.com. Is that correct?

• 1:44:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's the main website. And then the main social channel for me is Instagram, at Dr. Chatterjee.

• 1:44:41Lewis Howes?

  Dr. Chatterjee on Instagram, YouTube, the podcast, the book, everything is linked up at drchatterjee.com. You can get everything.

• 1:44:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 1:44:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay, awesome. Final question for you. This has been powerful, Rong, and I appreciate you being here. What's your definition of greatness?

• 1:44:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  Greatness is when you're able to live your life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. Greatness is someone who aspires to live their life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. I really believe that everything in life either comes from love, or it comes from fear. Everything, all of our behaviors, all our interactions. And once you tune into that and realize that actually, oh, you're feeling angry, envious, jealousy, whatever it might be, the root cause of that is fear. Whereas if the root cause becomes joy, sorry, if the root cause becomes love, then there's empathy, there's

• 1:45:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  kindness, there's compassion. These are things that we can all cultivate. So what I'm trying to do in my life to be a great human being, to be a great dad and a great husband, and hopefully a great human. It really is very simple. I'm trying to come at life with an open heart rather than a closed one.

• 1:45:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no, I get it. Thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it.

• 1:46:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's how I'm with you, Louis. I appreciate it, man.

• 1:46:02Lewis Howes?

  I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness.

• 1:46:43Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter.

• 1:47:27Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.