DO THIS Every Morning To Destroy Laziness & Quickly GET OUT OF A RUT! | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

A lot of us don't know what life we're wanting to live. Right, a lot of us are living unintentional lives where we're essentially asleep. More and more people are struggling with their health, and more and more people are struggling with their happiness, and they don't realize that those two things are actually very, very strongly linked. Rangan, so many people today are even people that have a massive amount of success are profoundly unhappy. And what I want to do in our time together is figure out why people are so unhappy, and what exactly they can do about it. You're right, Tom. So many people these days are struggling. We We're living in that time, aren't we, where there's so much wealth. We have so many things. We have so much technology, yet society is getting sicker. More and more people are struggling with their health, and more and more people are struggling with their happiness, and they don't realize that those two things are actually very, very strongly linked. You know, I've been a medical doctor, Tom, for you know, almost 21 years now. Right, I've seen tens of thousands of patients, and it's really only in the last few years I've studied and seen that there is a very, very strong link between happiness and health. And you know, that question, why are so many people unhappy? I think the simplest way to answer that is because people don't understand that happiness is a skill. Right, it's a skill that we can practice, we can develop, we can get better at that skill once we know what to work on. And I've got to tell you, I never learned that skill. I certainly didn't learn it at school. I didn't learn it from my parents. Society certainly did not teach me those skills. And having spent the last few years writing this latest book on happiness, I feel that I've managed to simplify it right down into very practical, tangible things. I think we all do want to be happy. I think that's become a little bit unfashionable these days. It's People say it's not about happiness, it's about meaning, it's about purpose. And hey, I'm all for meaning and purpose, but I don't think they're necessarily the same things as happiness. I think every human being at their core wants to be happy, and I want to help teach people how they can do that. Now, I'm one of those guys that's all about meaning and purpose. I'm literally the guy that you're referencing. Uh I talk a lot about the way that I define happiness is something that's pretty transient. So, I'm always trying to get people to focus on fulfillment. And so, one of the things is I was reading your book, I was like, okay, for him and I to have a fruitful conversation, we're actually going to have to define happiness, like what you mean by it. And so, in the book, you make a really careful distinction between what you call core happiness and junk happiness. And I think it would be useful to give the definition and the three legs of the core happiness stool. Yeah, it's a great point, Tom. Like, if you say the word happiness to 10 different people, I think you could well end up with 10 different interpretations of what that means, right? We We all have a different idea of what that is. And so, in the introduction of the book, I was very, very clear with trying to specify what do I mean when I say happiness? What do I mean when I say every human being wants to be happy? And I have, as you say, this this definition called core happiness, right? Core happiness I want people to think of as a three-legged stool. And the reason I've created it like this is because I want people to understand that it is a skill, right? So, everyone understands that if you go to the gym each day and lift weights, you're going to get stronger. Right? That's not that's not hard for anyone to grasp. That's ingrained in our brains these days. And I want people to think of happiness in the same way, right? If you work on these three legs of the stool each day, or as often as you can, you are also going to become happier. So, what are those three legs? Alignment, contentment, and control. Right? So, what do I mean by that? Alignment, okay? Alignment is when the person who you are inside, and the person who you are actually being out there in the world, are one and the same, or getting closer and closer. Basically, when your inner values and your external and internal start to match up. Right? That's alignment. think that matters so much? It matters because a lot of us don't know who we are anymore, right? A lot of us don't know what life we're wanting to live. Right? A lot of us are living unintentional lives, where we're essentially asleep. Right? Give you an example, uh Tom, of what I mean by that. I feel, until the last three or four years, despite relatively high levels of success, I think I was pretty unhappy and discontented in who I was. I didn't think I really knew who I was. And I think one of the biggest problems in society is that we confuse success and happiness. Now, success is success, happiness is happiness. They can both overlap, for sure, if you're intentional about it. But, for many of us, they simply don't. And I think for much of my life, I You know, I craved external validation. I only felt good about myself from the validation of others, when I was achieving things. And I outline in the book where I where I'm sure this came from, you know, when I was a young boy. Um you know, my parents were immigrants from India to the UK, in search of a better life. They came here, right? And they faced a lot of discrimination, a lot of struggle, like many people who emigrate and go to different countries. And I remember, Tom, I would come home from and if I had got 19 out of 20, they'd look at me and say, "Well, why didn't you get 20?" If I got 99% in an exam, no one ever liked it. It was like a stern look. Why why not 100? Right? Now, it's really interesting. As I was writing this book, Tom, I went round to my mom's and I said, "Hey Mom, can I ask you something? Why did you and Dad say this to me when I was a kid?" And they said, "Look, we faced a lot of struggle. We faced a lot of discrimination. We didn't want you to have to go through what we went through. So, in our heads, right, the way for you to avoid that is to get straight A's. Go and get a great job like medicine, a secure job. You know, go up that sort of regular, um, set up path of promotion, right? And and achieve success." And here's the thing, I did all those things. But the problem is, Tom, every situation has multiple perspectives, right? So, Mom and Dad are trying to drive me to be the best that I can, right? Great. But, there's another perspective to that. Walk around to the other side of that table and little Wongan takes on the idea when he was a very young that I'm only loved, I'm only worth something, I'm only I'm only enough when I've got straight A's, when I'm top dog, when I'm top of the class. And whilst on the outside, it can look as though I, you know, have achieved all these societal boxes of success, on the inside there was a real discontentment. And actually, over the past years, as I've learned to go inwards, pretty much since my dad died, as I've stopped looking for the answers out there and turned inwards and started looking for the answers inside, why do I get triggered in certain ways? Why do I behave like this or feel like this when certain things happen? As I've gone and healed all of that, I'm now living more in alignment. I understand what alignment is. I understand what an intentional life is for me. And that's why honestly, you know, I'm 44 time as we have this conversation, I've never felt this good. I've never felt this happy. I've never felt this content. And a big part of that is because I now live in alignment. All right. So, let's talk about the intention. How important was it for you to stop and actually write that down? Cuz you said you yourself didn't really know who you were. You suspect most people don't know who they are. So, one, what does it mean to know who you are? And then two, how do you identify your values so that you can write them down? Yeah. This wasn't a one hit, oh I wake up one day and go, oh I get it now, right? Now I write these down. Now I'm aligned. No, this has been a step-by-step process of constant refinement. Why is it so important, right? I was um I was reading some work by Hans Selye the other day. He is the godfather of stress. That you you may be familiar with his work. He pretty much coined uh the word stress at least in the way that many of us use it today. And he said that in the 21st century, the biggest stresses are emotional and the greatest one of all is not being ourselves. Right? I I think I think that's so powerful, you know, coming from someone like him. He feels, he was saying, he was articulating that us not acting in alignment with who we really are is a huge stress on the body. Right? And given all the research he's done, I think coming from him, that's quite a profound statement. For me, how did I go about that process? I first of all would realize that every metric I hit, every bit of success I had, every, you know, you have another best seller, right? You know, that's the truth. Like this this maybe people can't resonate with this, but I can only speak my truths on, you know, this is my fifth book in five years, right? They've all been They've all been Sunday Times best sellers. Now, here's the thing. You get the first one and it hits the list and you you're excited. You think this is great. Yeah, I want to help people. I want to help 100 million people around the world live happier and healthier lives. But, I can't deny that also there was a part of me that was attracted to the validation that comes with having a successful book. I would be I would be lying if I said that wasn't the case. So, it made me feel really, really good. But, you realize that these successes are very short-lived. You know, before you know it, they've gone again. And, you know, this happens year after year. I keep hitting these matches of success and I think, I know, but it doesn't really change how I feel. Like, it really doesn't. It's it's an artificial high. I guess you can almost call it a junk happiness type habit, which I can explain shortly. But, I realize more and more why with all this success, with all this external validation, why do I still uh move towards these junk happiness habits? Why do I still not feel enough in who I am? It didn't fill the hole that was there inside my heart. And Tom, you've had people on your show before saying the same thing. I I don't know if you've heard of some uh a chap called Jonny Wilkinson or not. Jonny Wilkinson is one of England's most famous rugby players, right? He was probably one of the most famous rugby players in the world in the early 2000s, right? In 2003, he achieved all of his dreams, right? So, when he was a kid, Tom, he wrote down, "When I'm older, I want to play for England and I want to win the World Cup." Now, here's the problem for him. At the age of 24, he achieved his dreams, right? 24, he's playing for England. Not only do they win the World Cup, he kicks the winning goal in the final minute of the World Cup final. He came on my show recently and he and he shared that actually even before that ball had gone through the goal, he's starting to go downhill downwards inside. The next morning, he can't get out of bed, depressed, anxiety. That's so crazy. I'm getting the chills. achieved it He achieved his dreams. That's why in chapter one I I make quite a provocative statement, your dreams won't make you happy. What? And And And I I I want to add a caveat there. Your dreams won't make you happy unless you're intentional about them. So, what I think many people have learned from over the past couple of years, particularly with all the restrictions and you know, the fact that people can't move around and do the things that they've wanted to do and always used to do, I think a lot of people have reflected on their lives, like what's truly important for them. You know, what is it that truly makes them happy and feel content. So, there's a there's a really simple exercise in the book that I think is deceptively simple. It's very, very powerful. And I don't know, Tom, if you're interested, I could uh I could try it on you right now if you're up for it. What is up, my friend? You and I are living in a golden era of self-improvement. 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We are working our faces to the bone to get this thing out there, and my friend, I want you to experience it. So, click the link on your screen and head on over to my Discord channel to stay up-to-date and be one of the first to join me inside of Project Kaizen, which by the way gets its name from the Japanese term of never-ending improvement. All right, back to today's episode. Sure, I've seen you do this. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah, have you got prepared answers? I don't actually. Okay, good. Okay, so top of your head, don't overthink it, right? If I was to ask you, what are three things you could do this week that if you did them, would truly make you happy and content? You know, can you name three things? So, for sure spend time with my wife, write creatively, and what would be a third? Meditate. Okay. And then the second part of this exercise is what I call write your own happy ending. So, now, you know, fast forward, Tom Bilyeu on his deathbed, right? Looking back on your life, what are three things you will want to have done? Yeah, this so I may think differently about the deathbed than most people. So, this will be interesting. When I'm on my deathbed, what I will be thinking about was did I love my wife and elevate her and make her feel awesome and really get that relationship to thrive? And then I will ask, did I turn my potential into usable skill set? And then did I use that skill set in a way that actually fulfilled me and helped other people? But I think I really think on my deathbed that it's going to be a bit of a It's just a frame of reference game. And you talk a lot about Edith Eger? Edith Eger, yeah. Who survived a who and just the story is insane. And her whole thing is basically how how are you looking at the situation? So, for instance, I think that on my deathbed, I will I will probably regret that I didn't have kids. But, I don't regret it now. And so, I've primed myself on how to think about it because on my deathbed, I will want something to live beyond me, right? I I can already feel that. So, like I get how at that point, especially if I mean, look, as much as I want to believe that these YouTube videos will live forever, I know better. And so, I can feel that tug now. It's one of the ways that nature ensures that you have children. So, I I do think on my deathbed, I might perform a slightly different act than other people. Sort of however I end up, I'm going to frame it in a way that is optimistic cuz I'm about to peace out. So, and I think that speaks to a lot of your book, but tell me if you think I'm crazy. No, I love that. Um you're someone who it doesn't surprise me lives a very intentional life. You know, I had the pleasure of speaking to Lisa yesterday on my show, right? We had a long conversation and you know, she was sharing the game that you guys often play, the no BS game, what's it going to take, right? So, this is a very intentional game where you guys literally you know, instead of having wild dreams, you break it right down and you specify what is the goal, what literally will it take to get there. So, it doesn't surprise me that you and Lisa are people who are very intentional about how you're choosing to live your life. And you know, in in Lisa's book, and you've mentioned before, you you guys have intentionally chosen not to have kids. So, it's really interesting for me to hear you saying that actually, despite that intentional decision that we made, you feel that you may regret that on your deathbeds. Now, I think for many people what this exercise is about, it's about intentionality. It's not about beating yourself up. For example, Tom, some people, most people will say, like you, on my deathbed, I hope I've nourished my friends and family, my meaningful relationships. Yet, if they look at their week-to-week life and they realize, "Wait a minute. Um I'm working so hard. I know you work super hard. I know many people who watch these videos, Tom, work really hard. I'm working so hard that actually I don't have any time to see my wife, see my friends, see my partner, see my kids." And and what this exercise does, it just allows you to reorientate your life and go, "Okay. Wait a minute. I'm slightly off track here." You know, Tom, I don't know if I've shared this with you on a previous conversation, but I always remember this uh patient I saw a few years ago. 37-year-old chap, right, who from the outside it looked as though this guy was crushing life. He ran his own business, right? He drove a sports car. He made really good money. He worked on his terms. He didn't have a boss. No one's going to tell him when to work. He worked most weekends, right? He comes in to see me and he's worried that he's got depression. He says, "Doc, I feel low. I'm struggling with motivation. Uh I feel indifferent about things a lot of the time. Is this depression?" And we did a You know, I ran a variety of tests with him. Um I I spent time getting to know him and I asked him a question. I said, "How often do you see your friends?" He said, "Doc, I don't have time, right? You know, I I really don't have time. You know, I'm I'm kind of up-to-date with what they're doing on Instagram or Facebook, but I'm busy with my business." And the prescription I gave him that day, Tom, honestly, no word of a lie, was, "Look, what I want you to do for the next few weeks is once a week, in person, I want you to see one of your friends. And when you're with them, try and put your phone away." That was it. And he said, you know, "Is that all you want me to say? I said, "I just want you to do that, focus on that. I'll see you in a few weeks." Now, this guy was desperate. I appreciate it wasn't the prescription he was, uh, you know, expecting to get from me, but nonetheless, this is what I was picking up. Six weeks later, Tom, he comes back. He's almost bouncing into my room. He's got a smile on his face. I say, you know, "How are you doing?" He said, "Doc, I feel like a different person. I I've got my mojo back. I've got my my my I've got my energy back. I've got my vitality back." I said, "What happened?" He said, "Well, I started off every Sunday going to the local cafe. I'd meet up with one of my friends. We'd just catch up for an hour over a coffee. We'd keep doing that each week and after a few weeks, we decided on a Wednesday night after work, we're going to get together and play five-a-side football." Right? Honestly, Tom, right? Six weeks I did nothing. His mood state changed. That then continued for months afterwards. That one change led to all kinds of other positive lifestyle changes like better diet because he realized actually he he couldn't run around playing football anymore like he used to, right? So, the point I'm trying to make is he thought, right? He thought he had depression. He certainly did not have an antidepressant deficiency in his life. What he had was a friendship and meaningful connection deficiency in his life. And the funny thing is, Tom, his friends thought he was crushing it. His friends thought, "Hey, you know, I know he's busy, but he's busy with work. He's doing great." So, actually, it was only by revealing himself to his close friends that he got his vitality back. He got meaningful connection. He got his health back. That's why this episode is so interesting to me. So, when we bring it back to this deathbed exercise, right? Many people like you, you've said, you know, one of the things you want to do each week is spend quality time with your wife. What's the first thing you said on your deathbed, right? I want to have made sure I have maximized on everything possible to lift up my wife. And, you know it's so incredible to hear that that's that's alignment, right? I know you're very intentional about the the time you spend with Lisa, but a lot of people are not like my patient and so this exercise really helps bring them into alignment and Tom yes, you may have a slightly different view because of the way you think, but I don't know, you know, if we when we talk to palliative care nurses, right? They tell us over and over again what people say on their deathbed and it's not as different as we might think. They all say the same kind of thing, you know, I wish I'd worked less. I wish I spent more time with my friends and family. You know, I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy and then speaking to alignment Tom, what is another thing that they say? I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. Right, so people say that on their deathbed. Hans Selye, the stress researcher, is saying that living an inauthentic life is a key part of stress. I'm saying that I despite all my success, I've probably been quite unhappy and I didn't even know I was unhappy and discontented because I wasn't living in alignment. So I'm hopefully this is making the case that that alignment leg of the stool and it's only one leg. There's two other legs that all important, but I think Before we get to the other two, you said something and I really want to push on it and that is palliative care nurses say the same thing over and over and over and one of the things is I wish I had allowed myself to be happy. What do they mean? It feels like a secret to the universe is hiding in allowed myself. Yeah. I had allowed myself to be happy. What does that mean? Yeah, this is in Bronnie Ware's book, The Five Regrets of the Dying. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. Now what does that say? Cuz I agree with you Tom, that's very that's powerful. Allowed myself. That implies doesn't it that I I could have done, but there were other forces around me. There were other reasons why I didn't step up and I didn't step into that role of being happy. I think, as I said at the start of this conversation, it's a skill. It's a skill that you can practice and work on. Happiness is that skill. It's not something we just stumble across and end up upon when everything happens to go our way, when, you know, our spouse treats us nicely and our email inbox is under control and, you know, the weather's nice or whatever. I don't think that's happiness. Happiness is something we can work on. So, I think what that phrase means, and I obviously can't speak as to exactly what all these people were saying, I I hope I'm many years away from being on my deathbeds. I certainly feel I've got lots more to do and contribute to the world. But, I think that's exactly what it means. I think they realized, "Oh, man, I knew what it was. I knew what was important, but I didn't do it." And that's what this whole book and this whole conversation is really about, Tom. It's about helping people realize, "Wait a minute. You can be happier than you currently are." Honestly, you you may be chasing success. I think you can have success and happiness. I don't think you have to choose between the two, right? I really don't. I don't think it's as hard as people think. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, how important was it to write down my values? Very important. So, so important, Tom, because even even that exercise, right? Let's take the step one. That exercise, I would challenge every single person who is listening to this or watching this conversation to pause it at some point or at the end. Just write that down. Do that exercise. Because there's something very powerful about taking this stuff out of your mind and putting it down onto paper. It makes it real. And then, what's really powerful about it is because you've made it real, you can edit it. You can tweak it. But, if you have nothing, you have nothing there to start, you've got nothing to work with. And you know, I've I've just finished a book tour in the UK, you know, you know, been going around different cities talking about this book. And I spoke about values. And then I asked what I asked people, I said, "You guys have heard you know, me on my show talk about values on all kinds of podcasts around the world. You've heard people talk about values all the time. How many of you have actually ever taken the time to write them down?" And only a few hands went up. Right? And Thomas content creates this is something that's really important to me. This is why in all of my books, I'm I spend a lot of time editing, editing, simplifying, making them readable, making them practical. Even though my ego wants to make these books longer and more in-depth, right? If I want to help people and impact 100 million people, which I do, I know I need people to read these books and make a change in their life. So it's really interesting to me that people are hearing this stuff, they're not doing the exercise. So me writing it down, like I I'm at the stage now where at this moment in time, my three core values are integrity, compassion, and curiosity. But I didn't get them straight away. I did not get them straight away. So writing them down is a critical first step. And Tom, any author will tell you, like when they're trying to write a book, you know, the first draft is always rubbish. It's always rubbish, right? But you can't edit nothing. You have to put something down that you can edit and then make better. So I want people to A, do that exercise at some point today if they can. And then yeah, I think it's a very good practice to try and write down what are these values that encompass who you are. All right, I love that. So getting into the other two legs of the stool, um I think my interpretation anyway of the palliative care nurses saying that people say that they should have allowed themselves to be happy is contentedness and focusing on, "Look, I have what I have." And so the the tension in life is I want to be grateful, I want to be contented cuz it feels a lot better, and I also don't want to be stagnant. And so, I think, largely because people don't do the self-exploration, they never quite figure out that you really can do both. So, they're just blindly propelled forward by the sense of I want more whatever, what you call in the book the want brain. And so, they want more, want more, want more, but they never take the time to develop the contentedness. So, walk us through that. How do we accept our wanting brain and yet cultivate this other leg of the stool? Yeah, so the second leg of the core happiness stool is contentment. What are the things that we can do that make us feel calm, make us feel at peace, when are we at peace with our life and our decisions? And I think built into the question that you asked me there was this idea that a lot of people never take the time to think about these things. They never take the time to think about what they already have. It's constantly what can I do more? What can I push for? What do I want? As I As I write about in the book, I call this thing the wants brain, that part of the brain that makes you think you want more money, another slab of chocolate, a new a new car, whatever it might be. And sure, I'm not against those things. The problem is is if we think those things are actually truly making us happy and content, which the research shows us that people who constantly crave these things and get these things are more depressed, they're less motivated, they're less confident. Right? So, we know that. So, there's all kinds of practical things that people can do. The first question I'd ask people is what are those things in life that you already do, that you already know make you feel calm and content? Right? Cuz all of us know, even simply taking a pause to ask ourselves that question is so so powerful. It could simply be you know, when I spend time with my wife, when I go for a a walk without my phone in nature for an hour, I I I feel better. Right? Put it in your diary, schedule it in. It's so basic, Tom. Honestly, right? I feel like in 2022 in this highly technological society, it's kind of like have you not got something better than that for us, doc? And it's like, well, actually no, I haven't because that is the sort of stuff that genuinely makes people feel contented and happy and at peace. But, I would say a big thing which actually hits the contentment like with the also the the third leg, which is control, which we'll get to shortly, I'm sure, is a practice of solitude each day. It's what I call in the book, take a holiday every day. Right? I don't know if you read this that you call sol- Of course. I love that you call solitude a vacation though. That's uh as only a parent could. As as a as only a parent could. But, you know what I came up with the idea of calling it this is um a body in mind was telling me about a factory in which he used to work, right? And his boss would have on his counter like a a countdown, like 66, 65, 64. And he'd rock into work and his boss would say, "Yeah, only 64 days till I'm on a beach in Florida. Only 63 days till I'm on that beach in Florida. Only 59 days to go." And I thought, isn't this incredible? Right? This individual is living his life simply counting down the days, counting down the tedium until he has that one week of bliss. And I thought, "Well, what is it about a holiday? What is it that he's craving?" And I thought about this. And of course, there's many things, Tom, that people many things that people get from holiday, right? Sunshine, time with their loved ones, you know, lying on the beach, whatever it might be. But, I think a big thing is perspective. They get a perspective on their life, a 30,000-ft view, quite literally. You you know, you you know the feeling when you're on that plane taking off. You you literally start to see your life differently. You have that big picture outlook on your life, right? And so, for me, I thought, well, why do we have to wait for that one week a year when we can go on vacation, go on a plane, go on a beach. We can actually take a holiday from our lives every single day. And I would say it's absolutely crucial, Tom, that we do so. Now, that could be anything, right? But um it could be a walk, it could be meditation, it could be mindfulness, it could be reading an uplifting book. But what it is, and I think it's so important these days, Tom, is that we're so busy being in our lives, right? We're so busy consuming content. From the minute we wake up, we're consuming emails, podcasts, videos, whatever it might be. Even good quality shows and podcasts, right? I think the problem is is that we're constantly consuming. We never have any any time for our innermost thoughts and emotions to start coming up. And intentional solitude is is probably the most important practice in my life. For me, I do it in the morning, first thing in the morning. And I know that when I do that, every aspect of my life is better. I'm a better human being. I'm a better doctor, I'm a better husband, I'm a better father. But really, it's what I call a daily holiday. It's just a practice each day where you step outside of your life to get to know yourself because there's no way you're going to be able to live an intentional life, a happy life, a contented life unless you take time to understand what you're really feeling. And I honestly say to people that even if you're consuming killer, uplifting, inspirational content all the time, even that's problematic. You have to be able to sit with your own thoughts. What is up, my friend? Tom Bilyeu here, and I have a big question to ask you. How would you rate your level of personal discipline on a scale of 1 to 10? If your answer is anything less than a 10, I've got something cool for you. And let me tell you right now, discipline, by its very nature, means compelling yourself to do difficult things that are stressful, boring, which is what kills most people, or possibly scary or even painful. Now, here is the thing. Achieving huge goals and stretching to reach your potential requires you to do those challenging, stressful things and to stick with them even when it gets boring, and it will get boring. Building your levels of personal discipline is not easy, but let me tell you it pays off. In fact, I will tell you you're never going to achieve anything meaningful unless you develop discipline. All right, I've just released a class from Impact Theory University called How to Build Ironclad Discipline that teaches you the process of building yourself up in this area so that you can push yourself to do the hard things that greatness is going to require of you. All right, click the link on the screen, register for this class right now, and let's get to work. I will see you inside this workshop from Impact Theory University. Until then, my friends, be legendary. Peace out. Well, I know you meditate every day, Tom. I mean, what what what does meditation give you, Tom, would you say? It lowers what I call background radiation. So, stress, anxiety, it just starts building up at a biological level, and it's interesting in your book. I'd never heard anybody else say this, but I think it's really true. You point out that people can get addicted to things like soap operas. And I was like, that's really interesting because it's an input that changes your neurochemistry. And so, for me, meditation is the way that I change my neurochemistry where I lower that background radiation. So, rather than seeking uh another YouTube video or learning something new, which would be the thing that I would go to, um I just take that time to physiologically, like literally breathing from my diaphragm, and just sitting there and focusing on my breath, I can just feel even describing it to you now, I can feel my brain relaxing, I can feel my body relaxing. And so, to your point about without that solitude, without that space, that holiday from yourself, you can't you can't figure out what the emotions are that you're feeling. You never get into what I'll call a calm and creative state. Because when you get in that calm and creative state and something's been on your mind, suddenly connections that otherwise wouldn't happen in your brain start to happen. And you might have that insight about, "Whoa, that's why I'm feeling that." Like you putting it together about your childhood and only feeling worthy when you're at the top of the class. But if you never create that stillness, that silence, you never get to that realization. And I know and I think it is taking a daily holiday cuz that is literally as you were describing that, that is what a lot of people say or similar similar themes to that when they go on holiday. That's the feeling they get and you can access that on a daily basis. Tom, I remember when I was second year at a medical school, I was a junior doctor in Edinburgh in Scotland. And I remember I was working in acute medicine and we would I was being taught by my senior about something called early warning systems, right? And I remember it so well cuz it it it was really a profound moment as a doctor for me when he said, "Listen, guys, if you do if you check regular parameters like heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturations and you track them, then we know now that we can with a high degree of certainty predict who is going to need a high dependency bed in 4 hours, who's going to need an intensive care unit bed in about 8 hours." I thought, "This is amazing. This this is amazing. We can track this stuff." And and by doing so, and someone's following a certain trajectory and path, we can take, you know, preventive action. We can get involved, do something different to stop that happening. And as I was writing the book and writing this chapter on taking a daily holiday, that popped into my head. I thought, wait a minute, that's exactly what a daily holiday is. It's our own early warning system on our life. Right? Many of the Many people suffer with stress these days. They suffer with anxiety Tom these days. Um we're so disconnected from our bodies and our innermost thoughts. We're so up here in our head, moving forward, learning new things, consuming more and more and more, that actually we're not listening to the signals that our body is sending us. So, Tom, for years, right, I I would have I I think I was experiencing when my stress load would go high, and really I was dealing with a lot, I would feel a tightness in my right upper back. Now, I never knew that because I've only noticed it recently, in the last few years since I'm diligent and meticulous about my daily holiday. This happened a few weeks ago after the book came out. I was like, oh, there it is. And it was a real message to me. It's like, okay, Rowan, you have to do something different. You either have to cancel some things you've got on today. You have to maybe prioritize an earlier bedtime tonight. You have to say no to certain things. It was my early warning system that allowed me to change my course of action so I don't have a row with my wife, you know, have have problems, make bad decisions at work. Right? So, it's very powerful. The other thing you said, right, which I I think is another another thing to really think about here. You know, I consume your content, Tom. I like watching your show, and I know a lot of people consuming your show um would like to make better decisions in their life. Right? They They want to make better decisions. And I think should a very It's It's a slight oversimplification of how the brain works, but I think it It serves a useful purpose. We can think of our brains in two parts. The The front part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, where we make quality, rational, logical decisions. And the deeper, more primitive, emotional part of our brain, like where the amygdala sits. Okay? Which is where we're led by emotions and fear. And those two parts of our brain are always vying for top spot. Right? They all want to be top dog. And what we really want is our prefrontal cortex online so that actually we can dampen down those stress and alarm signals from our emotional brain. When it's online, we're making good quality decisions. We're taking in all the information, we're absorbing it all, processing it all, and making a good decision. When our stress load is building up, right? When we have narrowed our perspective, our prefrontal cortex pretty much goes offline and our emotional center, the emotional part of the brain, is ruling the roost. It's running everything. And so this is why we often make poor decisions, let's say at 3:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. Right? We've done nothing to dissipate the stress. Our prefrontal cortex is offline. We We send an email. The next day we're like, "How the hell did I Why did I send that email?" Like, that I That wasn't what I thought. You know, what was going on? We We forget that actually we see the world through the state of our nervous system. So if your nervous system is constantly tuned and elevated, you know, what happens when your nervous system is on? Think about it. If you're in fight or flight, what actually happens in your If you think you're running away from that tiger, everything in your body starts to change, but your focus goes in. You literally narrow your focus. Right? To make a good decision, you don't want narrow focus, you want perspective. When you actually can take this daily holiday, have some time to self-reflect, think about your values, think about alignment, think about the type of life that you're leading, right? Everything starts to soften like when you do your meditation and your perspective widens. So, it's it's kind of metaphorically but also physically and physiologically, it's changing how we operate, it's changing how we see the world. So, I think there's there's if the only thing people take away from this conversation, Tom, right? If there's one thing I want them to take, it's like please make sure that at least for 10 or 15 minutes a day, you have some intentional solitude where you have no inputs coming in and you allow your body to start speaking to you and you allow your innermost feelings to come out. Mhm. Yeah, and that that speaks to the third leg of the stool, which is control. Getting control over your physiology, I think is incredibly important. It's something that I don't think people spend a lot of time thinking about. They certainly don't spend time mastering. Often times they'll bump they'll try it and whether it's working out, whether it's eating right, whether it's meditation, there is a discomfort to it in the beginning. It's a facing either, you know, it could be the food addiction, which has a whole host of very complex physiological parts to it. Working out, which is just painful and it sucks. I hate it to this day. Um and then in meditation, by getting quiet, first everything in your mind coughs up and so can be very hard to like like you said, broaden it and not get more stressed. And so, as you think about control, um how do people gain more control? So, we've talked a little bit about the physiological side, but how do people get control and how did that become one of the three foundational pillars of core happiness? Yeah, so to take the last point first, what I was looking for when creating this model was to create a practical model because number one, big picture, I saw there was a strong link between happiness and health, right? Happier people are healthier and there's there's numerous studies which show that in a variety of different ways. There's many reasons for that which we can maybe get to if there's time, but there's a strong link there between happiness and health, but I felt that that third leg, control, was really really important particularly at the moment. And when I say control, so let me clarify what I mean, right? I'm talking about a sense of control. It's not about controlling the world around us. It's not about controlling other people. I think when people try and control these external events that they literally have no control over, that is a recipe for unhappiness and discontented living. I think the events of the last 2 years have have have taught all of us that the world is going to do what the world is going to do, right? You know, whatever you want to happen, things are going to happen anyway, but a sense of control is different. It's like what are those things that you can do regularly that give you a sense of control over your life, right? The research shows us super clearly, Tom, that people who have a sense of control, they have high levels of motivation, higher levels of success, they earn more money, they're healthier, and they're happier, right? So, having that sense of control or that I guess that agency is really really important. So, how can people do that? Well, I've mentioned this daily holiday. What that does for me, Tom, right? What that does for me is that I know when I've given myself 30-40 minutes each morning, I do a variety of different things within those 30-40 minutes, and it used to be 10 minutes. I built up over the years cuz I've seen how important it is for me to thrive. I know that no matter what is going on with the world outside, with my work, with my family, with my kids, no matter what's on the news, right? Doesn't matter. I have carved out a bit of time myself that grounds me. It's almost like a ritual that it gives me a sense of control that makes me feel um focused and calm no matter what's going on outside us. So, that's why I think these little routines and rituals People don't have to copy that. They can find their own one that works for them, but I think that's one way that we can look at a sense of control. But, another way, which uh I want people to think about this is there are other things we can broaden out what we mean by control. So, there's a part of your brain, Tom, called the sociometer. And basically, this part of the brain is always scanning the external world around us to look for threats. Is my external world safe or not? Now, chapter six in the book is called Talk to Strangers. And um this is because the research is overwhelming that when we have these not deep and meaningful interactions, like you may have with your wife, Lisa, or we may have with our close friends and our family, not these kind of uh low-grade interactions with strangers, where we smile, we, you know, say hi, and they sort of nod back, and they give us a smile back. These sort of things we know are very powerful because what they do is they send your sociometer a signal that your external world is safe. That makes you feel in control. Because when you feel your external world is unsafe, you feel out of control. So, control can mean multiple things. Uh and that's just two examples of how people can actually think about control in their lives. What are the things that they do that give them a sense of control? That's going to help strengthen that leg, which means it's going to help them strengthen their happiness. What are those things that they do that actually make them feel out of control? Because if you're feeling out of control, you can think about the model and go, "Oh, wow. My control leg is getting weaker. My control leg is going to break. So, my feelings of happiness are also going to start collapsing as well." Was that clear, Tom? Definitely. I think it was such a um like hard left in the book when you got to the third one, and I was like, "Wow, that's really interesting." And then I've heard you talk before about the different ways that people define happiness and how some of them begin to crumble, and I thought it was actually a really keen insight. I think it's very true. I think when people don't feel that they control any aspect of their lives, they're really in trouble. Now, I'm probably intentionally edging up towards delusion on how much we can control. Um and so I try to do things knowingly. I don't know where the edge is, right? So, I look at somebody like Elon Musk who's, you know, attempting to terraform Mars, and on the one hand, it's sort of patently ridiculous, right? The to think that you can influence something on a planetary level. But on the other hand, like because he allows himself to believe that or can convince himself to believe it, he's built the first reusable rocket, right? So, it's like you need like that little bit of delusion that gets you going. Um so, yeah, it was I think very insightful. But but that depends, right? Like on that. That depends what the goal is. Right, what's the goal? If the goal is to do something that no one has done before, if the goal is to uh grow a media company to impact a billion people, right? That's fine. But if the goal is happiness, then suddenly we look at these things very differently, and I think that the whole point here is about living an intentional life, right? It's about understanding what are you chasing, why are you chasing it? And everyone's going to be different. Some people don't want to be Elon Musk. Some people don't want to be you. They don't want your life, right? They don't want my life. Some people are very content or you know, their goals are very different from my goals or your goals or Elon Musk's goals and that's okay. We're all allowed to have our own goals, but what we need to do is live our own life and spend time defining what they are. Tommy, you said something really interesting right at the start of this conversation which has been um playing at the back of my mind since you said it. Particularly so because I had a long chat with Lisa, your wife, yesterday. And we spoke about your intentional decision not to have kids and how that process went. Yet you mentioned when we played that exercise that that that you know, your happy ending, your deathbed exercise, you think you're going to regret not having kids. Now, if you don't mind, I'd love to just understand a bit more there because I think what's powerful about this exercise is that it helps bring intention to our life and go yeah, you know what? I think this is going to happen. This is what I'm going to be thinking about. Now, I'm not saying you guys want to or don't want to, but I would say that the power of that exercise is that if someone is starting to feel now that they've made a decision and now they're thinking, yeah, you know what? I think I'm going to regret this. It potentially allows them to revisit that and go, ah, okay, you know what? I know 5 years ago we said this or I said this. It felt right then. Maybe it doesn't feel right now. And I'm not saying that's the case with you, Tom, at all. I don't want to overstep the mark for sure. Um but do you know what I'm getting at? I I know this exercise helps people, but I'm I'm interested. Here is something I think very very strongly. People misunderstand that you will go through phases in life. And so I can project to my deathbed and say the things I will care about when I have no more time will be very different than the things that I cared about when I had maybe even the illusion of time cuz who knows, I could die this afternoon. Yeah. But I have the illusion that I have a lot of time left. And so, I live my life in accordance with that. Now, given how much I love my wife, how much I love my life, how much I love storytelling, how much I love ambition, how much I enjoy the thought of doing grand things, it's like I really want kids. Rongan, I really want kids. The only thing I want more than to have kids is to not have kids. And so, I make use of the time and energy that would otherwise go into having kids. But I'm not a fool. I could write you a poem right now that would leave you convinced that I knew what it was like to have kids and to have that kind of deep emotion and love and connection and and sense of progeny. Like I get it. So, I'm not foolish enough to think that as I age, that my frame of reference won't change. So, the big question of my life is, what phase do you live for? Because I could live for the end phase of my life and be like, I'm on my deathbed and I have no regrets and this is amazing. Or I can recognize what I think is the right answer, which Edith Your Edith, who survived Auschwitz, taught us, which is doesn't matter what happens. It matters how you think of it. And so, my thing is the best advice I ever got around kids was, Tom, have kids, don't have kids. It doesn't really matter. But whatever you do, do it all the way. And so, when we decided not to have kids, I said to Lisa, just know, when we're on our deathbed or when we're really old, we're going to regret this. And as long as we're loving it now than when we're there, just keep that frame of reference. We [ __ ] loved our lives. Like this was incredible. That what What a ride. But don't go into it now thinking, "Oh, you'll never think that this was You'll never hit a phase where you wish you had kids." Yeah. Cuz you probably will. That's so beautiful on so many levels. It It It really is. The The big thing that speaks to me as I hear that is you guys have been intentional about that decision, right? So, here's the thing. Even if you get to your deathbed and you are regretting it at least you consciously chose. Right? At least you went through the process of weighing up the pros and cons, figuring out where does this thing come from that I think I want kids, I don't want kids. Right? And you made it You made a list. You made the pros and cons. You made a decision. Fine. Many people, Tom, many of my patients, many people that I talk to are making unconscious decisions. They're having regrets on their deathbed, but they've never actually thought about it. Right? These people who are saying, "I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. I wish I'd see see my friends and family more. I wish I'd worked less." You know, all these kind of things that people regret and they say they wish they'd done. You, I feel, is in a very different cuz you've approached it with intentionality. So, I find that very, very powerful. And I think even if that's something that people take away, that can be very powerful. Cuz you Right, how do you actually know anyway? How do you really know how you're going to feel when you're I don't know, 80, 90, what is it? 120, 130? Right? How Let's hope. Yeah. How do you know how you're going to feel then? You don't. But at least if you're thinking about it, I think that helps. The other thing for me, Tom closing the loop on this, maybe is that I've reevaluated particularly over the past 2 years what I want out of life. I've realized that I truly truly love nothing more than spending time with my wife and kids. Like truly, there is nothing I enjoy more than being away, being present with no technology, no phones, just being with my wife and my children. And I've realized actually as my kids get older, you know, they're now 12 and 9, I was thinking, well, my son may not be at home for that many more years. And I've realized I would rather have less success and spend more time with them. And I'm consciously now writing this book has been hugely beneficial for me. You know, we they say don't they authors write the books that they need for themselves, right? I needed to write this book. It's helped me put words to a lot of these thoughts. It's helped me make better decisions. I have now I'm, you know, I resigned from I I host my own BBC Radio 2 show, which is the biggest radio station in Europe. You know, the only national wellness show in the UK. I handed in my resignation a few weeks ago um because I realized it's a great show, it's a great opportunity, it's helping lots of people, but the cost to my life, yes, with my family, also my mother who I don't think is going to live for that much longer. She's very immobile now. She lives nearby. I help look after her. All these things have played in I realized now I value relationships more than I value that level of success. And so, this is a constant moving target. It doesn't mean, you know, as you say, you know, what phase are you in? What what what, you know, when I was 20 years old, I wouldn't have seen life like this, but at 44, I'm seeing it very differently. And that's okay. The all the exercises in the book are not one hits. They're things that we can keep revisiting. We can keep going back to go, you know what? That decision felt right at 30, it doesn't feel right anymore at 40. And I think that's okay. I totally get it, man. So, I want to hear a little bit more about junk happiness. I think this is really interesting. I think it's probably a bit of an epidemic at this point. Um and give me some examples. What what are junk happiness things that people get caught up in today? Yes, so junk happiness is the opposite of core happiness. Everyone's got one several junk happiness uh habits of choice, right? What can these things be? It can be sugar, alcohol, pornography, sex, gambling, uh booze, um 3 hours scrolling Instagram, online shopping, compulsive consuming and buying, whatever it might be. They all seem Well, on the surface, they all seem quite different, but at their core, they're often very, very similar. They are a way that we want to distract ourselves to not feel, to numb what's going on. And the problem with junk happiness, they're not necessarily bad, these junk happiness habits. The problem is is if we engage in them too often, or we make the mistake of thinking that these things are bringing us true, deep contentment, that they're making us truly happy. And what's really interesting, Tom, is that I think junk happiness is an epidemic. You've spoken, as I have, to Anna Lembke, I think, on the show about dopamine, incredible uh incredible lady, incredible research. And, you know, what What does she say? She says something like the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle. I think she says that in her book. It's You know, we've literally got every source of addiction that we want on there. And I call these junk happiness habits, and I think it's a very useful way for people to think about these things, because a lot of people think that's what happiness is. I feel good when I'm looking at Instagram. Sure, you might feel good, but if you're doing that for 2 or 3 hours a night, actually, that's not really helping you. It's keeping you stuck. It's making you depressed, less confident, less motivated. So, I think just bringing a name to this really brings it home for people. But people, I know the feedback is that people really like that, Tim. It really helps them see those things and they're like, "Oh, that's another one of my junk happiness habits." But what's really interesting, Tom, for me is that often we try and change these habits by saying they're bad, I need to stop doing them. And we think we need to use motivation and willpower to do it. But I actually think that's short-lived. I'm not sure that's the whole story because, you know, as I said, I've been a medical doctor for 21 years now. I've been trying to help people change their behavior for many years. And what I've learned is that every single behavior in our life serves a role. It's there for a reason. And often we try and change the behavior without understanding what role it plays in our life. You You classically see this um in January. Right, a lot of people, they get to New Year's Day and they basically say, you know, um I'm going to give up alcohol. I'm drinking too much alcohol. And they they sign up for some plan, Dry January, whatever. And they quit completely. For the first week in January, they're not drinking. Second week, they're still not drinking. The third week, they still got a stressful job. They still got an unhappy relationship at home or with their boss. And, you know, they just starts to creep in again. And they keep beating themselves up. Why am I still drinking? Well, they thought willpower was enough, but they've not spent the time understanding, no, you're using alcohol to help you de-stress from your job, from your workload, whatever it might be. And this is why I think, Tom, that a lot of public health guidelines just don't work very well. When we say you should only drink this amount of alcohol per week or or do this amount of this. And I understand why there's a need for that. But it's missing a big piece, which is what role does that play in your life? And so I think like in my own for if I talk about me for a moment, I mentioned some of my childhood earlier on and how I developed my sense of self-worth. And so couple of things to say on that Tom, which I think people might resonate with. I always thought I was competitive. Right? In fact, if you would ask any of my friends, some of my closest friends, and you say, you know, tell me about Rangan, they'd say, oh, he is super competitive. He will not lose. You know, cuz I wouldn't. I literally would not lose. I would do whatever I had to do to win. And what's really interesting Tom is now, today, I'm not competitive. I'm not competitive. It wasn't who I was, it was who I became. Right? Really, really big difference. If you think about how I got my self-worth as a kid, I thought if I do well, if I get success, people are going to like me, my parents are going to like me, right? Well, it's a pretty smart move to develop the trait, the behavioral adaptation of being competitive. It's a master stroke because if you're competitive, you're going to keep getting that validation. But the problem is is that competitiveness led to a lot of junk happiness habits. I share in chapter three the book. When I was at university in Edinburgh, I still remember on a Sunday afternoon, we'd often go to the local pool hall, you know, after a couple of nights out of partying, we'll just unwind playing some pool. And I'm a pretty good player, right? If I was ever losing Tom, right? If I was ever losing and I thought I might lose the match, I would go into the toilets, I would look at myself, I'd give myself a talking to, I'd give myself a little slap on the face, right? I'd go in, I'd come back, and more often than not I would win. Not always, but more often than not. What I've realized in the last few years is that I didn't I didn't want I didn't love winning. I just couldn't stand to lose. Losing was too painful for me. I thought losing said something about who I was. Now, here's the thing, Tom. As I've gone in as I practice a lot of the tools in this book, right? I've healed those holes inside myself. I now like the person I see in the mirror. Like honestly, if I can be so bold as to say it, I love the person I see in the mirror. like the person That's great. Yeah, and I didn't used to. And as I now can do that, and it's not been a quick process, but it's been a very rewarding one, I'm no longer competitive, genuinely. I am no longer competitive in the way that I used to be. And a lot of those junk happiness habits that I had in the past, like sugar or gambling. I used to gamble a lot in my 20s. Never to the point where you would say Rangan needs to go and see someone, but I can look back and go, "Hey, that wasn't that healthy a relationship with gambling. I loved the buzz of gambling on anything, right? The bookmakers, the horses, a game of pool, the golf that was on television, whatever." Just for that quick buzz. Here's the thing, Tom. As I've healed that hole inside me, I no longer gamble. I haven't gambled in over 10 years. I've not tried to. I rarely now will get that craving for sugar in the way that I used to. I'm not saying I never have sugar, but I rarely. All kinds of little things that I had, these junk happiness habits, they've now fallen by the wayside, not because I've tried to get rid of them, but because they no longer serve a need in my life. And I think, Tom, this speaks to this bigger picture as to why why am I as a medical doctor writing a book on happiness, right? Cuz it's not I don't think it's usual. It's not normal. It's certainly not typical. It's normally happiness researchers or psychologists. And for me, it's because there's a very, very strong link, more powerful than we think. And actually, for many years, Tom, and I've been on your show before saying this, that 80 to 90% of what we see as medical doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. I still stand by that. But, for the past years, there's been a niggling idea inside my head. Is this really the root cause? Is this the upstream driver? Or is there something more? Because I would see people, Tom, who would make changes to their lifestyle, they'd feel great, and then they'd go back to where they were before. I thought, "Well, this is not a knowledge problem." Right, these guys know the information, they've felt the difference. Why have they gone back? Other people, you know, made great changes to their lifestyle, but they were still struggling. I thought, "What am I missing? What's going on here?" And that's why I dived into the research. That's why I reviewed my 20-year practice and go, "Which patients truly transform their life?" And the research very clearly shows that actually happiness is a key, key driver for health. So, for me, I actually think happiness, mental well-being, the way you think about the world, the way you approach the world, actually is more important than your lifestyle. Because actually, many of our lifestyle behaviors or lifestyle choices are downstream consequences from the way that we see the world. Right, you mentioned Edith Eger, Tom. That conversation I had with Edith on my podcast literally changed my life. I was not the same person after that conversation as I was before it, because I thought if she can reframe the most harrowing of human experiences, and she can write a different story in her mind, well, I can do that in my life. There's nothing in my life that compares to what she went through. If she can reframe it, then I can. And when we learn to reframe things, and there's a very powerful chapter in the book called Seek Out Friction, which is my favorite chapter because it's the one that's had the biggest impact on me. When you understand that every single situation in life has multiple perspectives, and you can train yourself to choose what I call the happiness perspective, you don't create emotional stress in your body. This is another thing that I think a lot of people don't realize. Emotional stress is real. A lot of people think, "Yeah, I've got a great diet. I move my body. I'm focusing on my sleep." But actually, the email from their boss that they don't like really triggers them. They're like, "Man, I can't believe my boss did that. Does he not know I've worked in this company for 4 years? I know how to do my job. How dare he speak to me like that?" Whatever it disempowering narrative it might be, that creates emotional stress. That emotional stress needs to be neutralized in some way, usually with a junk happiness habit. The same thing if people drive to work and they get cut up on the roads, and they then go into this whole mindset of "Man, stupid driver. He shouldn't have a driving license. Can't believe he did that." Right? That creates emotional stress. If people are honest with themselves, they'll realize that they might have a few extra coffees later, a bit extra sugar, another chocolate bar, and might need a few extra beers later to dissipate that stress. And so, I passionately believe that focusing on these simple steps to improve our happiness will have a very, very powerful downstream effect on your physical health and your lifestyle behaviors. And that really was my motivation to write this book, Tom. Facts. The book is Happy Mind, Happy Life. I highly encourage you guys to get it. It is phenomenal. Rangan, where can they follow along with you? Yeah, so guys, the book's available all over the world now. Happy Mind, Happy Life, as you say, The New Science of Mental Wellbeing. You get it in all the usual places. I think the best place on social is probably my Instagram @drchatterjee. And if people like podcasts like yours. I'm very lucky to host the the largest health podcast in Europe. It's called Feel Better Live More. You can watch it here on YouTube or in all the usual places on audio podcast apps. And it's amazing. I can definitely vouch for that. Speaking of things that are amazing, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Then what you realize is your capacity to tap into dopamine as a motivator, not just seeking dopamine rewards, that is infinite. And I I can say with with great certainty that this is how you were able to build a big company and sell it, how you've been able to build a successful podcast. And