#887 - Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The Key Strategies Of Behaviour Change

27:27And I think that's what regret can do because the reason I say that regrets a form of perfectionism is because and it's core as this idea that I could have made perfect decisions. It was possible and I'm a failure because I didn't. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it keeps us trapped into the past and it leads to guilt and shame. And it says making changes that last, it won't allow you to do that because you keep beating yourself up in your mind over the things that you wish you'd done differently. Now, you can live to regret, you can live a life of no regrets in two different ways, right?

28:05You can live it, and I'm not suggesting people do this in a way where it's like, yeah, screw everyone else. It's my life. I'm going to be myself. I do what I do, and I'm going to put it with a consequences. The one I say you can live a life of no regrets, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it slightly different way, which is I can look back on my past, and I can learn from past experiences. I can choose to believe, which I do. It's a choice. You don't have to believe this, but I would argue that your life is much happier and calmer if you choose to believe this. I choose to believe that I was always doing the best that I could based on the information I had at the time.

28:45If I choose to adopt that belief, then there's no room for regret. I was making the best decision I could. And now with hindsight, I go, yeah, you know what, if I'm faced with that situation again, I cannot differently. And I will act differently because now I know better. I will do better. But I couldn't have done better back then. And in terms of your question before Chris, why is it that at this stage my life, I feel so good. One of the reasons, there's many, one of the reasons is because I don't like to have any regrets. Every single one of my past experiences has led to me being the person I am today.

29:24Without any of those experiences, I wouldn't be in the same person. I'm informed by all of those things. So I very much do look at my past, but I use it as a way of learning about myself. I think the other way, well, I'll come see the other way in a minute. What's you said in that video that you think you have to choose your regrets? I'm presenting a slightly different perspective, I think. What's your take on that? Yes, I like the idea that it's very equanimous to think I did the best that I could with the information that was available at the time that I made that decision. I can't go back and change it.

30:00There's no usefulness to me having that. I think maybe regret the sort of sadness or whistfulness on a style you're wishing that things had been different. Perhaps that was a slightly imprecise bit of language that I used. What I'm trying to refer to is that you will always have this open loop in the back of your mind that you wonder whether things could have been better. Whether or not you could have done something just a little bit better or whether that was the right decision, new job or a relationship or go to the gym or go to the theme park or whatever it is that you should have done because opportunity cost demands that you do one thing to sacrifice another.

30:33and because you don't get to run life back and split test it, and work out if the theme park was better than the GM or the GM was better than the theme park, you're always gonna have that what if, in the back of your mind. So for me, this was a way for people, maybe to arrive at probably not too dissimilar of a situation as yourself, which is, look, some degree of wistful uncertainty about the past is inevitable. Holding onto it is pointless because you don't get to do two of those. You don't get to run it back again. And when you're faced with the decision, when you think, am I going to, which route am I going to go down?

31:12Consider which regret you could bear living with as opposed to which one you couldn't bear, which decision you couldn't bear living with. Yeah, now I like that. I really like that. I think this is really interesting topic. The other way of looking at it, Chris, is, at 47 now, am I going to really regret things I did in my 20s? in the sense that I was a different person then. But I'm a different person today than I was 12 months ago. Right, so am I gonna now judge my 20 year old self through the lens of hopefully a wise a man who's become a father who has much more experience in the world, it seems a little unfair to judge my younger, the younger version of me through my current lens.

31:53Look at how lacking you are a person that had two decades less of experience. Exactly. So it's a choice. I love the thought that the way we believe that the beliefs we hold about the world, Chris, it is a choice. Right? We can choose them. Like something I've been really playing around with recently in my head is this idea that life is a set of experiences. And it's the story we put onto those experiences that ultimately determines the quality of our life. And what I didn't realize until a few years ago is that I get to choose that story, that narrative that comes down to me. And that was taught to me on a very, very deep level by an all -swit survivor, Edith Eager, who I think I've spoken to you about before.

32:42This incredible lady who, when I spoke to her at 93 years old and then again at 97, she was announced what she was 16. And she said so many things to me, Chris, which I've shared before. I won't go through it all again, but in essence, she was able to reframe her whole experience in Auschwitz through the power of her mind. So when she was dancing for the senior prison guards as a 16 -year -old young lady, after her parents were murdered, she said to me, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz Dr. Chastigee. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House dancing with a beautiful dress on the front of a full orchestra.

33:23She said, while I was in Auschwitz Dr. Chastigee, I started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. I was free in my mind. They weren't living their life. And the final words, of course, she said, which probably is one of the main reasons why I feel so content. And Edith and her teachings are in this book, like they were in my last one. She said, wrong and listen, I have lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own minds. And I tell you Chris, there are some conversations, as you know, as a podcast host where you're not the same person afterwards.

34:00That was one of those for me where pre that conversation and post that conversation, I wasn't the same person, the penny drop for me in that moment. I was like, oh my god, I get it. We're all putting ourselves in mental prison every day, by the way, we interact with the world. People don't realize that let's make it really, really granular. Let's take it away from Auschwitz. or something, maybe a bit more relatable for someone. People don't realize that you're driving to work in your car. And someone cuts you up on the road. You have a choice in how you respond. You may not think you have a choice, but you do.

34:37If you decide to go, as I used to do, so I'm not judging, but everything has a consequence. If you decide to react like stupid driver, they need to get the wise checked. They shouldn't be on the road. So it's a reminisc, whatever it might be, and you start screaming at them when they can't even hear you, eight, you're not changing the situation, but be what you have done. And this really relates to the scene of making change at last. You had generated emotional stress inside your body. And again, this again for me is one of the missing pieces in the health conversation online. Emotional stress is not neutral.

35:14You have to neutralize it in some way or another. Now, there are a variety of ways in which you can do that. So you could neutralize that emotional stress with a workout in the gym or a walk around the block. Or when you get to work, you will neutralize it by going to the vending machine and pulling out a chocolate bar, having another coffee with sugar in, having an extra glass of wine or a beer at lunch, whatever it might be. Those behaviors are there to neutralize the emotional stress that you generated by the way you interacted with that moment. You can also, and it's not that difficult, it just takes a bit of practice.

35:52You can also choose in that moment to not interrupt like that, and go, well, I can just let that go. Like I said before about regrets, I choose to believe, so choice, that I've always done the best that I could with the information that was available to me, and where I was in my life at that time, I also choose to believe that about other people. So therefore, I train myself now, it I've taught me a few months and years. Now I do it in the moment, it's default, but I had to constantly do it initially. Where it's like, oh, what's going on with that other person? What might be going on with that other person?

36:28Oh, well, maybe it's a dad's whose daughter was sick last night and they were up all night and now they're rushing to work. Maybe it's a mother who's been late for work three times in the past two weeks and she's worried she's gonna lose her job if she's late again. The truth of the situation, Chris, for your well -being and your ability to make changes doesn't actually matter. It's the way you frame the situation, because in that moment, then, you're not generating the emotional stress, you're feeding internally calm, and therefore you have less of a need to engage in these unhelpful behaviors that were only there to neutralize the stress that you generated by the way you responded.

37:10How do you ensure that you're not just telling yourself a pleasant just so story? Because it sounds all well and it's something bad happens and I say that didn't bother me and yet my heart rates are 110. Yeah, that's a good point. So, when I spoke before about inter -exception and the impulses of trusting ourselves, one thing I didn't say, which I write about in that chat to write the end, is I say listen. I believe that although most of us are different and we've got unique lives and we need slightly different approaches, I believe that the most important daily practice that any one of us can do in the 21st century is a daily practice of solitude.

37:51I want to say solitude, I'm simply talking about time with yourself. If you get up and the first thing you do is start consuming from the outside, whether it's news, whether it's social media, even if it's good quality information. You've lost an opportunity to listen to yourself, right? Our body is always sending us signals, and in this world of content and information, I think many of us are never getting that time to listen to ourselves. So the only way you get to know if you're telling yourself a nice story and kidding yourself is by sitting with yourself every day. Only for five or 10 minutes of that's all you've got, but that could be meditation, it could be breath work, it could be some yoga moves, it could literally be having a cup of coffee and not also scrolling in, scrambling email at the same time.

38:47It could be going to the toilet without taking a smartphone with you, something that many people find revolutionary. Seriously, but it is the truth. It's Chris, it really is the people because these little micro moments where you allowed your own thoughts to come up are being eroded out of life. So I'm not putting all the blame on smart phones, right? Ultimately, it's just a tool. It's our relationship with the tool that determines the impact they have on us. But if you practice sitting with yourself, it doesn't have to be in the morning. I haven't said the morning's the best time for most people.

39:19You will start to know when your heart rate's going up. You will start to know when you're telling yourself, I mean, one thing I do every morning Chris, well there's a couple of things I do. One of the things I do is a breath hold work meditation practice that I learned from, do you know the move that found it in the core? No. Natural movement guys, been promoting natural movement for years. About two years ago I did his new breath work course online and it was twice a week for four weeks and it was probably one of the life most live change practices I've done for me personally. And I remember because I was on a book tour as it happened at the time.

39:59I just arrived in Stockholm and I got to my hotel room. I was running a bit late for the course and I got there and it was online. And the first thing he asked us and there was maybe about 12 of us on this Zoom together. So, all right, I wanted to take a full breath in as much as you can and then time. How long you can hold it for? And I did about 60 seconds, something like that. Okay, that was your benchmark. Just to be really clear, this is nothing like a Wim Hof and the hyperventilation before and there's nothing like that. It's purely take a breath and hold. There's nothing to prepare your body for.

40:36Within four weeks, Chris, I went from one minute to four minutes and 20 seconds. And it's not like the Wim Hof where you hyperventilate to blow off carbon dioxide first, which allows you to hold your breath for longer. In fact, everyone would say that's a kin to do cold immersion with a wet susson. That's his words, not mine, but it was really powerful, Chris. I'll tell you why it was so powerful. Because I learned that it was all to do with your mind. My CO2 common diets, I told them, it did not change that much in four weeks to go from one minute to four minutes and twenty seconds. My physiology did not change that quickly.

41:19What that cause taught me is that when you think you need to breathe, so you're lying there in silence and your body is screaming for you to breathe, if you can quieten your mind, if you can quieten the thoughts which you can do, you can go for another minute. All of those thoughts, all of those things that are going around your mind, any tension you have in your body, it's bleeding energy. I think that that's the way that divers, free divers often pass out underwater. They don't gasp and breathe air in. They just are going and going and going and then lights out. Yeah. So, again, I wasn't doing this near water.

42:00He wasn't proposing anyone seeing it near water, but why I shared that is because this is a practice that I do each morning, right? It's not about the breath hold. It's about knowing when your body is literally screaming for you to take a breath, which is probably one of the most primal things your body can say to you. In that moment, I've learned I still got control over my mind and I can go longer, which basically means most things in life become quite trivial in comparison. Trust really is everything when it comes to supplements. A lot of brands may say that top quality, but few can actually prove it, which is why I partnered with Momentus.

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43:44I don't believe in non -negotiables anymore. You've negotiated the non -negotiables away. Well, we've spoken about perfectionism. Right, so let me try and draw a connection between this and perfectionism. As a perfectionist in recovery, I don't believe that this idea of non -negotiables is helpful to me. Because again, a non -negotiable implies that I will not negotiate on this, I will always do this. For me, there's hints of perfectionism there, right? Because everything in life is negotiable, Chris, everything. Nothing is a non -negotiable. So I could tell you, for example, that I'm a calm, peaceful person, which I am, and I will never be violent.

44:30Right? That's a non -negotiable for me. Always going to be peaceful. Well, hold on a minute. What if I was out with my two children and someone was trying to attack them and threaten us? My non -negotiable suddenly becomes a ghost wall. I could quite easily believe in that moment I could become violent. If it was to protect my two children who I love with all my hearts, yeah, I probably would. That may seem quite extreme, but I love going through extremes, Chris, because I think it's in the extremes where you learn the veracity and the truth about a concept. Edith Eager and Auschwitz at the extreme, she was living in hell, and even in hell, she could reframe her experience using her mind.

45:11I used that in my life to go, hey, Rongan, you're struggling to reframe what that driver overdid or that email that someone sent you. You know what, Rungan? Edith could reframe stuff in Auschwitz. You can probably reframe this in your life. Right? I use it as inspiration for me, not to beat me up to inspire me. And so why non -negotiable for me can be a problematic concept. I think I've also got to be clear, Chris. Different concepts land for different people in a different way depending on where they are in life, right? So let's say you're struggling with your health and you're feeling lost, you're feeling lonely, you don't know how you're getting any motivation to be forward in your life.

45:55I'm not a ghost wall, might actually be really good for you where you go, no, actually every day I'm an awakeer, I'm going to do that five minute workout and I'm going to go and have a call shower for 30 seconds and by not missing for three months, you literally change your identity and how you view yourself. But I've been through that process, I'm on a different stage in my life now where a non -negotiable to me ends up beating myself a bit in my head, a given example of how that played out for me. I actually find behavior change quite easy these days. And I believe that one of the central ideas in this book is that effortless change is possible when you get to the root, but we're not getting to the root.

46:35Right? So I can imagine four years ago on New Year's Day, I would wake up and be like, right, that's the strategy. You are nailing meditation this year, right? You've seen the studies, low of stress, low of anxiety, can increase the matter in your brain, the brain function, right. That is it. This year it's happening. And I would nail it 20 minutes a day. First week, second week, I would miss a day. Let's say the third week of January. Oh my God, Chris, I would beat myself up in my heads. Oh, you just couldn't do it. Could you this year? Stupid, right? You know it's important. You couldn't do it.

47:14That was my pattern, right? And so that was a non -negotiable for me, which meant that when I missed it, because I said it was a non -negotiable in my heads, I felt less than I felt bad, I felt guilt, I felt shame. It plays into perfectionism, which means I stopped doing it. Right? Oh God, I'll try again next year. This all or nothing type approach. Whereas now I have a much kinder relationship with myself. I don't have that negative inner voice anymore. Unless I'm really, really stressed and sleep deprived, which again, and it's a signal for me to go, oh wow, I need to start looking after myself.

47:53Whereas now, I do meditate most mornings, but if I miss, I'm like, oh, I can't, I miss today. I'm actually a better human being when I do meditate, I'm more focused, I'm more present with the people around me, actually tomorrow, I'm gonna start meditating again. It's a much healthier relationship with that behavior. For me, it's a balance between discipline and compassion. I have been thinking a lot about behavior change. 80 % to 90 % of what doctors today see is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. I'm not putting blame on people, Chris, when I say that. I'm just saying the way we live, the food environments are sedentary jobs, the chronic stress, the rates of burnout, sleep deprivation, the environmental toxic, whatever it might be, it's causing us to be sick.

48:46And one thing I've realized, Chris, I really think this holds true in every situation. It's not the behavior. It's the energy behind the behavior. And I actually genuinely believe that every single behavior either comes from the energy of fear or the energy of love. Now that may sound really spiritual and I haven't become more spiritual as I get older. But I think to, you know, although you're an American now, or that you live in America now, you're still a Brit by birth, right? Like me. Adopted. Right? So this idea of love and that we can love ourselves is quite an alien concept, I think, in the UK.

49:23We don't like to say that. But I can, on this mic, in front of you today, say, although I still struggle to say it, right? I was going to, I was going to initially say, like, I really quite like myself, but there I say, I love myself, not in a narcissistic way. Like, I'm clear on what my values are. My three core values are integrity, curiosity and compassion. Those are the three values I believe represent who I am and who I would like to be. So I regularly assess in the evenings, maybe on a Sunday, you know, how much of this week, Rongen, were you in alignment with your values? When did you behave?

50:03When did you not behave, for example? And when you get to that point, you find that everything within you's quite aligned. So behavior change becomes quite easy because when I used to struggle with behavior change, it was because the behaviors were coming from an energy of fear. So what does that mean? Guilt, shame, I'm not good enough. What do most people do in January or whatever they're trying to make change? They're trying to overcome the person who they think that they are. Right, a lot of the time in January they're beating themselves up, Chris. They're like, I'm not good enough, my stomach's not flat enough.

50:39I'm not enough. Let me beat myself up with my behaviors to overcome that. That works for a few weeks. It might work for a few months, but in my clinical experience, it never works in the long term. At some point, that energy has to change. We actually quite like yourself. You're doing it not because you're trying to avoid something because you're trying to get towards something. Actually, I want to have a stronger body. I want to have a clear mind. I feel that it's the way I can become a better human. I can be a better father when I look after myself. And again, go to your earlier question, Chris.

51:17What is it about me now at 47 where I feel the sense of calm? I think for me becoming a father has been the huge part of that. My son is 14 so I've been a dad now for almost 15 years. And again, I want to acknowledge not everyone needs to have a child to see this. A lot of people are choosing not to have children for a variety of reasons. Hey, I'm okay with all of that. For me personally, it's been transformative. You know, something having kids, you just can't be as me focused anymore. You'd realize it's more to you than just you and your experience. There's other people who depend on you. So going back to perfectionism, let me sort of connect the kids and me as a dad to my perfectionist tendencies.

52:08We look at these people, these heroes who put them on pedestals. You'll have people, Chris, and your audience who put new on pedestals, who put new on a pedestal. They'll like, oh my God, Chris, it's an amazing podcast host. They're too smart to put me on a pedestal. But I reckon some will be made, right? And the reason why I think this is problematic and I suspect you would agree with this is because they're seeing one aspect of your life They're seeing you on the mic. They're seeing your vlog when you're crushing it in Australia Unless you're showing this and maybe I haven't seen this on your platforms They're not seeing the mornings when you wake up absolutely shattered When you're you think I've got 12 podcasts to do in five days in London why did I sign up for so many what is the consequence on you, your well -being, your relationships from doing that?

52:54Now, I'm not here criticizing more judging. I'm just simply saying, if people wanna be you, they can't have one aspect of you, they need the whole aspect. You can't just be one percent Chris Williamsson, you have to be one hundred percent Chris Williamsson. No one wants to be that. Never go full Chris Williamsson. One... Do you get what I'm saying? No, I do. It's something that I've spoken about for a long time, the fact that you don't get to pick parts of people's lives. You have to take the whole. George Mac has this great idea, the difference between Call of Duty and war. So as you look at a lot of people's lives and you assume that that's what you get to do, but you're just watching them in the lobby of Call of Duty, dickin' about.

53:27Then they actually, you get and see their life and it's IEDs and it's dust and it's re -loathing weapons. And it's like, it's war. It's not fun. And for the most part, I think, yeah, we try to curate what we put out because we don't want to be a buzzkill, because we don't want to come across as somebody that isn't enjoying their lives. But yeah, I think, you know, we spoke about this last time. I'm kind of interested in this line that you've hinted at a couple of times, which is sort of between busyness and success, the sort of lineage between the two, and this sort of need that we have to feel important and how a busy calendar can sort of be a hedge against existential loneliness.

54:10What have you come to believe about busyness and success?

54:16Let me just respond to what you just said and I will come to that. I promise.

54:25You can't just take that one aspect like I mentioned about John Bonjabie like you've just mentioned, right? You can't be tiger woods and just take the 15 majors without the painkiller addiction without the public humiliation, right? You can't you can't take the 28 Olympic gold medals that Michael Phelps has without the depression and the suicide attempts. You can't take Johnny Wilkins' World Cup medal without the 10 years of pain that followed that, right? So many of these heroes have paid a huge cost to get where they are, huge cost. And we often just look at the upside and not the downside. And that's where that right -your -own happy -ending exercise, I think, can be so useful.

55:06It sounds simple. Oh, just a little, what, a little three -question exercise? Yeah, just a lot of three -question exercise, these things can help us reframe our lives in quite a huge way. Now, you mentioned business, right? And chapter eight is all about business and this idea that business is success and the reliance, because everything in this book is about a reliance we have, right? So I believe business comes from our reliance on feeling impulsant. So both you and I spoken to Will Store before on our podcast, author of many great books, but the status game is a really good book, The World Roads.

55:44And in that book, he makes a case that status is a universal driver in all humans. But status is not the amount of YouTube followers you've got. The amounts of Instagram followers you've got your celebrity status. Will makes a case of status actually is that feeling that we are a value to other people. Right. And I think think it is what drives us all. Now I think many of us now in the 21st century are living these disconnected lives. We've moved away from our communities, our tribes, the people that know us, the people that knew us. And we might have moved away for work opportunity, right? Which is fantastic.

56:24But there's a consequence. Sometimes we just don't feel the value and the old hunter gatherer tribes. You would know your value. You were the forager. You were the hunter, there was something that you were providing to the people around you. This is probably one of the main reasons why people who follow religious practices, not are religious, but people who follow religious practices are happier and healthier than those who don't, because a lot of those religious practices, depending on which religion you're talking about, are about doing things for others, showing you to be a value to others.

57:01but I think we have a valued deficiency in the modern world where we don't know that we're a valid other. So some of the way we get that is by overworking and pushing ourselves really, really hard because then you can say, yeah, I am important. You know, I have this reliance on feeding important. And now I think that reliance, that overrelication, I should say, is pushing many people beyond what they can cope with and it's making them sick. This is why this matter so much to me Chris, I have seen time and time again over the years in clinical practice, people who thought they could keep pushing.

57:41Nothing will happen to them. They can keep pushing. They're the superheroes, right? Until they get hit with the autoimmune illness and they wish, oh man I didn't need to do this, I wish I stopped earlier. Why do autoimmune illnesses come for people that push themselves too much? Okay, well there's many theories on autoimmune illness, the theory that makes the most sense to me is from Dr. S. S. S. S. Sano from Harvard and basically he says there are three criteria that someone needs to get an autoimmune illness. Genetics or satiability, increased intestinal permeability and an environmental stressor.

58:22Right? It's what that means. So you need to have the gene, if you don't have the genes for an autoimmune illness, you're not going to get it. Okay? But that's not enough. You need it, but it's not sufficient in and off itself. You also need something that's called increased intestinal permeability. Colloquially is called leaky guts, basically when you know, our guts are all a bit leaky, but when it actually becomes problematic, okay? In essence, there's a simplified way of saying that. But even with those two things, according to his theory, you won't get it. You need a third thing, an environmental stressor.

58:55So for someone who's cdia disease, for example, which is a allergy to gluten, that would be consuming gluten. That would be the environmental stressor. But a very common one for many people is stress. right? I would see my practice for many years, Chris, autoimmune illness. I used to really enjoy seeing, what I say, enjoy as a doctor, I was fascinated by the development of autoimmune illness and what you could do with your lifestyle to alleviate things, right? So I would see a lot of it in my practice. I would say in over 95 % of cases, in the six months preceding the diagnosis that was heavy, heavy stress in that person's life.

59:42Work stress, bereavement, losing your house, losing your job, something, which might have been the final trigger. And there's loads of case studies in the book, right? Share people who already had enough and they pushed past it for more. I genuinely believe that the biggest disease in society these days, Chris, is the disease of more, more, more money, more followers, more downloads, more, more, more is going to make us happy. And the phrase that I think about a lot is from the doudacheng. It's one of my favorite quotes that I reflect on a lot of the time. I was on the train down from the northwest this morning.

1:00:18I'm thinking about it. True wealth is knowing what is enough. I think that's the million dollar question for so many of us, Chris. What is enough? Like what, well, what point do you have enough? why I feel so happy and content these days is because I have got very clear that I have enough. I really do. Right? So I've got a wife who loves me, right? I've just passed 17 years of marriage last week and we're as happy as we've ever been. I've got two kids who I love and who love me and want to spend time with me. Right? I've got a job that I love that provides me and my family a great quality of life.

1:01:02I'm winning, right? And this may interest you, Chris, two years ago, my son at the time was 12, and I can't remember, so we can always maybe uploading something to YouTube or looking at something related to my podcast, right? And I don't know how we got onto this topic, but I remember saying to him, Something like, I said, oh son, you know what, I've heard from people, if I go to two episodes a week, you four X the show, right? Or something to, maybe it's three years ago, right? And you've released two episodes a week, you know what I'm, three episodes a week, you know what I'm talking about, right?

1:01:42So he said, well daddy, why don't you do that? You know, you show up even bigger and more successful than it already is. And I said, hey son, listen, if I go from one episode to two episodes a week, you know this weekend's where we play football in the garden or we go for a walk or we sit and play cards or we go and bike rides together, I probably won't be around to do those things because I'll be in the studio recording intros, recording outros, whatever it might be, right? So I've had to get real clarity because as you remember from last time we spoke because you may remember, I used to be very competitive but that came from a feeling of the lack because as a kid, as I explained to you last time, I took on the belief that I was only loved when I was top of the class and I got full marks.

1:02:30That was nobody's fault. I'm not blaming anyone. My parents were immigrants to the UK their way of having their kids not face the problems they had was by pushing you to be a straight A student and become a doctor because then you were having any problems in life. I took on the belief as a young boy that I'm only loved when I'm top -dog, right? But then you go into the world where you're now competing with 8 billion people, that's a very toxic belief system, right? And I'm no longer competitive because being competitive, Chris, was not who I was. It was who I became in response to my upbringing.

1:03:10And now that I understand that and I've done the work and there's loads of practices in this book that will help people with that. I'm not compassionate anymore. It never was who I was. So I count, for example, look at my life and go, hey, Rongi, you know what? I'm doing great, right? If you had told me 10 years ago that Rongi, you're going to have five Sunni times best sellers. You're going to be happily married. You're going to have two kids that love you. You're going to have a top 10 podcast in the UK, the most listened to health podcasts in Europe, right? If you're going to have those things, I wouldn't have believed you, Chris.

1:03:48But I have all those things. And it's very easy. I could look at you. I could look at other people who are who, you know, and I'm not saying this in a bad way. I'm saying it genuinely in an honest way and go, oh, yeah, be good to do that or go to two a week or go to three a week. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. It's the unmeasurable in life where it's where the goal is. It's meds. The most important things in life I don't believe can be measured by society's metrics. So I can't give you a number. I can't give you an official measurement of how happy my wife and I are. I can't give you a number like I can with my Instagram followers or podcast downloads that tells you what joy I get from my children.

1:04:35And the reason why I keep coming back to the doubted jing quotes, true wealth is knowing what is enough, is the reason we keep pushing is it so many people and I've had patients who already had enough and they keep thinking that more is what they need. Hey, we're all individuals, we've all got to find this truth on our own, on our own path. But I had pushed really hard in the past. I don't want to do it anymore. Like, I feel like I'm winning. I've got a job that I love. I've got a family that I love. I mean, great health. Like, do you know what I mean, Chris? Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I mean, you know, the sacrifices that you make in order to get to the place that you want to be is, and it's an interesting one to think about what you need to do in the beginning.

1:05:20You're right, if somebody has 200 pounds to lose, having some non -negotiables might not be too bad of an idea. But if you're a little bit further down your journey, you're still whipping yourself into submission, even though you're already performing at a pretty high level, why did you put all of that working in the first place? Was it not so that you can actually enjoy this a little bit? Was it not so that you could be happy? And I think that, you know, maybe this is part of the sort of phases of podcasting generally or whatever you want to call it, personal development information on the internet that lots of people were probably first introduced to this type of content about 10 years ago, within sort of five to 10 years ago.

1:05:56And there's this huge big generation of people that have moved through it. And I do get the sense that the work until your eyes bleed, optimize every second of your life thing, is getting a little old. Now, I've certainly found for myself that I'm less sort of compelled by that. I'm much more compelled by trying to find balance, by trying to find enjoyment in the things that I do, by optimizing for fun as opposed to just success. This episode is brought to you by Function. I partnered with Function because I wanted a smarter, more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body.

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1:07:00Getting these lab tests done would usually cost thousands, but with function it is only $500. Right now you can get functions, expert blood work analysis, and bypass their 300 ,000 -person waitlist by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth .com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth .com slash modern wisdom. How do you find balance, Chris? because from where I'm sitting here, and you know that I think you're a wonderful podcast, it's not you need that validation from me, right? But I do. I think the way you conduct your shows is full of integrity, and I really like the presence that you bring to these conversations.

1:07:38But from the outside, I'm like, you're doing a lot. Right. I've sent it this year. Yeah, that's one way to put it. Look, I, but you may be aware that you're making a trade off at the moment? I certainly am. And at the moment, no family, no kids, et cetera, that's not always going to be the case. So I have, in many ways, a competitive advantage. And other people do, too, that if you don't have that many responsibilities, then perhaps you can. We had a lot of questions at the Q &As, the live shows I did in Australia and in some in London as well. You know, I'm 22, and I really want to achieve a lot in the world.

1:08:14but I also know that sort of life balance and all the rest of it. I'm like, bro, you can aim for life balance when you, like, in your 30s, you fucking end some worlds for a decade. Like, go and see how much chaos you can create and see how fast you can grow and see how much stuff you can do. And maybe not everybody is built for that. Maybe you can say, well, you could front load all of the enjoyment early on. I don't know. But for me, I am actively prioritizing trying to make life more enjoyable. I'm trying to have as much fun as I can, as consistently as I can at the moment, trying to find ways to swim down stream instead of upstream.

1:08:48The danger is Chris, not for you, I would say, not because you're not asking me for advice and I don't give unsolicited advice. I certainly try not to these days. The danger what I see and I've seen in patients is that we think this is just for a short period of time, right? So back in my 20s, a friend of my friends was a banker in London, he goes, I'm just going to crush it my 20s, right? I'm going to go and hit it hard. Do what I need to do, make enough money, rack and then chill out in my 30s and 40s and 50s. Well, he's still there now at 47, you know, overworking. He's got loads of money, but his relationship with his wife is on the rocks.

1:09:29His kids don't want to spend time with him. It's a cliche. But why do people not let go? Why? Well, I think it's for a couple of reasons. I think this overlights on feeling impulsant. If you get that value only from your work and you neglected the other things in your life, whether consciously or unconsciously, that will keep pulling you, right? Because you want to feel we all want to feel that we're a value to people. I think sometimes we don't take stock of our life. You know, I think, you know, there's a strategy in your 20s that may work, but that may not work in your 30s. And you have to constantly reevaluate and go, is the strategy that I was using still working for me?

1:10:14That's what I do regularly. You know, that right your own happy ending exercise, the three deathbed questions, the three current present day questions. That's a regular reflection activity. Another question I ask myself every morning, I do three questions each morning with my morning coffee. What is one thing I deeply appreciate about my life? Very simple question of gratitude, which has a lot of science to back it up. Okay, so it takes me a minute to answer that. The question I really like is the second one. What is the most important thing I have to do today? And that question, it helps you cut through all the noise of your to -do list, and it makes you choose what is the most important thing I have to do today?

1:10:59And it is such a deceptively powerful question, because like I said before, Chris, so often we only do the important things in life when everything else is done, but everything else is never done. So that question makes you choose one priority. I don't know if you know this. I think Greg McEwen told me this for the first time that when the word priori came into the English language which in the 1500s, it was only singular. Priorities didn't exist. Didn't exist, but now we've got, I've got 20 priorities today. Well, that's probably why you're overly stress and busy. A stand -in week for me, like the week before I went to America, I went recently.

1:11:42I remember the week before then on the Monday, cause my flight I think was on the first day, on the Monday I put down, because this book is coming out, I had an article to submit to Penguin. So that morning it was the most important thing I have to do is complete that article and send it to Penguin It doesn't mean my relationship with my wife and my children wasn't important that day or my other work commitments But I decided in the morning that's a win today if I get that done today's a win Tuesday Was you know what I'm gonna be away for two weeks my wife is just to wait the weekend when the kids are in bed tonight The most important thing I do is spend some quality time with my wife Okay, on the Wednesday I remember very clearly what I put down because I'm going away, not only because I'm going away, but what I felt like putting down that was I'm working from home today.

1:12:30When my children come in at 430 from school today, the most important thing I have to do today is make sure my laptop is closed and my phone is in another room so that I'm fully present to what they have to tell me. Because these things may sound really simple, I can guarantee to anyone who's listening or watching right now. If all you do is answer that question, each day for the next seven days, I guarantee your experience of life will change for the better in the next seven days. Do it for 30 days, your life will feel different because that'll be you specifying 30 important things and doing those 13 important things.

1:13:14And the sense of achievement and inner well -being and self -esteem that you build from doing stuff like that is so powerful because we have a negativity by so our brain is always drawn to what we didn't do. I didn't get that email done, I didn't prepare properly for that podcast, guess who's coming tomorrow, whatever it might be, this goes, I know this is the most important thing and I'm going to make sure I get this done today. Again, I love simple things that don't cost any money because I've worked for years. In all kinds of practices, I've worked in affluent areas, but I've also worked in very socially deprived areas.

1:13:48And I hand on heart, I believe that every single person should have access to quality information that helps them. And so where possible, you know, because I live in this online health and wellness space. And people will say, oh, this health and wellness world, it's for the middle classes. It's for people who can afford all the fancy stuff. Right, I was just an LA in Austin and LA must be like, and of course it was because of the people I was hanging out with and the podcast I was going on. But, you know, if you live in LA or certainly where I was, it feels like sauna and cold plunge and red light is the norm.

1:14:25But it's not the norm for most people around the world. Nothing wrong with those things. I told it can be absolutely very beneficial, but I'm always thinking, great, for people who can, no problem. But how do you give health information to people who don't have the means who maybe can't afford those things or don't have a coal plunge in their back garden? Right? I also really, really want to help them. And I'm one of the proudest things that I have for this book, Chris, is that every single thing I've recommended is free of charge. Right? So it means everyone can basically apply it no matter who they are or where they live.

1:15:02Can you talk to me about this relationship between taking offense and our health? Man, it's my... Probably my favorite chapter after chapter one is chapter five, which is called Take Less Offence, right? I'll tell you the opening story in there, so I think it really illustrates this concept well.

1:15:23I remember when the news of the George Floyd death went around the world, okay, and I I was in the UK, it was in the middle of a psychologically taxing lockdown. Whatever people's views are on lockdowns, no matter what your view is, these were challenging times for people. And everyone's feeling quite stressed because of the state of the world and everything's shut and everything's closed down. And I am very clear that I have a public profile to help people with their health, their happiness and their well -being. So I don't comment on certain things in general. People want you to comment on everything, but I'm very clear on what my public profile is about.

1:16:05I try and talk about things. I have expertise and experience in and I try not to talk about things that I don't. Right? Revolutionary. Revolutionary. But that did really affect me for a variety of reasons and I spent two or three days thinking about it. I accept I'm not an American so I don't. I didn't grow up with this history of the race issues that have been there America, right? I'm putting that all out on the table. But I am from an immigrant family. And, you know, there's been elements of discrimination that my family have faced in the past. So I put out a post on Instagram, carefully thought out post where I explained that the imp, you know, I explained, you know, some of my thoughts, but then I explained the impact that racism can have.

1:16:53right? And I shared an example when my wife, so my wife is born and brought up in the UK like me, but of an Indian background like me. I shared an experience that she had as a kid where she was living in North Manchester and basically one afternoon at the weekends, the BMP, the British National Party threw a brick through their window. So she's a young girl watching Tally and a brick comes through the window. That is a traumatic experience, right? And I shared that. And what's really interesting is that most people were very supportive of the person were happy that I had added my voice to what seemed like a very important cultural conversation at the time.

1:17:36But there was quite a few Chris who took offense to what I had written. And they were saying, you know, shame on me. This is not an Asian issue, Dr. to challenge you, this is a black issue, you have no right to comment or explain this at this time. And initially, I was like, have I done something wrong here? You know what it's like now, would the PC state, what have I done something wrong? And I thought about it, I thought, this is ridiculous. I am assigned up to any code of conduct anywhere that determines how I should or should not respond to the killing of a man by a police officer, 3 ,000 miles away.

1:18:11I'm fully entitled to respond how I see fence in a way that is compassionate, that is kind, that is full of integrity, I'm fully entitled to. But a few people, quite a few people took a fence to what I had written. I thought this is really interesting, really, really interesting. People are taking a fence and I think this problem is just out of control now. Chris, people are walking around taking offense to everything that they see online and it's a problem. Right, it's a real problem. And I'm going to explain the relationship to our health and our behaviors. When you take offense to something, usually you are generating that emotional stress inside, I can't believe they posted that.

1:18:57They were so out of order for posting that. You're working yourself up, right? So you're no longer calm inside, you've elevated your sympathetic nervous system, you've elevated the levels of stress and emotional stress in your body, and you will need to neutralize that emotional stress in some way. You will have to, it doesn't just dissipate, right? And you can do it in helpful ways, you can do it in unhelpful ways. So for many people, the way that they do it, as I've already mentioned, is alcohol, sugar, pornography, gambling, three hours doom scrolling. Right, this is why this sort of stuff matters to me.

1:19:35I want to help people change their behaviors. Yes, we can talk to them about sugar and alcohol. But what I think makes this book, I think quite unique, is this more philosophical approach to health and behaviors than we typically get. If you're someone who is regularly taking offense, You are generating unnecessary emotional stress in yourself. I did this for years, Chris. So I can, I'm not judging. I know what that feels like, but when you don't, right? Because there's a certain amount of arrogance that is needed to take offense. And I'll tell you what I mean by that, right?

1:20:17If you're taking offense to certain things, on some level, you're saying that person should think the same as me. Right? They have no right to think definitely to me. And in a lot of 8 billion people, how can it possibly be Chris that everyone is going to agree with you? They are not. At a point which I think a lot of people don't realize is that nothing is inherently offensive. It cannot be. Why not? If the thing was inherently offensive, it means every single person interacting with the thing would take offense. But if they don't, it means it's not the thing that is offensive. It's something within you that's being lit by that thing.

1:21:03Once you get that, you get life. Because you understand that instead of blaming other people for our internal responses, you own it. You can actually know, no, this is something. Why does that comment bother me so much? What is it inside of me that has been lit by that? You can apply the same thing to criticism, Chris, right? It's hard for me to get out of podcast host mode because I really want to ask you questions even though it's your show, right? So I do want to, I'd love to know your relationship with criticism that whenever you face it on YouTube or on Instagram or wherever, because you can't have a successful show like this and not get criticism, simply not possible.

1:21:47What I've learned over the years, people used to say to me when I first started in the public eye, and like 10 years ago, oh, you need to just grow a thick skin. I don't necessarily agree with that. I didn't just about a thick skin. I think criticism can be really, really powerful if you use it in the right way. Now, criticism can be a tool for learning. You can go, wow, yeah, they've got a point there. If you're not getting triggers and you get caught up in the emotions and you can step back and go, is there any true to this person's criticism? Like I've had that before, I put out a post on Instagram and maybe there's been a criticism.

1:22:23And sometimes I'm like, actually you know what, they've got a point. Next time I bring up that topic, I could maybe take a little bit more care and caveat that a bit better than I did, right? So you can learn something or you can go actually, no, I'm okay with what I did. This says more about them and their state of mind. I would say the big thing, Chris, I've learned is that criticism only bothers us to the extent we believe it about ourselves. We'll get back to talking to Rungan in one minute, but first I need to tell you about Shopify. Shopify powers 10 % of all e -commerce in the United States.

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1:23:34Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use at Utonic, we shopify. Right now, you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period by going to the link in the description below, or heading to shopify .com slash modern wisdom or lowercase. That's shopify .com slash modern wisdom to upgrade your selling today. In some ways, I would say that we're social creatures and a lot of what we're doing is image management, optics management, reputation management. And that means that a untrue and knowingly untrue and knowingly untrue to you accusation from somebody that you fear could be believed by other people, I think that's a salient thing to get angry about, even if you don't believe it yourself.

1:24:16Got it. So that's only a great point. So I'm not saying, when I say take less offense, when I say the criticism only bothers you to the extent with which you believe it about yourself, which I do believe to be true generally. I'm not saying that that makes what the other person said or did okay. Right? Someone can say something horrible, right? I don't need to take offense to it. So let's say, let's use the example you just mentioned. Someone has gone on your wall, let's say, and says something that is completely untrue about you that can damage your reputation. I would submit that by you not taking offense, by learning to keep your emotional cool, you're going to be much better able to handle that situation and deal with it.

1:25:08That's the key. It's a difference. It doesn't mean you don't want to get that comment removed, perhaps. It doesn't mean, let's take it away from a high -profile influence a like you that people may or may not be able to relate to, right? Let's say you got an email from your boss at 4pm that has really pissed you off, right? How damn my boss writes me like that, you know, an undervalued a work that I've done. Now, first of all, the first thing you have done is that you will see the world through the state of your nervous system. So how do you got that email at 9am? You may not have interpreted it in the same way as at 4pm.

1:25:48It's the same email but you are different, your nervous system is different, you may be tired, maybe you didn't take a lunch break, so you may start to interpret threat there where there was no threat. But let's assume it wasn't a nice email. If you train yourself to not get offended by that and just take a breath and go, okay, that's interesting, I want to wipe my boss send that. I'm not just going on for them, That's really unusual. I come so valued normally by this company, what on earth is going on? If you start to interact with the situation like that, rather than thinking, I have every right to be pissed off and annoyed and have another coke now, I've phoned my friends to moan about it, I've been there, I've done all that.

1:26:32I'm simply saying, look, people can act in the way that they want. I'm just another human being trying to share my experience with the world, right? If people want to act like that, they can. I'm just saying in my experience as a consequence of doing that. You are not going to see the situation clearly for what it is. You're going to be less able to change it, whereas if at 4pm you can have that coming. This is really unusual. What's going on? Are they sick? Are they under pressure from their boss? You're better able to send a calm email back that evening or the following morning. Is there, hey listen, can we have a meeting?

1:27:06At the meeting, you can say, hey listen. You know, that email felt really rushed. You know, it's it when I read it, I actually felt as though, I was about undervalued at the company. I'm not sure that was your intention or not. You could have a much more productive relationship with that situation if you don't walk around getting triggered by everything. Does that make sense, Chris? Because that's the point I'm trying to make. There's a subtle difference there. I'm not saying we're saying that that behavior is okay. I'm saying, if you want to change that behavior, you're going to be much better at changing that behavior if you can stay internally calm.

1:27:44And all you have to do is practice, I believe that. Yeah, I like that. It's interesting the line between taking offence and complaining in life, the great British pastime that it is. And I love an insight from you, which is complaining indicates that you're surprised at sort of the natural order of life. I've got this Thomas Soul quote, like fucking tattooed on the inside of my eyelids at the moment. There are no solutions on the trade -offs. And yeah, the fact that a complaint for the most part is you railing against the fact that you haven't been able to fully optimize life and that you didn't expect it to be smooth sailing.

1:28:28There are inevitably going to be obstacles and things feed and navigate round and issues. that is the natural order of your day -to -day experience. Your complaint is you just saying, look, life again. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really glad you picked that out of the book, because it's one of my favorite, I'm not saying they're all my favorite, this such a personal book, like it's literally my template of how I got to this place and why I feel so passionate about these ideas. And one of the chapters is literally about this, you know, it's called expected versity. And the reliance is a reliance on things nothing going wrong.

1:29:04And I think many of us subconsciously hold that. We're surprised when one day there's traffic. Well, if you drive enough, there's going to be traffic, right? We're surprised if you're a parent, I don't know, you're not yet, but many parents or some parents will sometimes on the way to picking up their kids will nip into the supermarket to get food for dinner on the way. Well, you know what? Sometimes there is going to be an elderly lady having a natter with the checkout assistant. That is gonna happen, but if you in that moment get really frustrated and annoyed, you are rebelling against the natural order of life.

1:29:38Now, what they're, I think she can do about this. And I want to share an exercise in a minute that I do that's been really helpful. But another way to look at this, I mean, I think this is an extreme example. It's an example I use in the book, right? But I think it's quite powerful. Current statistics say that a UK doctor will be sued on average four times over the course of a four -year career. Right? It doesn't matter how good you are, if you see enough patience, you are going to get sued. If you drive enough times, you're going to be involved in a crash, right? It's going to happen. It's not a matter of if it's when.

1:30:20So a really close random mind a few years ago, So this is quite an extreme situation, but I think it illustrates the point. There was a missed case of a cancer diagnosis that had nothing to do with my friends, but she got dragged into this complaint. And of course the family have every right to make a complaint, right? Because it's a very emotive issue, a serious consequences. She got dragged in. And for two years, her life was hell. She was drinking to excess most nights. She was getting smashed at the weekends. She was really, really struggling. Now, it's always going to be hard to deal with a complaint like that.

1:31:03But if you look at it another way, it was going to happen at one point and you can train yourself to expect adversity. Now, that is quite a hard situation to do it in. I acknowledge. But if you look at the stats, it is going to happen. Look at it through the lens of business, right? I don't know. Have you heard of the term of shrinkage? Yeah. So, my understanding of the term shrinkage from business is that it's kind of when businesses account for the stuff that's going to happen that they don't want, but they know it's going to happen. So, for example, a supermarket knows that with their best intentions, people are going to shoplift, and some food is going to go off.

1:31:44That's factored into their business model. And I think from memory that UK businesses last year factored in shrinkage to the level of 11 billion pounds. Right, it's a big thing shrinkage, but the UK supermarkets and the US ones are not surprised when it happens. They know it's going to happen. So they factor it in. You are going to have adverse events in your life. So you've got to factor in. You've got to be not be surprised when it happens. Now, there's an exercise you can do that I write about, which I talk about complaining right, ask yourself, and it's a really great thing for people to do.

1:32:16You know, ask yourself how many times in a day do you complain, right? Because a complaint is, in essence, you getting surprised by the natural order of life. Things are going to happen that you don't want, right? So you can do two things, and this is one thing I did for many years, Chris. You turn the complaint into an action if you can do something about it and if you can't, you turn it into a moment of gratitude. So turning it into an action means you stop acting like a victim and turning it into a moment of gratitude stops you thinking like a victim. You go, okay, this is going to happen. This is how I'm going to handle it.

1:32:57And I'll tell you something that happened to me about six months ago, Chris. right? So I still live in the town where I grew up in the northwest of England. And for much of my adult life I've had elderly parent caring responsibilities so my mum now isn't so well. She has care every day and I live five minutes away. Now, mum for many years has had an emergency alarm around her neck, if she was to fall. A few years ago, no this is actually this was last year. Was it last year of the year before? It was in the last six to 18 months, right? This happened. I was asleep at night in my house and the phone ran, picked it up and it was the emergency lady saying, hey look, your mum's poured her trigger, she's on the floor, she can't get up, can you go around and help her?

1:33:48So I'm half asleep, I'm in my pajamas again to my car, drive around to mum's, who's only five minutes away, I go into the house, it's kind of what time it is, but it's maybe 10, 10, 30 p .m. something like that. And I help Mum. I check she's okay. I get it back into bed. I get a settled. When I'm happy that things are settled and that she's safe at home, I think, okay, all right Mum, I'll come check on you in the morning. I go into Mum's Drive, I get in my car, I reverse out straight into the car that was parked in the street opposite Mum's Drive, just straight into it. The older version of Rongun who hadn't been practicing these concepts, the older version of Rongun who didn't expect adversity would have done this.

1:34:33And I submit Chris that many people listening, dare I say it most people listening unless they're your enlightened audience who know not to do these things would have gone something like this. Oh my god typical. I've got all this stuff to deal with. Words crazy at the moment. I had to go and sort this out with and now I've got a phone at the insurance and get all this stuff sorted, right? That is a very common response, but that response has a consequence, Chris. The consequence of that is that you feel pissed off, you feel annoyed, you're likely to consume or rubbish the next day. You really are, I've seen this with patients over and over again because that's a consequence.

1:35:12It's a downstream behavior based upon your emotional states. What I did in the moment, and I was really proud of myself I thought, wow, wrong, and maybe the stuff is working with you. Because I did it in the moment. I was like, oh, well, wrong, and if you're going to keep coming around half the sleep to pick mum up off the floor, it was bound to happen at some point. No one's hurt. You're not hurt. And I've got insurance. That one way that I reacted with the same incident has multiple knock on effects. Right? I'm not trying to compensate anymore with my behaviors. I'm not putting the guilt and the self -pity, oh poor me, I've got all this to do.

1:35:53Every decision you make, every thought you have, it has a consequence. And these ideas that I'm trying to put forward in this book, I really believe Chris will be life -changing for people because they don't realise so many people, you can train this stuff out of yourself. You don't have to keep reacting like this for the rest of your life. and going about to eat it, the eager for a moment, the reason why eat it has such a profound impact on me, Chris. I've already mentioned some of the reasons, but a practice that I would do for years, I don't do any more because I don't need to, but I did need to, right?

1:36:31In the evening, it was when my kids were in bed, I'd sit down in my kitchen and I'd go, okay, wrong, where did you get emotionally triggered today? And I started putting the blame on the other person who I could say has triggered me, I could own it and go, no, no, no. Someone else might have done something, but you chose to get triggered. When I say chose, it was you, something within you that was lit up by that. What was it? Oh, it's because it reminded me of something that my parents had when I was a kid. Oh, this kind of hit on a little insecurity. I have about myself or whatever it might be.

1:37:10I would argue that that is the most important and powerful exercise I've ever done. Because what happens is you become a black belt in your self -cress. Instead of blaming the world around you, these dependencies of reliance, there's a set of being reliant on everyone around you, being a certain way and acting a certain way so that I can feel good. I don't know. I don't want to be a puppet on a string where people around me and things that I've got no control of can blow me around. No, I'm going to own it. Right? Now people will bring up trauma. Right? Chris, we will say, yeah, what about people who've been heavily traumatized?

1:37:47Don't they need therapy? Sometimes it's a trauma response. Yes, I agree. Trauma therapy can be really, really helpful. But the reality is a lot of people cannot access trauma for a variety of reasons, availability, cost, access. These are very common reasons why people will cannot access therapy. And again, I want to empower people. Instead of going, oh, well, there's nothing I can do because I can't get out my way some minute. Yes, you've been traumatized. Yes, that was a horrible experience. But these practices are still gonna help you. They're still gonna help you. Dr. Rungan Chatterjee, ladies and gentlemen, Rungan, I appreciate the hack out of you.

1:38:29Where should people go? They'll only keep up to date with everything that you're doing. Well, the new books called MakeChange that lasts available in all the usual places as a paperback ebook and I'm narracing the audiobook if people can put it with this voice anymore they can hear the whole thing on an audiobook but I also direct them to my podcast feel better live more it's been going for seven years now and like Eucharist I try and have meaningful authentic conversations so people like it Apple Spotify YouTube all the usual places thank you thank you man