235: Plot Twist: What Happens When Your Life Plans Get Disrupted by an Ill Parent with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, Author and Holistic Health Expert

In this episode of The Light Watkins Show, host Light Watkins sits down with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, renowned author and host of the Feel Better, Live More podcast, to explore the deep connection between happiness, success, and what truly matters in life. Dr. Chatterjee shares his personal journey of discovering the importance of core happiness, a concept he developed and discusses in his latest book, "Happy Mind, Happy Life."

Dr. Chatterjee's story is both powerful and relatable, rooted in his experience caring for his immigrant father, who sacrificed his health while striving to provide a better life for his family. This challenging time led Dr. Chatterjee to rethink what success really means and how easily it can be confused with true happiness.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Chatterjee introduces the idea of core happiness as a "three-legged stool" supported by alignment, contentment, and control. He explains how each of these elements plays a crucial role in living a fulfilling life and offers practical advice on how to strengthen these "legs" to achieve lasting happiness.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into why many of us chase the wrong dreams and how to realign our goals with what truly brings joy and satisfaction. Whether you're struggling with stress, feeling unfulfilled, or simply looking for ways to enhance your well-being, this episode provides actionable tips and inspiring stories that will encourage you to rethink your approach to success and happiness.

And if  you’re curious to know how the rest of his story plays out, click here.

Transcript

RC: "What my dad did was this. He worked as a consultant in Manchester Royal Infirmary, and he would come home from work at about 5:30 or 6:00 PM in the evening. Then, he'd go in the kitchen, my mom would give him dinner. Then he'd go upstairs, he would shave, he'd come downstairs and a car would pick him up at 7:00 PM. He'd go out in that car. All night, he would be doing GP house calls. Maybe 50, 55 house calls during the night, all around Manchester. He'd arrived back at home at 7:00 AM. Again, he'd come in, have breakfast, go upstairs and shave, then drive 40 minutes into Manchester and do his day job. He did this for 30 years. My dad only slept for three nights a week, for 30 years. Four nights, he was out working in a car. This is why there is no doubt in my mind, Light, this is why at the age of 57, 58 my dad got sick. Chronic sleep deprivation, chronic stress leads to him getting the autoimmune disease, lupus. Dad's work killed him. I know that. That then influenced my mom's life, my adult life, my brother's adult life. I don't harbor any resentment against my dad. I love my dad. I'm glad I cared for him so much, especially now that he's not here. I know there's nothing more I could have done. Right? I got to spend so much time with him in his final years and I cherish that because he's not here anymore. But the point is, is that my dad, he made the mistake, I think, and he had reasons for this. I don't know what it's like to leave my friends, and my family, move halfway across the world to a different country, with a different culture, and a different language and start a new life. I don't know what that feels like. But on the outside, things look great. Dad's a consultant. We go on a nice holiday every summer. My brother and I have a nice education. I never see my dad. Dad's not around, dad's working. He made this big mistake that many of us make, which is, he confused success with happiness. Dad got success, but he wasn't happy. I see that playing out. I've seen it play out in my own life, Light. I've seen it play out in my patient's lives." 

[INTRODUCTION]

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins, and I have conversations with ordinary folks, just like you and me, who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith and the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. And today, we have a bite sized plot twist episode for you. 

A plot twist is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of that pivotal moment in their life trajectory, where they found the gateway to what became their calling. In life. And the idea behind sharing their plot twists with you is to inspire you to lean into those plot twists whenever and wherever they happen in your life.

Because usually when you get turned around from what you thought was supposed to be your path in life, what's actually happening is you're being detoured toward your actual path.  And sometimes that looks like getting laid off, sometimes it looks like you're being betrayed. 

Or in the case of today's guest author and host of the feel better live more podcast, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, it was having to care give for his immigrant father who basically ran his health into the ground by working literally around the clock to provide a higher quality life for his family. 

Dr. Chatterjee shares the story of his multiple plot twists through the context of his book, Happy Mind, Happy Life, which was just published before we had our interview. And long story short, during his medical school training, Dr. Chatterjee got the call that his dad was in the ICU and he probably wasn't going to have that much more time to live. And so he withdrew from medical school and returned to his hometown of Manchester to devote his life to looking after his dad. And that experience ended up shaping his holistic perspective on medicine,  the way he would interact with his patients and on the overall notion of success and happiness in life. Let's listen in. 

RC: I finished off my training in Edinburgh. I was working there for a couple of years as a junior doctor and dad was getting worse and worse. Mom and my brother were struggling to look after him. I decided to move back to the town where I grew up to help my brother and my mom look after dad. I still live here now, because by the time dad died, I was settled, I was married, my kids were at school and it's a nice place to live. I actually live in the place where I grew up, which in many ways, I'm interested as how that sounds to you because you live, I think like quite a nomadic lifestyle. You travel light, you're moving and maybe we can explore that later, because I'm really interested as to the contrast there.

Dad died just over nine years ago and that was a big hole in my life. I know for many people, for most people, when one of their parents die, that's a huge moment. But it wasn't just an emotional hole that I had in my soul, there was also a daily physical hole. Because I'd see my dad three times a day. In the final years, dad was, I would go around at five in the morning, I'd get dad shaved, I'd get him showered. I'd then come back to my house, try and see my wife, and my little baby boy at the time, then go off to work as a doctor. The same after work. It was full-on basically.

Suddenly, I had all this time, had all this time after dad died to think. I would just go for long walks, and I would just be thinking about, "Dad not being here, what that means" and those big, deep existential questions started to come up for me. What am I doing? Is this my life? Is it someone else's life? What am I doing with my life? All these kinds of things, which I honestly don't think I've ever asked myself before. I just got on with life. I did what I thought I had to do. I think that in a huge way has led to a lot of the realizations that I've had, about what it means to live a healthy, happy and meaningful life. The stuff that I share with my patients, the stuff that I've written about in my brand-new book. 

I just want to finish off what I said about dad working hard. Dad came to the UK in 1962. At the time, the British government knew there was a big shortage of doctors in this country. They were recruiting doctors from countries like India. Dad came in with nothing, like many people. I'm not saying there's anything unique or anything special, but that was dad's story. He would work hard in his chosen field, the specialty he loved, there was a little bit discrimination. He realized after a while that actually he was never going to progress in that field. He was an obstetrics and GYNE surgeon. I've heard since that died that my dad was a brilliant surgeon. I didn't know while dad was alive. I didn't really know that. Dad never complained about anything. He just got on with it.

But he realized, he told me pretty much on his deathbed that he said, "Hey, son, listen, I would train the local doctors, teach them how to do operations. Two or three years later, they'd be jumping me and getting the promotions. I kept doing this year after year. I soon realized, 'Oh, I get it in this specialty. I'm never going to advance.'" He moved to a specialty he frankly doesn't like at all. He didn't like, but he did it for stability for his family, for secure pay and all that kind of stuff. I respect dad for doing that. 

What my dad did was this. He worked as a consultant in Manchester Royal Infirmary, and he would come home from work at about 5:30 or 6:00 PM in the evening. Then, he'd go in the kitchen, my mom would give him dinner. Then he'd go upstairs, he would shave, he'd come downstairs and a car would pick him up at 7:00 PM. He'd go out in that car. All night, he would be doing GP house calls. Maybe 50, 55 house calls during the night, all around Manchester. He'd arrived back at home at 7:00 AM. Again, he'd come in, have breakfast, go upstairs and shave, then drive 40 minutes into Manchester and do his day job. He did this for 30 years. My dad only slept for three nights a week, for 30 years. Four nights, he was out working in a car. This is why there is no doubt in my mind, Light, this is why at the age of 57, 58 my dad got sick. Chronic sleep deprivation, chronic stress leads to him getting the autoimmune disease, lupus. Dad's work killed him. I know that.

That then influenced my mom's life, my adult life, my brother's adult life. I don't harbor any resentment against my dad. I love my dad. I'm glad I cared for him so much, especially now that he's not here. I know there's nothing more I could have done. Right? I got to spend so much time with him in his final years and I cherish that because he's not here anymore. But the point is, is that my dad, he made the mistake, I think, and he had reasons for this. I don't know what it's like to leave my friends, and my family, move halfway across the world to a different country, with a different culture, and a different language and start a new life. I don't know what that feels like. But on the outside, things look great. Dad's a consultant. We go on a nice holiday every summer. My brother and I have a nice education. I never see my dad. Dad's not around, dad's working. He made this big mistake that many of us make, which is, he confused success with happiness. Dad got success, but he wasn't happy. I see that playing out. I've seen it play out in my own life, Light. I've seen it play out in my patient's lives.

What's really interesting for me is that we talk about chronic stress. A few years ago, I wrote a book all about stress. We talk about things that we can do to help manage things like breath work, and journaling and exercise. Man, I write about that, I talk about that, I'm a fan of that. But I often think, Light, why are so many for stressed out and burnt out. I think it's because we are confusing success with happiness. We're chasing things that we think are going to make us happy. We think the better job, the promotion, the nicer Hotel on holiday, the nicer phone, the better car, whatever it might be, many of us think that those things are going to make us happy. We stress out, we burn out, we neglect the things that truly are going to make us happy in the process. That's why we need all these stress management techniques. What I want to do and this is what chapter one in the book is about is to ask people those questions and help them with simple exercises to say, "Hey, look! What are you chasing in life? Why are you chasing those things? Have you defined what success is to you? Are you chasing society's definition of success?"

LW: Talk about core happiness. What do you mean by core happiness as opposed to any other kind of happiness?

RC: Yeah. I think happiness is a confusing term. What I mean by that is, you could say the word happiness to 10 different people. I think you may well get 10 different interpretations of what happiness really means. I think one of the things that people think happiness is, is what we get sold by the world around us, that billboard image of that smiling couple on a beach with their kids and the ocean behind them. We think that's what happiness is. I don't think that's what real true happiness is. I think that's a pleasurable experience that can form part of a happy life, but I don't think that's happiness in and of itself. I do believe that every human being wants what I call core happiness. But I think the term happiness gets confused.

Core happiness is this model I created for the new book to really try and help people understand that happiness is a muscle that you can strengthen. It's a skill that you can develop. It's not something you have to just stumble across one day when the world around you is a certain way, when people around you treat you a certain way. Happiness is something you can train; you can get good at if you know what to work on. Core happiness, I want people to think of as a three-legged stool. Each of these three legs is separate, but they are essential. If any of these legs starts to weaken, your feelings of happiness will also start to weaken and ultimately collapse.

The three legs of this core happiness stool are the three components of happiness, and they are alignment, contentment and control. Alignment is essentially when the person who you are inside and the person who you want to be out there in the world, the person you are being out there in the world are one and the same. When your inner values and your external actions start to match up more and more, that is when you are living more aligned. That's one leg of the stool. The second leg is contentment. Contentment is, what are those things that you do in life, what are those experiences that make you feel calm at peace, when are you at peace with your life and your decisions. That's what I'm talking about when I say contentment.

The third leg is control. Now, I thought long and hard about the word control, because again, happiness, I think the word control can be misinterpreted. I really wrestled with this, Light, but I did go for control in the end because I found that most of my patients, most of the people I spoke to about it kind of got what I meant straight away by it. When I say control, I am not talking about controlling the world and controlling external events. Because the last two years, I think have taught us all that, that the world is uncontrollable. Even if we want the world to go a certain way, the world will do what the world does, right?

When I say control, I mean a sense of control. What are the things that you can do regularly on a daily basis, perhaps, that gives you a sense of control over your life? Because we know, I know from clinical experience, but also from the research that people who have a strong sense of control over their lives, they have higher motivation, they have higher levels of academic success, they have higher social maturity, they are healthier, they're happier. Conversely, people who lack a sense of control over their lives have very high levels of psychological stress. 

These are the three legs of the core happiness stool. What I really wanted with this model, is for people to understand that actually, happiness is something you can work on. We understand that if you go to the gym every day and do bicep curls, we know that we're going to get stronger biceps. I wanted to create a simple model that also gives people the idea that, "Oh! If I want to become happier, I need to work on these legs of the stool, right?" Everything in the book is completely free, right? These are just ideas, simple exercises that people can do that work on alignments, that work on contentment, that work on control. As you strengthen each one of those legs on the stool, the side effects are going to be that you feel happier more often, so you're not actually directly working on happiness, you're working on alignment, you're working on contentment, you're working on control. These are much more tangible things, I think, for people to really focus on. The side effects is that you're going to be happier more often. 

That's kind of the rough model, and throughout the book, there's all kinds of ideas and exercises that work on different legs of the stool. The feedback, I've got to say, Light so far has been absolutely incredible in the UK. I've never had a book launch like this. It seems to really be landing with people, really helping people reflect on their lives. I'm incredibly passionate about it. I really think this model – I haven't found a situation yet, where this model doesn't hold true. I spent a long time trying to create a model that I felt would hold true in every situation that people could put in their back pocket, take it out with them in their life and go, "Oh, I see. That's why this is helping me. This is why I feel good after that. Oh, this is why when I do that, I don't feel so good."

I had a patient once who did something a bit underhand at work to get a promotion, took credit for something that really wasn't their thing. This is a prime example of alignments and this idea that we can't hide from ourselves. Yes, they got the promotion. But in the late hours, when you're laying in bed, you can't escape from what you did. You know what you did. That person was not acting in accordance with their values, so they understand now, "Oh, I was weakening my alignment leg." That's why I felt less happy afterwards, despite on the outside getting a promotion and a pay raise. I think it's very helpful. I think it works for people across all sections of society, no matter what job they're in, no matter really their socioeconomic status. I understand that socioeconomic status matters. I understand that money does play a role here. 

Just to finish that thought about money, I don't think money brings happiness in and of itself. I think what money does do is remove common sources of unhappiness. I've worked for many years. Well, there was one practice in particular, in the center of Oldham, in the north of England, very, very deprived area. Many of my patients there were immigrant families on benefits, a lot of single parents. I see how that was affecting their health, but I still maintain that all the things I write about in my previous books, and in this book, I was using with those patients. Because even though I couldn't change, necessarily a lot of the struggle in their life, I was able to help them with simple tools that empower them to better show up to face those problems and make better decisions in the face of that adversity. 

I'm very, very passionate that good health information, good health advice should be accessible to all. I think wellness sometimes gets a bad reputation for being like a middle-class pursuit. I've always fought hard against that, because I understand where that comes from. But all the advice I try to give in my podcasts, in my books, I try my best to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. It's a very intentional effort to do that, because I do feel very passionate about trying to share information that everyone's going to find useful. But of course, I'm not saying that money and social status doesn't play a role. I do understand that that can make it harder for some people to make those choices.

LW: What's a personal experience that you had that shifted the idea of success and happiness that the myth that one leads to the other shifted for you, and you kind of went in on this other direction of, it's got to be something different than just money, or titles or labels?

RC: Yeah. Was there this one kind of seminal moment where I suddenly woke up the next day and thought, "Oh, I get it now."? No, it was subtle shifts, day after day, bit by bit. As I answer that, and I'm drawn to the conversations we've had on my show in the past, Light. Obviously, you're a meditation teacher. For me, one of the benefits of meditation, and I appreciate that I'm talking to a meditation teacher here. This is me sharing my experience, rather than trying to say what meditation does or doesn't do. But in my experience, one of the benefits of meditation, or frankly, any practice of intentional solitude is that you allow your innermost thoughts and feelings to come up to the surface where you can then deal with them, and process them and sit with them.

I think many people, I probably will include myself in this category in the past were so busy doing stuff like productive stuff. That helps people, but doing or consuming things all the time, that even good stuff, consuming good podcasts, consuming good audio books, whatever it might be. If there's constant incoming coming in from the outside to your body, you'll never really been in touch with how you're truly feeling, with how your body is experiencing what's actually going on. I've said before, and I'll say it again, that one of my most important practices that I do every day is my morning routine. Essentially, it is a practice of solitude, where it allows me to really understand how I'm feeling. I wrote about it in the book about, it's almost like taking a daily holiday.

I remember really well, Light, that one of my buddies, he used to work in a factory. He's told me that actually, his boss would literally have a counter on his desk and he would count down. People would come in the morning, he would say, "Oh, only 66 days until I'm on a beach in Florida. Only 65 days, guys until I'm on to beach in Florida." That story has never left me, because I thought that's really interesting. People are living their lives, counting down the days for that mythical one week where life's going to be wonderful on a beach. It made me really question, what is a holiday? Well, it can mean many things. For many people here in the UK, they go on holiday for sun, for better weather. It can be not working, all kinds of things, seeing your family. 

I think one of the big things people get on a holiday is perspective. If you're flying somewhere, even as the planes taking off, you suddenly start to get this 30,000-foot view on your life, those small things that you are bothered about, suddenly get put into this larger context. I think that's what we need every day, we need a period of time where we take a holiday from our lives, when we step outside our lives to gain perspective. Now, you might do that with meditation, for example. Many of your clients may do that with meditation. I often do that with meditation. It could be a walk or a run with no ear buds in, where you're just literally switching off. It could be a cup of coffee, where you're not looking at the news. It could be anything, whatever that is for you. But I see it as what I would call an early warning system.

When I was a junior doctor, Light, I remember so well, it was back when I was at Edinburgh. I remember being taught, and maybe my second year since qualifying. Guys, listen, if we do certain things, and we check certain parameters in the patient every hour, we can predict who is going to need a high dependency bed or an intensive care bed a few hours later. By predicting that, we can then take aversive action to stop that happening. I thought, isn't that so cool? We can stop people by understanding when they're going in a certain direction. We can get involved and change the trajectory. I see a daily practice of solitudes as the same thing. It's an early warning system for ourselves. It's a way of us starting to tap into when we're going off track, when we're starting to make the wrong choices, overwork, experience tension in our body, the sort of things that we don't realize when we're constantly consuming.

I realized, for example, when I've got too much on, Light, I start to feel this real tightness in my upper right back. I've probably had that for years, I never knew. But now with this intentional awareness, or a body scan or whatever, it's like, "Oh! You started to get that tightness again." It's my early warning system. It helps me sort of go, "Oh! Okay, what's going on? Yeah, you're working a bit too hard at the moment. Do you need to prioritize early nights? Do you need to say no to a few commitments?" This is quite a long-winded answer to your question. But essentially, I think it is this – I mentioned after my dad died, that I would go for walks a lot in all the spare time I had. I wouldn't listen to anything. I would just walk and I would think. With all that space, things started to come up for me, things that had I probably buried for years. A few personal moments that came up.

Look, I'm in the public eye, certainly here in the UK in quite a big way. In 2015, I had my own primetime BBC One series called Doctor in the House, which ran for a few seasons and these were one-hour shows, where I would go into families' lives, I'd help these families over the course of six weeks. It was shown on primetime television, which has gone out to 70 countries around the world. Being in the public eye these days, in the world of social media, it makes you learn some lessons pretty quickly. Because if you don't learn, and sort out your inner world, and your innermost emotions, it can destroy you pretty quickly.

I used to get very up and down, like positive comments would make me feel good, negative comments would make me feel literally worthless. I remember when that first series came out, and I'd help this family, this lady who had been in chronic pain for over 10 years, and had been under doctors and specialists. I managed to help her get pain free within six weeks. I thought this is just incredible, so I got to show this to five million people a week. Ninety-nine percent of the tweets were positive, but 1% were very attacking. What are you doing? This is not real medicine, whatever. Man, I didn't sleep for about a week. It really, really bothered me, because I can now look back and go, I wasn't really secure in who I was. I've learned that when you're truly secure in who you are, the negative comments don't bring you right down and the positive comments don't artificially elevate your ego either. You just stay a lot more constant, a lot more balanced.

I think, being in the public eye has helped me learn a lot of these lessons fast, because I'm someone who society would consider very successful, Light. I'm a medical doctor, I've just published my fifth Sunday Times best seller. I have a podcast that millions listened to every month. I've ticked off those boxes of science or success. But the truth is, until very recently, I didn't think I was really content. I thought the answers to feel good were out there with external validation and doing things. There's an example that I just not sure how relatable is to people, but you asked me for a personal experience. I love my work. I love that what I do gets to help people. But it would be naive to think it hasn't done something for me as well. 

When my very first book, The Four Pillar Plan in the UK, or How to Make Disease Disappear in the US, same book. When it came out five years ago and it got to number one in all books on Amazon in the UK. My buddies from university in our WhatsApp group and me were going nuts. We were so excited. We're like, "Oh my God! This is amazing. It's the number one book in the country." That felt great. Yes, it was great that I was sharing this message. It was going to help people. But there was a part of me that was also – there was an external validation. Oh, man. Yeah, brilliant. This is cool. This is really good. I'm glad it's doing so well.

A year after, the second book, The Stress Solution comes out. Again, gets number one in all books on Amazon. Yeah, it felt good. It didn't feel quite as good, but it still felt good and my mates were texting me. As I say this, I even don't know this is relatable or not, but you can tell me afterwards, Light. Third book comes out, feel better and fine, same thing happens. But it took a few days to get there and I'm starting to think, "Oh, man! Is it going to do it again? I know this is a good book. Oh, man. Yeah. Great." Got there in the end. Yeah. You're not feeling much, you're like, "Okay. It's more like a bit of a relief rather than actual joy and contentment." 

Fourth book last year, again, it gets there. I am just relieved now that it's actually met this new bar that I've set for myself. Where frankly, 10 years ago, if you told me I'd ever write a book that got in the top 1000 on Amazon, I think I'd bite your hand off. It really interestingly, that whole process helped me – it's a small thing, but it's more inputs into my system. I go, man, this stuff is just, it's not real. It's just a story. These ratings come and they go. They don't mean what you think they're going to mean when you get there. You still need to feed the kids afterwards. Still put the washing on, right? I don't know if it's the best example. But for me, it's been really, really real to the point where, Light, we're recording this conversation a month after the UK book has come out. Now, a few weeks before the book came out, I remember chatting to one of my friends and they said, "Oh, you must be really excited. We're hoping the book does really well."

I've got to tell you, Light, this is what I said to him, I said, "You know what, mate? Honestly, I really feel I'm in a place where I don't need this book to be a success now to make me feel good about myself. I know this is a great book." I said that with zero arrogance. "I know this is a great book. It's going to help people. This is the best that I can do at this moment in my life. Whether anyone buys this book or not, it doesn't say anything about who I am, it doesn't say anything about the quality of this book. I really felt I'd got to the place where I had let go of the need for the outcome of this book to be something." Am I telling myself a story here? I don't think so. I genuinely think I've got to the point where I let go and I thought, "No, let's put it out there. It will be what it will be if people like it and they share it, great. If they don't, okay, cool. It's still a great book."

As it would happen, I think there's a universal lesson here. I've never had a book that's been more successful. It goes straight to the top of the number one Sunday Times paperback charts; it stays there for the first three weeks. But here's the other truth, Light, when my publisher phoned me, the book had been out. I got a text message from my editor saying, "Hey! Could you call when you get a moment?" I thought this is unusual. I had no idea what it was. So yeah, I phoned her. She said, "Rangan, look, I've got great news for you. I just found out you're going to be the number one paperback in the country on the Sunday Times this weekend. Congratulations." You could hear, she was really, really excited. 

Honestly, Light, I didn't feel much. I honestly didn't feel much. It was just nice to hear, but my daughter had to go to netball practice 20 minutes later, and I had to go and get her clothes ready. It was a real-life experience that taught me, man, you have changed. You really have changed. This is not you trying to be something or trying to live a certain way. In that moment where I got the kind of news that I think most authors would give you their arm for, or think they would give you their arm for, I didn't feel much. It wasn't that I felt low. There was a quiet contentment. It was genuinely a kind of – I'm so happy that it was different from before. It had a different flavor. We didn't even celebrate. Maybe because I've gone the other way now. But these things honestly, they just don't mean that much to me anymore.

Now, you could say, "Well, that's okay for you, buddy. You've had this degree of success now, so you can chill out about it now because you've had that validation." Yeah, sure. I think there's an element of truth to that. Yeah, I can do. But what I hope to do by sharing stories like this or sharing the book is, I hope to share with people that actually your dreams won't always make you happy. There's a section in the book where I say, your dreams won't make you happy. Time and time again, if we chase the wrong dreams, we find that they won't make us happy. The amount of times I've spoken to people on my podcast, I'm sure you have as well, Light, where people, they get those dreams, but there's still that hole in the heart underneath.

For me, I'm very, very proud of my work. I'm delighted that it helped so many people. But honestly, I really am at that point now, look, I'm 44, I've been through a lot in my life, I've met many people. But I really feel I've never been this happy, this content, this calm inside and it feels really, really good.

LW: Yeah, I was going to say, you wrote a book called Happy Mind, Happy Life. The medium is the message. As I say in the streets, you're getting high on your own supply. You can't spend the amount of time that you have to write a book thinking about this stuff. This is not like you just started thinking about it either. Right? You've been thinking about it since you were taking care of your dad every day for years going in. You had that image juxtaposed with his idea of success and that became crystal clear, I imagine over that process that this is not where it's at. It's got to be somewhere else. You're taking these long walks and you're focused on just helping people. This is your fifth book.

I noticed that when you were writing those other four books, they all were published in December. One year after the next. December 2017, December 2018, '19. You're a busy guy, you have a podcast, you have a practice, your TV show. You have to be very scheduled to get that kind of production done, which means you have to restrict yourself. I would say, just from my experience, because look, I've been meditating for 20 years, and I still feel some kind of way about a negative comment that I may see. But I just have to tell myself, I'm just not going to engage at all. It's almost like my own restriction for myself as people can write or think whatever they want to think. Yes, I believe in my message. Yes, I believe that what I'm saying can help somebody out there. You have to have these really strict rules. I'm going to take this hour in the morning to do this routine. I'm going to spend quality time with the kids. I'm going to spend a date night with my wife. Talk a little bit about that. 

What kind of restrictions do you have in your own personal life that allow you to have this mindset and the insights that you have and allow you to feel that sense of contentedness, and alignment and control the things that you can control in your life?

RC: Yeah. For me, certainly my family is a huge part of this. I know it doesn't have to be for everyone. But for me, I'm 14 years married, got two kids who I adore. Yeah, I put out a lot of contents regularly. I am very structured in some aspects and I help look after my mom, who's pretty immobile these days with my brother. It does seem quite a lot on the outside. But what are the restrictions? Well, I mean, I don't watch TV. I'm the guy who doesn't know any celebrity, any film, the latest gossip. I mean, I don't watch the news. I don't watch TV. I'm not saying that that's been a great sacrifice. For me, it's part of the life that nourishes me that just doesn't fit in.

[END]

That was Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. And to see how the rest of the story plays out, you want to go to episode 108 and start around the 51-minute mark. And in addition to listening to the rest of Dr. Chatterjee story,  I recommend following him on the socials @DrChatterjee. That's D R C H A T T E R J E E. 

And if you connect it with his story and you want to hear similar stories or perspectives from other doctors, then you want to check out my interviews with Dr. Emma Seppala, which is episode 210. She talks about how happiness may not be everything that we're looking for and that what we really are. And then there's Dr. James Doty episode 214, who talks about the science behind happiness and the art of manifesting. And another interesting episode that takes a counter view is episode 226 with Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who wrote the book, Why Zebras Don't Have Ulcers. He had a recent book come out called Determined, and he talks about happiness in the context of there being no such thing as free will which is an interesting hypothesis.

And if you know of anyone who's making the world a better place and they've had some incredible plot twists in their life, email me your guest suggestions to light@lightwatkins.com. My other ask is that you take a few seconds to leave a rating or a review for the podcast. You hear podcast hosts like me asking listeners like you to leave a rating all the time, because that's how a lot of guests will determine if they're going to come on to a podcast. So it does make a huge difference. It's absolutely free. It only takes you 10 seconds. All you do is look at your device. You click on the name of the show. You scroll down past those first few episodes, you'll see a space with five blank stars, just tap the star all the way on the right to leave a five star rating, and if you're feeling generous. Write a one line review, letting the potential listener know which episode they should consider starting with. And that can go a long way as well. 

Also, don't forget, you can watch these plot twist episodes on my YouTube channel if you prefer to see what Dr. Chatterjee looks like as he's sharing his plot twist. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube as well. 

And otherwise, I will see you on Wednesday with the next long form conversation about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to leave the world a better place. And until then, keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart,  keep taking those plot  and keep leaning into those plot twists in your life. And if no one's told you lately that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you and have a fantastic weekend.