transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Most of the decisions we make in day-to-day life, they're not based on facts. They're based on beliefs. And so the startling revelation here is that your brain is lying to you. It's constantly deceiving you because the brain doesn't see reality as it is, it sees reality as it predicts it will be. So none of us are actually seeing reality as it is.

Speaker 2:
[00:22] Hey guys, how are you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better Live More. If I asked you what the single biggest thing holding you back in life was, what would you say? A lack of time maybe, a lack of willpower, not enough skills or talent? Well, today's guest will tell you that none of those things are true. Instead, he makes the case that it's actually your existing beliefs, the ones you probably don't even realise you're carrying, that are limiting your potential the most. Nir Eyal is a behavioural design expert, an international bestselling author whose brand new book, Beyond Belief, explores something that's fascinated me for years. The idea we don't actually see the world as it is. Through a process called predictive processing, our brain presents a version of reality shaped by our existing beliefs and expectations. But we can reframe that reality and do things we never dreamed possible. In this episode, Nir takes us through some convincing research and extraordinary stories of persistence from the rats who swam for 60 hours to the patients who take hypnosis over pain relief. We don't fail because we've reached our limits, he says, but because we've quit too early. If we motivate ourselves with liberating beliefs, I might be able to, rather than limiting ones, I can't, the odds will be in our favour. Nir's key insight is that beliefs are tools, not truths. And that idea alone could change your life if you really sit with it and absorb it. Whether it's in your health, your relationships, your career, or just how you taught yourself on a tough day, you deserve to reach your full potential. And if all you're thinking is, it's too late, or it's too hard, then I think this clear, practical and empowering conversation might be exactly what you need to hear. I wanted to start off by asking you about something that I think some people will regard as a little controversial, and perhaps even confronting. Most of us are not seeing reality. We're seeing a version of the world created by our beliefs. What does that mean?

Speaker 1:
[03:14] It means that none of us are actually seeing reality as it is, that it's impossible. We can't, our brains can't handle it. That we know that the brain is processing about 11 million bits of information per second. 11 million bits, to put that in perspective, that's the equivalent of reading War and Peace every second, twice. It's a tremendous amount of information. So the brain can't deal with that much information. It can only consciously be aware of about 50 bits of information. So that means that you are seeing reality through this tiny pinhole of attention. You are only seeing 0.000045% of what you think is reality. And so what the brain is doing is essentially filtering reality based on its beliefs. Not based on what reality is, but how we expect it to be. It's called predictive processing. And so understanding that we don't see reality clearly is at the core, I think, of living a good life. Because it's only when we free ourselves from this myth that we see everything that we see, feel, and do, because we believe it's a fact versus something that's much more malleable. That's truly what frees us, is that understanding that we don't see reality clearly.

Speaker 2:
[04:29] For someone who might be pushing back against the idea right now, they're thinking, well, what do you mean we don't see the world as it is? We see it based on our beliefs. Do you have any, I guess, concrete examples that can illustrate that point for people?

Speaker 1:
[04:43] The examples are endless from the research literature. When it comes to, I can show you an image, and based on where you were born, this is called the Koffer Illusion. Based on where you were born, you will either see squares or circles. Same exact image, but you will process it differently based on your background, whether you grew up in a rural environment or an urban environment. We know that people who are on a diet see food as larger. People who are afraid of heights see distances as further. So, this saying that I'll believe it when I see it is actually just as true backwards, that I see it when I believe it.

Speaker 2:
[05:23] Yeah. In your new book, Beyond Belief, which I absolutely love, you give so many examples of this. I remember right at the start, there's a chessboard, a checkerboard. And I was looking at it this morning because I still can't get my head around it. Can you explain that for people who were listening perhaps? I mean, on the video, we'll maybe pop it up on screen, but just help us understand that. And what are the implications of that for us?

Speaker 1:
[05:46] Sure. So there's a classic optical illusion where you see a checkerboard. And when you look at it, one square definitely looks darker than the other. For sure. Nobody looks at this and thinks that they're the same color, except they are the same color. That when we put bars of that shade of gray next to both squares, and you can see that they are definitely, in fact, the same color, even though they don't look like that. Now that's nice, cute little optical illusion, but the question is why? Why can't we see reality as it is? That even when you look back at the first image, that even though you know the squares are now the same color, you know intellectually that that is the case, you still can't see reality clearly. It still looks like square A is darker than square B, even when you know the truth. And so the startling reality here, the startling revelation here, is that your brain is lying to you. It's constantly deceiving you because the brain doesn't see reality as it is, it sees reality as it predicts it will be. So based on your priors, what we call your prior beliefs, you can't see it in any other way because to you a checkerboard always looks a certain way. And so when we deceive the eyes and the brain, even when intellectually you know the answer, there's nothing you can do about it. You can't see it otherwise. And so that's why it's so important to realize that if that's just an optical illusion, what about all the other myths and lies that I'm believing, that I've adopted for myself? We call these limiting beliefs and we see this all the time. That the middle of the word, it's just a coincidence we can't read too much into it, but you can't spell belief without lie. It's in the middle of the word. And so I think it's important to differentiate what I think we get wrong about reality in a way, that facts and beliefs are different, that a fact is a objective truth. It is something that is true whether or not you believe it. So the world is more like a sphere than it is a flat. That's a fact. Sorry, Flat Earthers, the shape of the globe doesn't care what you believe. That's an objective truth. You can't change objective truths. On the other end of the spectrum is faith. Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. So God rewards the righteous. That's a matter of faith. Now in between fact and faith lies a belief. A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence. And that's something new. And that's something I think we don't think about enough. That unfortunately, I think that most of our interpersonal are problems with relationships, the difficulties we struggle with on our own. Even our geopolitical problems come from this unfortunate state of affairs, that too many of us have this conviction that our faith is a fact, and that what we think are facts are nothing more than beliefs.

Speaker 2:
[08:43] Yeah. I mean, I love this topic. It's something I've been thinking deeply about for years. And Nir, I would say one of the biggest things that has changed the quality of my life over the past five or even ten years is really understanding this idea that you can choose your beliefs. And as you eloquently say in the book, whether they're true or not is semi-irrelevant. It's are they working for you? Before we get into that, one that you said there, I just want to touch base upon, I'm not a flat earther, just to be clear here, right? But a lot of the time throughout history, we have absorbed things and thought they were facts and found out later they were not actually facts. So there would have been a time in history where saying the world is spherical, people would probably call you crazy, right? So even what qualifies as a fact, I think we need to sometimes soften our viewpoint of facts. Of course, some things are objective. I'm not disputing that. But I think what happens when you start to update your beliefs is that you take a much softer approach to the world. You're less fixed in your viewpoint. You're more able to update things, even facts. Like, I don't know, as a doctor, in the 70s and 80s, we thought antibiotics were amazing. Bacteria were bad. That was a fact back then. Bacteria are bad, antibiotics kill them. And then we've learned over the years, wait a minute, there's a ton of bacteria in our guts. They're actually really good. So, that used to be a fact, but actually it was a belief that we've now updated. Do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 1:
[10:28] Absolutely. And look, one of the things that I hate hearing is, science says.

Speaker 2:
[10:33] Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:
[10:34] Science doesn't say anything. Science gives us evidence that we have to consider, see if it replicates, consider new evidence as it comes in. We're always collecting new evidence, and then determining what we think is a fact. But the thing is, most of the decisions we make in day-to-day life, they're not based on facts. They're based on beliefs. Should I take this job? Should I marry this person? Should I go into business with that person? Should I move here? Should I do this? Most of what we do day-to-day is not, we're not thinking about these factual based questions all day long. What's really practical, I think, in my life is decoupling the need for my beliefs to have the bar of proof of a fact. That most of the decisions I make in my life, I'm making based on these beliefs because they are predictions about the future. All these day-to-day questions are based on what will happen. And so this isn't based on the laws of physics, not the laws of nature. It's based on a belief. And that belief, where does that live? It lives up here. So things like, it's too late. I don't have enough time. That's probably the most common limiting belief I hear all the time is there's no time. I'm not ready. This is hard, right? These beliefs, so it might be important to talk about why are beliefs even important in the first place? Why do we need them? So when we look at what is the most important factor on whether you will achieve your goals, right? Who achieves their goals and who doesn't? Turns out it's not intelligence, although that helps. It's not resources, although that helps. The most important determinant of whether you will reach your goals, it's not even information. It's not knowing the right answer. I mean, we're swimming in information. If you don't know the answer to something, Google it, Ask Chatchie PT., the answers are there. Read a book about it. The answers are out there. The problem is not that we don't know, or that we don't have enough resources, or that we don't have the right skills. We can learn these things. The problem is persistence. It's as simple as that. That the number one factor to determine if you will achieve your goals is whether or not you quit. Of course it is, because when you quit, 100% of the time, you will not reach your goal. Now, it doesn't mean that quitting is always the wrong thing, but persistence turns out to be the most important factor. Now, if we know that, let's go a layer deeper. What allows us to persist? Can I tell you a quick study?

Speaker 2:
[12:55] Please.

Speaker 1:
[12:55] So this is a classic study that was done in the 1950s by a biologist by the name of Kurt Richter. And Kurt Richter had a very simple question. How long can a wild rat swim?

Speaker 2:
[13:06] I love this study. I freaking love this study. So I'm excited you're about to go through it.

Speaker 1:
[13:11] And so I want to demonstrate how we can manipulate persistence, at least in these rat models. And it does carry over to humans as well. So here's what he does. He takes a wild rat. You can't do these kind of experiments anymore, but thank goodness, but the rats are already dead. So we can learn from them. Here's what he does. He takes a wild rat. He measures how long this rat can swim in a cylinder of water. Turns out about 15 minutes. A stressed wild rat swims for about 15 minutes before it kind of gives up. Okay, he has that piece of information. Now he wants to determine, can he increase the rat's persistence? So here's what he does. He gets a new group of wild rats. He puts them in the same cylinders of water. And now at the 15 minute mark, he reaches in, pulls out the rat, dries it off, lets it catch its breath, and then plunk back into the cylinder it goes. And this time he wants to measure how long, how much longer the rat will swim for. And he does this a couple of times. And so when I present this study to folks, and I ask them, okay, guess, the rat started at 15 minutes, how much longer after this intervention, after the rat saw that hope is possible, that salvation might occur, that maybe this hand will reach in and save it, how much longer did the rat swim? So people guess, oh, maybe 100% longer. They went from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, which would be amazing, and then some people would take a wild guess and they say, maybe 60 minutes, wouldn't that be amazing? If you could persist four times longer, you could run that race four times longer, you could persist on that difficult project you're working on four times longer, that would be amazing to be four times more persistent. But the rats didn't swim for 60 minutes, the rats swam for 60 hours, 60 hours of nonstop swimming from 15 minutes originally, and they died at 15 minutes, they gave up. That's amazing. And so that's kind of the kicking off point of this research. When I heard that study, I wanted to figure out, well, how do we do that for ourselves? Because what changed? If we think about it, why would that happen? Same rat bodies, nothing changed physically. They didn't suddenly get stronger. They had it in them all along. The circumstances, the environment, as much as we complain about what's happening outside us, the circumstances in that experiment had not changed. Same cylinder of water. We can't ask the rats, obviously, but we think the only remaining variable was that something changed in their minds. That suddenly, with salvation being possible, with hope as a possibility, they persisted. They became more motivated to keep swimming for 60 hours until they reached their actual limit. Now, I think what's so fascinating about this study and what we should all remember from it is that that ability to swim for 60 hours was always within them. It wasn't some magically imported power. It was there. They just didn't believe there was a reason to persist. And so that made me think in my own life, where am I quitting at 15 minutes? Where am I giving up on things that I could otherwise achieve because I just quit too soon? And so if we know that the number one factor of whether you'll achieve your goals is whether you persist, we need to dive deeper and say, well, how do I stay motivated? And the way we stay motivated is by not expecting a simplistic model of motivation to work for us. We think, at least the way I thought, was that motivation works when I want some kind of reward. I want some kind of benefit, so I do behavior, right? If I do the behavior, I get the benefit. Simple as that. That's kind of how classical economics teaches us about incentives. But there's clearly something missing. That if it was easy enough to say, well, I want this benefit, so I'll do this behavior, I would, if that's all it took, well, then we would all have six pack abs and be multimillionaires and be perfectly happy. Because the information is out there. We know what to do when we know we want it. What's missing of course is a belief that if I don't believe I can get that benefit. So for example, let's say I have a boss who I don't believe has my best interest at heart. Maybe I don't believe they're gonna give me that raise or promotion. Am I gonna stay motivated to work for that boss? If I don't believe I'm gonna get the benefit? No, I'm gonna slack off. I'm not gonna do my best work. Conversely, if I don't believe in my own ability to sustain that behavior, maybe I have a limiting belief that tells me that I'm no good at this or this is hard or I don't like how this feels and so I'm gonna quit if I don't believe in my own ability to persist. So motivation is not a straight line. Motivation is a triangle. You have to not only know what to do, the behavior, not only want the benefit, but you also have to have the belief that holds it all together.

Speaker 2:
[17:42] How does that apply, let's say, if someone wants to do a marathon? You know, they're a sort of recreational runner and they sign up for a challenge to do a marathon. How does persistence, motivation, belief, how does that all play out for that individual?

Speaker 1:
[18:02] So this is a perfect way to introduce the difference between limiting beliefs and liberating beliefs. A limiting belief is a belief that does two things. It saps motivation and increases suffering. That's how I define a limiting belief. So in this example, if I want to run a marathon, how well would it serve me if I believed I can't do it? What does my motivation look like if I'm running, running, running? And in my head is a little voice that says, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. I'm going to quit. My motivation decreases, my perception of suffering increases, and I stop. So I have 100% certainty of not achieving my goal. Now, if I have a different story, let's say I have a different belief in my head, that I believe that I can persist. I may be able to do this. Now, does that mean it's a fact? No, lots of people don't finish marathons. But who are you going to bet on? If you've got two people, one has the belief, I can't do this, one has the belief, I might be able to do this, or I'm going to do it as long as I can, who's more likely to achieve the goal? Because if there's one thing I want people to know, whether or not you read the book, what I learned over the six years of research is this, that beliefs are tools, not truths. Beliefs are tools, not truths. There are certain beliefs that serve us, and there are certain beliefs that hurt us. Beliefs that increase our motivation and beliefs that decrease our motivation. Beliefs that increase our suffering or decrease our suffering. Whether or not they are facts, that's the most important thing. So many of our personal, interpersonal, geopolitical conflicts occur because of this misidentification of what is a fact and what's just a belief. So the most important takeaway is that you can choose your beliefs.

Speaker 2:
[19:51] I'm so excited and sad at the moment. I've got about 10 jumping off points and I can't choose where to go next. Let me just pick up on a phrase you just used. You said if you're someone who's running a marathon and you don't believe you can do it, your perception of suffering will change. Perception of suffering. There's so much in those three words. It kind of says, you know, suffering is subjective, isn't it? Right? It's your perception. It's not like you either suffer or you don't. Your beliefs and your views around the world can influence whether you suffer or not.

Speaker 1:
[20:35] That's exactly right. So this is again, one of these concepts that blew my mind as I did the research, that pain is not suffering. Those are two separate concepts. Why? Because as I mentioned earlier, the brain doesn't see reality clearly. The brain doesn't feel reality clearly either. That our perception of suffering is also through that tiny pinhole of attention. And so we can change our perception of suffering based on where we are focusing our attention. Let me give you an example that absolutely blew my mind. And I would not believe it unless I saw it with my own eyes. And I've seen this. Daniel Gissler is a guy who is the most analytical person I've ever met. He's a former commodities trader, definitely a numbers person, doesn't believe in anything so called woo woo or spiritual. He's a very cut and dry black and white kind of guy. In his early 50s, he has this freak accident and he shatters his ankle. And in the course of this operation, he has to have pins put into his bones. A few years later, it's time for these pins to be removed. And in the course of that time, he prepares for this surgery by learning a technique called hypno sedation. Now for me, when I heard hypno sedation, my scientific mind kind of had alarm bells going off that I was very, very skeptical. Turns out that Daniel was able to go through a 55 minute procedure where scalpel was cutting into flesh, where metal screws were wretched from bone. And he did this 100% consciously. He did this under hypno sedation where he says he felt the sensations. He felt the signal, the data going into his brain about what was going on, but he wasn't suffering from it. And the most remarkable part about this example, and again, I've seen the surgery, I've seen the video, is that it's not that remarkable. That in fact, tens of thousands of people go through similar surgeries in Switzerland, in Italy, in France. It's not that uncommon, this technique of hypno sedation.

Speaker 2:
[22:31] So they're not using anaesthetic.

Speaker 1:
[22:32] No, zero anaesthetic, no general anaesthesia, no local anaesthesia, zero, nothing. There is no anaesthesiologist in the room.

Speaker 2:
[22:40] I mean, if we think just from a purely medical side effect profile, I mean, not needing to use anaesthetic, A, in terms of risks, side effects afterwards, all kinds of things, that is a phenomenal thing to reduce risk before surgery.

Speaker 1:
[22:57] That's exactly right. That recovery time improves for people who don't go into anaesthesia. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2:
[23:02] But it also does something really, really powerful, which is train that individual with a skill that they previously didn't know about. And as you say, I think in the final few chats of your book, pills don't build skills, right? So they may do certain things, but there's also certain things that they can't do and won't do. And some of those things that you learn by going through difficult journeys, that then help you on other different journeys, beyond the thing that you learned the skill in.

Speaker 1:
[23:38] That's right. And that's exactly what the rats taught us, isn't it?

Speaker 2:
[23:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:43] That ability to swim for 60 hours was always in them. We also have these amazing powers that have never been unlocked because we've never even conceived that they exist. We can't even imagine that they're there, just like hypnosedation. Now, am I arguing for people to go get hypnosedation? Not really. I don't think I would do it either, at least I'm not ready to do it. But what this story tells us is that these powers are there. And so if tens of thousands of people have undergone surgery with zero anesthesia, what does that mean about our day-to-day struggles? We talked earlier about the number one criteria of whether you will achieve your goals is whether you quit. What's the number one reason people quit? It's hard. This hurts. I don't want to go to the gym. I don't feel like doing this project. This is too difficult. Pain. I don't want to repair this relationship. It feels itchy. It's hard. When you realize the truth that pain and suffering are two separate things, that you can disconnect the two, that pain is just signal, just information. It's all it is, just data. Suffering is the interpretation of that data. When you realize that, you free your full potential. There are things that you couldn't imagine you are capable of doing that are in your power that you thought were impossible. Now, just like Daniel's surgery, going under surgery with zero anesthesia, what sounds impossible becomes reality.

Speaker 2:
[25:03] Yeah. Did you hear, Nir, about, I think it's about six weeks ago now, there was a story from Australia, where a family, a mum and three kids were out, just playing at the beach. They were just going for an afternoon kayak and the wind blew them out. And they were quite far from shore. And I think from recollection, a 10 year old boy, they decided as a family, the mum was going to stay with the two younger siblings. I mean, they were going to die basically, they were stuck. And so the 10 year old boy went off to try and get help, but he had to swim, I think for four hours against current. I think it was two and a half miles, very, very, very difficult to do. I think he started on the kayak and then water came in, so we had to discard the kayak. And he finally did get to shore, he did manage to phone for help, and then I think he collapsed. Everyone was safe, right? But I was thinking about that story last night in the context of what you're saying about perseverance. And I think about that through the lens of, you know, both of us are parents. Surely as a parent, one of the most important things I can give to my children or try and give to my children is this idea that you can overcome things. You can persist, don't give up at the first hurdle. And I'm guessing that kid must have picked up that idea. Or could you argue, look, this was a life threatening situation. He knew if he didn't get to shore, he was going to be dead. And his mom and his two siblings are going to be dead as well.

Speaker 1:
[26:42] Right.

Speaker 2:
[26:42] So it has a happy ending. But I kind of feel it speaks to what you said about the rats. It speaks to what you just said about perseverance.

Speaker 1:
[26:50] So there's a complete 180 reversal that's happened recently in the psychology community around a very important theory that relates to this.

Speaker 2:
[27:04] Today's episode is sponsored by Do Health, a personalized health companion that I have helped create. Now, I built Do Health to transform the way we think about health. You see, for many years whilst working in the NHS, I saw the same thing over and over again. Modern medicine is really good at treating illness, but it was never designed to prevent you from getting sick in the first place, nor to optimize your health. Do Health is here to change that. It takes everything that I know about health and well-being, including my 4 pillars of health, and makes it personal to you. You get an initial blood test, which measures and screens you for over 50 biomarkers, but then all the focus turns to the 11 core biomarkers that are scientifically proven to improve your metabolic health, including many markers which are not easy to get from your NHS GP, like fasting insulin, ApoB, and homocysteine. Once we have your blood tests, each week, together with you, we create a personal achievable plan, and several times a year, we recheck your bloods, to make sure that things are moving in the right direction. This is the future of preventative health. A few small changes that will have a huge impact on your life. For listeners of my show, Do Health are offering you fixed early access pricing, less than £21 per month, to all those that sign up to the waitlist today. This is incredible value. Don't forget that this price includes 3 yearly blood tests, as well as 52 custom weekly plans, and unlimited daily interactions with Coach Joy. All you have to do is go to dohealth.co/live more and use the code live more to gain access to the waitlist right now. Hey guys, just taking a quick break from this week's episode to ask you a small favour. On this show, I'm always looking to improve things. Make sure I'm booking the most interesting guests, having conversations about the right topics, and building relationships with the most aligned sponsors. But in order to do this, my team and I need to know a little bit more about you. So, we have created a super short survey that I would dearly love you to fill out. It will only take you about two minutes to do so, and I would honestly really appreciate it. All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com/survey, that's drchatterjee.com/survey.

Speaker 1:
[30:13] We used to believe, it used to be gospel in the psychology community, this concept of what's called learned helplessness. The research of Seligman and Meyer. Learned helplessness was accepted everywhere. It was even in mainstream press. We all agreed that we learned to be helpless, that we're kind of born hopeful, and then we learn over time as we're beaten down by society, that we learn to give up. And a few years ago, Seligman and Meyer, the people who coined learned helplessness, realized that they had gotten it not only wrong, but 180 degrees backwards, the exact opposite of what they thought when they looked at the data, that in fact, we do not learn helplessness. Helplessness is our default state. That when you think about it, a baby is born completely helpless. And what we have to learn as we grow up is we learn hope. We don't learn helplessness, we learn hope. So, I'm guessing that somewhere in this boy's background was this sense of agency, this sense that they can do something about this problem. That's how they actually discovered in the Seligman and Myers study where they got wrong, because some of the subjects in the experiment never learned helplessness, ever. They always stayed persistent. And it tends to be because there's something in your background that told you that persistence pays.

Speaker 2:
[31:33] One of the downsides or potential downsides of having that empowering, I can do belief mindset. If we go back to the marathon example, as a way of looking at this. Of course, you want to go into a marathon with an I can do attitude. But of course, anything taken to an extreme can be problematic, right? Let's say your right hammy starts hurting at mile 5. And you have this stubborn I can do. Let's take to an extreme, the David Goggins mentality, for example.

Speaker 1:
[32:08] David Goggins is a human embodiment of one of those rats in the study, right?

Speaker 2:
[32:12] Exactly. He won't stop. He will just persevere. But you can injure yourself as well through that perseverance. So of course, the 10 year old boy trying to save his life and his family's life, he doesn't care if he gets injured, right? Because it's like, this is life threatening.

Speaker 1:
[32:29] Right.

Speaker 2:
[32:29] But if you're running a recreational marathon and we see so many marathon runners doing this, they push past pain. They have their identity built up around completing this marathon. And I know this from Chatterjee running coaches, there are quite a lot of people who wreck themselves for good because they have that mentality, I'm going to complete this marathon no matter what. So I know that's not what you're saying in the book, but can you help us understand how that could go too far perhaps?

Speaker 1:
[33:00] So let's put it in perspective first of all, that the people who do that, not only are they the tiny minority of people who run marathons, they are the infinitesimal number of people in the entire population. What happens with those examples is that the rest of us think, well, I better not run a marathon.

Speaker 2:
[33:15] That's a good point.

Speaker 1:
[33:16] And so what we talked about earlier about how we don't learn helplessness, we have to learn hope that our default state is helplessness. Why do we have this? Why do we even have limiting beliefs? What's the point? Why does the brain limit us? Well, the brain is trying to protect us. Any of our limiting beliefs, this is hard. I'm not ready. I'm not good at this. This relationship will never change. She's always like that. All these limiting beliefs that we keep repeating to ourselves. Why do we do this? It's because fundamentally the brain is trying to keep you as far away as possible from your actual limitations. Because evolutionarily, the brain doesn't care about your flourishing. Evolution does not care if you're happy and flourishing. That's not evolutionarily useful. What's useful is that you're alive. So good things are nice, bad things will kill you. So your brain is trying to keep you really far away. Remember those rats with the 60 hours? That's when they actually were exhausted. But their brains were telling them at 15 minutes, give up. Because it was trying to protect them. Ironically enough, they actually died because they gave up too soon. For most of us, most of our lives, that's what the brain is trying to do, to keep us as far away from potential harm. Now, there are some circumstances where we definitely should quit. But we quit far too soon, that's good for us. So how do we know? When do we quit? I think there's three criteria. The three criteria are, number one, have you met your mile marker? Okay, this can be figurative or literal. But let's say if it's trying on a new belief, trying on a liberating belief, and we can talk about how do you find your liberating beliefs and limiting beliefs, but once you have a new liberating belief to try on, or a new practice, let's say I'm going to try an exercise for 30 days, or I'm going to try posting on YouTube or TikTok, or I'm going to try this new business venture, or try reading this book instead of watching TV, or whatever the case might be. This hard thing that I'm going to try, you need to have a set number of days that you're going to try it. It doesn't necessarily matter how many days. There's a bunch of mythology of like, oh, a habit takes 40 to 40 days. That's not true. It's just setting a mile marker. Why is that so important? That when you say to yourself, I'm not going to quit until I do this for X number of days, you're inoculating yourself from quitting as soon as it gets hard. So what you don't want is, oh, this is painful. This isn't even worth it. Let me stop. You're going to say, no, I'm going to go for the next mile and then I'm going to reassess. So whether it's a week, a month, a year, whatever it is, get to that mile marker before you quit, whatever it is that you said in advance. The second criteria is, am I still learning?

Speaker 2:
[35:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:46] So if you're failing, failure does not mean you should quit. Failure does not mean you should quit. If you are learning from failure, persist. Let me give an example. If I looked into the future and I said, look, I've traveled into the future and I know for a fact that if you fail five more times, the sixth time you're going to succeed, you're looking for love. If you go on five more dates, the sixth one you're going to find the love of your life. If you're making those sales calls for your business, you're going to get no's five times, the sixth time you're going to get a yes, you're going to close that big deal. What does that do to your ability to want to fail? You're going to say, yeah, great, let's fail faster. That's great. So if you are failing but learning, persist, keep going. And then the third criteria is, does persistence make a difference? There are many goals where persistence doesn't make a difference. You have a goal to be happy at work, but your workplace culture is awful. It's full of toxic people. You are not going to outlast those people at work. And so persistence may not make a difference. Whereas with writing a book, it feels like you're just slogging away at the research and I don't know how this is going to come together and how do I make this point? And is this really saying what I think it says? But if you persist and keep going and keep going, you're going to get through that plateau. Certainly with exercise, right? I used to be clinically obese. And for years sometimes, I wouldn't be making any progress at all on my weight loss goals. But if you persist long enough, you'll break past that plateau. But some things, persistence doesn't matter. You're just banging your head against the wall. So if you meet those three criteria, you met your mile marker, you're not learning anymore, and persistence doesn't make a difference, then yeah, go ahead and quit. But short of that, you're probably quitting way too soon.

Speaker 2:
[37:27] Yeah, so it's a beautiful framework that I feel we can all apply to anything we're trying to bring into our life. This might be a good time to speak about your weight loss journey. I think because it sort of relates, I think, to what we're talking about. Looking at you today, it's very, very hard to believe that at some point in your life, you were clinically obese.

Speaker 1:
[37:49] I'll show you the photos.

Speaker 2:
[37:52] Can you walk us through that journey and why it was belief that changed your outcome?

Speaker 1:
[38:02] Yeah, so for many years, I was obese, starting at a young age. And for many years, I was a kid at the community pool. I grew up in Central Florida, and so we always hung out around the pool in our condominium complex. And I was always the kid who wore that baggy t-shirt and who never went to the pool without my shirt on because I didn't want anybody to see my belly rolls. And I started dieting pretty early in life as a teenager. I was trying to get into shape and it didn't work. And every time I would try a new diet, I started out with low fat and then I became a vegetarian and then I started keto and then it was intermittent fasting. And every time I had this zeal of being a new convert, I want to tell everybody about this new diet that I had started and why it was so great. And then inevitably something would happen and it wouldn't work anymore. And why wouldn't it work? Because I started hearing doubts. I would start hearing, oh, a low fat diet is not so good for you and vegetarians don't get enough nutrients and keto diets are bad for your liver. I would start hearing these doubts creep in. And then when I stop believing in my diet, I stop losing weight because I would fall off the train and say, diets don't work anymore. And the food industrial complex is out to get me. And it's really hard for a big person to stay in shape. So diets don't work, bring on that pizza and let me chase it with some French fries. And what I learned was it wasn't actually a specific diet. We're still debating what is the fact around what diet works. Is there one perfect diet for everyone? No, clearly.

Speaker 2:
[39:35] No, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[39:36] But what does work over time in the way I lost weight was persistence, was getting rid of my limiting beliefs that I couldn't, that this is not something that I could ever do, that I was never going to change or that it was too hard. Those were all limiting beliefs because they decreased my motivation and increased my suffering. Instead, I started a new liberating belief that through persistence over the long term, I could lose weight. And that's what I started to do. That I used to all the time succumb to what we call in psychology the what-the-hell effect, right? I'd fall off the diet, I'd have a piece of pizza or something and say, what the hell, come on, bring on the chicken wings as well and all the other junk food. And I don't say that anymore. Now I have a new liberating belief that says I can decide the next thing I put in my mouth, right? That I can get back on track over the long term, this will work. And I think another thing that really helped me was I completely misinterpreted positive thinking. That there's a lot of research out there that shows that most of us are being hurt by thinking positive and even manifesting and vision boarding, we're getting it completely wrong. And in fact, it's actively harmful. And here's why. This is the work of Gabrielle Oetogen, where she connected people to blood pressure monitors as they were doing a visioning exercise, right? They were manifesting the future they wanted. They were picturing their beach body. They were picturing the love of their life. They were picturing a huge mansion and a Lamborghini out in the driveway, all the things that you're supposed to manifest in your life. And she found that when they did that, their blood pressure dropped, they became more relaxed. And most importantly, they became less likely to go out there and do the things that would get them their end results. She did this study on students who were envisioning getting an A on their exam. And those very same students who were manifesting an A on the exam studied less than the students who didn't do the visioning exercise. But people say, yeah, but visioning works, right? Athletes, they vision things. Isn't that what athletes do? Yes, but what do athletes vision? Athletes don't do a visioning exercise where they get the trophy or the medal. They envision the obstacles in their way and specifically how they will react physically and psychologically to those barriers. That's what's missing. So this is called mental contrasting. You're contrasting the outcomes you want with how you will feel about the obstacles in your way. So one of the things that helped me most in my weight loss journey was not, oh, I'm going to sit here and envision that I have a beach body. That wasn't helpful. That actually backfired because what happened when it wouldn't work? Well then, am I not envisioning hard enough? Am I messed up? Am I broken? And so I would start ruminating on how I couldn't do it because there was something wrong with me. When really what I should have done and what I eventually did start doing was visioning what I will do when I encounter the obstacle. And how do I make sure that I'm strong enough to overcome that obstacle? So here's what I did. I started envisioning when I go to that party and someone offers me the piece of chocolate cake that I don't want to eat because I have this goal in mind. And that feels uncomfortable. One, I want the chocolate cake. I desire it. I crave it. And I don't want to tell someone, I don't want to be rude and say, no thanks. I don't want the chocolate cake. How, what will I do? What will I say when that obstacle happens? Which it inevitably will. And so that's the right way to do these visioning exercises, to prepare for the pain.

Speaker 2:
[43:10] That is such a great piece of practical advice, isn't it? Instead of, you know, we're not at New Year at the moment, right? But in New Year, you know, people get carried away. It's like, ah, this year I'm going to do this, right? And you just imagine the good, it's going to go well. I'm going to go to the gym three times a week. You don't imagine, or I would say most people in my experience don't imagine what happens when you feel tired after work and it's raining and you can't be bothered.

Speaker 1:
[43:37] Yeah. What tools will you use? So I'll give you an example in my own life. When I started writing, I also started my speaking career. One thing you don't want as a professional public speaker is stage fright. I used to get terrible stage fright, that every time I was about to go on stage, I get the heart palpitations, I get the sweaty armpits, I get the cotton mouth, and I would interpret those physiological symptoms, that information, as suffering. I would start this rumination loop of if I get on stage and I mess up, it's gonna be terrible, people are gonna make fun of me, my career will be over, and if I was a real professional public speaker, I wouldn't have these feelings, and so maybe I'm not into this, and I would limit myself. A speaking engagement would come in, and I would say, no, no, no, I'm not ready for that. That crowd is too big for me. I'm not ready for this. And so I limited myself. Now, here's what's interesting. I'll admit to you right now, I feel the same physiological symptoms. I have the dry mouth, and that's why I keep sipping water, and my heart's beating a million miles a minute, because I know that thousands of people are going to watch this podcast, hundreds of thousands of people. And so I still feel anxiety. I feel the symptoms of anxiety, but I interpret it differently, because I've prepared myself psychologically to separate the pain from the suffering. The pain is just signal. It's just information. That tiny keyhole of attention that we talked about earlier, the signal's still coming in, right? The signal is still there. The data is there. But my interpretation is completely different. So now, when I have a big presentation, I still feel those symptoms. But I tell myself a completely different belief. The belief now is not that I'm not ready, and this is too hard, and this is not going to go well. Instead, I tell myself my heart is beating quickly, so that my heart can pump more blood to my brain, so my brain has more oxygen, so I can deliver my best possible presentation about something I really care about. Now, you're a doctor, is that true? Don't tell me actually, don't tell me. I don't know if it's true, I don't care if it's true, because beliefs are tools, not truths.

Speaker 2:
[45:39] Yeah, I love this as a topic. I mean, the first thing I wanna say there, Nir, is pain is not suffering, can also be applied to your chocolate cake example, right? So you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to, in inverted commas, eat healthily, whatever that means to that individual, and for you, you know that you're gonna get tempted by chocolate cake if you go out for dinner. So even if you have mentally contrasted and you'd prepared what you were gonna say, how you were gonna be polite and decline, you may also succumb and go, you know what, screw it, I really want it, you know, I want that cake, it looks to be if I'm gonna have it. Now, it's not strictly pain that, but it's not, I guess, I think it is, I think it is. But it's not suffering, the suffering comes if you then beat yourself up, go, oh, stupid me, but I can never follow any plan.

Speaker 1:
[46:35] Or even before that. So when you're in the restaurant and you want it, so my interpretation now, it used to be, I want it, I have to have it. Now, I feel hunger. So, what's gonna happen? Am I gonna die? I'm feeling sad. So, I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling bored. I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling fatigued. So, it's just information. Lights entering my retinas right now. Sound is entering my ears. The ambient temperature of the room. All this is information. It doesn't mean I have to do anything about it. Just because you feel discomfort doesn't mean you have to act on it. It's just information.

Speaker 2:
[47:17] I am so tempted to go down a deep rabbit hole on your previous book, Indistractable here, because it really speaks to us. It's pain avoidance, isn't it, that is driving most of our behaviors. But I'm not going to, because there's plenty more to cover in Beyond Belief. But I think it is totally related to what you just spoke about.

Speaker 1:
[47:35] Very much so.

Speaker 2:
[47:36] I really want to talk about this idea about choosing beliefs, because I think there's something very empowering about that. And in Chapter 9, which is the chapter on prayer, which we're going to get to. But all I wanted to touch on just now is this idea that you used to pray when you were six. You know, there was conflicts in the house over money. You'd go on the concrete and you would speak to God, right? Those early morning conversations became your sanctuary, but somewhere along the path to adulthood, the connection faded. And this is the key point for me. As I developed a more rational, evidence-based worldview, prayer began to feel strange. And basically this was part of your journey to stop doing it. And I think this really speaks back to what you said before about facts, beliefs and faith, right? It's, how much evidence do you really need for your beliefs? Right? It's not like you're publishing a scientific research paper. It's like beliefs, as you say, they do not require certainty.

Speaker 1:
[48:47] They're tools.

Speaker 2:
[48:48] They're tools, not truths. They're mental models that you write, built through experience, evidence and deliberate construction. And I wanted to ask you about, well, I mean, there's two big beliefs I've changed in my life over the past years that I have chosen to take on because they make my life better. First one is, if I was that other person, I'd be acting in exactly the same way as they are.

Speaker 1:
[49:15] Love it. Love it.

Speaker 2:
[49:17] And for people who've not heard me say that before, all I'm saying is, if I was that other individual and I grew up where they grew up, I had their childhood, I had their parents, I had their bullying experiences, I'd had their media inputs, I would see the world in exactly the same way as they do. And I would act in that way.

Speaker 1:
[49:37] Right.

Speaker 2:
[49:38] Now, someone often will say, oh, you know, if I was that, I wouldn't be doing that. And I'm like, OK, sure. You can believe that. No problem. Is that belief serving you? I tell you, that belief doesn't serve me. But this one serves me because it helps me interact with the world with compassion and curiosity.

Speaker 1:
[49:54] It's the perfect definition, encapsulation of what eliminating versus liberating belief is. It increases your motivation to interact with that person. When you believe, hey, this is similar to a mantra I have, which is we're all operating with the tools we have. Very, very similar. So it increases my motivation to want to understand that person. And boy, does it decrease my suffering.

Speaker 2:
[50:12] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[50:13] And that's the goal of these liberating beliefs. It's not necessarily to prove a fact. It's to decrease your suffering and increase your motivation.

Speaker 2:
[50:19] And it's like you say, it's a mental model built through experience, evidence and deliberate construction. You can try it on.

Speaker 1:
[50:25] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[50:25] You can pop it on for a month. Say, do I like how I am with this belief or do I prefer the one where I can judge everyone?

Speaker 1:
[50:34] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[50:34] I go, I wouldn't be like them. But I can't believe they think this way. The other one that I've chosen to adopt, there's many more, but the two that come to mind are, life is not happening to me. It's happening for me.

Speaker 1:
[50:46] Love that one. Love it.

Speaker 2:
[50:47] Again, it just helps me. It's like whenever, you know, it's this idea that every experience really or most experiences are really neutral. It's the story we put on to them that determines the outcome they have on our life. And so if I look at life as happening for me, not to me, it's like, oh, how now is this adverse experience helping me? There was a reason for that. What am I going to learn here?

Speaker 1:
[51:14] Do you know what a fact? No, it may not have any purpose to it. But the fact that you have used that belief to decrease your suffering and increase your motivation to persist, it did its job. That's beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[51:28] Are there any beliefs you have chosen to adopt in your life through the writing of this book?

Speaker 1:
[51:33] Oh, my goodness. Where do we start? I mean, I'll tell you, I think the biggest impact of going deep into the psychology of beliefs has been in my relationships. And so, can I share this?

Speaker 2:
[51:46] Please.

Speaker 1:
[51:47] So, it's a difficult story to tell. Every time I tell it, even though I've told it a few times now, it's hard to still tell because it's, well, I'll just tell it. So, a few years ago, my mom had her 74th birthday and I wanted to do something nice for her. So, I wanted to send her some flowers. The problem was, I was in Singapore and she was in Central Florida where I grew up. And I stayed up very late at night to try and call the right florist and make sure that they would deliver on time and that she'd get the flower she wanted and all this rigmarole and spend a bunch of money. I went to bed at one in the morning, I patted myself on the back and thought, Nir, you're a good son. She's gonna love the flowers. She's gonna call you tomorrow and tell you about how great of a son you are. That didn't happen. And what happened instead was that I called her the next morning. I said, hey mom, happy birthday. Did you get the flowers I sent? And she said, yes, I did. But just so you know, thank you for the flowers. But they arrived half dead. And so don't order from that florist again. To which I responded something like, well, that's the last time I buy you flowers. And that went over about as well as you expect. Not so good. My wife was on that call with my mom as well. And she turned to me afterwards and she said, would you like to do a turnaround on this?

Speaker 2:
[52:57] What's the turnaround?

Speaker 1:
[52:58] Well, my response was.

Speaker 2:
[53:06] Today's episode is sponsored by The Way. Have you tried to meditate before? Perhaps you've heard about some of the benefits, like reducing stress and increased focus, and you've given it a go, and thought it's not the practice for you. Well, I believe that may well be because you have not yet tried the right approach. You see, The Way is the only meditation app with a single long-term pathway. You're not forced to make loads of choices each day. Instead, you're guided on an enjoyable and progressive journey that deepens your practice step by step. Now, I've been using this app for many months now, and I absolutely love it. In fact, I love this app so much that I recently decided to invest in the company and join them in their mission to get more people meditating. Since I partnered with The Way, I have had so much positive feedback. One listener said, Dr Chatterjee, I came to The Way through your podcast. I've tried other meditation apps with limited success, and liked the idea of following a single guided path. I'm nearly two months in now and loving it. Henry's gentle and concise approach is very calming, and The Way is now a regular part of my morning routine. That's the sentiment that many people report when they start meditating with The Way and for listeners of my show, The Way is offering 30 free sessions to help you establish your meditation practice. All you have to do is go to thewayapp.com/live more to get started.

Speaker 1:
[54:54] My response was, no, I don't want to do a turnaround to this. I don't need your mumbo jumbo, touchy feely, hocus pocus. I need to vent. We are told that when someone offends you, you have to tell them how you feel. You can't keep it bottled inside. You can't hold back your feelings. You have to tell people how you feel. So I need to tell my wife why my mom was being way too judgmental and why I was right and she was wrong. But thankfully, at that point, I knew enough about what the psychology literature says about venting, that venting does nothing but reinforce this effigy that we've built about people. That just as we don't see reality clearly, we don't see others as they are. We see our beliefs about people. We don't see them as they are, and especially the people we know best. I have this experience where I have many friends who are the nicest people to me, and yet when they introduce me to their family and I'm around their kids and their spouse for a few minutes, they treat them horribly. They're not nice to the people closest to them in their lives. Many of us, we treat the people who we love most the worst because we know them, we've seen them. She always does that. That's so like her. There she goes again, right? We have these beliefs that color literally how we see other people. And it can work both ways, positive and negative. I remember the first time I saw my wife across the room, I thought she was okay, she was good looking. Now I think she's gorgeous. After 25 years of marriage, she's the most beautiful person in the world. Physically, I see her differently than I ever did before. But this can also work in reverse where we look for a person's tendency of there she's doing that thing again, and there she, you know, so we're building our perception of them. So here's what happened. So instead of me venting, I didn't vent, I sat down and I did a turnaround. Here's how a turnaround works. This is called inquiry-based stress reduction. It's a technique that was pioneered by Byron Katie. I'm not sure many of your listeners will know her, but she actually was channeling a technique that's over 2000 years old. Aristotle did something very similar, but she kind of really perfected it. Here's how it works. I took that belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, and I wrote it down. And then Katie asks us to ask four questions of ourselves. The first question is, is that belief true? My mother is too judgmental and hard to please? Obviously, what a stupid question. What was Katie thinking, right? Obviously, my mother is being too judgmental and hard to please. That's a dumb question. Let's skip that one. The second question, is it absolutely true? Is it absolutely true that my mother was being too judgmental and hard to please? Absolutely means 100% of the time, no exceptions. There's no other possible explanation. It's not a law of nature that my mother is being too judgmental and hard to please. It's, okay, maybe. I don't know what the other explanation might be, but maybe there's an alternative explanation. Okay, now the third question. Who am I when I hold on to this belief? How do I feel? Who do I become when I hold on to this belief? Well, I'm not very nice. I'm kind of impatient. I become this 13 year old version of myself that I don't really like. All right, fourth question. Who would I be without this belief? If I had this magic wand and poof, I could tap my head and the belief would disappear. Who would I be? How would I feel? I felt noticeably lighter. Just the thought of getting rid of that belief. I felt more at peace. I'd be more patient. I'd be more myself, which sounded great. So in just four questions, in about a minute, two minutes, I determined one, this thing was sure was a fact. And this is a pretty mundane example that I think a lot of people can relate with, but I've seen people who are struggling with trauma, who are struggling with all kinds of things in their life. And just with these four questions, they realized, number one, I'm not 100% sure it's a fact. It couldn't just be a belief. Number two, that not having that belief might actually serve me. And number three, that holding on to the belief wasn't making me better. It was a drag. It was causing suffering in my life, this belief. So now it's time for the turnaround. Turnaround asks you to do something that your brain hates. And everybody, I've never met someone who doesn't have some friction here. And so if you try this, anticipate it. Just we talked about how you have to plan ahead for that discomfort, plan for the pain, plan for the pain, because your brain hates changing its mind. Let me say that again. Your brain hates changing its mind. Remember, the reason we have limiting beliefs is because they served us in the past. They protected us. So your brain wants to do everything it possibly can to keep you passive, to keep you docile, to keep you from moving outside your comfort zone, because that's what kept you safe in the past. So your brain hates changing its mind. So the idea of a turnaround is you're not changing your mind. You're just collecting what I call a portfolio of perspectives. That's it. Just like, you know, Pokemon cards or baseball cards, you're just collecting different beliefs. That's it. That's all the exercise asks you to do. And you do that by asking yourself, could the exact opposite of what I am sure is a belief is a truth, right? Could the exact opposite also be true? So let's try. My mother is too judgmental and hard to please. I have one belief. Let's see if I can get a second. What's the opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please? My mother is not too judgmental and hard to please. I thought for a minute, could that be true? Well, she did thank me for the flowers. She was just saying a statement of fact, right? That's how the flowers looked to her. Okay. Maybe she was trying to be helpful and not hurtful. Maybe she was just trying to make sure I didn't get scammed by this florist. Okay. Now I have two beliefs. Let's do a third belief. My mother is too judgmental and hard to please. The opposite of that, I am too judgmental and hard to please. Could that be true? Well, to be honest, I had rehearsed in my mind that I deserved effusive praise for what I had done. And when that didn't appear, I lost it.

Speaker 2:
[60:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:45] So who was being judgmental? I was. Okay. Now we have three beliefs. Let's try for our fourth. I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself. That's also a turnaround. That one was the hardest to accept, but turned out to be the most true. That after I spent all this time and money doing something, and it didn't work out, I felt like I was incompetent, like I had messed up, like it was my fault. And this is what we call a misattribution of emotion. When we feel bad inside, we look for the first person that we can take it out on. And that's exactly what I did. But really, I was feeling bad about something that I was judging myself for. So now, which one of those four beliefs is true? Which is false? All of them? None of them? Who cares? Beliefs are tools, not truths. So what I could do with that is realize that first belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, only one way out. She had to change so I could stop suffering. If you hold your breath waiting for people to change, you're going to suffocate.

Speaker 2:
[61:44] People lock themselves into mental prisons on this stuff. Of their own making all the time.

Speaker 1:
[61:49] And even if she was wrong, why am I the dummy waiting for her to change? So I can prove to her for a fact she was being too judgmental.

Speaker 2:
[61:56] So what?

Speaker 1:
[61:57] So what?

Speaker 2:
[61:58] Wouldn't help anything anyway.

Speaker 1:
[61:59] Exactly. With these other three beliefs, wow, I could free myself from that suffering. Now it was something I could do. She wasn't even in the room anymore. And yet she was causing me suffering. With these other three beliefs, I could have a different perspective. And what did that do? Most importantly, these new liberating beliefs, what did that do to my motivation level? To have a relationship with my mom. I became more motivated to have a relationship with her. I reduced my suffering day to day. So that's what this line of research has done more than anything for me. It doesn't make you have this superpower. It reduces your suffering and increases your motivation to persist long enough to get the things that you really want in your life.

Speaker 2:
[62:38] I think it's such a great example because it speaks to close relationships. And as you've already pointed out, sometimes it's the people closest to us who don't see the best of us. And I mean that chapter in the book in which you talk about that story, the subtitle to that chapter heading from Recollection is, you don't have a relationship problem, you have a perception problem. Which again, I think is brilliant because it speaks to what we said right at the start, which is most of us are not seeing reality. We're seeing a version of the world created by our beliefs. You created that version because you had this expectation. And I guess you could call it a belief about what your mother should do when you stay up to 1 a.m. and do something for her. And it's such a beautiful exercise to turn things around very quickly, at least to just soften your belief, belief again, that that was a fact. It's kind of interesting to me because the first time I heard you tell that story on a podcast recently, the first thing that went in my head before you got into how you turned around when you just said what your mum had said to you, which is, hey, Nir, thanks so much. And then, by the way, the flowers came half dead, so don't use that florist again. I thought it just sounds like a really helpful thing to me, right? I'm like, oh, she said thanks, so she appreciated it. And then she may be trying to stop her beloved son wasting his money. And next time she's a different florist, right? Can I ask what's the nationality of your mum?

Speaker 1:
[64:22] Or Israeli.

Speaker 2:
[64:24] Israeli, okay. The only reason I ask is because something... I put this out on Instagram once before, I think, and it was so controversial. And so my mum was born and brought up in India. And she came to the UK in, I think, 1972. And, you know, I don't want to generalise, but Indian mums can be quite direct, okay? And this really does speak to this, to the kind of underlying thesis in your book, I think, about beliefs and we're not seeing reality, right? We're creating reality through our beliefs. So I remember so clearly coming back from university, I don't know, first year or second year, you know, I'd gone away, I was eating too much, I was drinking too much, you know, I was first time away from home. And I think at one point mum said in some version of, you're fat, what are you doing?

Speaker 1:
[65:26] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:27] Now, depending on your life experience, you will interpret that potentially differently from how I interpreted it. I never minded, right? Because I've grown up with mum and I like the fact that she's direct and she was right. And actually her saying that to me, helped me realize, you know what? Mum's right, actually. I should probably, she didn't tell me what to do. I just thought, yeah, I probably let myself go a little bit. I can be a bit more careful or whatever it might be. Now, when I put that out on Instagram, oh my God, for some people, they're like, that's abusive. Because obviously I don't particularly want negative comments about my mum, right? But it speaks to this idea that people are locked in to their beliefs about the world, right? Sure, I accept that can also be done in a very controlling way. And maybe people making those comments, those negative comments, maybe they've had those direct comments used against them in a negative way. And I get that. I totally get that. But again, mum's saying that to me. I could interpret that as, you know what? Mum loves me and she's telling me how it is. Or I can choose to take offence, right? And go, I can't believe she said that to me. And again, there's a cultural component to that as well, right? Because I suspect for an English family, for a native British family, politeness is a big value here in the UK. That's right. That's probably not what, you know what I mean? There's a cultural difference. And I understand that having lived in my mum since I was born.

Speaker 1:
[67:05] So our beliefs are definitely shaped from our priors, whether it's our culture, whether it's our upbringing for sure. That's where they come from. All our beliefs come from these priors. They also tend to spark what we are most, what we value most, right? So it could be that for you, being a little overweight wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't one of your insecurities. Whereas for me, if somebody were to tell me I was fat, I would think about that for months. Like that would really hurt me.

Speaker 2:
[67:32] I wasn't even over, I probably just had some slightly chubby cheeks.

Speaker 1:
[67:35] Because it wasn't something you struggled with before.

Speaker 2:
[67:36] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[67:37] But for me, I think what's important to realize here is that you don't see things and people as they are, you see them as you are.

Speaker 2:
[67:44] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[67:44] It's because I had this insecurity that any little thing would trigger me. And so what I've adopted since, that's really helpful to me. And this is again, one of those mantras that I say to myself, constantly to remind myself of a liberating belief that I've chosen to adopt. Not a fact, it's a belief, it's a tool, not a truth. And I constantly repeat to myself, love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. What does that mean? Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. That when we say, I love you so much, or we say, I love my parents, or I love my siblings, or I love my fellow man, what does that mean? How much do I, how do I measure love? To me, love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. When my daughter was first born, and I remember I held her, it gives me goosebumps now because she's 17, but I remember the day I held her, she was exactly this big. And the doctor let me take the baby downstairs and I got to give her her first bath after she was born. And I remember feeling, I love this person. This little baby more than anything in the world. And I would give her every benefit of the doubt. Now, why do I love her so much? Was it because she did nice things for me? No, she wasn't sending me flowers like I did for my mom. Why did I love her so much? It's because I gave her complete benefit of the doubt. When she cried, did I say, oh, you're crying because you want to annoy me? No, it's the only tool she had at her disposal. All she could do was cry when she needed something. Well, guess what? We're all big babies. We just grow up, that's all. We just get bigger. And yet, so for me, when I remind myself, just like I gave my daughter when she was born, all the benefit of the doubt, because I loved her so much, you measure love by the benefit of the doubt. How could I expect my mom to behave any differently? That's the tool she has. The suffering came because I expected reality to be differently. It's like asking my mom to speak Russian. She doesn't speak Russian. How can I expect her to say things exactly the way I would like them to land on me? That's ridiculous. That I was creating this suffering because I was trying to change reality from how it was. That's the source of all this suffering. Instead, I interpret it again. The pain is just signal, just information. The suffering is up to me. And so when I remind myself constantly, when something happens that would, that annoys me and triggers me, love is measured by the benefit of doubt.

Speaker 2:
[70:06] Yeah, that's really beautiful, Niren. And throughout the book, there's all kinds of practical exercises that people can practice with because some of this stuff is not going to just land immediately. They're not going to just hear it and go, okay, cool, great. I'm not going to have any relationship problems anymore.

Speaker 1:
[70:21] I wrote the book and I have to reread it.

Speaker 2:
[70:23] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[70:24] Because remember, your brain is trying constantly to suck you back into your default state of pestivity.

Speaker 2:
[70:29] And we will do sometimes, especially when we're tired or overworked or stressed. We will fall back to old patterns and that's okay. As long as you acknowledge it, take responsibility and then try again.

Speaker 1:
[70:42] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[70:43] So yeah, I think really, really great examples. I want to talk about how belief relates to health. Before we do that, could you just give us this framework of these three powers of belief that I don't think we've touched on them, but probably not heard it as a kind of arching framework. So perhaps give us that.

Speaker 1:
[71:02] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[71:03] And then let's dive deep into health.

Speaker 1:
[71:05] Okay, terrific. So we have our limiting beliefs, we have our liberating beliefs. We also have these three powers of belief. The first power of belief is the power of attention, the power of beliefs to change what you see. The second power is the power of anticipation, the power to change what you feel. And then the third power of belief, probably the most powerful of the three, is the power to change what you do. We call this the power of agency.

Speaker 2:
[71:26] Yeah, and I guess in the power of attention, we've already spoken about this idea that believing is seeing. You mentioned the hypnosedation and the chap who did the operation without any anesthetic. We touched on relationships and, you know, choose the perspective that kind of helps you, I guess. The second one was the power of anticipation that you just mentioned. And in this section in the book, there was quite a lot of stuff around health, which I found really, really interesting. I particularly like the chapter called Living Longer, Stronger and Smarter, How Your Beliefs Become Your Biology. And you make the case that our thoughts about aging might have more impact on the aging process than things like diet, exercise and sleep. So can you speak to that topic a little bit?

Speaker 1:
[72:19] I think it's important to clarify some of the myths around beliefs. That I think that there's this kind of popular narrative that just your thoughts will change your biology, that just your thoughts will change your reality. And there's a lot of studies, unfortunately, that turn out not to replicate, that turn out not to be very well run, that seem to imply this. There's a, we don't even need to name these studies. But anyway, we should know that beliefs do not directly change your biology. And yet, we know that they can have profound consequences. So there was a study done at Yale where they found that people who have positive views about aging in their 30s end up living seven and a half years longer. Seven and a half years longer, to put that in perspective, that's huge. That's more in the effect of diet. That's more in the effect of exercise. It's more in the effect of stopping smoking. Seven and a half years is tremendous. Now, what does that look like? What does that sound like? Someone who has a negative view of aging says stuff that we hear all the time, that aging involves inevitable decline. How many times I used to say, I'm not that old, 48, but I used to say, as I was getting to my 40s, ah, you know, I'm getting older. That's why I had this back pain or I'm having a senior moment when I would forget something. That would be a negative view of aging. And that was kind of my default state.

Speaker 2:
[73:30] And it's very damaging, isn't it? We don't realize how damaging that stuff is.

Speaker 1:
[73:34] And why is it so damaging? It's not that it's sending cosmic vibrations into your mitochondria. That's not what's happening. At least that's not what the evidence shows. There's a very specific reason why it's so damaging. And when we look at people who have positive views about aging, what do they believe? A positive view of aging is something as simple as growth is possible at any age. Growth is possible at any age. So when I have a difficulty, what memory, what belief comes to mind first? Oh, I'm getting older. I'm having a senior moment. Oh, you know what? Growth is possible at any age. So how is it that believing something as simple as growth is possible at any age can give you seven and a half years more life? It's not that it's changing your mitochondria in any way. It's not making you, it's not changing your biology directly. It's that people who have a positive view of aging behave differently. So if you have a positive view of aging, if you believe growth is possible at any age, what's going to happen if you have a little ache and pain, but you have an appointment to go on a walk with a friend, or go do a community service project in your neighborhood, or go to the gym, or go see a friend, these things that we know will improve your longevity, you're much more motivated to do these things to increase your lifespan when you have positive views of aging. You're taking care of a body that you believe can live longer. So your beliefs don't become your biology directly. Your beliefs become behaviors that then become your biology. There's another great example of this, where they took a true group of men, and one of them, they said, just do your normal exercise routine. The other group, they said, we have a brand new steroid with no side effects. And so we want you to, we're going to enrol you in this clinical trial. We want you to take this steroid and then go exercise. Okay? Turns out that the steroid was just a placebo. There was nothing in the steroid, just a pill. Turns out that the men who believe they were taking a steroid, even though it was a placebo, gained more muscle and strength than the men who didn't take the steroid that they didn't know was a placebo. Why did that happen? It's not that the placebo made them stronger and gain more muscle mass. It's that they subtly worked harder. Because they believe they were taking a steroid, they would push out another set. They would increase the weight a little bit. And so they got stronger because they believe they were supposed to get stronger. They anticipated something to happen and then it became true. And so that's how our beliefs become our biology. Not because of magic, but because it changes our behaviour.

Speaker 2:
[75:59] I wonder what the current epidemic of ill health in our elderly populations are doing to children's view of ageing today. Because I think if you probably compare the current generation to previous generations, yes, we're living longer or many of us are living longer, but we're also living with a lot of sickness and infirmity and cognitive decline. And I wonder what that does to kids growing up. If they're seeing that, if they're seeing elderly, infirm grandparents, for example, do you know what I mean? What message is that imprinting in them? You know, you've shared some great studies from your book. I've also spoken before on this podcast about, you know, in cultures where you have a positive view of women aging, they have less menopausal symptoms. Okay?

Speaker 1:
[77:03] Amazing.

Speaker 2:
[77:04] Right?

Speaker 1:
[77:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[77:05] In certain tribes, there is a belief that as you get older, you become a faster runner, right? So you don't believe you get slower as you age. The belief is that when you get to your 60s and your 70s, that's when you're a really fast and masterful runner, right? So what does that do to people as they get older? It's not that they slow down. It's like, hey, my best times are ahead.

Speaker 1:
[77:27] So what does that do to your motivation? It increases your motivation to keep running.

Speaker 2:
[77:31] Yeah. And I really, I would say in my life, one of the best examples of this is my mother-in-law, who's just a phenomenal can-do person. I mean, she will literally, she doesn't believe there's anything she cannot do. And it's, I love it. And I love that my children see this as an example of, you know, in your seventies, you know, she basically, I did the London Marathon, I think, in 2021. And, you know, my wife, my kids and my wife's parents came down to London to support. And my mother-in-law basically, I think, saw someone in their seventies doing it. And she literally came back and started joining her local 5K partner. She thought, well, that person can do it. So can I. And then for a period of time, she was doing parkrun every week, which is 5K every Saturday. So the whole idea that our beliefs have that much of an impact, I think are absolutely massive.

Speaker 1:
[78:33] And this is the antidote. This is exactly what we should do. We should, you know, when we are bombarded on the news with all the death and suffering and people hurting each other and scamming each other and all the bad news. We look for that as evidence because that's what the brain expects, right? And in reverse, when we have examples, when we have these positive role models, like, wow, look at that seven year old doing it, I can too. The same becomes true. And this is exactly the point that based on what we see, it informs what we anticipate we can do. And therefore that enhances our agency, all based on beliefs.

Speaker 2:
[79:05] This whole second power of beliefs, which is about anticipation. We can also, I guess, call it expectation, right? There was such a powerful example you shared about, I think it was at Mr. A and the overdose. So you just mentioned the placebo, is this the nocebo?

Speaker 1:
[79:22] That's right. And so this has to do with how our beliefs can limit what we think we're able to do. So here's what happened. So Mr. A, he's anonymized in the psychology study. Mr. A has a terrible breakup with his girlfriend and he decides that he wants to end his life. So he finds a pill jar of antidepressants and he takes the entire bottle of pills. And he decides, that's it, this is the end. As soon as he flushes down all these pills, he swallows them, he has a change of heart and he decides he wants to live after all. He rushes to the neighbor's house. He tells them, I took all my pills, please take me to the hospital right away. They rush him to the emergency room. When he gets there, he's slipping in and out of consciousness. He collapses on the floor and he manages to tell the nurses, I took all my pills, I took all my pills. They rush him into the operating room. They're trying to figure out what he's taken so that they can cure him from this overdose. And they look on the pill jar and the pill jar has a phone number on it. It doesn't say what the antidepressants are. Meanwhile, by the way, his heart rate is plummeting. His blood pressure is dangerously low. And they're frantically trying to figure out what did he take? They call this phone number and it turns out that Mr A was in a clinical trial for these antidepressants. And he had been placed in the control group. He hadn't taken the antidepressants at all. In fact, he was in the placebo group. So he had swallowed an entire bottle of an inert substance. It was just a placebo. And yet he was showing these physiological symptoms. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. His heart rate was falling. His blood pressure was dangerously low. He was exhibiting all the signs of an overdose. They tell Mr A this, that, hey buddy, you were in the placebo group. Nothing in what you just took could have caused these symptoms. Within 15 minutes, his heart rate and his blood pressure stabilized. He's fully awake. He walks out of the hospital, maybe a bit embarrassed, but totally fine. Now, why do I tell this story? What does it demonstrate? It shows you how your labels can become your limits and why we have to be very, very careful of believing what we are able to do, what we can become. Because if Mr A, through believing that he was overdosing, started showing these physiological symptoms, what else does that mean? Actually, it's funny, on the way over, a colleague of mine, we were talking about coffee, how she's never had coffee, because one time she had coffee and she couldn't sleep for three days. Well, we know factually that caffeine exits your system in what, 12 to 24 hours. There's no way you couldn't have sleep. What is that? That's the nocebo effect. And so just like these pills or coffee, we create these symptoms in our mind from all kinds of self-diagnoses.

Speaker 2:
[82:00] Yeah, it's so powerful. On that example, Nir, what do you think was going on? Because you're making the case in the book that the reason belief is so powerful when it comes to expectation is not because belief has a magical quality on our mitochondria. It's because belief changes your action, right? So, you know, if you believe you can get stronger and be really active and mobile in your 70s and 80s, you're going to do more. You're going to walk more. You're going to go to the gym. Are you going to go, yeah, I'm not slowing down because I'm getting older. I know I can get strong as I get older. But I guess the reverse is happening here, isn't it? The guy hadn't actually taken the pill, yet his physiology was changing. What do you think might be going on there?

Speaker 1:
[82:51] Because he anticipated what was going to happen, right? So he became hyper fixated on the symptoms. Probably, this is what happens with chronic pain. It's very similar. Is that there is, with chronic pain, so chronic pain is defined as a pain that does not have a physical source. After six months, you still have that pain. And when we can't determine what else is causing that pain. And so what's happening is a hyper focusing of attention, the first power of belief, where you're looking for any kind of pain signals, and then you're amplifying your awareness of that signal. So the brain, back to that little pinhole of attention, the brain can focus on whatever you're paying attention to. And so that's what you see. That became an interpretation of his internal bodily state, of his feelings. And then he was confirming that the more he felt it, the more he said it, the more he became sick, it became evidence that it was true. And so this is what we call in pain reprocessing therapy, it's called the fear, pain, fear cycle. That the more, and by the way, fear is always at the heart of all of these limiting beliefs. It's always about fear. That fear amplifies pain, which becomes real. All pain is real. I'm not saying that pain is fake. All pain is real. And all pain is in the brain. Pain isn't here, pain isn't here, pain isn't here, pain's in the brain. It's signal. And so what happens when we are afraid of something, it creates, it caused us to hyper focus on that information, which caused us to pay attention, amplify the pain, which creates more suffering. And then we become more afraid of it. And so this is exactly the cycle of chronic pain as well.

Speaker 2:
[84:26] Yeah, for sure. I had Howard Schubiner on the show maybe three years ago. He's coming back on in a few weeks. And he's done a lot of the research on pain reprocessing therapy. And we went deep into chronic pain and how, as you say, all pain is real, but pain is created in the brain. And, you know, you mentioned before with hypnotherapy, didn't you? Hypnosedation. You can go into an operation and not really experience the pain, right? But someone else who had not done that training would absolutely be experiencing the pain.

Speaker 1:
[84:57] And in fact, they feel pain where it doesn't exist. So just like pain is not necessarily suffering, sickness is not illness. Those are two separate things. That sickness is in the body, but illness is in the mind. Even though, you know, it's fascinating. We spend about 80% of healthcare spending is taking care of the symptoms, is the illness is where 80% of our healthcare spending goes. It's only 20% towards the actual physical maladies.

Speaker 2:
[85:22] Yeah, I want to talk about that actually. Just want to finish off on what you're talking about with the, I guess, the biology of belief. And you talk about research from, is it Dr Levi? Levi? You basically say here in that chat, which I found remarkable. Levi's research has consistently shown that how we think about aging affects how we age. And this happens through multiple pathways, cognitive functioning, cardiovascular health, recovery from disability, preventive health behaviors. And, you know, if you want more detail, they could read it in the book, but it's truly fascinating how important our beliefs are when it comes to our health.

Speaker 1:
[86:04] But what's so frustrating, and I think this is what I still struggle with, is that when people hear this, there's an immediate wall that goes up. Because the way limiting beliefs work, because of the brain's penchant for passivity, because it's constantly trying to drag us back into what we always did, there's this immediate reflex of, yeah, but that's not going to work for me. Right? I guarantee you people listening to this right now are thinking, yeah, that's all fine, but I have a special condition. I'm a special case because their brain is desperately getting them to not change their mind. And that's what I would encourage people to dive into, that if you feel that resistance, if you feel that notion of, no, no, no, the condition preventing me from trying a new perspective is a fact. Even more reason to dive into this power of belief, that it probably is way more malleable than you think. And the nice thing is, it's something you can try on. It's like when you go to a shoe store, you don't walk into a shoe store with the same pair of shoes and leave, no, you try on a new pair of shoes. You see if there's something that might fit better for you. And it turns out that not only does it decrease physical suffering, it does increase cognitive abilities. There's so much that changing your beliefs can do for you.

Speaker 2:
[87:18] As a doctor, I have thought for many years about the pros and cons of labels. And you do have this section in your book entitled Labels Are Your Limits. You've touched on this a little bit already, but I really want to explore this topic because I think labels, as you can call them, diagnoses if you want through the lens of health, can be a double-edged sword. They can be liberating and empowering, or they can be entrapping. So can you speak to this idea? I think it's a, particularly for my audience, I think this is huge.

Speaker 1:
[88:00] So I think there's a few, a few confluencing events that I think are subtly harming us. One is that I think we have this explosion in diagnoses. And there was a medical professional I talked to for the book who said, one day medical science will advance to the point where everyone is sick. And I think we're getting to that state. That even today, it turns out that the majority of Britons are neurodivergent. The majority. That between ADHD and OCD and all the different diagnoses we have. Now, that's not a knock on diagnoses. It's a questioning of where is the check and balance. Because, you know, I have ADHD. I've been diagnosed with ADHD. It wasn't a blood test. It wasn't an MRI study. It was a questionnaire. And that questionnaire asked me completely subjective questions. How often you're on a Likert scale? How often do you experience distraction compared to who?

Speaker 2:
[89:04] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[89:05] How do I know that I experience distraction more than you do? Well, I look for this confluence of symptoms and then I have a five-point scale and then you have a diagnosis. Now, I'm not anti-diagnoses per se. They can be incredibly empowering. In fact, there's what's called the Rumpelstiltskin effect. Do you remember the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin effect? The princess has to name the little gremlin in order for her to overcome the challenge. And we have to be cognizant of this, that we love this Rumpelstiltskin effect, that when I was diagnosed with ADHD, oh, what a weight off my shoulders. You see all these struggles I've had. Now I have an explanation. This is the reason I've been struggling. But there's a downside, there's a cost. And the cost was that every time I was distracted, every time my mind went off track, I immediately thought to myself, there's my ADHD, there's my chronic condition. And I would start ruminating again. Fear, fear would cause me to say, well, if this ADHD, I can't get under control, maybe I need a new treatment regimen. Maybe if I can't meet my deadline, what are my editors gonna say? And if I can't get on, I would start working myself up into a frenzy over something that was just a belief that this was something I could never escape. You see, what I've learned about diagnoses is that diagnoses are map. It's a map. You're here and you're trying to get there. And so there are many paths in order for you to get there. What I was doing, I think what many people do, I took my diagnosis to mean that I was the map. I'm not the map. I'm using a map as a tool. And so today, I don't, when I get distracted, who doesn't get distracted these days? Everybody gets distracted from time to time. Instead, it's not, there's my ADHD, a chronic condition, which I will always have and never get rid of. No, I'm learning a skill. I'm learning a skill.

Speaker 2:
[90:52] That's it.

Speaker 1:
[90:53] I'm learning a skill. And that's, and maybe I'm starting in a place where other people are far ahead of me. Okay, so what? There's probably things that I'm way better at. Let me prove it to you. I've written three bestsellers with ADHD. Why? Because it's not that I always get distracted because of this chronic brain condition. It's that when I'm interested in something, I'm hyper fixated on it. I love it. You can't pull me away. And that's why I can focus long enough for things I enjoy.

Speaker 2:
[91:17] Is it liberating or limiting?

Speaker 1:
[91:19] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[91:20] You would actually probably really enjoy, there's a book called The Age of Diagnosis by the neurologist, the British neurologist. I think she's British. Was she Irish? I can't remember now. The neurologist, Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan, she came on the show maybe a year ago or so. And she writes a whole book on this topic of the age of diagnosis in which we're living. But Suzanne asks the question, or Suzanne thinks one way we can look at this is to ask ourselves, is the diagnosis helping me? I think it's beautifully simple. It might be that actually you've spent 10 years struggling with your health, not knowing what you have. And then finally, someone gives you a diagnosis and that feels, you know, I knew it. I knew I had something. You know, it feels very reassuring, you know. And it may help you access certain treatments. And also, beware, because certain diagnoses can become a new prison for you to live in. And you see everything in the world through that belief. The belief that that diagnosis is you.

Speaker 1:
[92:30] That's right. So what we want to be careful of is called identity foreclosure. That when we believe that we are a certain kind of person, we should be very, very careful of that. I mean, this is why we don't call people addicts anymore. We don't say addicts. We say people struggling with impulse control. Because you don't want people to think, well, that's who I am. That's the mold. Because you can change your behavior. People have a really tough time changing who they are. They think that those are immutable traits. So we don't need that language in our lives. We don't need to believe that we are a diagnosis. If it's not serving you, you can change.

Speaker 2:
[93:04] Lies can become reality. You write about Serena Williams and it's a beautiful story, which really speaks to the power of beliefs and expectation. But I guess it's a story that's worthwhile as going through because some could interpret it as fake it until you make it, right? So tell the story of Serena and then let's just unpick what we can learn from it.

Speaker 1:
[93:31] Sure. So Serena Williams at Wilmington, and she's having a really tough time that year. And the problem is in that year's Wilmington, the problem was that she wasn't rushing the net. That she was getting in her head too much and somehow she lost confidence in rushing the net. And when you don't rush the net, you know, milliseconds count and you lose points. And she was doing very badly. Then her coach, Patrick Montaglou, takes her side and says, Serena, look, I looked at the statistics and it says here that when you rush the net, 80 percent of the time you score a point. It's the best news of the day. Amazing. She says, well, really? I thought I sucked at the net. And he says, well, you know, look, the statistics don't lie. And it's true, statistics don't lie.

Speaker 2:
[94:18] Can I just pause you there just for a minute? So it's basically that she was going through a bit of a rough patch. She believed that she wasn't rushing the net. Patrick, her coach, also saw that she wasn't rushing the net, but Patrick told her that the statistics say that you are rushing the net and you're doing well when you do.

Speaker 1:
[94:39] He was telling her that when she rushes the net, he wanted her to rush the net more, but she was limiting herself. She was holding herself back. So he said, look, don't fear the net. When you rush the net, you score 80% of the points.

Speaker 2:
[94:49] And that wasn't true?

Speaker 1:
[94:51] Not even close. He completely lied to her. Now, what he says was, is that the lie became reality because after he told her that, she gained confidence based on the lie he had told her. She started rushing the net. She did end up scoring 80% of the points at the net and she ended up winning Wimbledon that year. Now, is what I'm advising people to do is to lie to themselves? Should we just gaslight ourselves and believe anything we want to believe? Not exactly. You see, her coach knew, and this is what makes coaching so powerful, her coach knew what she was capable of. Just like those rats we had talked about at the very beginning, that they had it in them all along.

Speaker 2:
[95:32] And he had evidence that she has the skills as well.

Speaker 1:
[95:35] He wasn't making it, he wasn't saying, oh, Serena, go fly.

Speaker 2:
[95:37] He wasn't taking someone off the street and saying, hey, you can go to the net and rush it.

Speaker 1:
[95:41] It was based on fact. So here's the most common criticism I get to all this. Are you telling people to lie to ourselves? Should we just gaslight ourselves? Well, I would argue you are already gaslighting yourself. You're already lying to yourself. You just pick the limiting belief versus the liberating belief. So we can choose. Serena was picking the limiting belief. I suck at the net. Her coach knew a liberating belief that you're great at the net. And he knew that that could also be true, right? Beliefs are tools, not truths. Which one was a fact? They were both true. If she believes she sucked at the net, she did. And if she believes she was great at the net, she also was. So by reminding her of this liberating belief, the lie became reality.

Speaker 2:
[96:20] I'd love to know if Serena's ever commented on this. And you know, has he? I'm sure she knows now. It would be quite interesting her take on that. It kind of reminds me of many, many years ago, maybe my late 20s, when I was getting into golf, I haven't played in years. I can on occasion get quite obsessed about things and I would buy lots of books, some golf and the mental game of golf. And I'm almost certain from recollection, there was a book by someone called Bob Rutella. He's written bestsellers on the psychology of golf basically. And I'm almost certain from recollection, I haven't thought about this in years that some of the most excellent putters, I mean, putting is a critically important skill in golf. They say you drive for show, you putt for dough, right? Because it doesn't matter how good your drives are on your iron shots. And if you don't sink that five footer time in time again, you ain't gonna win anything, right? And sometimes interviewers at the end of their round, they'd go up and say, hey, listen, your drives, your iron play was great today, but of course, had your putting been a bit better, obviously you would have scored higher. And I think he trained people and he says some of the best golfers would say, what are you talking about? I putted great today. The putts didn't go in, but I putted great. And it's kind of interesting. So yeah, could it be self-deception? Well, possibly, but you're also talking about some of the best golfers in the world who probably know that they're capable of putting really well. And it's more helpful for them to choose the belief, right? That, hey, I putted great today.

Speaker 1:
[97:58] That's terrific. I mean, this is a great demonstration of the power of agency. Why is that so important? So just that small distinction of that I controlled what I could.

Speaker 2:
[98:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[98:10] I putted great. Now, whether there was a bit of wind or outside circumstances, I can't control that. But I did what was under my control. This gets back to this concept of locus of control, which turns out to be incredibly important for our psychological well-being, that there are two ways of looking at the world, per se, that one is called an external locus of control and one is an internal locus of control. An external locus of control, these people say that things happen to me. The world is so crazy these days with the politics and the wars and the economy and AI. All these things are happening to me. A person with an internal locus of control believes that they affect change, that they are responsible for where they are in life. Here is what is interesting about this. Number one, people with an internal locus of control that believe generally that I control my circumstances do better in life in almost every conceivable way. They make more money, they have more friends, they contribute more to their community. All these good things happen. Psychologically they have less rates of depression, anxiety disorder. All these good things happen to people with an internal locus of control more than the external locus of control. Now here is the real kicker. Even when the fact is that you are persecuted or that you are at the bottom of the socioeconomic strata or that you are discriminated against, even when you have every factual reason to claim that the world is inhibiting you in some way, you still do better with an internal locus of control. So that is 100% of your control. You can't always control your circumstances and of course there is inequality and it's ridiculous not to think there is an inequality. But it turns out that even in those circumstances, you do better psychologically with that internal locus of control.

Speaker 2:
[99:46] You don't know how much I loved that section in the book, right? Because one of the things that comes up in the health world is exactly what you just said, right? Many doctors will say, all of this personal agency stuff about what you can do for your health is pointless. These are socio-economic problems. And I once gave a keynote a couple of years ago, I think at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. And I said that whilst that viewpoint is true, it's also condescending.

Speaker 1:
[100:22] And not very useful.

Speaker 2:
[100:23] I'm not very useful. And why I... And look, the truth is, it's both, right? It's like nothing's black or white. Should we be trying to improve the quality of living and lifestyles for everyone? Yeah, of course we should. But actually, no matter how bad your situation is, it always helps to have a better personal agency, a belief that actually I can do something to influence the outcome.

Speaker 1:
[100:48] Right. Even if it's not based on fact. I think that's what's so mind-blowing, is that even if it's not objectively true, it's a different standard. One is about should society change? Of course society can improve. But if you sit there and wait for society to improve, you're going to be dead already. By the time that happens, your life will have passed you by.

Speaker 2:
[101:05] Yeah. Just to sort of finish off that point, a really simple example is, okay, let's say an individual has got a stressful job and they don't like the way their colleagues and their boss speaks to them and they hate the job. But they do it because it's the only job they can get. If I can teach them a breathing exercise that helps them lower stress, because it does. There are many breathing exercises that we know physiologically will lower your stress levels and change the tone of your nervous system. If I teach that individual that, it doesn't change the fact that the boss is not very nice to them, or they don't want to be in that job. But it changes their perception of that. It changes their possibility when the boss says that, instead of getting triggered, they can be a bit calmer. They can look at it differently. They can look at options. That's right. So it's not either or, it's both. That's right.

Speaker 1:
[102:07] And so this is why having this practice of these frequently accessible liberating beliefs. For example, for me, whenever something is hard, it feels painful, it feels difficult. There's that automatic reaction between the pain, the signal and the suffering. So how do we short circuit that? How do we divert it to a liberating belief? For me, for example, I've written three bestsellers, I've written thousands of articles. Writing for me is never easy. It's hard freaking work. I want to do anything but the writing. I want to go look at Instagram or check email or stock prices or sports scores, do anything but. Because in my mind before, the limiting belief was if this is painful, I should escape. I shouldn't do this if it hurts. Well, now I have a new belief. The new belief is this is what it feels like to get better. This is what it feels like to get better. Just having that frame of mind that, you know what? That discomfort, that's a good thing. That's the point that I'm learning something from this. And I have something rare that maybe other people can't do that's special about what I'm doing. This is what it feels like to get better. Whereas my initial reaction was, well, if I was really good at this, if I was a real professional, it would be easy. It would be effortless. I wouldn't feel this discomfort. No, who says that? That's not true. That's a belief. So by simply changing that belief, it really can work wonders. And it turns out it's free. Anyone can adopt it, it has no side effects. And so this is one of the, you know, we talked about in the book how pills don't teach skills. That in fact, that it's our drive, that our problems, so much of medical science has done so much good for us that we can get relief from pills so easily. The problem is that we have this expectation of urgency. We talk about this in pain reprocessing therapy, that one of the steps is to lower the speed, that when we feel pain, that one of the things that we can do in pain reprocessing is to not expect instant relief. You know, medical science has taught us that we should constantly get relief. But if you think about the history of mankind, you know, it's only in the last few hundred years that we have these instantaneous solutions. What do you think people did for 200,000 years? The kings and queens of England had sores and abscesses and parasites and all kinds of pain all day long. They also figured out how to overcome those things without anesthetics. They were in pain a lot. So we can learn how to differentiate that not every stressor, not every pain point has to bring us down, has to be suffering. We can learn to look at it differently. So those frequent mantras, like we talked about, about how everyone is operating from the tools they have, or this is what it feels like to get better, or one of my favorites is that things don't get easier, you get stronger. These mantras that we repeat throughout the day, this is our defense system against this constant pulling back into passivity and limiting beliefs.

Speaker 2:
[104:53] Yeah. Now, honestly, you take your time writing these books, but this is just a wonderful book. We've not even scratched the sides on what's in it. I did want to talk about the chats on prayer, but I'm going to save that for people to read the book. And you'll see that actually, even if you're not religious, there's a lot in that chapter for you. I love that story when you go and see the priest, you go into the synagogue, you go to the Hindu temple, you go to the mosque and you see all those similarities. It's really great. The book is brand new. It's called Beyond Belief, The Science Bad Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Extraordinary Results, Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. It's a brilliant read. Nir, to finish off, first of all, I've had a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 1:
[105:44] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[105:45] I really, really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1:
[105:46] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[105:49] For that person who has heard us talk today, Nir, and has realized that actually, they have limited their experience of life because of their limiting beliefs. What final words do you have for that person to change those limiting beliefs to liberating ones?

Speaker 1:
[106:15] First step is realizing that you don't see reality clearly. To allow yourself that grace to realize that you just can't see reality clearly. So that's step number one. Then, look for those limiting beliefs. This is probably the hardest part because limiting beliefs are like our faces. I say, look at your face right now. How do you look at your face? You can't look at your face. We all have them, but we can't look at our own face. We can look at our hands, we can look at our feet, we can't look at our face. And so, just like our faces, we can't look at them, we can't look at our limiting beliefs on our own. How do we look at our face? We go to a mirror, we have to reflect. And so, your brain is trying to protect you from seeing those limiting beliefs, because again, that's where safety lies. So, in order to uncover those limiting beliefs, you have to reflect, you have to do a process, which is where we look for what I call the muck. The muck are those areas of your life where you have a goal, you have an aspiration of some kind, but you're not making progress. It's that New Year's resolution that you've had for year after year. It's that annoying relationship that you can't figure out how to fix. It's that dream that you've deferred again and again. You know you're capable, but for some reason, you can't get yourself to do what you know you should do. That's where the limiting beliefs lie. So if you can identify those limiting beliefs and then simply experiment with could the exact opposite be true for a limited amount of time? Could the exact opposite be true? There's a few more steps we didn't get to. But when you do that, you realize that you have far more potential than you ever imagined.

Speaker 2:
[107:45] Neer, it's a wonderful book, Beyond Belief. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 1:
[107:49] My pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[107:54] Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing 5 simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatterjee.com/friday5. If you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behaviour change and movement, weight loss and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks and as audiobooks, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, that option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.