The Life Of Bryony - 32: The Life of YOU: Redefine Success with Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Welcome to The Life of YOU, where we tackle life’s toughest moments. In this special bonus episode, I’m joined by Dr Rangan Chatterjee, physician, author, and advocate for lasting change. Together, we explore how small, intentional steps can help you make meaningful life changes, redefine success, and embrace rest as an essential part of living well. Today: • How can embracing failure help you thrive? • Why is rest not just for your body but also for your mind and heart? • How do you redefine success to live life on your own terms, not by others’ expectations? Dr Chatterjee shares practical strategies and empowering insights to help you live a more fulfilling, balanced life. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU 🗣️ Got something to share? You can text or send me a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB. 💬 Or use the WhatsApp shortcut - https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB 📧 Prefer email? Drop me a line at [e-mail]. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who might need it—it really helps! MY WEEKLY RECOMMENDATION Medik8 Liquid Peptides Serum – This skincare product is a game-changer. Apply it to damp skin in the morning and evening for a perkier, clearer complexion. Bryony xx SOME GREAT RESOURCES In this episode, we discuss personal growth, redefining success, and making lasting changes. For more inspiration, check out: • Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s book “How to Make Change That Lasts” • Bronnie Ware’s The Five Regrets of the Dying • Free resources from Mind UK Presenter: Bryony Gordon Guest: Dr Rangan Chatterjee Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan Executive Producer: Mike Wooller A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Life of You, where we tackle life's trickiest dilemmas and uncover the tools to help you thrive. Today, I'm joined by someone who's dedicated his life to help others achieve lasting, meaningful change, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. I used to not do things if I thought I'd fail and if I thought I couldn't be the best because I felt that I was only loved as a child when I was top dog. And James, you will probably have a similar version of that story. Your question's answered right after this. best movies of the year. What's happening? Oh, God. September 5th in select theaters, December 13th. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines.

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my dad last year and since then I've found myself obsessing over the fear of my own death or losing others I love. I can't seem to stop worrying and it's making it hard to enjoy life. How can I accept that death is a part of life and move forward without being so consumed by it?" One of the things that I think it's really, it's a magic, magic, magic bit in this book, and it's only little, but it's saying, yeah, that actually we need to accept death because it's only by accepting that that we end up living fuller, bigger lives. And I think that is absolutely true. Death is part of the human experience.

My life started to change, dramatically for the better, when I stopped being afraid of dying. I think I was afraid of dying. In my addictive stage of my life, I actually also had a fear of dying. I think I was afraid of dying. In my addictive stage of my life, I actually also had a fear of death. And those things are not as separate as you might think. Yeah, no, I agree. Right? Once you accept that you are going to die, you give yourself permission to actually

start living and embracing and paying attention to life. I've had many life-changing conversations on my podcast over the past few years. Apart from the youth-eager one, another one was with the Pallies of Cairnes, Bronny Ware, who wrote the great book, The Five Regrets of the Dying. She spent years caring for people at the end of their life. And she says that most of them say the same things on their deathbed. I wish I'd worked less. I'd wish I spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. And I hear that stuff and go, why do we have to wait until our deathbeds to get that? And now there's loads on death and how you can start to accept death. And I think there's a cultural component to this.

So my family from India. So in India, when someone dies, the body is cremated very quickly and it's done in full visibility. You talk about remembering. I remember Indira Gandhi's funeral in the United States. Mum and dad grew up in India, right? So, you know, when the Indian prime minister is assassinated, I just got this memory as a kid being in our living room with my brother and mum and dad watching on the BBC, the live televised funeral

of the Indian Prime Minister who's just been assassinated. You can see her body going up in flames, right? Whereas, of course, in the UK, and again, this is not a judgment thing. This is just an observation how different cultures deal with death. In the UK, we'll often hide it away. You don't see the body. It's put in a coffin, right? There's a distance to death. As when my dad died in 2013, I didn't know what to say to my son. I said, oh, you know, dad who's gone up to the sky. I just didn't know what to say. I was like, I felt really uncomfortable. Since then, I've always thought, did I say the right thing? I did the best that I could at the time. But when my auntie died, quite suddenly from cancer, and we went to her funeral just

two summers ago. In our culture, it's quite usual before that you see the body and there's a ceremony around the body. And when it's done in the UK, the top of the coffin is open. And I'm a bit cautious about sharing this because you get a lot of judgment for things like this. But the truth is, my wife and I had a long conversation about this and my kids were probably, I don't know, 11 and nine at the time. And initially it was like, are they ready to see something like that? Should we not take them to that part of the ceremony, just bring them in for the actual formal funeral?

And I said to my wife, I said, babe, I think we should take them, right? Death is a part of life. I think the sooner they see that and accept it in a way that I never did, until my dad died, I don't think I'd really even seen, really probably experienced, yes, as a daughter I had, but individual, I hadn't really done it. And I didn't think it really applied to me in my life. So we took the kids. And I think it was a really powerful experience.

They saw, you know, my auntie, they saw her dead body and they walked around and, you know, it's not hidden away. It's like, yeah, that's what happens. And it's funny, Ronnie, last summer, we went on a holiday to Kenya and I went on a safari. And obviously in the wild, you really see the brutality of life. I've never been on safari,

but I was a bit scared, if I'm honest, about being this close to wild animals. It was one of the most life-changing experiences for me. I go, wow, this is the cycle of life. We're sort of insulated from it. And so that relationship with death is really, really important. I think there's a powerful section,

as you say in the book, on that. And I just want to tie this into what I said about my dad before and Edith Egan, how we can reframe our experiences in life. I now view my dad's death as a gift. I'm not asking anyone else to view their parents' death as a gift. This is my experience that I'm entitled to. I have learned so much since dad died. I've learned things about myself. I've learned things about him. The things I now do to help, you know, I'm very lucky

to help hundreds of thousands of people each week all around the world through my podcasts and books where I live better lives. I don't think I would be doing that or have learned the lessons that I've learned that allow me to share these ideas if my dad was still here. Hey dad was sick and I was a carer for him, I would have been too busy. And so I've now reframed that not as a trick of mind, I actually genuinely think, wow dad, that's such a gift you've given me. If you were still alive, I wouldn't have this stuff.

And it's really helped me. It's really helped me. It doesn't mean I don't wish my dad was here or, you know, the things that my dad would have been proudest of about me. As an Indian immigrant to the UK, to see his son have all of these bestselling books, to have his own primetime BBC One show. For an Indian immigrant like my dad, that's about as good as it gets.

Dad never got to see any of those things. But it's really helped me to now look at death and my dad and go, yeah, that's a gift that he gave to me. You can choose your beliefs, right? Just because you've got a certain set of beliefs at the moment, it doesn't mean you can't change them. You can, right? A few years ago, I didn't see my dad's death as a gift.

Certainly when he died for two years after, I wasn't seeing it as a gift. I was gutted. It was a massive hold on my life. But you can update your beliefs anytime you want. And then what a lot of people don't realize is our behaviors actually follow our beliefs. So one of the reasons why every January

we can't change our behaviors is because we still believe the same things about the world and the same things about ourselves. So your behaviours are not going to change because the belief is driving that behaviour. If you believe that there's an expert out there who knows more than you do about your life, you're constantly going to be like a puppet on a string asking which expert is right. I don't know who to trust. But if you update that belief and go, no one knows what's better for me in my life than me. I'm going to use external experts to help me to educate me, but then I'm going to put it through my own filter and figure out what works best for me. Well, your belief has changed and therefore your behavior is automatically

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Try the Y free for 7 days at TryTheY.ca at TryTheY.ca. James wants to know, Rangan, I avoid starting hobbies because I'm afraid I won't be good at them. How do I embrace being a beginner again? I feel like you might have some personal... So how do you embrace that? Well, firstly, I would say the fact

that you've noticed that about yourself is massive. I think that's the point that we don't think about enough. We always want to get to the solution straight away. An awareness of your problem, a deep awareness, I would say is 80% of it. Yeah. Because so many people living lives, they don't know that that's what's going on, right? So the fact that you know that is already fantastic. So James, I would say,

pick something that you think you'd quite like, but you're afraid of doing, because you think you might not be good and you might fail. And maybe don't do it with anyone at the moment, so if that feels too scary, but I would encourage you to go and do that thing. And then pay attention to how you feel in the days afterwards.

See what comes up for you, right? that thing and then pay attention to how you feel in the days afterwards. See what comes up for you. If you fail, ask yourself, why does that bother me? Those are the questions you need to ask yourself because it's only by doing that kind of internal questioning that you'll understand what's going on and why you're trying so hard to avoid it. So it's not so much about the hobby, it's about why does it bother you that you might not be good at it?

Because actually, one of my greatest hobbies is running. I'm not only good at it, like I'm not fast, but I don't give a flying fuck about that. I used to not do things if I thought I'd fail and if I thought I couldn't be the best because I felt that I was only loved as a child when I was top dog. Yeah. Right. So it top dog. Yeah. Right. So it makes sense. Yeah.

And James, you will probably have a similar version of that story. Right. And once you understand that, that's when you'll start to be able to make those changes. Can I just quickly ask you about redefining success as well? Because that's a key part of the book is that we have this very generic idea of what success is. I'll be good at this. I'll achieve this tick box tick box. And actually you talk about prioritizing rest, which I think is revolutionary and we need to do a lot more of it. You talk about making

sure you're in bed by is it nine p.m.? I do for me. Right. Because it works for me. I've got to be really clear on that. And'm like, we need to find what works for us. That works for me. I am the best human being I can be when I go to bed by nine and I'm up at five. It just works for me. But the thing about the redefining success is that success isn't so much that you have had this many listens of your podcast or this many people buy your book. It's that every summer you switch off your social media

and you can have five weeks with your family. Yeah. And first of all, I acknowledge that I'm lucky to be able to do that. Right? Not everyone can. At the same time, many people who could don't. Okay. And so a useful way of looking at your life is think about success in a broad way rather than a narrow way. Okay. So in the book book I talk about the five buckets of a successful life. Work, yes. Family, friendship, health, and passion. Okay? And ask yourself, how are these five buckets being topped up or not at the moment? Now, if they're not, if some of them aren't, don't beat yourself up. We don't want guilt. We don't want shame. We're just trying to take an honest inventory of our life. Because at this time of year, Brian E., I think one of the other reasons that changes fail

is because working on the wrong things. We think we have to work on the same thing that we worked on last January, but you may look at those fine buckets and then suddenly you get clarity. Oh, I haven't seen my friends for the last six months. Or I'm crushing it at work, but that's coming at the expense of my relationships. Okay, maybe this year I need to just go easy on the work bucket and actually make sure I'm prioritizing my relationships, right? So it's a very simple way of making an assessment on your life. I think rest is also incredibly important

in this stressed out, fatigued world in which we live. You know, rest is not like an optional extra. It's essential. It's essential, but in the book I talk about this really, I think this quite nice idea that think about rest for your body, rest for your mind and rest for your heart. Okay, rest is not just one thing. We think about sleep. Yeah, sleep's important. In terms of body, mind and heart, understand that when you're napping or you're sleeping, think about that as rest for your body, which is important, but then think about your mind,

right? Music, reading, breath work, whatever it might be. Looking outside. Looking outside nature. And I say in the book, I say, if you want to think about rest of your mind, think more anal analog as opposed to digital. Yeah. I think it's a very useful way. So nature is analog, right? Compared to our screens, you know, which are digital, which don't really help us rest that

well. But then I also say, think about your heart, rest for your heart. We need rest from this me-focused individualistic life that many of us are leading now. So that's acts of service. Acts of service, volunteering, even something like a loving kindness meditation where you, you know, people might say this is all woo woo, you know what, there's a ton of science on it. And if you're skeptical, why don't you try it for seven days to see how you feel.

That's the best test that you'll get. The worst thing is contempt prior to investigation. Exactly. But I kind of, I just think it's a really useful framework for you when they think of rest because what I found in my practice for many years, Brian, is that people were getting enough sleep, but because the last thing at night, they were just stimulating their brain more and more, they still woke up feeling knackered. Yeah. Right. So they rested their body, but didn't rest their mind. Yeah.

So I think we just need to broaden out what we think of by rest. We have barely scraped the surface of this book. We've not even opened the front cover. Make Change That Lasts by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Out now. Thank you. If there's one thing that I have learned from Rongan and his book, it's that we don't make change by punishing ourselves. We make change in ourselves by understanding ourselves and making small intentional steps forward. A massive thank you to Dr. Rongan Chatterjee

for the wise words. Okay, so my Friday recommendation this week is one that I think this is the best skincare product that I've ever put on my skin. And I put a lot of skincare products on my skin. I'm quite obsessive about it. I get through bottles of it every year and it is Medicaid Liquid Peptides. It's like a little serum, put it on in the morning,

put it on the evening and I don't know, it just makes you look perkier and clearer. I mean you're already perky and clear and wonderful but I just find it's like you're gonna add one thing into your skincare routine even if you do nothing else. Let it be the Medicaid liquid peptides and I tend to put it on my face when my face is a bit wet. Either I've used a toner or I've just washed it and then just let it set in and Bob's your uncle. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend or someone who might need a little boost. And don't forget to hit follow and leave us a review. It's the best way to help more people discover these frankly life-changing conversations. As always, take care of yourself, and I'll see you on Monday.

If you liked this episode, we think you'll love this. This week on The Life of Briny, I'm joined by Lottie Clark. She shares the story of her husband James' motor neurone disease diagnosis, his decision to go to Dignitas and their campaign for the right to die with dignity. If you want to hear a story of love, resilience and the importance of choice, this episode is for you. The Life of Briny, available now.