Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
How To Stop Limiting Yourself And Liberate Your Full Potential with Nir Eyal #650
21 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the startling revelation about our beliefs?
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.
Hey guys, how 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 realize you're carrying, that are limiting your potential the most. Nir Eyal is a behavioral 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.
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Chapter 2: How do our beliefs filter our perception of reality?
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 favor. 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 talk to 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? 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. So you're 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.
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?
Oh, 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 a coffer 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.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between pain and suffering?
And that's something I think we don't think about enough. That unfortunately,
I think that most of our interpersonal, our 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.
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 10 years is really understanding this idea that you can choose your beliefs. And as you eloquently say in the book, you know, 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 that 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, well, wait a minute, there's a ton of bacteria in our guts that are 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?
Absolutely. And look, one of the things that I hate hearing is science says.
Yeah, me too.
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Chapter 4: Why is persistence the key to achieving our goals?
Very, very similar. Exactly. So it increases my motivation to want to understand that person. And boy, does it decrease my suffering. Exactly. 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.
Yeah, and it's like you say, it's a mental model built through experience, evidence, and deliberate construction. You can try it on. That's right. 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? That's right. I go, I wouldn't be like them. 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. Love that one. Love it. 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. Mm-hmm.
It's the story we put onto 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? Is it 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.
Are there any beliefs you have chosen to adopt in your life through the writing of this book? 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? Please. 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 flowers 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 going to love the flowers.
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Chapter 5: What are the four questions to challenge limiting beliefs?
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 I 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 onto 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.
Chapter 6: How can turning limiting beliefs into liberating ones impact your life?
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 it.
My mother is too judgmental and hard to please. I have one belief. Let's see if I can get a second.
Chapter 7: What is the significance of the turnaround process in changing beliefs?
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 look 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'd done. And when that didn't appear, I lost it.
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.
Chapter 8: How does Serena Williams' story illustrate the power of belief?
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 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.
People lock themselves into mental prisons on this stuff. That's right. Of their own making all the time.
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. So what? So what? Wouldn't help anything anyway. 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.
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.
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