Dr. Rahul Jandial

How often do you think about your brain? Besides the hundreds of thousands of thoughts we have, our brain is responsible for running our entire body — it’s interpreting the signals from your eyes right now to translate and understand these words.

Today’s guest understands the brain intimately as both a surgeon and a neuroscientist and is here to help us understand how to optimize our brain to help us. 

In today’s show, I talk with Dr. Rahul Jandial, a doctor operating out of the City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles. We talk about why we stay stuck in life, some lessons he has learned from dealing with thousands of cancer patients, how to optimize your brain, three pieces of wisdom for parents to optimize their children’s brains, and so much more!

I’m excited to bring Episode 1,249 to you, so let’s jump straight in!

Who Is Dr. Rahul Jandial?

Rahul Jandial, MD, Ph.D., is a dual-trained brain surgeon and neuroscientist at City of Hope in Los Angeles, California. Before finding his calling in the operating room, Dr. Jandial was a college dropout and worked as a security guard. As a surgeon, he now provides complex surgical treatment to patients with cancer. As a scientist, his laboratory investigates the biology of the human brain. He has authored ten books and over 100 academic articles throughout his career.

His latest book, Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss, and Survival, is a beautifully written account of the resilience, courage, and belief he has witnessed in his patients and the lessons about human nature he’s learned from them. Ripped straight from his own personal experiences, Dr. Jandial pulls back the curtain to reveal the depth of a surgeon’s psyche that is continuously pushed to its limits.

Let’s start with understanding why we stay stuck in life.

Why We Stay Stuck

Dr. Jandial has studied both the brain and the mind and has a unique perspective on what factors hold us back from thinking in terms of abundance and positivity.

“The simple answer is that the stories we’ve been told about what’s going on in our skull — they’re just wrong. All the pictures [we see of] the brain [show it] as gears, and we’re starting to think about [the brain] as wired. ‘I’m wired for this. I’m wired for that.’ You’re not wired for anything — it’s an ecosystem filled with throbbing hundred billion microscopic jellyfish sparking electricity at each other, trying to approach each other, shaving down, pruning branching, arborizing.” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

When Dr. Jandial uses words like “arborization” and “pruning” — those are neuroscience words in rigorous neuroscience journals that haven’t made it into cultural language yet. Without these words and a deep understanding of them to guide us, we are stuck thinking about being wired like an on/off switch, and Dr. Jandial explains how that leads us astray.

“It’s not [a] freeway from A to B; it’s the way you see a [flock] of birds flow and roll over each other — that’s our thoughts. That’s how feelings float through the ether of our minds. When you start to understand it like that, then you know every day something new is possible. Is it easy? No, but it’s possible. So that’s the real way to think of your brain, mind, and behavior. You’re never the same person from a moment ago since we’ve met.” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

Dr. Jandial explains that because our thoughts are not static and “stuck” in wires of the brain but rather flow coherently in all directions, we can change from moment to moment. He has experienced this by seeing severe brain trauma.

“I had a guy come in, he’s a framer, and when a nail recoils back, they’ll pop a nail into their frontal lobe. [He] drove in [to the hospital!] You can have a penetrating injury to certain parts [of the brain, and] I realized there isn’t a region in the brain for creativity. … [Our brain] is working as an environment, as an ocean filled with a kelp forest and jellyfish. If you drop something into the ocean, you [don’t] disrupt the [ecosystem].” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

I love the idea of thinking of our brain as an ecosystem instead of a circuit. It’s fascinating to hear of such trauma where a person can still function and drive to the hospital. Even if a part of the brain is hit, death or severe injury is not guaranteed. 

What’s infinitely powerful is understanding that we are new every day. That gives us the responsibility to hold onto our positive attributes and shows us that we can choose to spiral downward or upward any day.

Having seen thousands of cancer patients, Dr. Jandial has learned a lot while treating them.

Lessons From Cancer Patients

Cancer is a devastating disease from start to finish; Dr. Jandial has seen how patients process and handle their journey. 

“It doesn’t all end well; some suffer — many suffer — in their own ways. Those that have coped well invariably say, ‘I wish I lived my life the way I am now after a cancer diagnosis.’ They wish they made quality of life a priority throughout life, not after the cancer diagnosis.” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

Seeing our own finish line on the horizon makes people implement drastic changes and focus on things they enjoy. Patients get to the business of living in the way they want to deep down inside but often have been burdened by relationships or careers. Seeing so much, though, hasn’t been a walk in the park for Dr. Jandial.

“I can’t say I’ve always dealt well with it. The human stories were important, but I was [focused on] perfection of the craft. I was in a rhythm and enjoyed the challenge. That’s what [a patient] wants — a cancer surgeon trying to be the best for you and be the best for them at this craft. That’s an interesting intersection. They want me to be the best. They want me to have [the] ambition [of] being the best surgeon. The people who choose me to perform their surgery have the fewest complications. That’s a personal ambition that aligns with what the cancer patients want.” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

Dr. Jandial’s ambition drove him to become the best and saved patients with challenging prognoses. That meant he saw mostly stage four cancer patients — the last stage before death. 

“Stage four is the most advanced cancer. All my patients live a few years. But that means after a while, I [realized] I’ve cared for over a thousand people, and they’re no longer alive. It started [to] mess with my head. Stage four, by definition, other than in blood cancers, is not curable. The question is, ‘Can we extend life? Yes. And quality [of] life during that time.” – Dr. Rahual Jandial

I can’t begin to imagine the difficulty of knowing someone has months, maybe a year, left to live. As Dr. Jandial’s work draw started to pile up with invitations to funerals, he had to take a step back, especially as he struggled with his own life. 

“For those involved in cancer care, make yourself vulnerable to go on their difficult journey with them; it can be hurtful. It was raw, the last five years. I’ve been able to take that and write about it, and I have been fortified by letting them teach me and the privilege of them saying, ‘Come along with me. … This airplane must crash, and you will ride with us. We choose you to ride with us, but you have the parachute at the end.’ I was telling my kids that I just feel like I’m crashing a lot of planes. It went from not noticing it to noticing it and having it mess with me, to, ‘Wait a second, the biggest gift of my craft is to learn from the people in their most difficult times and how they remain optimistic in the face of calamity.’” – Dr. Rahul Jandial

Dr. Jandial’s own journey with cancer and treating patients led him to become open to learning from the patients instead of just treating them.