I love our healthcare system in this country. I'm a member of it, I practice it, but I also recognize that

we spend three and a half trillion dollars on healthcare and we don't get in return what we should for that.

We have dropping life expectancy three years in a row or 23rd in the world with regard to life expectancy behind Cyprus and Chile and Costa Rica.

They're all ahead of us. We're expected to drop even further over the next 20 years. So there must be places around the world where people are living happier, healthier, better lives than we are.

And I want to know what they're doing. I want to know how they're doing it and to understand what really works, prove it and bring those stories back to the viewers.

That's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and this is the Retroll Podcast.

I think we can all agree that Western medicine is a good thing, an extraordinary thing. The progress, the scientific advances that we've made when it comes to everything from

the diagnosis, the treatment and the curing of acute conditions previously thought incurable diseases is absolutely staggering.

But I also think that with these breakthroughs comes a sort of arrogance and arrogance that we have it all figured out that systems and modalities that exist outside the very narrow rubric of our Western medicine paradigm are

of no value that they are archaic or anachronistic outdated legacies of less developed cultures and minds.

But is this always the case or do lessons remain to be learned from taking an objective look at how other cultures approach health and well-being?

My name is Rich Roll. This is my podcast. And today I feel that question with our guest. His name is Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Gupta MD.

And if that name sounds familiar, it's because it probably is. In addition to being a practicing neurosurgeon, Sanjay has a habit of showing up on television screens around the world as the multiple Emmy award-winning chief medical correspondent for CNBC.

And to answer this question, Sanjay travels around the world. He looks for people who live longer, live happier, live more functional lives than anyone else on the planet.

Kind of like my buddy Dan butner did with all the work he's done with the blue zones, but also a little bit different. And Sanjay pulled all of this together for this really cool CNN original series that aired recently called Chasing Life.

It's really great. It's a must watch if you haven't seen it already. And it's just a part of what we're going to cover with this man today.

Okay. Sanjay Gupta. Oh, he's a beautiful man of many talents. Neurosurgeon, bestselling author, television show creator, investigative journalist, war correspondent, husband, father. I mean, I don't know if there's anything this guy can't do.

And if that's not enough in 2009, President Barack Obama offered him the position of US Surgeon General, which he declined. We talk about that today.

And today we cover it all. We cover his origin story, his incredible career, the importance of storytelling and journalism, what it was like to work in the White House, what it was like covering conflict zones overseas, how he manages his work life balance, current state of healthcare in America.

What he learned traveling the world to study health happiness and longevity, doing his chasing life show. And the not to be overstated incredible impact that he has had on my own life.

So I love this man. Sanjay as a friend, he is a mentor, he's somebody I wanted to get on the show from the get go. And I'm delighted to help share his story with you guys today.

I do want to mention one final little weird thingy. I feel like I need to address during the conversation about 55 minutes in or so. Right when I felt like we were finally just getting warmed up and hitting our stride.

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