EP185: Mindful Living and Writing with Dr. Hafeez Diwan

Dr. Hafeez Diwan: The Power of 'Meh', Writing Passions, and Handling Obnoxious People

In this episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Dr. Hafeez Diwan, Professor of Pathology, Immunology, and Dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine, shares insights on his diverse writing endeavors, from self-help books to a young adult sci-fi fantasy novel co-authored with his daughter. Highlighting ideas from his books 'The Power of Meh' and 'How to Love Obnoxious People,' Dr. Diwan discusses strategies for managing emotions, overcoming willpower challenges, and promoting mindfulness. He also reflects on his medical journey and the interplay between his writing and his medical practice.

00:00 Introduction to Dr. Hafeez Diwan

00:58 Anecdote from Residency

02:50 The Writing Journey Begins

05:18 The Power of Meh

07:26 Loving Obnoxious People

11:12 Mastering Willpower

14:40 Final Thoughts and Advice

Transcript

Christine Ko: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Girl Doc Survival Guide. Today I'm very pleased to be with Dr. Hafeez Diwan, MD PhD. Dr. Hafeez Diwan is a Professor of Pathology, Immunology, and Dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine. He finished medical school in Pakistan and trained at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He believes that if you change your thinking, you can change the world, and he has written many books, including most recently, The Power of Meh, How to Love Obnoxious People -and Why?, and How to Have Instant Willpower Without Using Any Willpower. He's also written a young adult, sci-fi fantasy novel with his daughter Sara. That book has recently won an award through a Reader's Favorite contest. So that's very exciting, and congratulations to Hafeez, and welcome. 

Hafeez Diwan: Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am delighted that you reached out and I'm looking forward to this.

Christine Ko: Can you first share a [00:01:00] personal anecdote? 

Hafeez Diwan: Okay. I'm going to share an anecdote that has puzzled me, and I still can't make sense of it, and it's been more than 20 years since this happened. So in 1992, I started my residency in pathology in Mobile, Alabama. My first rotation in pathology was in surgical pathology where you have to cut specimens. The highlight of the day was grand rounds at noon, and the best part of grand rounds was the fact that there was lunch provided. I sneaked in because it had already started. It's dark in the room, the projector is on, I'm getting my food, and this very large, very sinister and scary looking professor crept up behind me and he said something. I had no idea what he said, but he was clearly expecting an answer from me. I didn't want to make a bad impression. He's asking me a question. I'm a first year resident, he is a big professor and physically he was big guy. And so then I say to myself, I need to answer something. And so I said, A little bit of both. And he said, Okay. He was satisfied. But to this day, I have no idea [00:02:00] what he had asked and what I had answered. I had absolutely no idea. This anecdote encapsulates my approach to many things because, if you look at our lives, we have so many issues which seem to demand these urgent answers. Do I do this or do I do the opposite? Should I do this or should I take that? Maybe it doesn't have to be this sort of either or thing, it can be some strange blend.

Christine Ko: I like the way you phrased that. A lot of times we think things are black and white. Even in say, dermpath, it's one diagnosis, just one, nothing else, one way to sign it out, which is not really true. A lot of times things are really just not black and white, as you're saying.

I'm gonna segue into the fact that you write both nonfiction and fiction books, and you wrote a young adult book with your daughter. Can you talk about your writing passion? 

Hafeez Diwan: Sure. I wanted to write ever since I was a kid, actually, and I didn't quite [00:03:00] know how. When I was growing up, there was no creative writing class where I could do that. So basically, I read a lot. I absorbed whatever I could. Then the opportunity arose to write stuff and I wrote something in my residency for the first time. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible, dreadful, incredibly bad. But the point was I wanted to get something written. I broke my teeth with that thing. I just wanted to write. And then as I grew older, white hairs, as you can see, I started facing problems like everybody does and seeing people facing problems.

I like reading a lot of self-help and wellness and psychology, and so forth, books. I said, maybe I should write something, which is not just fun and games like fiction. I felt that I should make a tiny, difference. Not a big one. Even a one person, like that Emily Dickinson poem where she said that even if one person feels better.... and as it turns out, I met this one guy who read my obnoxious people book and said that it helped him solve a huge problem. I said, that's good. I've accomplished that at least. I want to do this little extra, just my little bit, as they say.

Christine Ko: I love that. I [00:04:00] do believe that books can change the world. Books can change people. I've been changed by books, and I agree with you. If something helps one person, then that's awesome. Do you think your writing and your books help you to be a better physician? 

Hafeez Diwan: I think so. Because you might have encountered professors and people who are very full of themselves. We've seen those people. But I think we have to be more open to possibilities. We are not the bees knees; we are flawed human beings, and we are people who have a lot to, a lot of room to grow from wherever we are. What I learned from my books is to take an approach of humility to life in general and to my work as well, and as a physician. I have been incorrect. I'm wrong. And so just being open to improvement, basically, because nobody knows everything. The person I was 40 years ago, 50 years ago is I hope different than the person I am right now.

Christine Ko: Yes. I think it's the concept of narrative medicine [00:05:00] that Rita Charon put forward, that the humanities, the uncertainty that lives in the humanities and less so in science, the humanities and writing and fiction help us be more okay with uncertainty. I think that's what you're saying with diagnoses as well. That's great.

Your most recent book is about the power of meh. Can you talk about that? 

Hafeez Diwan: Sure. Actually I owe this book title. I'll explain what that means. Just before COVID, my fellow at the time was a fantastic person. Megan Ketchum. She's an excellent dermpath and hemepath. We were signing out, and we said meh to something. I said, meh. And then she said, the power of meh. And when she said that, I said, that's a fantastic phrase, and I think I can write a book about it. And I started to write a book about it. I'm convinced that had she not said that phrase, I would never have written about it.

What is the power of meh? Let's say that somebody tells you, oh, we found out that somebody is now the richest man in the world.

We say to [00:06:00] that, meh. Okay. Because it doesn't impact me in anyway. Sometimes we face issues or feelings within us. We encounter situations which are troubling. There's the problem, and then there's the stuff we add on top of the problem. We make the problem even worse than it is in our minds because we add more badness to it.

So a way to counter that is to, when you encounter the problem and you feel a certain way, just say, m eh. And then the next step is that you ask yourself, why do I feel the way I do? Why am I feeling awful about this? And then you have probably reasons.

Whatever the situation and you hate it because of X, Y, Z reasons. Then you say your second meh. You say the meh to these reasons, and then you figure out a better way of thinking about it.

So the meh basically allows you to not get worked up about what you are thinking or feeling, or getting worked up and about why you are thinking what you're thinking and feeling. So I think it's a simple strategy. Anytime I feel irritated by something, I remember, oh, [00:07:00] meh. Why am I getting so worked up about it? And then go through the process. That's where the power of meh comes along. 

Christine Ko: I like it. It's similar to emotional intelligence. You are able to confront things. I can get pretty emotional. I can get carried away and not really be able to think, especially if I'm scared. I like your idea of calm down, be like meh, and just face it. So I like it. Okay. That's your power of meh. And then what about your book about loving obnoxious people? 

Hafeez Diwan: Oh, yes. Because obnoxious people, as if you just go on your social media, they're everywhere. I think the world was always crawling with them. They're everywhere. When obnoxious people interfere with our lives, what happens is that we react to them by feeling irritation, hostility towards them. And I think that hostility is not good for us. Some years ago, I passionately loathed a human being. I said to myself, oh my God, I cannot stand this person. And all this negativity [00:08:00] inside me, my feeling mad, my angry inside is not helping me in any fashion, right? Because I'm feeling terrible, and he is blissfully unaware of how I'm feeling. So my chemokines and interleukins are all going mad. My telomeres are shortening as we speak. I'm the one who's working myself into an early grave because I hate this person. So this can't go on. I said, I need to come up with a way of dealing with this. So then I started writing this book, basically how to love obnoxious people, 'cause it's the exact opposite. I wrote this as a therapy. My wife always jokes, she says, you read so many self-help books, you should have been better. I said, you have no idea what I would've been like if I hadn't read all those damn books. I wrote this book, and the first title was not How to Love Obnoxious People. The first title was How to Love, and there's a different word, inappropriate word. My daughter, she was seven years younger. She says, what's the title of your book? So, I can't tell you because it's got a bad word. And she says, how are you going to sell this book if you can't even say the name of the book? I said, you're [00:09:00] absolutely right. I'm going to change it. So then I changed it to How to Love Obnoxious People and Why. I even came up with an abbreviation for Obnoxious People, op, ops. I call them ops.

 Anytime your hostility rises, the person who is affected by it is you. Why would anybody want that? That's why the book is called How to Love Obnoxious People And Why? The why comes first, because otherwise it seems idiotic. Why would you want to love somebody horrible? The reason is because it is good for you. It's a selfish move, honestly, cause you're trying to help yourself by doing that. That's my point of view. 

Christine Ko: I like it. Can you simplify the steps?

Hafeez Diwan: Very easy. It's basic mindfulness. Basically, when you feel this hatred arising, just observe yourself. Take note of what is happening to you. You say, here I am. Feel angry and so bad inside. These are the feelings that I'm feeling right moment. You basically distance yourself from that thing and the feeling fades away. Anytime a negative idea enters my head, I do the same thing. [00:10:00] This is why mindfulness is so good, right? Because it helps us distance ourselves, from whatever is troubling us. The book basically goes in great detail about how to do this, and then the various, troubleshooting advice when things don't seem to go as planned, or when people have objections. I've given this talk many times. I'm actually going to be talking about it at the coming A SDP meeting, actually, about why loving obnoxious people is good for us and how to do something like that. Anytime I give this talk, people say, oh, but you're letting these obnoxious people walk all over you. I said, no, absolutely not. Because when you are no longer hating them, but loving them, you are in a better place internally. This is not make believe this is real. You really feel the way you feel. So when you're in a good place internally inside your mind, then you enter a state akin to the state of flow where you feel in that sort of zen place. From there you can be more creative. People who feed hostility or anger are less creative than people who are at peace and in a loving frame of mind. It's an advantageous posture that you can [00:11:00] take. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. Okay, so come to the American Society of Dermpath meeting in early November in Baltimore, and you can hear Dr. Diwan's talk on how to love these ops and why. Alright, the last question regarding one of your books is about willpower. You said your book is How to Have Willpower Without Trying to Have Willpower, something like that. 

Hafeez Diwan: Something like that. Willpower is finite. Studies show, for example, If you fight off urges throughout the day, then by the end of the day, if you come across this delicious cake, you have spent your willpower by that point so you're going to leap into that cake and eat it. Since willpower is a limited commodity, it might be better to use strategies to trick yourself. In Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, et cetera, they talk about the ego as an elephant you're trying to control. So how do you deal with that? You have to trick the elephant. We have to trick our egos, basically. There are different strategies which you can use, as if you have willpower. I say, it's like found willpower. I'll give you a very simple example. For example, [00:12:00] let us say that there is a project that you want to do. I'll give you the example of my very first children's book that I wrote about this boy who's turned into a mosquito by an evil scientist, and he meets his spirit guide in the shape of a tomato. At that time, I had never written a children's book. I came up with a little plan. I said to myself, no matter what happens, I will write 15 minutes a day. I could have picked five minutes, 10 minutes, 15, whatever. So 15 minutes is what I picked because I thought 15 minutes was a reasonable length of time. Even if I write complete crap, it will be written right? And then any day that I didn't write, those 15 minutes, I made a little pact on a website called stick.com, S-T-I-C-K-K.com.

On this website, you can make a pledge. My pledge was that I'm going to write 15 minutes every day and any week that I don't do all seven days, 15 minutes, I'm going to make a $5 donation to a presidential library, and the presidential library will be the person that I obviously didn't care for. I didn't [00:13:00] fail because I didn't want even $1 going to this particular presidential library. I didn't have to use any willpower. I was motivated to do this.

One of the best tricks of willpower, which I found is supremely effective. This particular trick, it's not in the book. It has to do with speaking to yourself, and it's very simple. This morning, for example. I was starving, as usual, 'cause I'm usually starving in the mornings. I don't like to eat early, but then I go to work and I'm starving. So I walk into the break room and there are these delicious, magnificent cookies sitting there, right? Of course I wanted to eat a cookie, because they were there for everybody to eat. But I know I don't want to eat a cookie. I'm getting older. I don't want to, so what do I do? The trick is as follows, okay.

There are two ways of approaching a delicious cookie or cake or dessert or whatever, or anything that you're trying to not do. You can say to yourself, oh, I really can't have this, or my goodness, I need to stop. I can't do this because I'll feel very bad later, blah, blah, blah.

When you do that, you're very likely to fail. The elephant wants the cookie. Okay. And so you go for the cookie. There's another way, which I learned from a book by [00:14:00] Ethan Cross. He quoted a study. The study basically said that if you command yourself in the third person to not do or do whatever that it is, then you are more likely to actually have cognitive control without using any willpower. So in this instance, I said to myself, Hafeez, please don't eat that cookie. And it worked. It's very simple. I don't know why it works, but it works. I think it has to do with the fact that, when we were little, our moms used to tell us, don't do this. And you listened. So it's my theory. So you don't have to expend your willpower muscle.

Christine Ko: I like it. This has been wonderful. I like all your tips. I like your stories and examples. Do you have any final thoughts?

Hafeez Diwan: One thought is that we keep encountering situations in life. If we view it as an adventure, or if we view it as a challenge, there is a way to find a neat little escape hatch. You are the superhero with these secret powers. We all have a secret power of trying to figure out a nice way through this mess. It may [00:15:00] not be perfect. We may fail, but we can try. It's more enjoyable than moping and pouting and feeling sad. The moment you feel sad, I say just become mindful of it and then just try to figure out a way. Because a worst that can happen is that you'll fall flat on your face and fail; best is that you might find something. So that's a final thought I could share with you.

Christine Ko: I like it. Be brave. Try hard. Don't give up. 

Hafeez Diwan: That's it. Simple words, but I think they're true. 

Christine Ko: Yes. I love it. Thank you so much for all of your insights.