One of the world’s most sought-after doctors on achieving wellness in the attention economy
Dr. Habib Sadeghi, otherwise known as Dr. S, is a beacon of hope around the world. His patients come from as far as Columbia, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, France, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom, seeking his unique combination of integrative therapies in Los Angeles.
Over the holidays last year, we sat down with Dr. S to discuss what he calls “the microeconomics of the soul.” That is — how do you prevent disease and achieve wellness in a fast-paced world? Here are just a few things we learned:
1. When it comes to health, consciousness matters.
Dr S. was 26-years-old when he received a death sentence, during his second year of medical school. He had initially followed a pattern of not eating well or exercising often. “The way I spell [cancer] is C-A-N-S-W-E-R, can-answer,” said Dr. S. “You have to realize that this was during the time where Scott Hamilton, the gold. The skater, nearly died from testicular cancer. Armstrong nearly died. He lost part of his brain, part of his lungs.”
After his diagnosis, Dr. S traveled to places like India and Mexico to study consciousness, learning scientific, traditional wisdom that didn’t come with an American medical education. He then became a family practitioner, emphasizing his patients’ individual histories over pathology. “Two people might come in with prostate cancer or with breast cancer,” said Dr. S, “but we might come up with a completely different solution for them, because the biography is different, because the traumas that they’ve gone through, how they’ve processed what they’ve gone through, it differs, and that makes all the difference downstream.”
2. Dr. S defines success by gratitude.
Every person in the world measures success in their own way. For Dr. S, success is having a life that he loves, both in work and leisure. He cites this gratitude as “the sauce” that pulled him through cancer. When he turns on the shower each morning, he is grateful, knowing that 4.2 billion people do not have access to hot water. “If people were to wake up every day and to really look for the blessings,” said Dr. S. “It shifts and changes everything, but that’s not what most human beings do.”
3. Surrendering to the mystery of the universe will make all the difference.
To Dr. S, “surrender” is a beautiful word. “Surrender means to come above and give it a new meaning,” said Dr. S. “When you surrender, you completely let go of wanting to know, you accept, you cultivate the quality of negative capability and everything is connected with everything, and there is an energy here that we’re swimming in, just like a fish is swimming in water.”
At the heart of this curiosity for life’s mysteries is humility, which Dr. S describes as “going back to our essence” and exploring love. “I’ve been with a lot of people with significant influence on their deathbeds, not one has ever said, I wish I would have come up with another innovation, I wish I would have made another trillion dollars, the question is, gosh, I could have loved more,” said Dr. S. “I could have loved more, and the reason that I think that we’re alive is I truly believe that this is earth’s goal and it’s to really cultivate and to get rid of the misunderstanding and misperceptions and the things that they block us, the armors that prevent us from loving.”
To Dr. S., a productive, successful career must be matched with humility, gentility, and love. When it is easier than ever to move through each day at breakneck speed, we can appreciate his call to slow down and appreciate, for at least a brief moment each day.
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Check out Episode 42 of KindredCast, featuring our interview with Dr. Habib Sadeghi, embedded below or available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
