Snapshot · On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Two years after winning an Emmy for The Night Of, Riz Ahmed still woke in the middle of the night to rehearse scenes — his inner critic saying he wasn't good enough despite the award.
Where this was said
At 43:47 · chapter starts 39:15
Emerging from his hospitalisation, Riz Ahmed began making the connection between his psychological state and his physical collapse. [1] — Riz Ahmed "Riz Ahmed believes his inner critic was so relentless it caused an autoimmune condition — his body literally turned on itself. Two years af…" 42:30 Citing The Body Keeps the Score, he argues that he was at war with himself: his inner critic so ferocious, his shame so deep, that his body had literally turned on itself in an autoimmune response. He gives a telling example: two years after winning an Emmy for The Night Of — after the show had aired and his career was at a peak — he was still waking in the middle of the night to rehearse scenes, his critical voice insisting he wasn't good enough. The shame he felt around his illness — not wanting anyone to see him weak, nearly dying — kept it private for years. But he frames the creation of Mogul Mowgli, Sound of Metal, and Bait as his act of defiance against that shame: owning the experience, losing the shame, making work from the most personal place as an act of healing.
Lying in an NHS hospital ward, unable to walk or lift his arms, Riz Ahmed was moved to tears by a pigeon on his windowsill. He hadn't earned that moment of beauty. That realisation — that everything he had was a gift — became the spiritual foundation he carried back into the world.
Riz Ahmed believes his autoimmune illness was caused by his inner critical voice being so relentless that his body literally turned on itself — a thesis also explored in The Body Keeps the Score.
Riz Ahmed believes his inner critic was so relentless it caused an autoimmune condition — his body literally turned on itself. Two years after winning an Emmy for The Night Of, he was still waking at night to run scenes. He calls shame the thing that can actually kill you.
Despite predictions that AI would eliminate radiologists, the Mayo Clinic's radiology staff grew 55% after AI arrived at reading scans.
In 2025, radiology was the second-highest paid medical specialty in America, with average incomes 48% higher than a decade ago.
A study across 3 hospitals found radiologists spent only 36% of their time reading scans — the part AI can do — with the rest being human judgment.
Robert Greene notes that one in six Americans is on some form of drug to deal with depression, suggesting a deep societal disconnection from meaningful experience.
Spencer Greenberg and Jeremy Stevenson analyzed almost 500 self-improvement techniques and found they all reduce to just 12 underlying psychological drivers.
Cold exposure has good short-term alertness benefits but the evidence base for long-term health benefits is much weaker than popularly believed.
In a randomized study of 20 habit-formation techniques run on hundreds of people, almost none of the techniques produced statistically meaningful results.
People given a tiny-habit fallback option (e.g. 10 squats instead of gym) were actually MORE successful at completing the full habit, not less.
The most effective habit-formation technique was 'habit reflection' — recalling a past successful habit, writing down what helped, then applying those lessons to a new habit.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.