Why a neurologist changed the way she helps people care for their brains

There comes a point when the life you have built no longer fits in the same way.

Dr Kirti Ranchod spent years helping patients as a neurologist in private practice. She could explain what needed to change for brain health, but she could also see how difficult that advice was to follow in real life.

She treated patients with neurological conditions linked to stress and lifestyle, and she knew that good advice on its own was not enough. People needed support that felt practical, sustainable, and easier to follow.

From the outside, her career looked established and successful. But success no longer meant the same thing to her. She wanted her work to do more than inform. She wanted it to help people in a way that felt more practical, more human, and more aligned with her deeper purpose.

She found herself asking a simple but important question: how can I help people care for their brains in ways that are realistic, practical, and more effective in everyday life?

That was part of what led her to step away from private practice and rethink how she wanted to use her skills, experience, and understanding of the brain.

Creating space to think

The decision to leave private practice was not impulsive. Kirti thought about it for more than two years. She weighed things up carefully and eventually took a sabbatical.

That pause took her to New York.

It gave her the space to step back from the demands of private practice and think more deeply about how she wanted to use her skills, experience, and understanding of the brain. She visited galleries, listened to music, met people from different walks of life, and gave herself time for exploration.

It allowed her to think beyond the roles she had defined for herself.
It helped her question the idea that a career has to follow one path.
And it opened her up to the possibility that the different parts of who she was might belong together.

Bringing more of herself into her work

Art had always been part of Kirti’s life. As a child, she painted with her father and siblings, visited galleries, and was exposed to music and creativity. During her medical training, she continued to use these tools in her own way. Drawing helped her understand complex concepts. Music helped her focus. Yoga helped her manage stress.

Only later, through her clinical experience and deeper understanding of the brain, did she realise these practices could become part of her professional work too.

That insight became the foundation of the work she does today, combining neuroscience with creativity, art, movement and reflection to help people develop what she calls “brain skills”.

In 2017, Kirti launched her company Memorability, focused on brain skills and brain efficiency, helping people understand how the brain works and strengthen skills such as calm, creativity, empathy, and memory.

Her work is built around a simple but powerful idea: the brain can be trained.

The money behind the freedom to change

Like many transitions, this one also had a practical side. Years of disciplined saving and investing gave her the freedom to take a sabbatical and explore a new direction.

She also speaks about investing in a broader way:

“Investing has long-term benefits, whether in finance, our relationships, our health, or our skills.”

Looking back

Kirti is honest about the fact that entrepreneurship comes with uncertainty. It meant building something of her own and trusting that her work had value in a different form.

She says it beautifully:

“Value is shaped by how we define our purpose and by our belief in our ability to do what life asks of us.”

Stepping back is sometimes what allows you to step more fully into yourself. The different parts of who you are may have been waiting for you to bring them together all along.