Prof. Steve Peters: The Secret Weapon Behind Elite Athletes & The Top 1% (E317)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. builds resilience, your mind is 100 % resilient. And maybe I should have put that. What I'm really saying is you're 100 % resilience. How do we stop resilience from failing? That was the voice of Professor Steve Peters, renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author who joins us on today's show. I'm Jay Comfrey. And alongside Damien Hughes, we speak to the world's most fascinating people to give you a roadmap to how you can go on your own journey towards high performance. Steve is the author of the groundbreaking book The Chimp Paradox which has transformed the way people think about managing their minds as well as other works such as My Hidden Chimp and his most recent book A Path Through the Jungle which guides a reader towards psychological robustness and resilience Steve's worked with an incredible array of sports people to unlock their best performances If you've ever marveled at the performances of Stephen Gerrard Rony O'Sullivan, Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton to name just a few.

1:26You've also been observing Steve's work. Now at this point, we want to ask for your trust. Trust us that Steve is so experienced, so knowledgeable that this episode deserves your attention. And look, we don't normally say this before an episode, but we think it's really important on this occasion. So both myself and Damien would suggest you grab a pen and paper and make some notes about the things that resonate in the next hour or so. And then please pass this episode on to someone that you think will really benefit from hearing Steve's wisdom. He discusses how you can own your happiness, how resilience isn't something that you build, it's something you're born with.

2:00And he also shares the idea of the stone of life, which he describes as the ultimate mind stabilizer. I promise you such an interesting, such an insightful conversation, one I urge you to really listen to carefully, maybe even come and listen for a second time, because Steve offers us such value. Let's do it then, and welcome Professor Steve Peters to High Performance.

2:27Steve, welcome to High Performance. Thank you for inviting me. You've been described as the secret man behind some of the world's most successful people. When you first worked with someone, what's the most important thing that you need to know about them from the off? What they want. And sometimes people don't know what they want or they give me something that they say, I want this. And then when you get into it, it's actually something different. so from my perspective it's being able to get inside someone's head and then when I get in there's the way I operate it's not for everyone I get inside their head and then I see the world the way they see it with the main key factors in it and then usually because it's obviously it's not overly happy world I work in as a psychiatrist that then you realize what's wrong and you want to get out so then you think okay these are the things that are really impressing me and then you feedback to the person which is how i work and then we say right what will work for you but i don't have fixed process what i do is it's more the model i use is to give you the tools to do what you want to do i'll give you some insights and question is it this so i would say to people i set the same side of the table as you if you work with me we work together and we explore your mind that's how i do it and i think a lot of people will see your name or see your cv and click on this episode because they think actually there is something that I'd like to unlock but not everyone can get access to you.

3:51Are we able, and this requires real honesty from you as well, are we able to sit here for an hour or an hour and 20 minutes and actually have a conversation that will allow people to do some work on themselves afterwards? You can because there's generally, when I do like public speaking, which is always a privilege, in the audience, when I first started, I asked people, what did you actually get from that? Because I needed feedback to know, obviously I have no idea. and it shook me a bit to think everybody picks something different up and then I realised well you just got to throw things out and if it resonates people will pick them up if it doesn't they'll just pass by it so I'm not too worried but you try and keep it fairly general as we said just off camera my difficulty always with this is I ask for like five tips for the listeners and I can't do this so I always try and say to people don't ask me to do that because I don't know what's a tip for you until I get to know you.

4:45And it may be exactly the opposite from working with you. And think, you know, so the answer is I can give generic things. You know, like, for example, know what your values are. Because we know that, and I'm a nerd, I don't like to admit that, but I'm a nerd who has to read to make sure I know what I'm doing rather than someone who's interested. I am interested to learn and use this with people. The research indicates, simplifying it, that if we know our values and we live by them, you get peace of mind, and there's nothing else that gives peace of mind. So it's a frequent thing that people ask me for, is how do I get peace of mind?

5:24And I say, well, you've got to go on your values. When you go on your values and you monitor them, which I make people do work, and they start learning to do that, they'll say, yeah, at the end of the day, I look at my values and that settles me down completely. Well, maybe we should start there then. If someone's listening to this and they go, right, I need to find my values. How do people go about doing that? I think there's lots of different ways. It gets confusing because if you go on the internet, you'll find that people define values differently. So I'm going with what I do. And it's to say that a value is a moral stance with a behavior that's attached to it.

5:57And what we're going to do is measure your behavior. So for example, nearly everybody says respect others. You know, there's not many people don't say that. And when they say respect others and ask, well, how would you do that? They don't know. Because it is hard to say. And so I give them ideas of saying one key one is to listen to people. So when you meet somebody, listen to what they have to say, feedback so you've understood. It doesn't mean you have to agree, but that actually empowers the person and it's respecting them and it's respecting the fact that they've got an opinion and you're willing to listen to that and understand it.

6:30So if you do that, my experience is if you measure that, people say it not only makes you feel good because you're living out of value, you know you're respecting now, it's not just in the air, but also they said you learn a lot because people tell you things you weren't really expecting or didn't actually appreciate. So it gives a better relationship. So the spin-offs. So that's an example. But again, I wouldn't do that with everybody if somebody's coming in with a different kind of problem because in my world, it could be anything. So if somebody, for example, take an extreme example, came in with grief, a severe loss, that wouldn't be going down the route of values and peace of mind.

7:08it would say to the person who comes in, what would you like me to achieve with you by the end of whatever number of sessions we're going to do? And they might then say, come to terms with. Yeah.

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9:04So what are the other common, you said we can speak here about generic factors, what are the other common challenges that you help people face? I'm going to go on what I've just said, because one of the common things I find is, from neuroscience point of view, we can't deal with multiple problems. Our brain just does circle, so we just keep moving from one to the other without solving anything. So going back to what I said, when I meet you at first, I'd like to get a piece of paper and say, write down all the things that you want to solve, all the problems you've got, whatever they are, just put them all down.

9:38And it can be current problems, things that haven't been processed in the past, worries about the future. Once you've got them all down, you'll feel a sense of relief that suddenly it's not endless. But if you've even got normally about three problems, your mind won't deal with it. It just moves one to the other. It never actually moves forward. Why is that? because it's not able to process the information. So when something's in your head, we know if you talk, you objectify it, you move outside. So for example, expressing an emotion accurately. If you said, I'm angry, and it's not actually the emotion that you're really giving, and I'm saying, is it more disappointment?

10:16And you think, ouch, it's a better word. Then we know from research done that once you've given it a name, it's an entity, we can now start to process it. If you don't express it or express it accurately, then your mind is still trying to tell you that's not the right word or I can't find the word. So it just keeps going trying to find a word. So the power of therapy is the fact that we talk out. And on the model I've used of the mind is our human, our different system listens to what we're saying, which is why sometimes when we talk we'll say, stop, that's ridiculous. Because suddenly we've expressed it and we're able to process it and put it into context or perspective.

10:55Whereas in your head you can't do that. I'm going to ramble now, but I did a charity conference a long time ago, and I tried to get this concept over, and I live out in the wild, and there were a lot of apple trees and fallen apples, so I took a lot of apples in and asked them to juggle, just to stop doing heavy academic work. And I could see the puzzle, I said, there's a reason. And everyone could do two apples. Most people couldn't do three. Nobody managed four. Now I know they're probably the juggler, which they exist. And I said, that's how your mind works, never forget. Once you've got more than two problems, you're not going to make it.

11:27your mind's going to start stressing and going round and round now there will be exceptions to the rule but my experience has been once we put things down and they say right there's six things we're going to address there's a sense of relief because now we have a plan which is what the brain is looking for and can we get that sense of relief without sitting down with someone like you can we do this at home? yeah you can do it yourself I think it helps because again we're diving in a bit but simplifying all the time, but the brain wants someone to understand us. We're built to be understood. When people don't understand us, our brain gets quite agitated.

12:07So if somebody gets where you're coming from, just one person, you get this, right, I'm okay now. So again, talking out with someone who can tease it out of you and say, yeah, I get this, can help on that aspect of what the brain needs. Whereas if I do it myself, saying I write out all the problems, it can work. So some people can do it. But most people like someone to hear them and then acknowledge that. I really like the example you mentioned there, though, about taking an emotion and exploring it for the subtlety. We had a guest on that spoke about feeling jealous of a competitor and then when she explored it, she wasn't jealous.

12:46She said she was envious because she wanted that and that she felt that was more empowering. That's a brilliant example. So again, that's the kind of thing that might come to the door where you're listening and you challenge this. The reason we're not moving on is it's the wrong word. And then when you explore that, when we look at envious, I would push again. I have no idea who this was, I don't need to know. But I don't know where it's going to go, but I come underneath the envy. What's underpinning that? And sometimes it can be a feeling of low self-esteem, for example. And the idea that if I achieve something, that will give me the self-esteem, which we know doesn't work.

13:21because you just dismiss it and you've achieved it. It's very rare that you hold on to it and say, I'm so proud of this. You get unsettled to think, well, that was yesterday. I've even had Olympians saying, well, everyone's got an Olympic medal. So, you know, which obviously isn't true, but that's the way your brain works. It normifies what you've actually achieved and then usually dismisses it. Again, there will be exceptions. Would you just tell us more about the self-esteem thing because that I can imagine is quite a common challenge that lots of people have of dealing with low self-esteem.

13:55So I'm going to go again neuroscience because that's my background. So wearing my hat as the doctor, I'd be saying, right, let's look at what your brain is doing. And as you know, I invented this chimp model. And the reason I brought that in is to say, you've got to recognize there are two different systems operating. This is clear. So one of the systems here is meant for survival. it's not an advantage to have high self-esteem because if you have a high self-esteem you leave yourself very vulnerable so having low self-esteem you're much more vigilant to potential attacks so actually it's an advantage to have self-esteem but it's not helpful it's not helpful so what I say to people is we're not going to lose that we're going to say right we'll challenge the low self-esteem and say what's its purpose and we'll replace it with something much more rational so we move systems and then we start seeing, right, how would you measure self-esteem?

14:48And what you'll find is, generally, the reason we've gone into survival low self-esteem for protection is we're looking externally to see what we've achieved and what other people think of us. Rather than moving system, which is, it's not about other people, it's what I think of myself. And we're back to values and then suddenly self-esteem rises. Because it's not based on achievement, on possession, on what other people think, it's based on me and the way I'm conducting myself and living my life. So for people listening to this, and I can think of a few in my own life who, there's one person I know who puts so much effort into how they look.

15:24And I'm like, why are you spending so much time doing that? And so I like to look nice. But I actually think it's because they're really concerned about other people's opinion of how they look. How can people start to ask themselves the right questions to unlock this? I think it's, again, this is the way I've approached this and from about 30 years ago. looking at what functional MRI scanners are telling us about this is real time, about how the brain functions and what research has done. And so when you say about the way I look, not everything can be translated from mythology. That's the study of animals in the wild.

15:58But in the 90s, when it became apparent to me that the brain was divided here and there was something going on that was more scientific than just, you know, we've got these good and bad days, I looked to the hominid specialists, the great apes, and the chimpanzee is not our closest relative, genetically it isn't, but it's closest in terms of neurotransmitter systems and the way the brain is structured. So we find that the same system operates and the chimpanzee does it ourselves. So for a chimpanzee, for safety, it's got to look good, it's got to be strong. So a chimp that's not looking good in terms of the troop or isn't strong will be excluded and that can be death.

16:38So we're inbuilt to worry about other people's opinions. So that system within us, which the chimp shares, is meant to do that. So the starting point is to not say it's a fault, but say it's normal. That's great. It's absolutely healthy. It's not helpful, but it's healthy. So it's a subtlety that I think helps a lot of people. There's nothing wrong with you because people come in and say, what is wrong with me? You know, I eat too much. Whatever it is, I worry all the time. I say, there's nothing wrong. that's absolutely healthy. Anyone who doesn't worry is probably in well. You know, so it's a different way of looking at it to say, however, because it's not helpful, let's learn how to move systems because we don't want to stay there.

17:22But I have to respect the young lady, young man, or older person who says, my looks are crucial to my happiness. If that's their determining factor, all I can do is say, well, okay, let's look at the consequence of that. And as long as you understand the consequence and how to deal with it then that's a choice they're making it's not for me to say switch system i'm saying there is and there is an alternative i think what would be really useful steve if you wouldn't mind is would you tell us about how we can spot when we're in the chimp system and then you talk about moving it to the human yeah how so how do we do that the rule i always use which works usually is to just say do i want this do i want to rely on what other people think for my happiness so once i've got that question and and nearly everyone says no and i say okay there's an alternative and that's own your own happiness so it's a skill now this is your difficulty so let's say i'm my chimp brain would be concerned about what you think i'm saying and is it coming over well and you know so my chimp would now naturally do it but then that's giving you my happiness so many many years ago as a psych i thought i'm gonna have to be balanced myself if I'm going to help people.

18:36So I worked on myself. And these were epiphanies I had that said, you know, as long as I keep looking to you for my happiness, I'm in trouble. Because it only needs you to make one comment and I'm down. So I decided, no, there must be a way I can take my happiness back. And that's what I worked on. But that was a skill. It didn't happen overnight. And I'd have to check myself and think, hang on, you're giving me happiness again. And then have to say, what do you want? I don't want that. That's a chimp trying to say I rely own you to keep me in the troop i want it to say i'm not in a troop i'm not in the jungle i'm a human being in a society and i own my happiness so that skill had to be worked on and you have to continually do it's a bit like getting fit for me emotional skills you got to keep practicing otherwise you go off so it's not something you learn and then that's it it's something you practice every day but i think this is this is actually a powerful thing just to pick up on for a moment because we all know people that go oh i'm i'm not very resilient i'm uh i'm a natural worrier i'm just the kind of person that cares what other people think i just want to get across that you're talking about this is a skill this is a learned behavior that just because you think a certain way now doesn't mean that's the only way your brain can think again i think it's important to understand how you find yourself which i try and do with people and that is and i put these in the books that the blank piece of paper exercise So when I started working on this, it became obvious that if you think about it, if we remove this influence of this primitive survival system, which thinks for us, and we remove the center of the brain, which is like stored information and automatic behaviors, you're left with yourself.

20:13You're left with this part of the brain we can actually control. It's the only bit we can control. So then I say, let's imagine I've surgically removed them and you're left. You've got a blank piece of paper. How do you want to be? and you would say confident, happy, carefree, you know, compassionate, sense of humour. And what I keep saying, you've just described yourself. It's an epiphany if people can grasp this. You've now told me who you are. I've got you. What they then say is, which they say to me, but Steve, I'm not calm, I'm not. And I say, yes, you are. Don't confuse what the brain is doing.

20:46It comes in and takes over, hijacks you and presents to the world someone who's anxious. But for you to tell me when you walk in, how's your week? Oh, I get so anxious. Scientifically, that's just inaccurate. So I correct people and say, that's not possible. It's not on your list. You don't put the perfect me, anxious. And you say, that's clearly the influence of either the chimp or the computer system. So now we need to learn how we manage that to prevent it presenting to the world. And if you think, there's some obvious things that if you look, you'll see it. Reality is, your partner, if you've got one, or your brother, sister, if they're close, or best friend knows you.

21:26And they'll tell you this is you. I've seen the calm, confident. But then they say, but when you get into this situation, and they're describing what I saw 30 years ago, the brain shifted and it went into a system that we're given during fetal life. And so I'm saying, move back again. What do you mean we're given it during fetal life? In the fetus, this chimp system and computer system start taking off. so they're operational within eight weeks of fetal life so we can measure them moving whereas the human sisters I'm calling is you you don't come into being until around three so you don't really exist which I always joke about because you have no memory so it's telling you, you weren't there you know, for three years and we know this, anyone who's got kids they're just little robots It's depressing because you spend loads of money on expensive holidays and you say to your kids, did you love that?

22:18and they're like, what? we went where? we did what? Where can I remember? But at three, you come in because the system that we operate with is rational, logical, and so they say why. So the second they have the why questions, you've arrived. And it's important that parents then prime that system because, again, if you use that system predominantly, in neurological terms, it myelinates, which means it's preferential and uses it at speed. Whereas if you push them back to a chimp system, which is dominance behaviour, you'll end up myelinating the chimp system and the child therefore will preferentially use that.

22:53So they'll use emotion as the basis of going forward rather than logic. You know we have a mental health crisis among young people in the UK. What's happening then from the age of three when they start asking why to the age of 12 or 13 when they need to seek therapy? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to make people guilty. I'm going to. But you watch and observe people and what happens is, I'm exaggerating for effect, but the parent or teacher or whoever's in charge of guardian, will the child say, why, why? And it becomes incessant. And then you hear them say, because I said so. And if you think that taking, stripping it down to what it is, is a dominance, you will do because I said, there's no collaboration, there's no empowerment, it's total dominance and removing.

23:38So what you've done is you've said to them, that's how my system works, the chimp system, I dominate, you do. So they moved into the chimp system. so then they agitate and rebel, but you created that. Now, it's not as easy as I'm saying it. I understand that children are in chimp mode a lot, but if you actually sat down and it's hard when you're a busy parent or a teacher with 30-odd kids to say, can I explain why I'm saying this? The child may not understand still and still kick off, but you're actually sowing seeds that the child's learning that when you have a question why, I'll answer it as best I can.

24:12And I don't want you to do that because, and it can be simple, don't eat sweets because they're not that healthy compared to your food. And if you eat sweets, you won't eat your dinner. They'll kick and say, well, I will eat my dinner. So then you have to persuade them. But it's reasoning rather than just going, right, here's the sweets taken away, you will wait. And then you have tantrums and you're promoting the chimp behaviors. So they'll carry it on. So the danger is, if we use this parent system where you are the judge, jury, executioner, it's a subtle one, and I've pushed this in the books, to say what we tend to do with children is we compliment things they do instead of asking them to compliment themselves or criticize themselves.

24:56So we're not building analytical self-awareness, self-criticism, self-complement. If you do that, and the evidence is overwhelming, and you can start as young as four. So you ask them when you paint a picture, tell me what's good, what's not so good, what would you improve on? You can still give approval after they've given a constructive opinion. Ten years on, they don't get thrown around by things like social media because they're the judge, not what people say. Whereas if we keep saying, that's a wonderful picture, what we're doing is externalizing again approval. So what you've now got is they move through life looking for your approval because you're priming that.

25:33So they won't actually then say, well, I'm actually pleased with what I've done, or I think I could have done better here, in a very objective way, which is a skill, and we have to teach children. But the evidence is if we do that, at 14, they then become more self-supportive, more self-critical, and the resilience stays. That is some of the most powerful parenting advice I've ever heard on this show, you know? Well, it is, but I'm interested, Steve, in that my children are a little bit older than four, and I'm thinking, can this... You're going to tell me you've ruined them. Well, no, I'm wondering, can you undo some of these habits then?

26:07Yeah, it's not as easy. We know there are windows of development. And so we do know, and I'm speaking very generally, that between around four and eight, we know that there's a big influence on the child's brain and its development, depending on what we stimulate it to. So the more we activate the brain during those years, we know the pathways operate better later on. But that doesn't mean you've lost it. It just means there were windows. I mean, I'll give you a simple example. If you've got parents who are bilingual, the child will easily speak two languages by the time it's five, because the brain is easy.

26:40But you try bringing in at 10, and the brain has already reset to English or whichever language you've got, and then it finds it mostly a bit more of a struggle unless it's adept at doing that. So we find the second language more difficult. And it's similar with all concepts in the brain. You're priming them. and the brain then is more or less starting to fix around eight, nine year old. But it's still pliable. You can learn a language at my age. You know, it just means it may be a bit more difficult because you primed your brain at three or four. Yeah. How much do you know about the impact of social media and the fact that so many young people seem to now get their validation from what they see online or the things they share?

27:25Well, as I say that to me, I'm generalizing and there's lots of factors. So I'm sure there's a lot more to what I'm giving you. But we're saying right from the beginning, we've learned that external validation is the way things work. From parents, teachers, school, we've learned, we're given grades, we're given results. Instead of saying, what do you think? What do you think is important? What do you feel you're doing well at? How would you improve yourself? And then a child that does that is able to criticize. I don't give any names, but I did this a long time ago was a group of coaches in sport many years ago.

28:01And one of the guys, a wife was about to have a baby. And he said, my child will not be what I call the fridge door syndrome. And that means you put the picture on the fridge door because you approve of it instead of the child deciding. And six years on, true story, he came to me and said, I've got to speak to you, I've got to speak to you. We went to a school open day, first parent evening, and they said, why can't all children be like him? Because he doesn't mind trying anything. he doesn't get upset if he can't do it so I was pleased but I was quite surprised I thought it was a backhanded compliment because he said so what you do actually works I thought well that's nice to know I spent my life doing it but it was nice to hear that because it was evidence again small anecdotal but that we can change it as I said we can actually change the way people start assessing themselves like I gave you an example on your own happiness you can start learning and that's going to give you resilience we've talked already about values that's going to give you peace of mind so it's never too late to start saying I'm going to understand my mind how it works and I'm going to learn these skills and I'm going to keep going so it's never too late but there is something as well Stephen this is a bit of a personal request in many ways that I often struggle with sort of difficult conversations with people so even though I might own my own happiness I'm often conscious of the happiness of other people that if I say no and might cause upset or disappointment.

29:26And I really struggle to have those conversations. Can I, again, I don't know, because this is like instant, so I'm just going to knee-jerk reaction. Why are you worried about them being upset if there's something you're saying which is honest, genuine, and coming from your heart? Because sometimes being upset is not a bad thing. It sort of jolts us to think, oh, wow, that's upset me. If the person blames you, then obviously I'd say they're doing chimp mode. You can't do much, but you're likely that they'll go away and reflect on that. So if you said something to me and it hurt, and I thought, wow, you know, after I've got away from you and I start reflecting, I mean, well, the guy actually might have a bit of truth in this.

30:07So actually you've done some good. But the fact I might get upset, you know, I don't think that should worry you because you have to think sometimes you've got to say things which are uncomfortable. I'm not sure in what way you're upsetting people. Sure. Well, I mean... I don't think you are. I don't think you are upset, but I think you worry. You almost write a story in your head that this is going to be awful, they're going to be disappointed, I'm going to have let them down. But Damien can't say no, basically. But that's a belief, you see, of that if I say no, or whatever it is, that that person is upset and therefore I'm in the wrong.

30:40And my job is not to upset people, and I'm challenging that belief. To say your job is to be honest and using integrity. I'm being, again, sweeping generalised statements here. But if you said to me, Steve, I resonate with that, then do what you're doing. If they get upset, that's not your problem. If you've been reasonable and honest, then you have to say that's reasonable, that being upset might help them in the long run. So the idea then of exploring beliefs is interesting because as you're saying it, it was that line you said there about beliefs, that my belief is that if I don't comply or if I don't help you when I could do, that means that you might not love me you might not come back and ask me for help again I might disappoint you and I don't like disappointing you how do we start to rewrite some of these beliefs that we might have had since we were kids?

31:31But you've got the nail on the head it's coming back from way back when so you've got to look and say how did you learn that? I don't want to do this on camera but if I were doing an analysis of you you start thinking your own insecurities Sometimes, I don't know why you're doing it, but it's if I gain approval from them, don't upset them, then that's better. So you're not approving of yourself. Just going back to the conversation we just had, you're getting external validation for you being this great person, this good person. And then your belief is if they're happy of what I've done, that makes me a good person.

32:09Instead of saying, actually, it doesn't make you a good person. It makes them happy. That's all it does. but it could come at a cost and the cost is to you and to them that sometimes not being happy is not a bad thing it's time for us to reflect so you may not be doing them any favours So in our three systems where do those beliefs reside? What you've got in the way that the brain is structured the way I've made it as a model and it's not for everybody so I'm not promoting it I just definitely don't want a cult is I'm trying to say that if you've got the chimp giving you these ways of coping to get approval and stay in the troop, then it's going to say you must never say no.

32:48I'm being, again, just fine right. Whereas the human would come in and use logic now and say, well, other times when saying no is actually the right thing to do, and it may make me feel unpopular, my chimp's going, oh, this is wrong, but actually I'm not a chimp, I'm not getting approval, I'm saying this is the rational thing to do is, it's not going to do me any favours. So I've got to say no, I can't do that at the moment because I've got too much on or I haven't got skill base to help you. so you learn how to do it. But I think you've got an ingrained belief sat in the computer. So the second that that's been put in by the chimp, I assume, and therefore whenever someone asks you, can you do this for me, Damien?

33:27There's a little gremlin, which is the unhelpful, but he prods the chimp and the chimp goes, of course I'll do it. You know what though, Steve? It's amazing how hard it is to unpick these ingrained beliefs, isn't it? I mean, we've now hosted the show for five years, 300 episodes. Damien must have talked about saying no on the show 10 times. He must have mentioned it to me over 100 times. I must have seen him on 300 or 400 separate occasions where I say, how are you? And he goes, I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm just doing too much. And it's a really great reminder, isn't it? That we can't simplify this stuff necessarily.

34:01It's hard. Like Damien's a... I think the reason is that, and again, I don't know, because it sounds like you're crying out to say, I'd like to change this and I don't know how to do it, but I don't know you've done any work on it because if you're doing it week after week then nobody's worked with you so if you then said right Steve work with me then we've got to crack this and actually see gremlins don't, these are the unhelpful beliefs, don't dance alone, there's always a gang of them so I'm going to be saying there's a lot of beliefs you've got which are all putting them back in again so we have to mop up the entire gang and we find how many beliefs have you got that are promoting this action, this isn't going to be one So if we can find them, and I don't know what they'll be, and we dig all these beliefs out, and some will come from childhood experiences, some come from everyday experiences now, and then we challenge them.

34:52We have to now not just remove, but replace them. So each belief you hold, I need to get a counter-belief, which actually will knock this out. So neuroscientifically, you're forming a new pathway in the brain, and it literally will change, and then you preferentially use that pathway until eventually that was it. It's now fixed. The other path will literally die. So you will find your behaviours now have altered because your brain is now taking over. You primed it. The difficulty as well is that it has to resonate with you. I have no idea what's going to resonate. So I sit here glibly saying, don't try and please other people because you're not helping them.

35:30That may not resonate with you. You might say, I don't believe that, Steve. So when you work with people, they have to own it. It's not you giving your thought, your opinion, your belief. I offer stuff and they might go, yeah, you've nailed it. Because we have common beliefs that are problems to us and common experiences because of the way the brain is built. But then it comes to unique things. And I don't know what you've said to others, but you might come in with something very personal, which is unique to you. And we need to really nail that. That's where it's coming from. And I don't know, you don't need to answer, but it can even be as simple as a comment made by a teacher or a parent at a time where you had a very vulnerable moment.

36:09Interestingly, I did a big talk to a lot of teachers recently and I asked them, and the audience said, can you tell me if at any point in your childhood, in your schooling days, a teacher said a comment that really upset you and you're still holding on to it. Half the audience put their hands up. So you think, well, why haven't you processed it? You know, and sometimes you can't process, sometimes it's really fixed. So then we learn how to manage it, which is different. But then I also asked how many times, how many people had a compliment from a teacher or parent that stuck with them? And half the audience again.

36:43So it's very powerful that we put these beliefs in our computer system and they sit there. Some we can turn over, some we can't. And again, we have to learn which ones we can and which ones we can't. And when we can't turn them over, we then got to learn how to manage them when they appear. Recognize and manage them. So you can see it's like, it's a work of skill base that it's very unique to you. I want to jump back to something I said, because I think people listen to the teachers, going to the resilience bit for four-year-olds up to eight, and then there's teenagers. You have to remember that teenagers flick over, go through hormonal changes, which creates havoc.

37:23So all the work we do, we hope, there's a probability it'll stabilize them, but it may not. Depends how much the hormones kick in. So, you know, I don't want parents that teach and they still fail because they've turned into a creature I don't recognize. There is that massive influence. And whatever you do, you're going to lose because they need to go through this stage. And the brain has taken over and it will take over. You know, what we're saying is these are ideas and concepts which have a real basis in research, but it's still probabilities. It's still probably, what we're doing is swaying the probability of getting the child to be in a great place.

38:01So good. You've mentioned resilience a few times. And in your new book, A Path Through the Jungle, you start the book by talking about two key attributes, robustness and resilience. Why were they so important that that was the first message you wanted people to see in that book? The reason was that these are only my terms as well. So as I'm saying, I'm not trying to say I'm right. I'm not. I'm saying when I'm working with people, we need to know what the term really means. So if you work with me, to be robust means you have a plan. You know, it's like saying, is this toy robust? It's been manufactured, so we test it out.

38:38We think it's robust, then we hand it to the kids. And then we find whether it is or not. So the robustness is you having a plan. So you say, right, here's my plan of when I leave this room, I'm going to rely on my values, I'm going to rely on working in reality, I'm going to be able to get perspective. now we're going to go outside and test it. So robustness everyone can do. There's no excuse for not having plans. It's just a lot of work, but it may need a lot of guidance. When you've got robustness, going out, resilience, I'm defining as a skill. So it may not work. You're going to have to learn how to be resilient.

39:16But I'm going to contradict myself. When I wrote this, everyone says build resilience, build resilience. The science doesn't actually back that. what it does, which I do say, but people don't like it, is you are resilient. You can't build resilience. Your mind is 100 % resilient. And maybe I should have put that. What I'm really saying is you're 100 % resilience. How do we stop resilience from failing? We are resilient. We have very resilient brains. But what we have is parts of the brain, like your little gremlins, which reduce resilience. So it's not truly building resilience, but it's an easier concept to say, right, we'll build a skill and therefore we'll see more and more resilience come.

39:56The reality is we're removing things that are stopping resilience. And what are the biggest things that we do to impede our resilience? Well, the brain has certain areas which I talk about one bit called the what if button and it literally is an area of the brain which uses what if and it depends how we use what if. But if we use it emotionally, it'll ask questions like what if I fail my GCSEs? What if I fail my driving test? What if my partner leaves me? And these are emotional questions. And we often sit with them. We don't answer them. So if you don't answer them, then your resilience is going to start tumbling.

40:34And it goes through your head. And instead of sitting with the problem, you've got to say, well, let's look at, you know, what's the solution there? So what if my partner leaves me? And then you've got to challenge it. Now, if someone says to me, I will fall apart and life's not worth living, if that's non-negotiable, I have to say, let's look at the consequences. And let's work very hard on not letting them leave. But if I say, right, let's really challenge that belief and rationalize it, most people start saying, okay, it's not what I want. I will go through grief. I will be upset. I'll survive.

41:05There is life after. That can actually help the relationship because you then, and again, I'm exaggerating and I'm generalizing, you're not as needy. So there's no reason to then try and control them and stop them leaving, which is what we do when we haven't got a plan in case they leave. So we have plans if it goes wrong. Now that's a different question if. If my partner leaves me, it's an emotional question. Oh, I'll go through. If my partner leaves me, what's the plan? Is now actually using that what if button from the human rather than the chimp. So the button's available to both, but it's a different what if question.

41:43So it sounds like we've heard a term from one of our guests about pre-mortems almost work out what are the things that could kill me? and then plan for how I deal with them. Yes, the principle of the brain is when you use the human system, it always says, let's start with what we've got and then we move forward. What's the plan to use? What's presenting to me? Whereas the chimp doesn't do that. It can't. It starts with what I want and then compares to reality, which is not a good way to start, but that's how it does. And that's what most people go through the day with. Hence, you get road rage.

42:18you're saying I want the traffic to flow smoothly no one jumps in, no one cuts me up everyone's, you know, it's so, I'm glad you're laughing it's so ridiculous, it's a ridiculous concept there are always going to be idiots on the road or people having a bad day or people making mistakes but our chimps don't interpret any of that it's just I am not getting what I expect to happen so here we go and that's ridiculous so you can set off in a different mode by saying there will be idiots there'll be people who make mistakes and there are people who might regret what they've done. But again, do you want to go into chimp mode?

42:52So we're not realising then, generally, and again, I'm generalising as well, we don't realise that our thinking is what's tripping us up. We're here going, all the world's tripping us up. Idiots on the roads are making me unhappy. Late tubes are frustrating me. Partners that won't listen are angering me. Children that don't get ready for school in time frustrate me. And actually so much of that is our interpretation of those things. Yeah, and this is probably, you've hit what I really do with people. And that is to say, you know, when I mentioned the human and chimp, the bottom line is whenever I work with anyone, I take them away from their world.

43:24Because I keep saying, if we can get you in a room and get your robustness and prepare for resilience, if someone's in a good place, nothing touches them. If someone's not in a good place, anything can touch them. That's my philosophy. And I stick to that. So I say, if I can get you in a good place and show you how to run your mind, nothing's going to touch you. The kids won't touch you getting late for school because you'll deal with it. Someone cuts you up, you won't have road rage. In fact, nothing's going to get to you. Now, I'm not wanting people to be robots, but I'm saying you'll manage any feeling you get, any emotion.

43:59But generally, most of the negative emotions won't appear. They just don't happen. And I get that from people that say, normally I'd go mad and suddenly nothing happened. so is a technique would you tell us the technique then Steve about how because I'm thinking it might be like before you get in the car almost saying to yourself there's going to be idiots there's going to be crashes there's going to be hold ups let's just deal with that in a calm way is that the kind of yeah I mean keep it simple because although the neuroscience is very heavy and I've simplified it just so people can access their mind it is complex and the devil is in the detail but if you keep it simple so you say to me I get road rich right so I would say first of all stop you don't get road rage you don't your chimp gets road rage you know on your perfect blank piece of paper you don't write road rage so you'll say now that's crazy so we're saying right recognize it's not you you need to understand what the chimp's doing and correct it and say that's not helpful yeah so have a relationship with this part of your brain so then I'd say right when you're setting off I'm being simplistic to learn the emotional skill is before you set off, say, right, we know it's going to happen.

45:08We know these events are possible, right? So when they happen, I'm going to program my computer with some beliefs, such as, and I'll give you an example, which is a true story. I did a conference and a guy come watch those acute people, which I encourage. And he's, they were challenging, but this guy didn't. He just said, I get road rage and it's really bad. And I, I don't know what to do because I've got like 20 seconds. So I said to him, I'll tell you what, drive your car, put your hands up. And he was driving the wheel. And I said, right, okay, I've cut you up. Show me what you do. It was quite, it was perfect.

45:40He waved his hands and started blaspheming. I said, what do you look like? And he laughed and he said, a chimp. I said, well, that's fine then. If you want to look like a chimp, do it. Let me know how it goes. And he never had road rage again. And paradoxically he said, my chimp didn't want to look like a chimp. And he said, it stopped me to say don't look foolish so you actually use the chimp against itself that's amazing so we what we're saying then is to the audience listen to this your you choose what to believe exactly you have to decide i want to go to work and enjoy it on a self good good place i want to end in a good place but i'm preparing for anything that might happen but anything that happens i'm going to program my computer because it works quicker than chimp and human so your computer's going to come in not you you're not going to talk to your chimp it's going to do it because the chimp, the way the brain's structured, the chimp must consult the computer before it reacts.

46:31And that's done in a fifth of a second. It's very fast. So if you primed it with what I call the autopilot, which goes, I don't want to look like a chimp. Someone cuts you up. As the chimp is about to screech, it pauses. And then you'll say nothing happened because the computer took over and advised the chimp and then said, no, we pull back. And we can prime you to say, when someone cuts you up, just pull back. and then I want you to talk about, and it may not resonate with you, how good do you feel at being able to pull back? And if someone says, do you know what, I feel empowered. Yeah. It's no different to my previous existence as a forensic.

47:07It's like, can you get people with anger management problems and they'll say, and they're against their chimp. And then I'll say to them, would a strong man get in a fight or would they walk away? And I'm being, again, simplistic to do it. And the guys who go, actually, a strong man walks away. they said you feel so good you just don't engage it and they said it actually changed me and I perceived myself then as this powerful guy but again it may not resonate but this is why I keep saying it's up to people, anyone listening to make the mind up to explore their mind and say let me start understanding and they don't have to use my model the chimp model, I think there's lots of good stuff out there and so I encourage people to get something that resonates with you and oh I'm an academic I'm a professor in a university and therefore I've got an evidence based I want to see I would say if something works for you and it's not evidence based I'm not too worried I'm just saying you know if it fails well you know I'd like to ask you a question kind of selfish because it's about my wife so she grew up in a family where there was a real fear of being ill you know if you were sick it was like the end of the world her mum still worries about it now and she's much better than her mum but still spends too much time fearing the worst or fearing people are going to be ill like she almost when she wakes in the morning she does like a full body check it only takes a couple of seconds but she's like do I feel ill do I feel ill it's a derailing way to live so what do you do when you know that you've got it from your parents you're smart enough to understand this was kind of put into you you know that your grandparents felt the same you know your sister feels the same how do you begin then to do the work?

48:53Okay, so I'd start with, and I don't know your wife, and it's highly unfair that she's being publicised. She's all right. She's well used to it. I'm going to drink some coffee. Not that I'm sweating, but I'm still dry. That Harriet, Jake's wife, will regularly go to the supermarket and people will come up and recount anecdotes Jake has shared on this with herself. They're like, are you okay? I should probably need to work with the poor woman, not about this health. Her husband. Yeah, bringing it to the public domain. Let's generalise, not to her. Whenever someone has something like this, the first question is, do you want to change this behaviour?

49:35Because if they say no, or it's not that important, then I'm probably not going to do anything because experience tells me that you must have certain factors in place if you're going to shift. And one of those is you must see that what you're doing is so dysfunctional and it's actually got any detriment. But if it's not got any detriment, so she says, well, and I checked myself over, it didn't hurt, it didn't take a minute, and it reassures me, then she's probably not going to want to change that. If she said, it's really destroying me, now we're in business to say, right, there's a definite thing, we've got to shift.

50:12And then if she said that, we've got to start looking and saying, okay, what beliefs does she hold, you know, about health? And what's the experience if this is in the family? There's got to be a reason it's come in. So whether there's been an incident in the family where a doctor's missed something and somebody's died, this might be it. Or it may be just a lot of us are traumatisers. When we get anxious, we start making physical symptoms and then we start thinking something's wrong with me. So then we get health concerns. So we have to say, right, let's have a look. it could even be that where we say when you get anxious about something let's not make it into a physical thing or it's normalizing it saying that you know we most people which some people who worry about the health don't understand that most of us get headaches most of us get aches and pains in our stomach most of us and so we dismiss them and don't worry and she may not realize that it's normal it may be she believes it's her which is emphasizing it again alternatively she could be saying that there's certain disorders, I don't know, that she's looking for.

51:16It's not just... It's more the fear of being ill, like being sick. Yeah. Getting ill that day, you know, if we travel or something, what if I start to feel sick? And again, I don't know, because we'd have to dig and say, well, what's the consequence of that? Go beyond it. Go beyond it. Don't aim at it. It's a bit like I say to people, if you have a fear like the dentist, stop looking at being in the dentist's chair, look at walking out. Go beyond an event. Because going beyond an event, starts giving you, right, I can get through it because there's an after event. If you keep focusing on the event, you can't move because you're dreading it.

51:50And if she's dreading being sick in the car or whatever, then you can't get beyond it. You've stopped your focus. So I don't know. I don't know what she's going to give me. It's like, she could give me anything. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I made the switch because I was tired of those ridiculous bills and sneaky charges from my old provider. With Mint, I'm paying$15 a month and getting the same high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and coverage on the nation's largest 5G network.

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53:51For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us. upgrade your business and get the same checkout aloe yoga uses sign up for your one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com retail all lowercase go to shopify.com retail to upgrade your selling today shopify.com retail what is interesting though is when you mention like the past i think we get so caught up that this is our life this is our story this is our problem Yeah. All of us being kind to ourselves. Like, I hate my kids being out of my sight. I do think someone in my family history lost a kid somewhere or something happened, right?

54:37Because it gives me an irrational fear. I know it's an irrational fear. Therefore, I understand it and try and ignore it as best I can. And I say, in 10 seconds, you'll be so relieved because your son will walk around the corner. It's even when they're in the back garden. So I think an understanding that we do carry these things from our ancestors. You know what you've just described? I'm thinking that it's necessary. If that were missing, then it's more concerning. What you're saying is it's strong in me, which is fine. You're just saying, how do I manage it? And the answer is, like you're doing.

55:09But I think the way you've said it, you haven't normalized it for you and saying this is okay. It's quite a healthy thing to do. You know, it'd be far more worrying if dad said, oh, I don't know where they are. That would be worrying. So again, it's normalizing it for you and saying this is good. but it's only if it got to the point where it was detrimental to you or the children that you think maybe we should address it. But you're not giving me that. You're saying, I have these terrible things and I'm okay. And so you've actually managed it, so it's probably not worth addressing. Perfect. I think there's something that is really resonating as you're talking, Steve, that I think is a lovely antidote to this thing that's crept into our culture in the last 20 or 30 years, which is this idea of positivity, You know, like relentless positivity.

55:54If we're not feeling happy, if we don't see the best in every situation, it means that there's something wrong with us. What's your views on the dangers of thinking that that's... If it works for people, that's up to them. I mean, I guess my stance is reality. You know, that most days are days. We're not happy, we're not sad. We just go through life and we fluctuate. And there's days you get up and think, hmm, don't be so good today. And then I always say, let's just see what you can do to manage it. but it's interesting going to my clinical work from a long time back and you get people with mood disorders and obviously that can be an illness but then you get people who are referred who are just like they go up and down a lot in mood but they're actually not ill it's just their barometer goes up and down a lot they're quite emotional type people and it's a case of managing it but you get the person who's almost blunted and they have the same level and they don't have these highs and they don't have the lows it's interesting if you ask which would you prefer people want the highs and the lows So we're emotional creatures and most people don't want a flat line.

56:55They say, no, I'd rather have highs, I just need to know how to manage the lows or try and avoid them. So again, it's teasing out to people, which would you like? And I play devil. I say, I'm the devil, I give you the choice, and then you make it. And they always say, go up and down. I say, so now we've established you one up and down, let's look at what we can do to minimise the down or work with it. What about dealing with pressure? because that's a common feature that we've met in our high performers that a distinction is those that can lean into pressure rather than lean away from it. Let's say it's somebody that has to perform on a certain day.

57:34If you take the Olympics where you have to turn up on that day and that's going to determine a gold medal or otherwise. So how would you help them prepare for that key moment? For other people, it might be an exam or it might be a presentation in the non-sporting world. Again, I have to work with the person, so I'm going to be very generic and say, right, is it helping you? Is it helping you to think, I have one chance? Is that actually helping? And the reason you laugh is most big or not really, no. So why would you choose to focus on that? You do have a choice. You do have a choice. And again, here's a skill.

58:16So we're going to say, what would help? So if you've got an Olympian, what's going to help them to get the best out of it? And it's clear then, it's just process driven. You know? So then we say, right, what would stop you sticking to process? Now that I don't know what they're going to say, they might say the crowd. You know, it's all right saying, don't focus, but I go into an Olympic arena, say like it's a track and field event, and you've got a thousand people, and you know, cameras are there, and there's millions of people watching. and then they go back to it is one chance, you know. And so we have to say, right, how are we going to manage that?

58:52So we're going to learn, how do you get into complete focus and you remove it? Now, I can give you a famous person because they've gone public about this and obviously he's a good friend and that's Chris Hoy. When I first started working, I went to a privilege to Athens Olympics and he had to do the kilo. And I'd gone really well with Chris straight away. he's a very easy guy very easy guy if you don't know him real gentleman and when we got there we had primed him to go focus focus focus because it was an event which he could easily do by focus so heart and soul into it and on the day he said after the event he got his gold and he said he forgot where he was that's how well he'd done but we primed that for twice a day 20 minutes at the holding camp I know he's gone public about this and give me permission to speak.

59:42And he spoke on here about it as well. Yeah, right. And I remember him saying he looked up and saw the flags and remembered it was the Olympics. Now that's perfection, which he was, you know, a guy who could really commit to it. So there's an example where he's not a super being in the sense of, well, it must have been natural for him. It wasn't. He worked on it and he worked hard to say, right, I'm going to get there. He bought in and just going to complete what I call computer mode. now that's not as easy in a footballer so we have to use a very different technique because you can't stay in it it's not as easy in someone like snooker where I'm involved heavily golf they all have their peculiarities so again I've got to go to their world having got them in a good place and say right you've chosen to do this sport or this business or this career and now I have to understand the nuances so I'm no expert in sport but I go to each sport and think what is it you're perceiving as the stress points or the distraction points or and then I work with them on what they are perceiving we've had some incredible conversations on this show with footballers who talk about the kind of unrelenting pressure of being in that world and you know I know some some of them have gone public of you know your work with the England team with Raheem Sterling and he was very happy to speak about how you gave him some freedom.

1:01:03When you work with... I have to say one of the nicest guys around. Is that right? He always started, I'm going to embarrass him if he's listening, yeah, he always started by saying, can I thank you for seeing me? And I thought, you know, it should be the way Raheem, you know, it's my privilege to meet people. But he was such a genuine man and he gave me his England football shirt, which I've still got, signed. And are you okay to talk about what you worked on with him? I mean, he's spoken, hasn't he? Yeah, I wouldn't go into detail, but I'd say that, again, Raheem was good in that. He would tell me what was troubling him, what he didn't want, and then what he did want.

1:01:37So it was easy to say, right, this is what I want to do. And then I would, exactly what I'm saying, I would say, let me tease out, what beliefs have you got that are holding you to have these behaviours that are not helping? And he'd say, well, yeah, but, and then give me X, Y, Z. And I'd say, can we challenge them? And then he'd change the belief and go, you're right, you're right. Don't know why I'm thinking that. So when you work with a footballer, is it? Let me give you an example. to make it concrete. This is not what Raheem did, all right? This is working with others. If you've got a striker and they go to get a goal and they miss, and they miss, and they miss, and the crowd are unforgiving, we know that they're unforgiving.

1:02:16So now they've got this, you know, hissing booing. They're feeling they're letting the team down. They feel like, I'm not scoring. And then finally they score. But in the meantime, they've been so unsettled emotionally that they're making erratic decisions. They're saying, I start taking chances, which causes us to lose the ball and it's dangerous. So we go through all this and then you say, well, I'm being simplistic again. If you take a top strike and I did the work on it, I took out all the top strikers and looked at teams like Spanish, Italians, where you had high fly teams and said, let's look at theirs.

1:02:53What's the strike rate? What's the success rate? It's as simple as this. And it was something between one in four and one in eight. Right. And I said, so let's look at your strike rate. And it was one in five. What's it telling you? That in itself made them relax. I'm allowed to miss it. The crowd are going to boo. But remember, they will cheer when you get your one in five. Keep going. That made them so they said, I'm more rational in my approach. I'm not getting nervous or anxious about, am I going to miss again? I'm just saying, just strike. and that confidence to think I'm allowed to have a go and deal with the crowd, they'll be okay they're meant to boo those beliefs then all changed so if you're working with someone in that position my experience was once we nailed all the beliefs and they tried it they said it's great we think that one of the biggest attributes we see time and time again from people that sit in your chair so called high performers is optimism is this ability to keep on going even when they get things wrong yeah does that make sense yeah yeah again i mean it's beliefs you have um and i try and get this to people to say you know if you're going to see life as opportunity it'll be great if you see it as threat it's going to always be defensive so it's a choice you have a choice you can say right what opportunities can i see in this you know there's always learning opportunities but people don't know how to find them they don't even know that they're there and once you start training people and teach them and say, what happened today?

1:04:20What was the opportunity? It can be simple things. I know it sounds crazy, like I'm a coffee addict here, and we go and the coffee machine's broken and there's no coffee. And I think, okay. Now most people go into chimp mode and think, what, this is crazy, this place. And it's so unhelpful. And you think, what's your learning opportunity? And most people would say, I have no idea. I didn't get any coffee. And I say, how about when things go wrong, how do you want to come across? You know, or if they don't resonate, how do you want to get perspective? Is it going to matter? And they go, not really.

1:04:57Apply that now for the next week with me and tell me where you suddenly thought, get perspective, get perspective. Or does it really matter? And they say, wow, you know because if that's what they keep doing they say it's a different world i live in now because i'm not getting complaints i'm not getting uppity i'm not getting annoyed or frustrated so i'm being again simplistic but it's the principle that when you've got to get someone to learn so the opportunistic thing and then being very positive i think it's more to me of learning to make sensible choices and that makes the world opportunistic it makes it more interesting otherwise you're on defense all the time and feared before we finish and move to our quick fire questions I want to talk to you about something in your new book where you talk about the stone of life yes you describe it as the ultimate mind stabilizer yeah and I really do want people to come to the end of this brilliant conversation and have a genuine understanding of how they could try and think differently and I think the idea of the stone of life is so powerful would you talk to us about it yeah what I tried to do when I did this work and I thank the students at Sheffield Medical School who challenged me every step of the way when I brought it in and they loved it but they were relentlessly unforgiving which is great and I had to prove it evidence-based but they were saying it's great to have these like what I call autopilots so let's go back to your road rage do I want to look like a chimp well that's great but you're gonna have to have an autopilot for every single thing that happens like there's no coffee what's the autopilot I said well autopilots help in specific circumstances like road rage, but there are the sledgehammer ones which apply everywhere, virtually everywhere.

1:06:42And that is, there are three areas which I, again, my patients taught me this. And I thought there are three things that everyone who has resilience is demonstrating. And if we can get that, which I then started teaching people, this is the stone of life, three areas. This is the basis for being stable. And one, we've talked about values because that gives you peace of mind. The other two go together. That is, I've talked about reality where it is what it is. There are certain rules of life. So again, I'll divert to a common one that I get is people want to be popular, but the rule of life is, and again, I'm generalizing it.

1:07:22One in five people don't like you. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter. Generally, I've said that the same miserable people don't like anybody, but why are you going to worry about that. You can't please them, so stop trying. One in five people love you, and no matter what you do, they're going to love you. So make your world around them, it's great, all right? Both are deluded, but they're great delusions. And three in people, if you're reasonable, they like you. Men would be great buzz and buddies. So if you use that as a rule of life, that's the truth of life. You put that on a reality check, you know?

1:07:54You can't negotiate that. But people have to work these out. That's one of mine. They may not agree with me, in which case they might say 50 % of people are not nice, 50%. Okay, well, that's still going to be a rule. So you have to work out what's your truth. You know, not everyone's going to be nice to me is a truth. You know, there's always an opportunity in every experience is a truth. These are solid things you can fall back on. So, and I work out because they're solid and they're applied to everything. So again, nothing really matters in the end might not resonate with some. it resonates with me so therefore I can apply that to road rage it's not going to matter at the end of the day so why am I investing in it so that's a sledgehammer and I can use that anywhere there's no coffee, nothing really matters in the end and if it resonates I can use that anywhere so I prime people with the truths of life and they're unique to the person and then the final bit was perspective we know that the chimp system neuroscientifically has no perspective it has no time awareness so that's why if we go through like a grief reaction and we lose someone close and the chimp system is in operation when we wake up it feels like it's happened today even though it was 20 years ago and it's the same powerful emotions it doesn't respect time which is a problem when it comes to decision making because it can't see time and give some context or perspective.

1:09:22The human can't not use time So we use another area of the brain, which brings time in. So if we switch to the human and give perspective, then we get a big, big stabilizer. You know, everything comes and goes. You know, whatever situation I'm in now, we'll move on. Contextualize it and looking at your life in general. And will it matter in a week's time? That's a good perspective. And most people say that resonates. So there's a lot you can do with using, I like people to have their own perspective. and then you use that, remind yourself, let's bring this in. So if you start your day with perspective, values and the truths of life before you set off, you'll set off in human mode.

1:10:04That's amazing. Is that right? I love it. More than all right. Thank you very much. Steve, can I ask you one question here? Because we were intrigued to do this. A common question we ask our guests is how much of their success they would attribute down to their mental skills and how much of it is down to their physical skills. To give you a context, the great runner Michael Johnson told us it was 100 % mental. He attributed his success to. Usain Bolt suggested that his was 100 % physical. Kelly Holmes told us it was 80-20 in favour of the mental over the physical. So we've had a real spectrum of responses.

1:10:43What would your answer to that be? First round, I analyse them. I don't think there's a real answer for people because, like you're saying, if your symbol is in a good place anyway, then he doesn't need that. Not everyone needs to. If you say, well, I should, I'm okay. Whereas if Michael Johnson was saying, I wasn't in a great place, and I knew that was going to sabotage me, but I believe that was my strength. So you can see how people are going to give different values or percentages. For me, I think I've been very lucky in that my chimp is my success, not me. And people always blame the chimp, and that's my fault for the way I presented it.

1:11:21But I said my chimp wrote the books. I didn't write them. There was a moment where my chimp sort of like told me and said, you know, how long to ask Citi before you recognize what I'm telling you? And then I asked my chimp, why are you doing this? It's ridiculous. It sounds like crazy, but my chimp would come up with stuff and I think that's really clever. I hadn't thought of it. And my chimp thought it's generated. I didn't actually do it. And so my chimp does this a lot and it does it when I'm talking to people. I don't actually consciously be aware my chimp will say something oh that's true so I'm actually one step behind so I think that's unusual but it's the way it works so when you say my success my chimp successes but I think what I've been able to do the reason it's successful is as human beings we all need to be in a good place and most of us are not or we have moments where we're not in a good place and we all know what it's like and it's gut-wrenching and therefore as someone who's got a background in psychiatric health, you've got this advantage of saying, let me try and help you mentally or psychologically.

1:12:28So you're going to be successful if you can do that because you're giving people what they really need. So it's not, I don't think it's about me. I think it's more the people I work with. Because I would say that you're the success. I just give you the tools. I think it's so good because this whole conversation really has been about helping people to reframe things. And you've reframed the fact that we talk about having a chimp as being a negative thing. Well, if there's no chimp, there's no chimp paradox. If there's no chimp paradox, there's no Dr. Steve Peters sitting on our podcast, right? Yeah, exactly.

1:13:01Final question before we go to the quick fights. How do you know when it's your chimp? Right, so I was saying you have to ask, do I want this? Yeah. And if you say, no, I don't, then you know it's the chimp. But it might say, like, I'm on a diet and someone offers me, I don't know, something I really want, cheesecake. And I think, yeah, I want this, but actually it's fooling you. Because if you say, well, what would you feel like in an hour's time? I'd say, pretty bad, actually. So you can be fooled, the chimp can take over. But your chimp said something that helped you when you were writing your book, did you say?

1:13:34Yeah, but it kind of hits moments where it doesn't help. It's not a little angel by any means. No, no, it's quite, it can deviously try and fool me. So I've had to work it out. Like that with the cheesecake, I would say, hang on. You know, I don't want this. So it was you that was talking and fooling me to believe and it was us that wanted cheesecake. A chimp is actually a cheeky bastard. Because I should eat less crisps, right? But what my chimp says is, and I talk about crisps a lot, it goes, well, you've earned these crisps today. And you believe it. It's not the chimp's fault. You believe it.

1:14:10Yeah, but it's because he tricks me. because I want to believe him because I bloody love crisps, right? Or procrastination is a big one for me. I want to believe the chimp because actually going and watching the telly is sometimes a bit more exciting than the thing that I actually have to do. But again, you could always ask the question, right? In an hour's time, two hours' time, what will I feel if I do this? And what will I feel if I do what I think I should do? What would make me actually feel good? And then you've got it so that you can get around it. But just again, important. People have this idea the chimp's this bad thing and I keep saying it's the best thing you've got it is your best friend it doesn't always help but best friends often don't you know but you've got to say it's not helping give me something else and the chimp will there's nothing it does that's not trying to help that's an important concept it never is against you it's trying to help but these techniques and methods are just a bit suspect and don't often help and the other is you can't just go home tonight and I say this and shout and lose your temper with your wife and go, sorry, it's just my chimp.

1:15:13You're 100 % responsible. It's an accountability model. It's not an excuse model. You're 100 % accountable. You know, so no excuses. You have to learn to manage it. If you don't, you've got to apologize. Say this is unacceptable. But don't blame your chimp. It's not the chimp's fault for being a chimp. You know, you're the one who has to manage it and understand it. Is there a reason why my chimp is really vocal in the evening when I wake up in the morning and feel bad for eating crisps at 10 o 'clock the night before? Or I wake up and I'll get in the gym and I'll have a great day. By about 9pm, the chimp is coming out to play.

1:15:50Scientifically, which again is obvious, people say, and we know this, is if you have a bad night's sleep or you're getting tired, the chimp's got the upper hand. Because your human system starts to lock down. So you become much more loose and emotional, which means you don't have the management skills suddenly. So you have to recognise. It'd be like chatting to friends and then suddenly it goes into the early hours of the morning and the conversation could go anywhere. And then the next day you think, well, probably shouldn't have gone that far with the conversations. But again, if you have a bad night's sleep, you're likely to be more irritable the next day because your chimp's irritable and you can't manage it as well.

1:16:28So there's certain circumstances where we have to have a contingency plan to say, right, I didn't sleep well, so... high alert, the chimp's likely to get loose, so we need to have some plans here to make sure it doesn't. And yours, if you recognise it over and over, is to say, right, at 8 o 'clock, let's have a conversation about what's happening at 9, we're not doing crisps. Now, again, if you say, I can't do it, right, I don't know your chimp, I don't know. But you could say to your wife, or the kids are probably not able to be in bed if they're young, you could say to them, I don't want you to sit back and let daddy's chimp eat crisps.

1:17:04Tell me what you think of it. That can stop you because your chimp doesn't want to look weak. So sometimes using someone else to be the judge, the chimp doesn't like that because it'll still work externally. Whatever you want to do, you might want to work in your own mind. It wants approval. So you can use techniques and tricks where the chimp's hand strung. It's just I can't move now. Brilliant. Are you ready for some quick fire questions? I don't know if that happens. It's been a privilege. Yeah, it's been brilliant. No, thank you. I don't know if I can do quick. I warned you. It's like throwing a stick for a cat.

1:17:37It's not going to go, you know. All right.

1:17:43As we come towards the end of this conversation, what's the killer question that we should use to get people straight after this thinking about their own thinking? I think it's got to be that they have to recognise the advantage. They've got to look and say, what is my mind or emotions doing which is not helping me or other people around me? and if they think yeah I could improve on this and it's worth it then they'll do it but if someone says there's no reason to do anything I'm happy the way life is whether I upset people or not or myself then so you have to want to be helped you have to want to do it you've got to see something you really want to change on our app we have a habits feature what is the most valuable habit that you have in your work reflection all the time probably four times a day I will stop in my tracks and reset basically around the stone of life and think, get some perspective, get some reality, keep in human mode.

1:18:37And so I do that maybe four times a day and that settles me down again. What do you say to yourself then? I go through truths of life. Like, you know, you're set off in a good place, let's remain in a good place. And is it going to help if you start losing it? It's not going to help. So I remind myself and I talk to the chimp and say, what do we want to do? And the chimp will say, be happy. I say, okay, don't overreact. So I talk all the time, but I do that probably four times a day, but it's only for a couple of minutes. What is your definition of high performance? I don't think there is one because if you look at, I'm going to take really bad examples, someone who's pretty unpleasant will give you a definition of success is financial and at the cost of everybody else.

1:19:21Now, I'm not saying that I'm not against people who make money, that's up to them, but I'm saying at the cost of everybody else, knowing but they'd say that's high performance it's not for me to judge that's not what I would say whereas if you say high performance is for me personally helping other people we said this before we started recording you know I thrive on this because I feel if I can help someone I get a big kick out of being the support behind the scenes you mentioned it at the beginning I like that role being in the limelight is not so comfortable and I'll do it I'd much prefer to be behind the scenes and get someone to succeed because for their successes I feel I contributed something to it and it's made them happy so helping others What's the first thing you'd like someone to do when they get to the end of this fascinating episode?

1:20:12Really stop for even 60 seconds and think has what I've heard made me think there's some work I could do it's not a big thing I'm not asking people to do half an hour a night I'm asking people to start looking at maybe five or ten minutes a day, which is not a lot, to start reflecting and get something, as I say, it's not necessarily the chimp model, but get something that they can start work on and chip away because the way I try and explain it is if you are aiming for the moon and you move one degree today, by the time you hit the moon, you've moved a million miles. So if you're aiming for disaster and not happy life life and you move one degree by changing one little thing a belief a behavior you know you'll be so far down the road four years five years on people and i've had this people say different partner because they've started working slowly but surely the partner can't see it person who work was often said i don't feel i've moved but the the actual partner of the work person i'm working with says definitely so little changes the final question what would you like to say to someone who's listened to this incredible conversation, but they actually think that their chimp is so strong that they're beyond help.

1:21:26Welcome to the rest of us. I think we all feel that at times. Get help. And again, there are lots of people out there. They may not use this model, but there are so many good clinical psychologists, therapists of all kinds. Nurses are often trained in therapies. there's a lot of independent people you've just got to get someone who understands you and works with you and you're on the same page so I would recommend people and the doctors, we do it as well is reach out and get some help reach out

1:22:03Damien, Jake thoughts on that episode? Loved it, loved it, it was like listening to an encyclopedia of the brain and somebody just picking out the best bits and giving it in a really practical way what did you think look coming into this i've listened to a lot of conversations he's had before and in all honesty when he talks about elite athletes it kind of left me cold because i was thinking well i'm sure you can get the best out of elite athletes but they want to be helped they've got all the resources and all the time and they're working towards a single specific goal so i was very keen that that conversation was for the parents it was for the partners it was for the it was for the kids it was for the colleagues and i really feel that we we got there and the biggest revelation for me was a conversation about young kids not telling them when they're doing well and not doing well and i'm i kind of know right that every time flo does some brilliant singing in the choir or some great dancing when seb scores four goals in a football match i praise them and then i'm like there's a voice in my head going hold on you're attaching praise to pleasing other people specific outcomes all of this stuff but i've never known how to not do that because who doesn't want want to tell their kid they did well at scoring a try in rugby right so now it's so great i'm just gonna say what did you think of how that went what did you love about it what did you not like about it where do you think you could do better then afterwards go do you know what i thought you were great that's a total change in terms of how our parent flow and zeb for sure i love that and that well that builds on what i took from it about we're already resilient we don't build up resilience we don't armor plate it we already we start resilient and then what we actually do is erode it and sometimes it's through letting little habits little beliefs get in the way of it and i think when we can recognize that that you know i often use that line i've said it to you that we don't need to be resilient if we're in the face of kindness we only need to be resilient when it's around unkindness but what i've never thought about was actually the kindness starts with us being kind to ourselves and just by using that stone alive technique that idea of having perspective what the truth's alive and going back to our values like I like the fact that Steve didn't talk about happiness he spoke about peace of mind because I think we'd all like more of that yeah it was great and I came into this conversation thinking we're going to talk about how to ignore the chimp and that the chimp is bad and that we've all got this thing that we need to try and get rid of and I love the fact that at the end of it he's like the chimp is good embrace the chimp we all have one we all need one work at your advantage so thank you mate thank you that was a real privilege well that's it for today's show we'd love to say a huge thanks to steve for joining us for this conversation and sharing so many amazing takeaways and brilliant ideas if you enjoyed it please pass it on to someone who you think may well benefit from the conversation and don't forget you can also watch these chats as well on the high performance app which is absolutely the best place to enjoy our content we're back very soon with plenty more from high performance

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