Ep. 80 How To Rewire Your Brain For Resilience + Success With Professor Steve Peters

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1:31Professor Steve Peters has more Olympic medals and world championships to his name than you can count with accolades in sports from athletics to football, cycling and snooker. But here's the catch. He hasn't ever played these sports professionally. Instead, he's the brain mechanic behind the world's most successful teams and individuals from England football to British cycling. In fact, snooker world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan literally credits Peters with his success. His advice was incredible and I cannot wait for you to listen to this one. It has been such an honour to have such impressive and intelligent people in my office for this podcast, especially recently.

2:08I'm completely blown away by the calibre of guests we're getting on and the incredible conversations that I've been able to have. So I really hope you enjoy listening and thank you so much for all the love you've been giving recently. Please do make sure to rate, to like and subscribe. It helps us to have these amazing conversations. And I personally cannot wait to have even more. I can't even get over the recent episodes at the moment.

2:34Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for inviting me. I want to start by getting some context on your career. For anyone who might not know about your work, could you give us a whistle-stop tour? So I'm a medical doctor and I specialize in mental health. I worked in forensic psychiatry so colloquially speaking it would people would be calling them psychopaths, serial killers. So I worked in Skew Hospital but prior to that I worked in General Hospital. I was clinical director for mental health services and worked with the general public so dealing with more common illnesses like depression, anxiety states and so on.

3:10Alongside that I'm an academic so I I work at university. I'm a professor at Sheffield Medical School and was undergraduate dean for many years. And then I got, I say hijacked, that's unfair. I voluntarily got hijacked into the public limelight just by accident and worked in sport. And that put me as a sort of a shop window to the public, which then put me onto television and radio. And from there, I ended up working with basically anybody. So a lot of famous people. lure. It's a privilege to work with anyone for me. So that brought me to here as well. In terms of that shooting into the limelight, could you tell us a little bit about who you were working with, how it came to happen?

3:53I was working, first of all, with the sports teams for Great Britain, but there was a previous student of mine became a doctor who was on the sports teams and asked me for an opinion, a psychiatric opinion on an athlete who I can't name because as a doctor, I can only tell you people who give me permission. And from there, I worked with Chris Hoy, Vicky Pendleton in the bridge cycling team absolutely fantastic people and they were questioning what are you doing with them because I'm not a sports psychologist I'm out of depth here I'm a psychiatrist but my real remit is to help people understand what's going on in their mind so that they can distinguish between themselves and their mind which sounds a bit strange because you're not your mind that's like a machine that's you need to manage and I did that with sports people so So whoever I work with, they ask them what they want.

4:38And it doesn't matter what their background is to me. So I can work with doctors, police, teachers, nurses, which I do, or do a public. And that could be anybody in corporate work, education, whatever the background they've got. I hear you have five degrees. Could you tell me a little bit about what your five degrees are in? Yeah, it sounds more impressive than it is. I'm not sure that's true. Well, I started, I was a teacher initially. When I left school, I liked maths, so I thought it was a nice degree to get. So I took a degree in maths, but I soon realized I really wanted to work with people.

5:10So I did a lot of voluntary work in the community and realized a lot of it was medical rather than just helping people. I didn't have that knowledge. So I went back to medical school, did five years, became a doctor. And then as a doctor, because I worked in sport, my defense union said, you really need a degree in sports medicine. Even though I said, well, I'm a psychiatrist, I do with the mind. so I had to retrain under physical medicine so that I covered my defence union but then I was teaching as well so they said you really need a degree in medical education so I did a degree in medical education it's needs must it's not me thinking I am a bit nerdy but it's me thinking I have to have this knowledge to help people so I came really to the world saying whatever you give me I need to learn and be able to help you rather than me saying I want to get these degrees so it was inadvertently collecting degrees.

5:59Right and so filling those your perceived gaps in terms of what you wanted to be able to help. Experience and knowledge because I'll realise so for example when I became generic as an educator in mental health and university lecturer there would be areas in my opinion that I lacked in where I would have to go and gain that experience. As doctors we tend to spread out and learn lots of things en route to where we're going as a consultant. So I covered a lot of things like ADHD, autistic spectrum, but also went into drugs and alcohol clinics, depression clinics. So you learn and you think, well, I need to do this.

6:33So I learned quite a lot in neurology, which really started like priming my interest in the neuroscience of the brain, which is where I've now become a specialist. So you've been described before within that kind of realm as a brain mechanic. Yes. I'd love to know when you see a new patient, what's the first stage of that kind of MOT to use that that's really good it's an analogy I gave that because I couldn't think at the time I'd been thrust into limelight and I was just minding my business being a doctor in the health service and then suddenly you've got the press the national press saying describe what you do and so on so I gave the term because when I meet someone first time say I met you the first thing I'll ask is what is it you would like to walk away with they usually do an hour sometimes people don't know but most people will start by saying I don't want to be anxious for example or I don't want to lack confidence so my first point is to say let's just correct what I've asked you because I didn't ask you what you didn't want now that sounds pedantic but actually it's really important because if you start with what you don't want and we don't know where you're going so I say people go again and give me what you really want a positive and so if they say I want to be confident, now I know where we're going.

7:46Because there are lots of reasons people lack confidence. So we will investigate that, but the starting point is set sail, where are we going? So I help people to clarify what they feel would be, in their eyes, a success for the interview. So they go away armed with something. And then the way I do it is to start exploring a lot of areas of the brain. So I simplify the neuroscience because it is extremely complicated as you can guess and so for me who's worked in this for the last 30 plus years it's second nature for somebody walking in I don't want to give them technical terms so the first thing is to say let's look at how your brain functions what's the structure before we come to the problem so I don't start by saying let's look at confidence I say now you've told me we're now going to look at the brain as a machine and we're going to look particularly the mind as a machine so it does three basic things I like to simplify so people can say right I know what I'm working with.

8:39So the brain uses behaviors. So things when people come inside, I eat too much, I worry too much. These are behaviors they've got. Then there's cognitions or thoughts. So I see myself as less than other people. I see myself as an imposter. I don't like the way I look. My belief is that I don't look nice or I'm not a nice person. They have all these negative beliefs often. So that's very different to behaviors. So we're going to categorize them. And then finally, we look at emotions and people don't understand why the brain is giving them emotions. So instead of saying my brain is sending me a message, which is what emotions are, they'll start describing how anxious they are.

9:16And I'll say, well, we know that's just your brain or mind telling you there is a problem, you need to address it. So emotion is a way of getting your attention. So that's the mind. So that's why I start looking at and saying, let's have a look at the way your mind is functioning and let's see who you are because you're very different to your mind it's very important to everyone's unique that's self-evident and yet we forget this so what applies to one does not apply to the next so when somebody walks into the room for me we start with their uniqueness and i don't know what the person i know their mind i can predict what it does so when you say that a childhood experience which almost implies it could do some damage to you or you could learn a behavior or it could in my model be saying it could be a belief at the time and you reacted on a belief we need to explore it but what's important is it was your mind not you doing this you know and there's a difference between you and your mind so if for example i try and explain when i started looking at this this is 30 years ago and then scanning people with functional mri scanners which part of the brain is thinking and deciding so the commonest problem people get and i always revert back to it is eating everybody knows how much they want to eat everybody knows what they need to eat and yet it seems nobody does we struggle with it as human beings and this applies to everything now i don't want to be anxious i don't want to be so they start with that i don't want to lack confidence and then we say what do i want so this isn't making sense 30 years ago this dawned on me especially looking at scanners that um we're not actually in charge of our brain It's doing what it needs to do.

10:51So it's saying, I'm going to eat, eat for pleasure, eat too much, be impulsive. That's how the brain is constructed. We're not constructed that way. As human beings, we live in the little part of the brain, but we don't have the final say. That's the problem. And so when people say, I have eaten too much, I try and reframe that because scientifically, that's not accurate. What you're saying is my mind has made me eat too much. That's very different. You're a recipient of this. Now, it's important that it's not an excuse. You are fully responsible to manage that machine. But before you can do that, you need to understand how it's structured and what you can and can't do.

11:30What are the rules of the way the mind works? So if people use inappropriate rules, they don't get very far. Childhood, our experience, even in adult life, where we react in a situation. And I'm saying this primitive part of our brain will always react. so you weren't doing anything at that point it was reacting because even at the time if we stopped and said is this what you want to be doing you probably take a deep breath and go no which means you're starting to see there are two of you almost in your head and that's what i started seeing on the scanner so when i talked to people and calmed them down we see a different part of the brain starting to think and it doesn't react it responds to life so our brain reacts we respond the problem is it has the power.

12:16Therefore, we constantly find people beating themselves up. And I'm trying to say, stop looking at it as you doing this. You're saying what I need to do is look, how do I understand and manage my mind better so that I can be the person I want to be and not have this interference? Because we're on this topic now, I'd love for you to explain in the way that you set out the theory for anyone who doesn't know what the chimp paradox is. If you look at the brain, we can simplify it, still accurate scientifically, into three areas. There are two thinking decision making areas and there's a backup system which is our memory and automatic pilot.

12:55So I call the memory automatic pilot an advisory system to the two deciders, a computer system. It just stores our beliefs and sometimes they can be faulty and it stores our behaviours and it takes over for us. so we program ourselves all the time to respond or react in different ways the two thinking bits were of interest to me and so simplifying this is the chimpanzee shares the same system as we do when it reacts impulsively when it decides on food when it decides on interactions with other chimpanzees so the other great apes don't do that so i was interested over 20 30 years ago to look at what can I get from that.

13:38If the chimpanzee is doing the same, because it's the same system, that's been published for anyone who wants to, academic listening. In 2018, they published this to show that the great apes, the chimpanzee and human are very close. So I call that the chimp brain. We're not in control of that. It reacts extremely quickly. And to give some detail to it, it lacks perspective. It's very impulsive. It doesn't think of long-term consequences. It's very short term gratification. So if you look at the way that that's thinking, if it's on that you're on a diet and then you decide donuts are out and a donut is placed there, that brain will now literally stop you because it has the power to do that.

14:22And it will just say straight away, right, this is going to taste good. It will think it's not just a reaction. It will think what I'll do is exercise twice as much tomorrow. That's what it'll do, which makes sense to it. Right. And it doesn't think long-term I'm going to regret this, even going to bed tonight thinking what is wrong with me, which is what people do. And so therefore it's impulsive. If we can learn to switch to the human system, now you are in control of this little bit of the brain. And let's say we managed to cage the chimp. It's now not moving. And there are ways of doing it.

14:54Then we would sit and look and think, right, the donut may taste nice, but in the long term, it's not good for me. And the bigger perspective, which the chimp hasn't got, that part of the brain can't, is I'm going to regret this because I'll actually feel much better being healthy and eating the right things than if I keep eating this kind of food. That's a very black and white example. But I started seeing this with everything. The chimp brain in chimpanzees and humans, when we operate with that system, it's meant to be defensive. It's meant to be a little bit paranoid because it's our warning system.

15:28so even if we see people talking in a corner that chimp system will interpret paranoia and think are they talking about me is it negative is it the way they said that that's what it's meant to do its job is to now hand you that information your job is to decipher what it's telling you and whether it's valid or ridiculous so the brain has a way of working and unfortunately what we're tending to find is the chimp will get anxious about whatever it is doing a public talk or going into a room where you don't know anybody, it's doing a great job. That's really healthy. It may not be helpful, but it's really normal and healthy.

16:04And then you say, right, you've given me that warning. Now your job is to pick this up. But what I find is people engage the anxiety and the emotion. And as I said earlier, emotion is just a message for you to make a decision and form an action. So for example, if you're going into a room, you don't know anybody and your chimp system goes, this is going to be terrible. This is going to be, I'm on edge. And what will they think of me, which is what it's meant to do. So it's going to stop you. And then your job is to go, right, thanks for the information. Thanks for these uncomfortable feelings, right?

16:33Because you've got my attention, which is great. Now you've got my attention, I'm going to tell you. And now it depends on your beliefs. So if you now say, you know, all these people are just like me, which is true. We're all the same. So most people don't want to go in the room if they don't know anybody. All right. Because we all have chimps. So if you start saying, right, let me just say, at the end of the day, I'm just going to be me. If people like me, that's great. If they don't, that's, you know, it's not a big deal. You know, I can just be me. And if that's what you want, I don't know, if that's what you tell me, then we work on those belief systems.

17:07And what the computer does is start storing them and it will start to override the chimp because it speaks to the chimp. So I started doing a lot of work on this and saying, it's crucial what's in that computer, but it's always crucial to know who you are. you are not your chimp and people muddle this up so i get so many people which is quite disturbing to me because i like to see people distressed telling me i'm an anxious person and that's scientifically nonsense what you're saying is my machine is prone to anxiety my machine is prone to give me low self-esteem that's a very different proposition what i do with people i ask them at the start so we don't go into the devil in the detail get a blank piece of paper i love the blank piece of paper exercise because it's based on neuroscience.

17:52And what I do is I say, write down all the characteristics you really would like to be. And people write, they do do different things. When I was working with psychopaths, they did not write compassion. They didn't write integrity. Most people will write compassion, integrity, confidence, at peace with myself. You write that list. And when you've written it, I say, put your name at the top. You've just described yourself. that is you and then people say to me steve i'm not calm i'm not confident and i say let's get the science right you are because you're in charge so you're going to say right i'm choosing calmness i'm choosing confidence what now happens is your chimp brain intercedes and starts coloring the picture presented to the world so what we now have is not to get you to be confident you're already confident, we have to stop the interference.

18:44That's a very different proposition because now you can distance yourself and say, right, the problem I have is not me. The problem I have is learning and understanding what my chimp is doing, why it's doing it and how do I manage it? Especially people listening because it's such destructive thing to have a poor self-image or low self-esteem and there isn't any need for it. If you look at the truth, the science, the truth behind it, I can't. If I could neurosurgically remove the chimp and the computer from you, you would be exactly who you want to be. But we can't do that. They're going to be with us for life.

19:17The startling thing is when you start to understand this, the chimp is always your best friend. It's trying to help you. It just doesn't know how to get your attention or how to help you. It's never a destructive force in reality, but we perceive it as such. But once you start learning, you can actually use the chimp system and then you become extremely resilient but the big key point for me is when that blank piece of paper is in front of you now we know who you are and partners close friends parents will tell you i know who you are but i've also seen that if i could use my terminology when you get hijacked from the chimp because that's what seems to be happening whereas i know the real you and we do calm down with friends or partners and they'll they say I know who you are you are calm you're considerate you're confident you've got everything you're saying that is you but I'd get that once the chimp moves you present to the world a different picture and so if you are the type of person who thinks to use your terminology my computer is predisposed to anxiety or is more likely to have low self-image how do you reprogram that computer Yeah, and this is the key to the work.

20:30And I have to say, when I first started doing this, which was a long time ago, the chimp model came out in the 90s. I used it with medical students and they kept saying, no, Dr. Peters, you must put this in a book. And I was thinking, I'll be ridiculed. You've got this little inner chimp. But, you know, after a while I thought, I can't hold back on this because I was using it with patients and saying, a lot of people came with depression or anxiety, which was not clinical, Gerst. It was based on this dysfunction. So I said, you don't need drugs. I'm going to work with you. And I was getting really good results.

21:00And credit to the people. It's a skill acquisition. So you've got to take this seriously. It's a bit like learning a language. You've got to do it little by little by little. And so I've had people I've worked with for 10 years, 15 years, and they say every year you learn more about yourself. Every year you get more depth on what the chimp's doing on the computer. So going back to your question where you say, right, my chimp is anxious. The computer's not anxious. It's neutral. right so you've got an anxious chimp first point is that's normal it's meant to be right and what you're saying is that's the way it communicates with me can i make it communicate differently some people's chimps communicate with anger and then they start saying i'm an angry person i need anger management instead of saying my chimps communication is always anger so how do i diffuse that so let's let's take anxiety as an example anxiety i don't want to get too nerdy i was just going to give big words but i think please well my favorite bit of the brain at the moment is the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis right so i love that part too that's so funny we've got the same favorite part so that little nucleus tiny has so many functions one is fear and i think it's really important that and we were talking just before we came on air that i don't want to be politically correct or incorrect i'm just going to say what's neuroscience that gives us anxiety not demigrable.

22:24Demigraly gives fear. So the bed nucleus gives anxiety because it predicts the future. That's what anxiety is. What could happen? So if we learn to say, right, let's have a look at when we're saying what could happen. Instead of looking at the problem, I could lose my job. Let's look at what if it did? Let's diffuse this. Are you an adult or a child? And most people smile and say, well, I'm an adult. That's okay. I'm quite tough on people. How do you want to act then? And they say, okay, like an adult. And then we look and explore what's your belief about an adult? How would an adult do with this?

22:56Because life's going to put us through quite a bit, but we have to start getting a plan instead of just reacting as the chimp will. So we start looking at your fears, your anxieties and saying, what are your beliefs behind this? And we reprogram the beliefs in the computer. So I say, let's tidy it up. And this is the mind mechanic. Let's start clearing out the beliefs, which are really ridiculous and unhelpful. and as you said could even have come from childhood we know that generally speaking you have a six-year lag when you see things that's damaging the brain the good news is nearly all of it can be repaired and if it can't be repaired we can overwrite it so we can get over a lot of things and manage the mind and i've done this with many people i'm pleased to say most of them come out in a really good place so if you said anxiety the first is acknowledging it's not you on your list of the perfect you, you would not write anxious.

23:47Your mind's decided that's the message. Does that make sense? So now we've got to say as your chimp, I mentioned the chimp will knock you out when you decide on the donut. It will also do the same with anxiety. It just says, right. And it has the power to do that. So we know there are over 30 hormones and transmitters for the chimp part of the brain to freeze the human. So we can't make decisions. That's why often we act out and think, what was wrong with me? And the answer is you weren't even there. It's frozen in you, literally. And we can see that. Then we say, right, the chimp does something remarkable now.

24:21That chimp brain cannot, cannot react or do anything. It takes it less than a fifth of a second to do this. It sends a message around the brain, and it goes right around all the areas of the brain, which are all your memory banks and beliefs and values. And it picks up all this, and this is the advice the computer is now giving it. So if the computer is programmed correctly, it will stop the chimp in its tracks so we can't control the chimp but we can program the computer to manage it and and again this is tough and it's hard so i'll try and keep it simple i could have you saying steve i don't like getting on stage in front of the public i get anxious if i've got to do a talk to 200 people and i get another young woman who's also saying the same but for different reasons.

25:09So I have to work with you and say, what are your beliefs? And then I might say, do you know that research shows 80 % of the audience, it doesn't matter who gets up and speaks are on side. 80 % will like you. In fact, 20 % love you before you speak. And that's true of all of us because they're nice people who want you to succeed and they know it's tough. So they admire you just for getting up. If you know that, you might say, Steve, that really resonates with me and that makes me get on stage to help people. But the other one I might say, no, it doesn't resonate at all. That really hasn't settled my chimp.

25:42So the uniqueness when I'm working with you is to find what are the key beliefs which are valid and truthful that resonate with you specifically and they're unique to you. And this is why it's hard to write this out because I can't give five tips. I say, try and work out what belief will really settle your chimp. so I work with you to find if you're anxious are your chimps anxious five beliefs that are going to stop your chimp from being anxious and I don't know what they'll be I can test out a lot of common beliefs that a lot of people go that really helps me for example I give you a simple one a common one that people like is will this matter in an hour will it matter in a week that's a very common one people use so it's as simple as that it's not complex and if you think that works then you need to start your day with that.

26:30So I ask people, this is skill-based now, sit on your bed in the morning, ask people to work with me for five minutes every morning. And you go through these beliefs and you say, right, is it going to matter what happens today in a week and a year? 99 % of what happens today is irrelevant in a week's time. Even what we think is important, we realise it isn't. In a week, we won't remember it. So if you've got that, that can keep coming unconsciously throughout the day to your chimp because the brain works at an unconscious level. So what I've found people say it's really strange. I've done the five minutes on my beliefs.

27:05The day doesn't seem as stressful. I'm actually going through the day and thinking things that bother me I didn't seem to react to because what they're explaining scientifically is my chimp was about to but within a fifth of a second the computer stopped it. In terms of working out those beliefs that you have that mean that your chimp acts a certain way how do you work out what those specific ones are because I feel like a lot of us have them but maybe a deeper ingrained and we're not so aware of where that belief comes from it's a really good point and it's a common one I have a small company and the mentors often come back and they say to me it's finding them so there are ways of doing this and one is whenever you feel uncomfortable there's a belief there which I call the gremlin which we need to turn over and change it over.

27:56So we need to find these. So, for example, I don't know. We don't want to do a therapy session on you. We can do a therapy session. I don't mind. What would be something you would feel? I mean, would it be getting on stage or would you relish that? I'm fine with on stage. Right, I'm going to stop you then. And we're going to say, why would you be fine on stage? What beliefs are you walking on with that you're probably not even aware of? As in positive beliefs? Yeah. Well, clearly, because you're saying, I'm not bothered. Whereas a lot of listeners say, but I mean, I couldn't do that in front of 500 people.

28:26What's your belief about you or what you're about to do? I think I'm generally comfortable with delivering or knowing that I can talk about something until the end of time. Right. And I think there are probably parallels with how I act on the everyday. I'm the type of person who doesn't want there to be an awkward silence and therefore is, you know, whether it's starting conversation. Yes, and again, if I'm working with you, I guess, and you go, yeah, it's true, actually. Do you believe that everyone in the audience is going to love what you say? Absolutely not. Good. So now I'm going to say, what would you feel about the ones who don't like it?

29:02I'd love to say that I wouldn't care. I'm sure I would care. Rationally, I would probably either not think about them or think, well, you know, that's statistically assumed that there would be. So what you see when you went on stage, you had what I'd already said. you had this idea you can't please everybody and if i'm going on stage these are beliefs i think are in your head if i go on stage there will be some people who don't like what i say um and but they could they don't they're just like that or they might be decent but i've maybe not got it across well but you're confident to go on stage because you have that in your head and you're saying and you've got another belief here i can deal with it you said i rationalized it i can deal with it you know whereas another girl will say to me i haven't got that belief to be honest i i don't think i could deal with it the criticism so that could be a problem what are people thinking i don't believe i can get the audience on board whereas you're confident like i can talk i can talk right and you've done it so you think yeah but you did have another safety net saying i can deal with anything that's negative right where a lot of people haven't got that so this is where I'd go back and say, and it may not resonate with them, adults deal with anything.

30:15As an adult, you can deal with anything in life. You know, that's what adults do. Children can't, and chimps definitely can't. So the chimp doesn't believe it can deal with life, whereas, which it can't. So it's being truthful. But you're not a chimp. You're an adult and you're a human being. And you're saying as an adult and a human, I can deal with life. Like you said, it may be uncomfortable. You have another belief there. And your belief is sometimes life's uncomfortable but you know you can distract so you also had a plan to deal with it so you can see another girl may not have that belief or a plan and then she might say to me how does she distract because I can't just ignore it keeps coming back and back and back and that's because again she may have this belief I have to please everybody so it it's very unique to the person in front of me but your positive stance on getting on stage was built around what I call the autopilots These are really truthful beliefs.

31:09Some of them, you know, it's life, not everyone's going to like me. They're not all that positive. What they are are truthful statements, but you are, did I can deal with it? Right. So give me an example where you don't think it'd be comfortable. Well, I was about to say, I think that the, conversely to that is actually probably more, I'd probably, I mean, I'm generally very used to social media, but I'd say I'd probably be more sensitive to those people that wouldn't like it on social media than I would. if I was standing up on a stage, which feels rationally ridiculous considering there are going to be more people and the likelihood is that they didn't turn up there in order to hear you speak or whatever it might be.

31:51And I'd say that I would be worse at dealing with that. I don't know whether that's because it would be more visible to me rather than, you know, I can't see two people Yes, I'm guessing. So what strikes me is when we interact with people in the room, they get to know us a little bit and it's much easier, much easier to like someone you get to know them a little bit. We do this a lot in team building. If I asked you, if you're part of my team and I say, what's your dream in life? When you share that dream, I get to know you and it's very hard to attack you because I think, oh, hang on, hang on.

32:26She's got these dreams and I might share them. When we're on social media, we have no control and no influence. We just go out there. So now you've lost that control in the room of actually interacting and engaging your audience so they can get to know you. They don't know you're anonymous. So there's a different setting on social media. And we know, again, it might help you to know that the people who are caustic on social media are caustic with everybody. They're unpleasant. That's why they call them the trolls. they're unpleasant people who enjoy and it's hard for the rest of us to understand this they enjoy upsetting people they enjoy sniping it's cowards it's cowardly you know and they often have pseudonyms rather than the real name so it's cowardly action but unfortunately we have to accept they are in our society what we need to know is 90 percent of people are decent human beings and 90 percent unfortunately don't actually press the button to say like or give a positive remark so generally speaking the silent majority are the positive ones and the vocal ones unfortunately contain many of the trolls so we have to say what i'm reading on social media is disproportionate it's disproportionate to what the actual true reading is for the population so it could i don't know it could help you if you reflect on that and then we look at the evidence and you think actually i can see now two things i've given you they'll always be trolls don't let them own your happiness you know so you're coming across I don't know I've just met you you're coming across as a fairly assertive woman who knows which way up is which is great yeah and I think you would have the ability to just go you know what I'm taking my happiness back you would use that well I believe because you're someone who will take hold and move with it so whereas you know some girls or men that I work with would wouldn't be able to do that so again this is why I'm looking at you and thinking, I've got to get to know you because I don't.

34:23I know you're a machine, right? So I can predict, but I can't predict you. So I need to interview you and do the mind mechanics and understand what have you got in that computer and what has your chimp put in that I'm going to have to dig and show you. And then we get to know you. So if you then said to me, I do struggle, Steve, with social media, that's something I'd like to look at. Now we can start going into the detail and start. So let's step back and see what it is all about and what are the differences between in an audience and we go into detail now. One of the things around that like that really stumps me is the fact that actually I would rather that someone who spent a time in a room with me make a judgment on who I am slash whether they like me whatever it might be versus the irrational assumption that someone who's seen me and made a snap judgment or even just criticism whatever it might be.

35:11I don't know why that would ever be weighted the same mentally in my head like there's a very big difference to a friend saying, oh, I thought you really acted badly there and I didn't appreciate how you did that. Or even someone who you spent some time with and you know that they've taken time to work out, you know, whether... Well, that's the key. That's exactly what you're saying is if you think when you're with me a long time, you think, well, he's got to know me now. And your assumption is, which is good because 90 % of people are nice people. So once I get to know them, I like them. So there's a lot of people I like.

35:41I just need to dig and get to know them. And being in the world I'm in, if they don't present a good face the first time and they may be annoyed about something and you think, oh, this man or woman's a bit tetchy, I think, yeah, there's probably a reason. So I give them a second go. That's what you're saying. When I'm with the audience, I can do that in the room. They can get to know me. They have time. Social media doesn't give you that. It's snap decisions. So what you're really saying to me is I don't feel it's representing me. That's what you've just told me. And I'm saying realistically, it can't.

36:11It can't. So you must accept that you may put a picture out there that you're not happy with and that's what's agitating you think this is unfair because this isn't representative of me or at least it's a bit of me but you haven't got the bigger picture and so they come in and criticize something you think well if you give me chance I would have shown you that side of me as well so again it's a snapshot isn't it social media yeah no 100 % and I it's very nature is to only represent that because you cannot represent more than a certain amount in terms of that.

37:08That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary. At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success. like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program.

37:47Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. I'd like to know, you say that, for example, if your chimp reacted with anger to something or reacted with jealousy or whatever it might be, then that's obviously your chimp. You also say that it's not an excuse. How do we recognize this without using it as an excuse? okay because what we tend to do as humans is we allow our chimps to become angry let's take anger and then we rationalize it the reason i'm angry is you said this it may be true but that's not helpful because if i say to you now do you want to be angry is that the response you want now some people might say yes you know i we paint the picture and people often paint the human is this really angelic creature and the chimp is the devil almost i'm saying some people's humans are not nice The chimps are lovely, you know?

38:54So not every human's nice. We've mentioned them already. But if you said to me, Steve, I don't want to be angry. So if something upsets me, I would ask you, how do you want to respond to that? And one of the reasons some people get angry is they don't know any other words to use. So I like to use emotional training vocabulary and say, give me a different word to angry. So let's say you've got a friend who makes a really unkind remark and you feel this anger because that's what your chimp communicates with we're going to educate your chimp and say what's an alternative to anger um compassion yep that could be a good one i'm going to be compassionate they've made a mistake or they've said something they probably don't mean you start programming i will rehearse this now and you get it in your computer which needs quite a few goals to implant it because it's forming networks in your brain literally so and then you may find after you've done it a while a friend who makes a cost of remark and you say it was amazing i just say i'm sorry obviously you're upset about so i didn't personalize it i didn't get angry i changed i got compassionate so you gave me an alternative usually when i do anger we can get about 30 words which is amazing because you demonstrated which is true is it's not easy this work but when you start working with it it gets better you become skilled so for example, I often use disappointment as an alternative because that's an easy one.

40:15So if somebody says to me, you can say, no, I'm angry, but I'm disappointed. Now it sounds semantic, but I'm looking at neuroscience. Whenever you express yourself by saying, I am angry, your brain will pick that emotion up because that's what you've told it. So it will reinforce that anger. Whereas if you say I'm disappointed, your brain will then give a different emotional pattern because you're programmed to be disappointed now so what we say is quite crucial it will dictate so not only do we speak from emotion we can speak to get emotion a simple example and you say if i asked you and i wouldn't give me five really big disappointments in your life you're going to feel miserable at the end of it but that's because you've created it so there's a truth in that there's a two-way process if i ask you give me five real highlights that you've done in life, you'll probably feel a lot better.

41:10So I do this work with young children where it's facial expression. We know that if you, it's bizarre, but it's true. If you force yourself to smile, even though you don't want to, it actually makes your brain feel better. People say, yeah. And it goes the other way. If I feel good, then I smile. The face is intricately linked and it works both ways, which is bizarre. So again, if you ask someone to go around and be sad and look sad all the time, they'll start experiencing it. So in some people that's strong, in others it doesn't. It doesn't. Everyone's unique. So that may not be true for the person.

41:43Everyone could benefit a lot from some time with you. I'd love to reach everyone. What actionable advice would you have? I know that obviously it's incredibly unique to the person, but what tools can someone employ in order to kind of hack their brain as you talk about it? I think because everyone's unique, some people won't relate to what I'm saying and they don't like the chimp model. And that's fine. It's not for everybody. It's a model. Some people will work with mindfulness. Some people work with hypnotherapy, even massage therapy. There's a lot of things out there. So the first thing I'd say is really question whether you really want to improve your psychological health.

42:20And if the answer is yes, start exploring and say, right, what resonates with me? What really works for me? And it can be some simplistic stuff. We don't have to go too heavy. And I've come in as a neuroscientist and I'm just saying that's my world. And I'm trying to make it simple and almost fun, but there's a real seriousness to this because obviously emotions can destroy us if we don't learn to understand and manage them. So I'd be saying to people, first decide on whether it's worth it and then don't try and go overboard. My advice is don't do that because that generally is the chimp brain trying to be over enthusiastic and then you'll end up feeling like you failed again.

42:55instead say well I'm going to spend just five minutes a day reflecting because whichever model you use that's going to help you know in my world I know scientifically if you stop and say right let me just pause and think things through and get some perspective and step back learning perspective is really crucial to the brain if you get that in five minutes in the morning it can change your day so I'm saying that go with a model that works for you but make your mind up whether it's worth actually spending some time. I'm always amazed when I ask people how important do you think your psychological health is?

43:27And universally, people say it's crucial. Interesting psychopaths will say it isn't. Interesting. But don't then assume you're a psychopath if you think it isn't. All right. It doesn't work that way. But if you say yes, and most people say it's so crucial because it affects everything, your relationships, your work, everything. And I ask them, how much time do you spend a day on it and the majority of people say none and that beggars belief so I'm asking people to rationalize and stop and say is it worth it and if it is find something that you think this resonates with me and then start on that but do it small chunks don't put you know I'm going to do an hour a day because then you just feel like you're failing and before we finish I want to speak a little bit about you know you've worked with world-class athletes you've spent a lot of time with them working on their brains overall and kind of how they do what they do so incredibly what would you say makes these top I wouldn't even say one percent far less than one percent brains people athletes different to the rest of patients you see I haven't seen anything universal other than hard work I haven't seen it the personalities of the elite athletes and I've privilege of working with about 30 Olympic sports and various athletes, which you've got to learn about because I don't know a lot of the sports.

44:48But it's no different to working with doctors or teachers or people who run businesses. It doesn't matter who I work with. I think the uniqueness of the person is what counts. So I will get athletes who don't have any confidence. I'll get athletes who are overconfident. I'll get athletes who are very driven and organized. I'll athletes who are disorganized and not that driven and their talent carries them so I wouldn't like to put them in a box I would say I haven't seen a characteristic feature other than somebody who's saying right this is what I want to do and then sticks with it for most of the time but some athletes succeed when they don't train that well you know they're just so gifted so I don't I wouldn't want to put them in a box I'd go back to my original thing you're unique and it's about getting to know you and what makes you tick what's going to help you to get quality life what's going to make you so that you manage what I'm calling the chimp system understand it make it your best friend how do you get your computer program so you the mind is on side now instead of what appears to be attacking you so that's my approach and elite athletes it's the same so we mentioned before going on air on you Sullivan who's very public and tells tell the world everything and I was with him yesterday and I've worked with Ronnie 10 years and he's a lovely guy lovely guy and he works very hard on this he finds it hard to do it's a skill so he'll have good days not so good days but overall he's moved forward massively so if you look at him he's phenomenal in his field I mean it's ridiculously phenomenal he's obviously everyone says he's a one-off but if you said what characteristics does he have I'd be struggled to put them in I can't give you all what people want me to say.

46:33They're dedicated. They're really organized. That's just not true. That's just not true. Ronnie does what Ronnie does and he does well with it. And so we have good and bad days. But overall, he's doing really well. And I want to talk about that quickly. Just obviously in the recent Ronnie Is Sutherland documentary, there's a scene where you coach him through kind of a panic attack type moment. What types of things are you saying to someone I haven't seen the documentary. Again, I'd say this, let's say I'm working with you. I'm being extreme here to drive a point and you got yourself into whatever, your chimp's anxious and it's being ridiculous and you know it's ridiculous and you can't stop.

47:13There'll be one day I'll think, you know, knowing Grace what she's like, I need TLC here. And he says, sit down, sit down, let's coffee. And I'd talk to you that way. But however, if I got to know you and I'm thinking we don't have this, this is the wrong way, I would then confront you. And I would then be a bit more stern and say, right, you tell me what you want and tell me how you're going to do it. And I won't tolerate it then. So for me, working with your chimp is what I'm doing, not you. is it's like a child in a way. Some days you've got to be firm and say, no, we're having no nonsense.

47:48Other days you think, hang on, a bit of compassion because they've been through quite a bit today. So let's get them on board with compassion. So I can be, I wouldn't say confrontational, I think firm is more like it and challenge people, but I'm challenging them to manage their chimp and usually I'm challenging their chimp. And how does someone employ that on their own? okay again ideally you want someone to be independent to me you don't want them so they have to come running to me so i'm trying to show people how to acquire this skill and as i keep on saying i would work with you to say right how would you how would you like to manage yourself if your chimp's being anxious what would you like to do and you might say i would like to distance myself get some space and i say let's practically how you do that and if you're stuck where you can't distance yourself physically how would you distance yourself mentally but you've told me what you want you might come back and say it didn't work Steve and I'll say can I give you an alternative and then we might look at this like I said retraining stop using the word anxiety because often when people say I've got anxiety it isn't they've got adrenaline which is a very different thing so I now give a little bit of science behind you might say to me that resonates now I've got it adrenaline will make my mouth go dry and I'll tremble and my heart's racing but that's not anxiety so if we change the wording it might work it might not then we try again so again it's the uniqueness of working with a person in front of me and they'll tell me no god try again or they'll say that really resonates and then we when we get something resonates we write it down i like people to keep notes and then they can remind themselves and think yeah move forward but over time people change because what's happening is they're managing their chimps or getting the chimps on board so they're becoming themselves which is the you without interference from the chimp or computer always support from them and so how do you tell the difference between in that example the anxiety and the adrenaline okay anxiety as said before has a worry about what's going to happen adrenaline is in the moment it's not actually got those attached thoughts or predictions which i can't cope or i'm not going to or something's going to go wrong adrenaline is where you might say for example an athlete competing is a good example we expect them when they're about to go into the olympic arena with millions of people watching we expect a boost of adrenaline to come up going on stage most people will say i get butterflies that's not anxiety you're not feared you just your body's getting prepared so it's releasing a lot of adrenaline or adrenaline cortisol it's meant to do that so you can welcome it because we know that that boost of hormones subsides within two or three minutes it doesn't last long so you know once you get up downstage you're okay or once you get into the olympic arena athletes say it just dissipates you forget it so we have to say during that time what's our expectation get a realistic expectation it may or may not happen but if it does interpret it correctly it's only adrenaline there isn't a fear here it's a physiological experience which is meant to happen and it's a good thing and what if there is a fear then that's different so now we've got a person saying so now we explore that and i do have what i call a mental warm-up for athletes so it's a five-stage warm-up and in that we have we address these but we do it not on the day of competition we do it like an olympic cycle four years to go we start and then we are primed with this so we have a definite working process so that we know what their chimps will fear you know one of them will be i might be letting my parents my coach my family down one will be i don't want the audience to think i'm terrible i need to prove myself these are all unhelpful beliefs so if it's something like letting my family down we need to explore that well before because it's obvious to the rest of us the family are going to say we'll be disappointed if you don't get your medal or whatever they're never going to say you've let us down that's never going to happen everyone who's in i don't know 90 of people whether athletes or not are always trying we're always we're animals that try so you can never down yourself as long as you've done your best effort and that's values because we never touch them and that's really a stabilizer for peace of mind which is different to success and happiness so we're going in a different area now what is that five-step mental warn-up you use for Olympic athletes?

52:18Okay, what I try and do is explain to them that the brain has rules. I mentioned this. So the way the mind works is the chimp always goes first. So what we first need to do is address the chimp and that's going to be unique to the person. What is their chimp like? And sometimes they're unpredictable. You know, you get on stage one day and you normally expect your chimp to get anxious and it worried or adrenalised, then suddenly it doesn't do it. And you think, oh, that's a bit odd, right? So we get to know our chimps. When you've dealt with the chimp system the human actually interferes when it comes to sport and in fact presentation sometimes it doesn't depends what you're asking me to do to work with we get rid of the human as well because when you're on stage the computer mode takes over most of what you say you already know what's coming so the computer's talking through you and it's fast it'll be eloquent it'll find the words only if someone in the audience stops you and go what do you mean by that does the computer stop and say i don't have an answer now and now you have to speak so you're now using different systems so my mental one would be deal with the chimp first deal with the human get the computer warmed up which we need to do uh when we've done the computer warmed up then we've got to go into process driven mode for sport because it's process that'll do it very much like you on stage uh i don't know whether you're presenting something or whether you just talk you know again I can't give an answer unless I know what you do but we're looking at the process of what you do and then it's learning to stay in that mindset throughout the presentation and then I do a mental debrief afterwards so that we leave you in a good place we don't go away and then not sleep that night worrying about what you said or what you didn't say we learn to debrief the mind so it goes okay all is well the way you talk about the chimp as a whole as you say it might not work for some people but for me it really helps to solidify which area you know is my reaction to something versus my actual response to something and I think that the more and more I get a hold over that as a whole like I consider myself quite a I'd like to think I'm the type of person who responds rather than reacts generally so it isn't that you do want it you're in chimp mode you you will you have to react that's how it works it can't respond where i respond we mean you stop and think right it is what it is what's my plan that's what the human does we accept the situation not roll over we accept what's presenting then we work how we're going to work with it whereas the chimp it usually doesn't accept because it writes the script first it says this is what should happen and if it doesn't then it gets upset angry anxious it because it's saying this is what should happen.

55:01Whereas humans, we go, it is what happened. You know, whatever's happened, let me take a deep breath and let me say what's my plan. So you always, when you're in human mode, if we can get you there and keep your chimp quiet or on board, you'll always respond to life. You can learn to respond just by moving system. So it's what I teach is how to move systems and how to manage systems. There are times being in the chimp mode is the best thing. You know, the chimp gives us humour. Without humour, you know, it's a pretty dull world. So it's not a negative force, it's positive. It just needs to be understood and managed what it's trying to do with us.

55:36Just to say, if somebody's not well, because obviously depression as an illness is probably the most prevalent, then the model will work. But clearly, I'd advise anyone listening, if they're not in a good place, just get assessed because sometimes you can have a clinical illness without realising it. And when we treat people, then I'm not against medication. when it's appropriate to give it that can put your brain back into its normal state right and then you can use this model because we're all still dysfunctional right but i'm just saying as a doctor um don't try and deal with something if you think you're actually not well yeah so definitely go and get assessed by a clinician what i call dysfunction which we're all prone to and all dysfunction means is our chimp brain is taking over and we're getting a bit frustrated with it thinking why is it doing this and how do I stop it I wrote a path through the jungle as a book so that people could work on this themselves I often get emails people chase this up and say what am I supposed to do with this where can I find it so I did a path through the jungle to try and say a lot of people are private they don't want to meet me in terms of their fears but they want to take what knowledge I've got or experience so I tried to give that as a course people can actually work through it steadily but it's heavy I have to tell you it's heavy That's great.

56:48I think that's, I mean, I'm very excited to dive into it. But thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you.

57:17Create a beautiful website just by talking with AI or choosing from thousands of templates. Customize every detail with simple drag-and-drop tools and get everything you need to start running business your way. Build more, think bigger, and do it all yourself on Wix. Go to Wix.com. Your sausage mabuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage mabuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary. At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success.

57:59Like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.