How To Take Full Control Of Your Mind: Prof. Steve Peters, The Chimp Paradox | E96

Prof. Steve Peters 0:00 My work now is helping people to optimize performance, get a good relationship with themself, finding their peace, happiness, confidence.

Steven Bartlett 0:07 Professor Steve Peters, he's a world-leading psychiatrist, arguably one of the most famous, renowned, and important of our time.

Prof. Steve Peters 0:14 You will come out the other side much better. People do recover from broken relationships. People don't know what the next relationship will be. Not everybody is the same. What tends to happen is people either don't recognize they're getting stressed, and it becomes chronic, and they've got these behaviors which are damaging to them, as people think stress is where we're wringing our hands and panicking, and that's not really true. Stress comes in all different forms and often isn't recognized. Even for people in a much more serious situation where they become, uh, suicidal, you can tell them with honesty there is always a future, and things do change, and feelings do move. You know, we have to accept that reality. We cannot know everything about the person we're with. And if our chimps switch a panicky a bit and want guarantees and want... then we're, we're going down the wrong path, and we have to tell our chimp, "You can't do this."

Steven Bartlett 1:09 Professor Steve Peters, he's a world-leading psychiatrist, arguably one of the most famous, renowned, and important of our time. He's also a doctor and a hugely successful author. Some of you, most of you will know him from his bestselling book, The Chimp Paradox, which has sold millions of copies worldwide, and that's a book that actually saved the lives of some people very close to me. He's worked with elite level athletes, including Steven Gerrard and the England football team, and Ronnie O'Sullivan, gold medal Olympians like Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, as well as business leaders and CEOs, and he helps them overcome what he calls mental dysfunction. He's helped them optimize for performance, and he's really helped them get out of their own way, and in many respects in life, we're all in our own way. Steve's invented this groundbreaking concept called the CHIMP model, and it focuses on how there's these kind of three parts to our brain. The first part is called the chimp, which is our sort of desire to be impulsive and irrational and emotional and short-term. The second part is what he calls the human, and you'll hear him talk about this, which is logical and rational and thinks in terms of facts and thinks things through in the long term. And the third part is what he calls the computer, which is our set of core values and beliefs. Steve's work focuses on how we can manage and control the interaction between these three parts of our brain, and we all have these three compartments within our brains, and if you can understand them, if you can understand these three elements, it gives you greater power to utilize them to be happy, successful, however you define it, and to live a much more fulfilled life. Man, this episode gave me so many personal epiphanies, so many sort of penny drop moments and so many personal realizations. It's one of the podcasts that I, I, I know I'll reflect on going forward and I know for sure will change my life forever. So, this is one where I implore you to listen to the entire conversation, 'cause I think it will change your life too. So, without further ado, sorry, that was a very long intro, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Professor Steve Peters, thank you for, for joining me today. I've, uh, been a big fan of your work, as has a lot of people close to me in my life for a long, long period of time. Um, where I wanted

Steven Bartlett 3:37 to start with you is w- with a question, which is how do you define yourself professionally? And I've read, you know, I've read about the diverse amount of work you've done across multiple sectors with sports stars, with leaders, with, with the NHS, with the, the Fire Service, with, um, you know, a, a broad spectrum of people. But what is the sort of basis of your work and how do you define what you do?

Prof. Steve Peters 4:00 Okay. Well, thanks for inviting me.

Steven Bartlett 4:01 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 4:02 Um, coming from a medical background, I define myself as a doctor who is specialized in the mental health, um, area of medicine, uh, and then moved a little bit sidewards into just mentoring and helping people to gain understanding and insights into the way that their mind functions, and then applying that into wherever they take me. So, effectively I'm an educator, um, with a medical basis. But I still have patients I would treat, but generally my work now is helping people to optimize performance or get a good relationship with themself, um, finding their peace, the kind of things people want, happiness, confidence, or even things like high performing teams. So, a vast spectrum, but the, the basis of all of this is do you understand what's going on inside your head? Do you understand yourself?

Steven Bartlett 4:49 And what's the... 'cause some people are easily confused between psychiatry and psychology. What's the distinction as you see it?

Prof. Steve Peters 4:56 Well, the distinction is that psychologists are experts in usually, uh, a specific area within psychology, so educational psychologists would look at how we educate children and, and adults and how they learn best. Whereas you might get a clinical psychologist, they'll work with someone who's got maybe a depressive illness and look at the cognitive aspects of that, the way we think and behave. Um, a doc- um, psychiatry is a medical doctor, so we tend to treat mental illness as opposed to dysfunction.

Steven Bartlett 5:25 Mm.

Prof. Steve Peters 5:25 So, mental illness is where we know that the, in simplistic terms, the brain isn't functioning well, something is going wrong, often it's transmitter systems, so we treat them, um, but when we might find as a psychiatrist that it's dysfunction, so then we would do overlap work with what psychologists would do.

Steven Bartlett 5:42 Right. I got you.Um, you- your book, The Chimp Paradox, really focused on psychological dys- dysfunction.

Prof. Steve Peters 5:48 Yes. Um, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 5:49 Um, and was that born out of your- that was born out of your work in psychiatry?

Prof. Steve Peters 5:53 Yes, I mean, when I was in the NHS as a consultant, for many years, um, people come through the door who had mental illness, which then we would treat and, and support and help them get them on their feet. Um, but also a significant number of people came through the door who didn't need treatment per se, they d- they hadn't... The mind was fully functional and operating well, they didn't know how to operate it, so because they didn't operate well with the mind, it was creating a lot of emotional distress, and so they would present as if it were an illness, but in my, my book, it wasn't an illness, so I worked with that dysfunction. And out of that work was born the neuroscience basis of the, the Chimp Model, to say, "Look, let's have a look at the brain and see what is the brain actually doing and how did it develop and how can we apply that to you today?"

Steven Bartlett 6:41 I wanna go down those two paths. So I wanna go down the, the mental health path and then also the mental dysfunction path.

Prof. Steve Peters 6:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 6:46 So, if we start with the mental health path-

Prof. Steve Peters 6:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 6:49 ... um, there's, there's this kind of prevailing narrative in culture at the moment that mental health disorders are on the increase and that people are getting more and more depressed and more and more anxious. Um, in your view, is that, is that accurate?

Prof. Steve Peters 7:02 This is a complex topic. Uh, the answer would be that we're more aware of it, so it's probably reported more, but, um, mental illness per se will- can sometimes be born out of mental dysfunction. So, if we get stressed in our work, say, and we don't manage it well, or in relationships and we don't manage that well, then we know that given time, for many individuals, the neurotransmitters in the brain start to malfunction.

Steven Bartlett 7:28 Right.

Prof. Steve Peters 7:28 So we can create, effectively, an illness by not managing the mind well. Or alternatively, it can spontaneously malfunction, so people can have a great life, look after themself, yet still suddenly go into a clinical depression because the system has failed, much like, say, a thyroid might fail. They haven't done anything wrong, it's just the system has failed.

Steven Bartlett 7:48 And is the- the- the- the changing world we live in, the more sort of digitalized world where, I don't know, our lives are being, I guess, more optimized for, I guess, productivity and, um, n- uh, optimized against things like exercise, for example. You know, I can order my lunch by clicking a button now, and I can meet dates just by swiping on my phone. Um, is it your belief that that changed world, the- a more digital world, a more social media-centric world, the world we live in today, is more conducive with mental illness?

Prof. Steve Peters 8:20 I think, again, I have to talk in broad terms.

Steven Bartlett 8:22 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 8:22 Everybody's unique, which means that somebody will find that really advantageous-

Steven Bartlett 8:25 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 8:26 ... to just press a button and the lunch arrives, and they don't need that people interaction. We're all on a spectrum. The vast majority of us are built to interact. We are gregarious by nature, and we like people around us-

Steven Bartlett 8:37 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 8:37 ... and we like to have relationships. So clearly, if somebody's isolated in an office or working from home, then they will miss that aspect, so if they don't actually compensate in some way which satisfies their need for this interaction, then it's likely they will start to become distressed.

Steven Bartlett 8:53 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 8:53 So in that sense, I think because most of us are gregarious and we're more and more isolated, uh, if we don't make steps to change that round, it's likely people will find they get more stressed and more anxiety will appear and more clinical depression may appear.

Steven Bartlett 9:07 Yeah, I ask that question just 'cause I'm, I'm- I- I'm- I'm unsure, as you said- said at the start of your answer, whether it's just because of awareness has increased around mental illness or if, um, the world we live in now is make- is not, uh, meeting our, I guess, our fundamental human needs.

Prof. Steve Peters 9:23 I think it's a bit of everything, and I think, therefore, researchers will look at the idea that, for example, social media has a massive input, which it wasn't there. So we go back 20 years and there wasn't social media as such, and now it's become very prominent in many people's lives, and w- we know that most of us don't respond well to criticism-

Steven Bartlett 9:41 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 9:42 ... and, and if it's public criticism, then we really don't respond well. So that can be an extremely destructive force on people. However, if people use social media appropriately and, and are able to block out any of these negative comments that people make, then they'll probably find it an advantageous thing to actually communicate with friends and family. So again, it's- it's not so much what's happening in society, it's how we interact with it and learn what works for us as individuals. So it's stopping and getting time to think, "What are my needs?" And a lot of people don't really know that, you have to discover them, and then, "How do I put them in place that work for me?"

Steven Bartlett 10:18 And on- on that point of needs, as it relates to sort of mental- g- good mental health-

Prof. Steve Peters 10:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:24 ... um, are you able to point out some fundamental things that we all need to have, um, or things that are most conducive, tip- generally, broadly, with good mental health?

Prof. Steve Peters 10:35 Yeah, so if you came to me and you said, "Right, can we just do a, like, a bit of a psychological profile? Let me have a look at my life and see how I'm going," then often people are not what we call great historians, they- they don't give me information, I've got to sort of pull the information out with appropriate questions. Uh, and there are areas, yes, I would touch on. So first of all, I would certainly look at the relationship you have with yourself. What's your own self-image, self-worth, uh, self-confidence? I would like to see where you stand in those areas, 'cause we start with you. If- if someone's in a good place, then it's likely they'll cope with the world, but if someone's not in a good place with themself and within themself, then it's unlikely they'll cope with the world, because your starting point is not good. And when I've done that, then we look at things like relationships. So you wanna see what kind of relationships do you particularly need or want at this point in your life and what kind of relationships have you got and are you maximizing them? Are they dysfunctional? You know, is it to do with the communication between you? We'll look at communication. But apart from that, I'll- I'll go to fundamental drives, you know, do you recognize the drives you have? And the obvious ones are eating drives, um, the drive for sex, for security, for territory. We'll look at how you apply those, because these are drives that all of us have-...to greater or lesser extent. Well, sometimes it's hidden drives. So one of the ones is a, a purpose, uh, recognition, you know, a feeling of value in what you do or who you are. So these are drives we all have, but often they get neglected because people don't recognize them. And once you actually point them out and you say, "Well, how are you gonna fulfill these?" Then we can work on what works for you. So I don't tell people, I don't have, like, a recipe book. I, I can't do that.

Steven Bartlett 12:18 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 12:18 I know that people can, I can't. What I like to do is work with you as a team, and you say to me, "This is what my needs are." I challenge that to try and make sure it's really clear-

Steven Bartlett 12:29 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 12:30 ...and then we'll look at what you think will work you. Maybe I'll come up with ideas and suggestions, or challenge beliefs you've got-

Steven Bartlett 12:36 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 12:37 ...and then we work together to say, "What are your outcome objectives? What do you want to achieve in the next three months, six months, 12 months?" And look at what's realistic. So it's, it's quite a detailed, almost like an MOT on the person's mind.

Steven Bartlett 12:49 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 12:50 Make sure everything's up and functioning.

Steven Bartlett 12:53 Two things I was super intrigued there by is the, the idea of self-image and what that really, really means. Um, 'cause I've heard the term of, you know, self-image. I guess that's how you see yourself.

Prof. Steve Peters 13:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 13:01 Um, insecurities and all? Or is insecurities are impact how you see yourself?

Prof. Steve Peters 13:07 Well, this is where 20-something years ago now, uh, in the early '90s, it struck me as a younger doctor that, um, the mind isn't one entity working. So when I ask people about self-image, I'm now gonna split the mind a bit and say, "What is the self-image that you feel you would like to have, and that you are aiming to, to present to the world? And what's the genetic self-image that your mind is giving you and the mind interpreting?" Hence, I started saying you have this circuitry which is rational and logical looking at the facts, and you have a circuitry which is emotionally based. So it's not logic and emotion, it's logically based with emotion, and it's emotion based with logic. And, uh, we don't control that. So if I try and... (laughs) That's detail, might have to listen to that one again-

Steven Bartlett 13:56 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 13:57 ...uh, is w- what I'm saying is we have control over the f- the circuitry, which I call the human circuits, and your self-image then might be that I'm a compassionate guy, that I'm a trustworthy person, that I always give 100%. This is what your self-image could be when I discuss with you and your circuits are responding. However, if you've moved the blood supply and oxygen uptake into what I'm calling the chimp circuits, circuits which are quite primitive but think, you don't have any control over that. So they will generate thinking. And the chimp circuits may give a very different answer.

Steven Bartlett 14:33 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 14:33 Because they're much more likely to be emotion and say how you feel about yourself, rather than the reality. So the feeling could be the reality, but it's, it's likely not to be. So we get two images from two different circuits.

Steven Bartlett 14:46 And what is informing the chimp?

Prof. Steve Peters 14:49 Right, so the chimp, when it starts off in life, this is going heavy neuroscience. As we develop in the fetus, the, the chimp circuitry, which is the orbital frontal cortex heads it up, this is a part of our brain just above our eyes, starts to think but it thinks in an emotional way. So it, it reacts to things. It doesn't think ahead with consequence, it reacts impulsively, and it relies on the center of the brain, the rest of the limbic system, it's part of the limbic, uh, to actually store this, our experiences memory. So for example, if a child gets told off at the age of two, it's likely be, to be in chimp circuitry. Uh, then if it wants to avoid being told off again, it will conceal what it does.

Steven Bartlett 15:30 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 15:31 So if it's eaten a chocolate biscuit, it will just try not get caught.

Steven Bartlett 15:34 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 15:35 Okay? Because it, it's imp- impulse will to be, eat the chocolate biscuit, but then it will learn, but if you do, you can get caught, you'll get told off. So therefore conceal being caught. So this is impulsive and not thinking long term consequences or values or... Because this circuitry just does impulsive how can I get what I want-

Steven Bartlett 15:52 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 15:52 ...and get away with it, with the least emotion, and, or painful emotion. Whereas what happens when we're around two is a secondary system, the human circuits start to develop. So these run from the top of our head, almost like a vertical one, down into the center of the brain. And this part, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, we have control of. This is our active thinking conscious awareness of things like future time. So we look at consequence. If I steal the biscuit, what will happen? Is there an alternative? And now our values start to come into play. It's not the right thing to do. Whereas the chimp brain doesn't work with values.

Steven Bartlett 16:29 Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 16:30 Uh, it has values but they're not our values. Uh, so we then start having this battle in our heads.

Steven Bartlett 16:36 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 16:36 But that circuitry doesn't come in till we're a two-year-old approximately, so that's why we don't have memory-

Steven Bartlett 16:42 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 16:42 ...before two because it's not actually functioning-

Steven Bartlett 16:44 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 16:44 ...and it stores factual memory rather than emotional memory.

Steven Bartlett 16:47 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 16:48 So when you say one informed the chimp, the chimp has got all this intuition, and intuition is previous experience of what happens. So as it's going to take the chocolate biscuit, the chimp's brain will remind it, "This may not be a good thing. It's pleasurable but it may not be good." So that generally the child now feels on edge.

Steven Bartlett 17:06 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 17:07 They know what they wanna do but they're on edge, and they don't know why they're on edge until they have to think it through. And then the chimp will remind them, "You're getting this feeling because you could get caught."

Steven Bartlett 17:16 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 17:17 So the way that system works, it gives you a feeling, you interpret the feeling, and then you make a decision. But it's based on feelings.

Steven Bartlett 17:26 What was the prehistoric use case for the chimp?

Prof. Steve Peters 17:30 Well, the chimp brain, I mean, I, I use that because when I looked th- th- 30 years ago, uh, I looked at the human brain and then compared it to the hominids and spoke to specialists in, in the hominid group who were saying that the chimpanzee's brain is, is almost the same as ours, in these particular circuits. So that's why we find them entertaining because they demonstrate what we do.

Steven Bartlett 17:50 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 17:50 You know? And, and they will be devious and they will be quite violent, they're also compassionate, but they're all impulsive and not thought through well.And when I looked at that with the other great apes, so the orangutan, the bonobo, the gorilla, they didn't actually have the same circuitry as the chimp, and I couldn't wait for the research, so I jumped the gun a bit and called it the chimp paradox because in the last two, three years, it's been published now to show that the chimp brain and our brain is closer than we thought-

Steven Bartlett 18:18 Hm.

Prof. Steve Peters 18:18 ... in the way that we think with that particular circuitry. So, that's why I picked the chimp, but it's seen in all animals, and, and it's, it's a defense mechanism to protect you. So obviously, eating the biscuit's a good survival mechanism. The fact you might get caught is incidental.

Steven Bartlett 18:33 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 18:33 You hope you don't. But you have to eat. So, these circuits are best to help us to survive, so they give us all our drives, but they also give us experience of what happens when we act in a certain way, and if it doesn't work, we change our reaction.

Steven Bartlett 18:48 Right.

Steven Bartlett 18:50 And you said drives there, that was the second point that I was intrigued by is-

Prof. Steve Peters 18:52 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:52 ... how, how one goes about understanding their drives. I think, um, when I, in a, in the world we live in, especially the, you know, the social media world, it feels like our drives and our values are somewhat, um, sometimes handed to us, and we don't even know that something isn't our true sort of intrinsic driver or values. But because of, I don't know, a desire to be, to fit in or to be, to gain approval from, um, people, we take it up as a value of our own, or, or we say if we're asked that that's something that drives us, but it's not. So, we might say, "We wanna be... we want a Lamborghini," or, "We wanna be a public speaker," or whatever. But really, probably underpinning that is our desire to be, um, to get recognition and to, to be loved, I don't know.

Prof. Steve Peters 19:34 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 19:34 Um, but how'd you go about understanding what your true drivers are in life and not the things that you say just, uh...

Prof. Steve Peters 19:42 Yeah, this is where, when I looked at this, uh, as I say, a long time back, you start to see the... if you ask people, which is what I do, to put away everything and just get a blank piece of paper, that's where I start, my starting point, is always, "Write down the perfect person you want to be." Because this now excludes any of the drives, and a lot of what you're talking about is actually behaviors attached to drives, they're not true drives. Drives are things like the need to eat, the need to have security, uh, these are drives, the need to be a parent, and we have these compulsive driving forces within us that get us out of our seat and make us find something, uh, whereas getting approval from people is actually based in the orbitofrontal cortex, the chimp again, where it's terrified of being excluded from the troop. So, a chimpanzee in the wild must be part of a troop, otherwise, the leopard's waiting.

Steven Bartlett 20:32 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 20:33 So, lots of eyes protect you. So, the, the chimpanzee has an inbuilt need to be with other chimps.

Steven Bartlett 20:38 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 20:38 And in order to do that, it must prove to the other chimps that it's worthy.

Steven Bartlett 20:42 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 20:42 'Cause if it isn't, they could exclude it, which would be death. So, we, we carry that drive still, th- of we need to be approved. The problem is, uh, the chimpanzee's got it right, we've got it wrong. The chimpanzee recognizes it only w- only wants approval from its immediate troop, whereas we actually try and get approval from the whole world. You know, so one person on social media tells the world that they're not like us, and we can potentially fall apart. Instead, they're saying, "Actually, they're not in my troop, so it's not important."

Steven Bartlett 21:07 Hm.

Prof. Steve Peters 21:08 So, it's important, and this is a good example of how giving insights, people can start recognizing, actually find your own troop 'cause that's what you need to focus on, not the rest of the world. You'll never please them.

Steven Bartlett 21:18 Hm.

Prof. Steve Peters 21:18 You know, you're not part of that. So, drives you have to look at, and w- we have, I go through the list of this, and then we say to you, for example, "How strong is your troop drive?" We all have one, that's the need to belong to a group of people, or maybe just to one person. But generally, we like to have a number of people around us. So, it's looking and saying, "How strong is that drive, and are you full thing, fulfilling it correctly?" And, and also, when you've got your, what I'm calling the troop of people around you, are you actually looking after the troop and maintaining it and using it appropriately?

Steven Bartlett 21:49 Hm. Makes a lot of sense. I've sat here with a lot of guests, and some of them have tens of millions of subscribers and followers online, and they still, uh, remarkably, they still, um, pretty mu- I'd say 95% of occasions can have their day ruined by one comment-

Prof. Steve Peters 22:09 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 22:09 ... on a YouTube video or an Instagram p- post.

Prof. Steve Peters 22:11 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 22:11 And it does, it does, like, it does s- blow my mind a little bit that, um-

Prof. Steve Peters 22:17 Yeah, but it, it-

Steven Bartlett 22:17 ... they can have such a big tribe and still, one-

Prof. Steve Peters 22:19 Yeah, I get that, but if you think that, um, we, society, we're told basically to m- respect everyone, which is correct from our human brain, our chimps are actually saying, "Just close in and get the people around you that matter, and please them and look at their approval." And that's what our friends do. They'll be critical, but it's, it's very constructive and done with love, so we accept criticism from friends. We know they're on side. But if you start expanding that inappropriately to the whole world, then you're gonna stress your chimp to pieces-

Steven Bartlett 22:50 Mm.

Prof. Steve Peters 22:50 ... because what you're saying is, "I think it's really important that that person approves of me as well." So again, I look at the reality of life and say, "Let's just get in your factual memory-

Steven Bartlett 23:00 Hm.

Prof. Steve Peters 23:00 ... some real truths of life."

Steven Bartlett 23:02 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 23:02 And people may disagree, but I, I ask them, "What do you believe?" 'Cause truths are relative to us. So, one of the things we know is, and, and give this statistic as a loose statistic, 80% of people approve of us, 20% love us, 60% just approve, and 20% are just not pleasant people. And if we go around believing that we're really gonna make them into pleasant people or we're really gonna please them, you're gonna lose. So, you have to step back and get that fact, and then you don't worry if 20% of the people don't like you or make critical remarks. You just dismiss it and look at the 20% who do love you, who are gonna l- give you constructive criticism and respect you. So again, it's that learning that your drive is out of control.

Steven Bartlett 23:47 Hm.

Prof. Steve Peters 23:48 You're allowing your drive for the troop to extend to the world, and that's not appropriate, and it, it never was meant to do that. So, it's an inappropriate use of this primitive drive we have.

Steven Bartlett 23:57 So, take me through that, that process then. So, I get a blank piece of paper-

Prof. Steve Peters 24:00 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:00 ... I write down who I want to be.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:02 Um, I would say things like, "I wanna be..."And correct me where I'm-

Prof. Steve Peters 24:06 That's okay.

Steven Bartlett 24:06 ... I'm wrong here, okay? 'Cause I-

Prof. Steve Peters 24:07 You won't be wrong. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 24:09 Yeah. (laughs) But if I say I want to be, um, I want to achieve great things, is that a drive?

Prof. Steve Peters 24:15 No, that's not a drive. That's something you hope for.

Steven Bartlett 24:17 Yeah, okay.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:17 So we get the terminology right, because if you hope for that but accept it may not happen, that you're now working with the human circuit, which is logical and rational. So we hope to get... Like, I work with elite athletes, which is privileged, and they hope to get, say, an Olympic medal.

Steven Bartlett 24:31 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:32 And they hope for that. They accept that you may not get this. Even if you're on form on the day, somebody may be better or you may make an error. So as long as you have that, then it shouldn't be stressing you.

Steven Bartlett 24:42 Okay.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:42 It'll be okay. But if you move into saying, "I have to get an Olympic medal," we're now moving into the chimp circuits.

Steven Bartlett 24:49 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:49 'Cause that's not true.

Steven Bartlett 24:50 Yeah, you don't have to.

Prof. Steve Peters 24:51 You know, you don't have to, you know? But if somebody absolutely says to me, "You don't get it, if I don't get there, then life's not worth living," I'm not gonna argue. What I'm saying is, that's a choice you're making and you must also accept the consequence. So I, I can't put, I can't change that. So, so when you start your list, what I'm really asking for is, what are your character traits?

Steven Bartlett 25:12 Hmm. So, so discipline?

Prof. Steve Peters 25:14 Yeah. I mean, again, I would test the waters 'cause I don't know what you're gonna say here.

Steven Bartlett 25:17 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 25:18 You're on the spotlight. I- I'll just do a quick one for you, just to see.

Steven Bartlett 25:21 Sure.

Prof. Steve Peters 25:21 Do... Would you like to be a really nice, good person, or would you like to be successful? You can only be one of them. Which would you prefer?

Steven Bartlett 25:28 Um, a really nice, good person.

Prof. Steve Peters 25:29 Right. So I know where I stand with you now, so we have to now make sure that you understand that's the prime reason that we're gonna do the work, is to get you to be the person that you want to be.

Steven Bartlett 25:39 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 25:39 This is the good news.

Steven Bartlett 25:41 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 25:41 If you write on a piece of paper the perfect person you wanna be... So give me some more character traits, traits.

Steven Bartlett 25:48 Um, all the things that come to mind are the impact I wanna have on those that encounter me. So, um-

Prof. Steve Peters 25:53 Right, so you, you wanna be inspirational?

Steven Bartlett 25:56 Yeah. Yeah, I, I guess that is b- but also just, like, um, empathetic and compassionate and-

Prof. Steve Peters 26:01 Okay, brilliant.

Steven Bartlett 26:02 ... a positive force, yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:02 You wanna be an empathic guy, a compassionate guy-

Steven Bartlett 26:05 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:05 ... inspirational. You're probably gonna add, if we go through this in our time, honesty, integrity, trustworthy-

Steven Bartlett 26:11 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:11 ... you know, respectful.

Steven Bartlett 26:13 Yeah, yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:13 When you've done all this, this is really crucial, and it is a light bulb moment. If you think about this, that... If you had control of that part of your brain which you have, and there was no interference from the rest of the brain, then that's exactly how you would be in life.

Steven Bartlett 26:28 True.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:28 That is you. So what I'm saying is, the reality is fantastic. That is you.

Steven Bartlett 26:33 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:33 It's not who you hope to be. It is you.

Steven Bartlett 26:36 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 26:36 It's not a myth. It's neuroscience. It's you. What we're now seeing is, that doesn't present to the world, because now your chimp and a computer system, the backup to both human and chimp, now impose other things, and so the world might see something different. So you say to me, "I want to be compassionate," and I walk in and say, "I've had a really long journey today. It all went wrong," and you're busy and you just get irritated and say-

Steven Bartlett 27:01 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:01 ... "Oh, for goodness' sake, stop mourning."

Steven Bartlett 27:03 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:03 And then afterwards, you think, "Well, that wasn't very compassionate." So I'm not compassionate, but that's, that's misunderstanding the neuroscience. You were always compassionate because your intention was always to say, "Sorry, Steve, that you've had a rough journey."

Steven Bartlett 27:15 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:16 You know, because obviously it's important, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you.

Steven Bartlett 27:18 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:19 I mean, you still might wanna say stop mourning after a while-

Steven Bartlett 27:21 Yeah. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 27:21 ... but it's done nicely. But what happened is your chimp is saying, "I don't need to deal with this. It's doing my head in, so I'll just have a go and that'll stop him." And there you see this immediate reaction without thought or consequence.

Steven Bartlett 27:34 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:34 So then our rapport fails a bit 'cause I think, "Oh, not a nice guy, this." But actually, when I understand the science, I think, "He's probably a nice guy. His chimp wasn't very good there."

Steven Bartlett 27:44 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 27:44 That's very different to you going away at the end of the day thinking, "What's wrong with me? Why was I lacking in compassion?" The answer was, get the neuroscience right. You've never moved position. You're always a compassionate guy who's trustworthy and honest and so on. Your chimp has interfered. Now, it's very critical I expand on two points here, 'cause the listeners are gonna go, "Hang on." This is not an excuse model. A hundred percent, I'm tough on people. It's not an excuse model. You're a hundred percent responsible for managing the chimp, so you need an apology. So when you know the chimp's been a bit brisk or rude, you've gotta stop and say, "I, I apologize." You are responsible. So I'm not saying blame everything on your chimp. I'm not saying that. And the second point is, you gave me an answer there by saying, "I want to be this compassionate guy," and people say, "Surely everyone writes the same list." Absolutely not. In the '90s, when I started to really pull this together and was looking at the neuroscience... Cleary, as you probably know, worked in the field of forensics. And if you take a typical person... So we'll take you as typical person and we say, "What would you give? You gave me the right list. Peaceful, calm. You'll go through integrity, honesty, compassion." That is really common on the list. However, when you get to the psychopath, they wouldn't put these. And when I asked them, they did not put honesty. They did not put compassion. They were not relevant. They had a very different list of who they would ideally like to be, and it wasn't pleasant.

Steven Bartlett 29:16 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 29:17 It was all about power. It was all about ego. These are what are in critical... This is what I'm gonna be. So actually, the human in that person is not the good guy. I used to say it's often the chimp in them that's the nice guy. The actual human's not so nice at all. So it isn't a good guy, bad guy. That is not at all what the model is. It's saying we all have these systems. Let's find out who we are, what kind of chimp we've got, 'cause they're spread and characteristic, and then what have we got on our computer. I know... This is really heavy-going.

Steven Bartlett 29:47 No, it's not.

Prof. Steve Peters 29:48 I hope this isn't making sense. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 29:49 No, it makes perfect sense. It's my brain is spiraling off into loads of different-

Prof. Steve Peters 29:52 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 29:52 ... um, examples where that, that is true. And the... one of the first ones that came to mind was about, like, leadership-

Prof. Steve Peters 29:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:58 ... and in the, in the, the business world. And I was thinking about the likes of Steve Jobs and-

Prof. Steve Peters 30:03 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:03 ... you hear about these leaders that are maybe... They appear to be led more by their chimp because they are incredibly short all the time. They are, uh, inc- they seem to be incredibly emotional. However, when you reflect on what they've achieved in their careers, they also... Like, even, you know, Sir Alex Ferguson's maybe an interesting example. They appear to be, um-... either using the chimp-

Prof. Steve Peters 30:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:26 ... as a, as a, intentionally-

Prof. Steve Peters 30:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:28 ... or out of control.

Prof. Steve Peters 30:30 Yeah, I mean, again, there's nothing wrong with a chimp. Uh, people said to me, um, "Oh, you, you paint this picture of this, like, terrible being in our heads," and I've never said this. And when I wrote The Chimp Paradox, it's in the title, I said, "It's your best friend." You know, my chimp is my best friend. That doesn't mean I'll always agree with him. I know I say to people that I see him as this inept best friend-

Steven Bartlett 30:51 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 30:51 ... who doesn't do the best things for me at times, but he means well. So I know this part of my brain is 100% on side, it just operates in a way that maybe I don't agree with at times. But it does... I learn to communicate with it, so that I can get it on side and harness its power. So the chimp is the part of the brain that gives us sense of humor. The human doesn't possess that. It's the chimp that recognizes anomalies and makes us laugh. It's the chimp that has intuition. We haven't got that. The chimp reads body language. We haven't got that. So our human circuits fail. So this complementary circuit, when it works together, we know even if you go to the corporate world, that business decisions that are made with logic and emotion are the best decisions. And that's emphasized in neuroscience that we know decision-making by both human and chimp circuits together are the best decisions.

Steven Bartlett 31:40 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 31:41 So you use your chimp's intuition and its enthusiasm and its drives, uh, but you harness them and you channel them, so you learn, which is what this is all about-

Steven Bartlett 31:50 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 31:50 ... mind management.

Steven Bartlett 31:52 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 31:52 So you start saying, "I've got an amazing machine now, but it's almost like a living machine. Um, I'm gonna get it on side and help." So I, I agree with these people, their chimps will drive them to be successful. I'd like to think that my chimp's really very, very (laughs) strong, um, but it's on board because I manage it and it knows I, I'm not against my emotions and or my, my emotionally based brain. I'm not against them, I use them. I, I think, "What's the message they're telling me?" So any em- any emotions we get are messages.

Steven Bartlett 32:21 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 32:22 They're not meant to be engaged with, they're meant to be worked on so that you actually use them.

Steven Bartlett 32:27 Quick one. I talk to you guys about Huel a lot, so I'm gonna do a quick intermission to tell you about a bit of a change that's happened in the last two months in my life. As you guys know, my favorite Huel product historically has been the Ready To Drink, which is these bottles here, they are nutritionally complete. However, recently, since Huel introduced the Huel protein, this now plays a huge role in my diet. The salted caramel flavor protein from Huel, which is only 105 calories and has 26 vitamins and minerals and 20 grams of protein, um, serves two roles in my life now. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I have a glass, and then at nighttime, after I've been to the gym, straight after the gym, I have a glass. It tastes amazing. If you're gonna try it, follow my instructions here. Get a couple of cubes of ice, put it in a blender, put on the salted caramel protein, and it tastes like a delicious smoothie. I've already gone through one tub of this. I'm actually on my second tub and I've got two more tubs to go before I'm gonna reorder more. But genuinely, the salted caramel flavor, maybe because I have a liking for salted caramel, for me has been a game changer.

Steven Bartlett 33:29 I wanted to talk about ex- exactly that topic, which is, like, managing your emotional reactions-

Prof. Steve Peters 33:34 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:34 ... um, across different facets of life. And I think, um, I'll go, let me just give you an example of a situation that I went through that I wrote about in my book. So I'm just gonna be completely honest-

Prof. Steve Peters 33:44 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:44 ... because that's what I tend to do on this podcast. Um, I broke up with a girl and, um, like two days later I found out that she'd slept with somebody else.

Prof. Steve Peters 33:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:52 And when I f- even though I'd broken up with her, e- when I, when I read the message that she'd slept with somebody else, my brain, "Revenge."

Prof. Steve Peters 34:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:01 "Message her."

Prof. Steve Peters 34:02 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 34:02 (laughs) "Destroy her life." That's what my brain said to me. But I, um, and, and I am at a place in my life where I feel quite secure in my self-image, let's say.

Prof. Steve Peters 34:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:13 I don't feel particularly insecure. I'm, I'm, I'm a confident person, but even I couldn't seem to get a grip of my own, um, desire to react emotionally in that situation.

Prof. Steve Peters 34:25 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 34:26 Um, and really interestingly as well, it was actually my friend calling me. I went to the gym, I thought, "Maybe I'll go to the gym and that'll, like, clear my head." It was my friend calling me and, and this, I don't know where this fits in psychiatry, but my friend said to me, "Steve, just remember, you broke up with her. She's probably doing this to, um, make herself feel better and to, you know, rebound or whatever." But, um, that was one of those key moments where I was like, "Oh God, like, ugh, the damage you can do if you don't know how to control that, like, primitive-"

Prof. Steve Peters 34:54 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:54 "... urge to just, 'Ugh!'"

Prof. Steve Peters 34:55 Okay. You've covered a lot of ground there.

Steven Bartlett 34:57 Yeah. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 34:58 That could be an hour's work here.

Steven Bartlett 34:59 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 34:59 So I'm gonna take it back and try and go very steadily to try and drive home... There's a lot of areas.

Steven Bartlett 35:04 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 35:04 One is, first of all, what would you expect somebody's mind to do confronted with the same situation? What would you expect them to do?

Steven Bartlett 35:14 Probably the same thing.

Prof. Steve Peters 35:14 Exactly, so nothing abnormal happened. There wasn't a problem.

Steven Bartlett 35:17 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 35:18 You're saying this is absolutely healthy and normal, but maybe not helpful.

Steven Bartlett 35:22 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 35:23 And what you really said, because you've told me this, if it wasn't a problem to you, you wouldn't have mentioned it.

Steven Bartlett 35:28 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 35:28 So clearly your human brain is saying, "I don't want to get revenge. That's not what I want. What I want is to just be calm and collected, accept the reality of it, and move on." Unfortunately, it's, we have to learn now how the mind works. So it's like saying you went to the gym, so therefore you're a fitness man. If I said to you, "Right, I've never been to a gym for 30 years, I'm gonna go tonight and at the end of the day I'm gonna be super fit."

Steven Bartlett 35:53 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 35:53 And you laugh because you think that's ridiculous. It's not the way the body works. So we have to now look at another aspect. So now we know it's normal, how does the mind work when we get a really nasty shock and something which is devastating? So the b- the reason the chimp is there and the reason we're here is for us to be safe and present the next generation to the world. That's what the chimp's agenda is.

Steven Bartlett 36:15 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 36:15 So what happened there is the generation that you thought you were gonna get was taken away from you. So this is devastating, so we expect you to be devastated.We also expect you to accept the mind is gonna now grieve, and it'll take approximately three months, give or take.

Steven Bartlett 36:32 Are you talking about heartbreak here? Yeah, yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 36:33 Yeah, you've gotta grieve.

Steven Bartlett 36:34 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 36:35 So the- the mind has a rule on the way it deals and processes grief. I can't speed that up. So if some, like if I met you that night and I say, "Right, I'm gonna get you out of it," I'm going to fail, because you have to go through these ripples and- and work it through so your- your human brain can do it in seconds 'cause that's logic. "She's gone. She was dishonest. It's a good thing. She's gone now. No more wasted time." Yeah, that's easy, but our- the emotional chimp brain has got to process it. It cannot do it overnight. So you've got to now allow around a 12-week process, and you're gonna go through various stages of grief in the loss of what is a very significant relationship. And on top of that, there was another insult. It wasn't just she said, "It's not for me." She slept with someone else, so that-

Steven Bartlett 37:20 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 37:20 ... is really gonna get your chimp, you know?

Steven Bartlett 37:22 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 37:22 We expect it now to be devastated, and your chimp's reaction, some people wouldn't, uh, but it's common that it wants revenge. It wants to say, "Right, if you did this to me, you're gonna suffer now." Um, in reality, what you've just said by your nodding is, "That's not what I want." (laughs) "I just wanna move on and accept it wasn't for me. She did what she did. That's her problem, not yours." And what your friend did is start to try and turn it round with some facts to calm your chimp down and say, 'Cause it always looks to the computer, "Let's look at reality." And the reality is if I said to you, uh, "This girl is gonna come back into your life, and they'll bring all that pleasure you used to have, but she's gonna have affairs every few weeks," is that what you want?

Steven Bartlett 38:02 No.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:02 Oh, so you did break it off.

Steven Bartlett 38:04 (clears throat) (laughs) Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:05 You, you know, so you, you try and look at it in a different way and say, "Let's look at the reality and the facts of the situation," but you cannot stop the grieving. You can't stop the yearning or the bargaining 'cause guys in your position often go back and plead.

Steven Bartlett 38:18 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:18 And then she'll say, "Oh, I made a mistake," and- and then you have to make a decision.

Steven Bartlett 38:22 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:22 You know? And then they'll bargain again, and then if you go through that, you go into disorganized stage. But this can all be circumvented. If you suddenly met somebody new, your chimp might recover very quickly.

Steven Bartlett 38:33 Is that what tends to happen?

Prof. Steve Peters 38:34 Well, as we know, this is the rebound.

Steven Bartlett 38:36 Right.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:36 So this is never a good thing.

Steven Bartlett 38:38 Okay.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:38 I'm- I'm sure some of your listeners are going, "Oh, I married the person I met on a rebound." So of course, it's all probabilities, but generally speaking, you need time to get over this. Gather yourself so you're in a good place when you do meet somebody else to have- have a good relationship.

Steven Bartlett 38:52 Hm. That's interesting.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:53 So it's quite complex, the whole thing.

Steven Bartlett 38:54 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 38:54 So yes, rationally we can pull you along, but we gotta give you a lot of TLC, and that should go through grieving. Don't be harsh on yourself and what your experiences are, uh, totally natural. Unhelpful, but natural.

Steven Bartlett 39:06 So many people are going through a grieving process-

Prof. Steve Peters 39:08 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:09 ... in s- it could be a significant life event, it could be-

Prof. Steve Peters 39:11 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:11 ... the loss of a partner, the death or whatever. Is there anything in psychiatry from your experience that can... Okay, that process is unavoidable.

Prof. Steve Peters 39:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:18 But is there anything that I can do to help that process be easier?

Prof. Steve Peters 39:22 Yes, there is. I mean, one is understanding it. As you say, if you start to go through this and say to people, like, "This is how your mind has to do this," and like you tell me with the gym, you laugh, "I can't do it in the night." "Well, how long?" And you say, "Well, i- it's a bit of a piece of string." But roughly speaking, if you keep going regularly two, three times a week, maybe three months, six months, you're gonna see a difference for sure.

Steven Bartlett 39:43 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 39:43 And it's the same with me explaining the mind. I would explain to people that, "We go through a grieving process. You are likely to experience the following emotions or stages in the grief process, but you are unique, and everybody grieves individually."

Steven Bartlett 39:57 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 39:57 So it's very important. As I said earlier, I don't have a process, uh, you know, like a recipe and say, "This is what we're gonna do." I work with you as you grieve.

Steven Bartlett 40:04 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 40:04 But I want you to get insights. That's the key. So the work I do is giving understanding and insight and then applying this so you learn the skill of managing your emotions and the skill of understanding, the skill of mind management.

Steven Bartlett 40:17 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 40:17 That's what I'm about, teaching a skill base so you can be independent of me, but use me as a fallback.

Steven Bartlett 40:23 On that- on that point of re- rejection, which we talked about a second ago-

Prof. Steve Peters 40:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 40:26 ... is it the stories that I then tell myself about myself, which impact my self-image that really hold, that hurt me the most? Because it feels like when you go through emotional, uh, sorry, romantic rejection-

Prof. Steve Peters 40:38 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 40:38 ... or heartbreak, it feels like, um, even if you, i- it's not at the f- sort of like front of your mind, the fact that someone didn't want you or they were, they wanted someone else makes yourself tell yourself that you are not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, you- you weren't enough. And it feels like so much of the hurt and the pain lives inside that story you're telling yourself about yourself.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:02 And again, if you stop and we look at what you've said there, are these factual statements or are they impressions and feelings?

Steven Bartlett 41:10 Impressions and feelings.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:11 So we know that the chimp brain is in full flow now.

Steven Bartlett 41:14 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:14 So what we're saying is don't quench that. It's not wrong. It's expressing, and it's like, as I said earlier, you've got this best friend.

Steven Bartlett 41:21 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:21 So if this happens to me, I now say to him, "What is it you're telling me?" And he'll go through all this, you know, "It's the end of the world," and-

Steven Bartlett 41:27 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:27 ... you know, you clearly no one's ever gonna love you. And- and then we sort of counter it by saying, "Well, let's look at that," so we start to rationalize, and that can help the grieving process-

Steven Bartlett 41:36 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 41:36 ... 'cause we start saying, "Well, let's not just sit there with these falsehoods. Let's challenge them, and let's replace 'em with truths." Not brainwash. It's no good saying, for example, say I'm your best mate and you've just fallen apart and- and you say, "It's 'cause I'm ugly." It's no good for me to say, "No, you're really handsome." That's not-

Steven Bartlett 41:52 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 41:53 That's an impression, again, from me. What- what I'd be saying is let's look to facts. If we look at people in relationships, do people find a partner eventually? And the answer is-

Steven Bartlett 42:03 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:03 ... most people, yes.

Steven Bartlett 42:05 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:05 So the chances are very high. And if you can get through this, will you eventually get back on your feet? Is there a future?

Steven Bartlett 42:12 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:12 Yeah, there always is a future. There always is a future. Even for people in a much more serious situation where they become, uh, suicidal, um, and obviously it's part of my work, y- you can tell 'em with honesty there is always a future and things do change and feelings do move. So when you start giving these facts and rationalizing the facts of this situation, that is gonna be powerful for starting to settle your emotions.

Steven Bartlett 42:37 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:37 ... but giving falsehoods-

Steven Bartlett 42:39 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:39 ... you know, "I know you can do it," or, "You're..." uh, th- that's not gonna settle a chimp. They're streetwise.

Steven Bartlett 42:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 42:45 So they'll just keep agitating. Whereas if we talk facts, then it'll settle. But again, there's a key point here. We have to find the facts that resonate with you as facts. Because if I said, like I just did, "Will you find another partner?" What's, what's the general rule? If you said to me, "Yeah, but I don't believe that everybody does," there's no point in me forcing this truth onto you.

Steven Bartlett 43:06 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:06 I'd have to look for others that might resonate with you.

Steven Bartlett 43:09 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:09 Such as, "If I go out and I actually start socializing when I'm ready, then the chances are I'll increase my probability, so that gives me a bit of hope." You might work with that.

Steven Bartlett 43:19 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:20 So, you've got to find what resonates with the person.

Steven Bartlett 43:24 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:24 And again, th- that's why I don't have this recipe. I'm saying discover them, but think around. But you can offer common things.

Steven Bartlett 43:30 Yeah. Super interesting. And it- it- it, again, it perfectly explains why in that moment, for some bizarre reason, my friend telling me, being very sort of rational with me, things that I genuinely-

Prof. Steve Peters 43:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:41 ... did accept to be true just completely diffused my brain.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:45 Because he's acting effective as your human.

Steven Bartlett 43:47 Yeah. Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:47 That's what he's doing. He's coming in rationally and stepping back and saying, "Let's look at the facts here."

Steven Bartlett 43:52 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:52 And he's hit some nails on the head where you think, "Oh, that's settled me down a bit."

Steven Bartlett 43:56 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 43:56 So, but what tends to happen is you tend to isolate yourself, most people do this after this has happened, and they go within themself and they engage these emotions, which generates more and more falsehoods and distorted ways of perceiving themself and the world-

Steven Bartlett 44:12 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 44:12 ... uh, instead of being able to, which is not easy, talk to themself rationally-

Steven Bartlett 44:17 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 44:17 ... and, and preempting things like, you know, "Let's work with reality." It's not easy to do that. So when you can't do it, it's not a failure, you turn to your best friends and, and they'll do it for you.

Steven Bartlett 44:27 That's so interesting, 'cause I just, I just realized, um, something that I started doing in the last year, and people will think I'm a proper... um, I'm a little bit strange for doing this, but in those moments, specifically as it relates to, like, romantic situations-

Prof. Steve Peters 44:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 44:40 ... where I'm struggling to get a, to, to respond or act or behave in a way which I want to-

Prof. Steve Peters 44:46 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 44:46 ... which is in line with who I want to be, I've got this habit now of two things-

Prof. Steve Peters 44:49 Let me just correct you how I've gotta do it.

Steven Bartlett 44:51 Sure. Yeah, please.

Prof. Steve Peters 44:51 It's who you are.

Steven Bartlett 44:52 Who I am, okay.

Prof. Steve Peters 44:53 It's not who you wanna be.

Steven Bartlett 44:54 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 44:54 Right? It's so important because-

Steven Bartlett 44:55 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 44:55 ... you know, if you get that, it's a light bulb moment to say, you know, you are this really great individual.

Steven Bartlett 45:01 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 45:01 And it's not just blowing smoke up people.

Steven Bartlett 45:03 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 45:03 People, by and large, 90% of people are great people. They're chimps. Because they're not managed, can create havoc, or their computers can have beliefs in which cause them to act in ways which are not helpful.

Steven Bartlett 45:14 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 45:14 So they're, they're the gremlins I talk about. So when you look at that, I'm saying you're always this great person. The world may never see it, and my job is to help you to present yourself as you are to the world, then they will see who the real you is. But that doesn't stop you seeing the real you.

Steven Bartlett 45:28 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 45:29 You know, when you get home at night, look in the mirror, don't see your chimp looking back, (laughs) you know?

Steven Bartlett 45:33 Yeah, that's so true.

Prof. Steve Peters 45:33 Look at, look and see the human in you looking back, the real you, and respect that, 'cause that's who you are. So, I've interrupted you before.

Steven Bartlett 45:41 No, but please, thank you for doing that-

Prof. Steve Peters 45:42 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 45:42 ... because it's im- it's important and I- I realize that e- even the slightest, like, misuse of words can send you down a different path.

Prof. Steve Peters 45:48 Exactly. Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 45:49 So I- I'm, I'm very keen on making sure my terminology is right-

Prof. Steve Peters 45:52 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 45:52 ... as I describe myself and others, um, so if you see me doing that, please do correct. Um, I've, I've... and I, I, again, I write about that in my own book, about how just, like, the u- the misuse of, like, one or two words can s- Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 46:02 ... completely send you down the wrong, wrong sort of train of thinking.

Steven Bartlett 46:05 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 46:06 But, um, so what I was saying is, there's two things that I start to do. The first is, I now write in the notes of my phone, um, statements I know to be true.

Steven Bartlett 46:14 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 46:14 And the second thing is, this is the slightly strange thing, is I will have a conversation out loud when I'm alone to try and rationalize against how I'm feeling.

Steven Bartlett 46:27 Brilliant. So I'm gonna pick these both up, because these are really key points, and this is why... Just gonna promote the book now. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 46:33 (laughs) Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 46:34 Um, I was saying that, uh, I wanted to share this. These are common features that we have, and there's lots of them. Uh, and one of the things you said scientifically really intrigues me. So you mentioned what I call the grade A hits, the truth that resonate with you. Put them in your phone, look at them, and they stabilize your chimp at any point. So you have grade A hits. So we, we touched on one, for example, not everybody's gonna like you, and there are nasty people in the world. I'd like to add some positives. There are some fantastic people in the world, and there'll always be people who love you. You're never alone. Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 47:04 You just need to reach out. So, those are nice grade A hits if they resonate with you, but a very important one. When we looked at therapies, and this has been researched for the last 50 years, we, we're intrigued to know, why do they work? And I'm giving you the, the model I introduced, uh, to try and show the neuroscience base. Um, but the intriguing bit was, when you speak into the air, effectively it's the chimp brain giving out its thoughts and feelings, and your human's listening, so it actually rationalizes as you listen. And it's not unusual, in business meetings I've seen it, where I've worked with corporate teams and said, "Just speak what you think, but don't judge them." They let their chimps out, and at the end I say to the person, "What do you think about that?" And they laugh and say, "I don't agree with any of it, because now I've listened to myself. It's crazy."

Steven Bartlett 47:51 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 47:51 So it's very important that we do speak out. And this is what the base of therapies are, that when we talk, we start to listen to ourself and we start to be able to understand and process. But that's because our human brain is actually now taking the lead-

Steven Bartlett 48:04 Ah.

Prof. Steve Peters 48:04 ... and listening.

Steven Bartlett 48:05 Yeah. 'Cause it, it felt... 'cause there's been a couple of key moments where... Just context is I've been in a quite a challenging relationship where-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:13 ... um, my partner's going through a journey. The... she lives in Indonesia, a long wa- long, long way away-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:19 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 48:19 ... and she's going through her own journey. And sometimes she's not always communicating with me. Sometimes she can be unpredictable. Sometimes she can kind of go missing for a couple of days in terms of, like, being emotionally vacant. And throughout that journey, I've tried not to, like, control, manipulate-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:35 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:35 ... impress myself, have h- high expectation, and just kind of be-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:39 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:39 ... and let her do what she needs to do. And obviously...... my chimp brain-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:45 ... will always be trying to jump to conclusions-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:48 ... or trying to seek control, or to dominate, or to force the outcome, uh, or, you know-

Prof. Steve Peters 48:53 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:53 ... to force expectations on, on her or the situation. And my sort of human brain is, um, is wanting to be that compassionate, empathetic person who is, uh, understanding and isn't trying to force an outcome out of somebody. And so when I have that struggle, it will be lying in a hotel room somewhere at night, and my brain is going, "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da."

Prof. Steve Peters 49:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:12 And then I have to speak out loud to kind of calm myself again. So I have to state what I know to be true.

Prof. Steve Peters 49:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:19 And I, I, if you look to the notes of my phone now, it's not me just saying this-

Prof. Steve Peters 49:22 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:22 ... there are a list of 20 things that I remind myself of-

Prof. Steve Peters 49:25 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:25 ... that are like fundamental truths, and they calm me.

Prof. Steve Peters 49:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:28 Um-

Prof. Steve Peters 49:28 And that's what I advocate. And I like people to get me five-

Steven Bartlett 49:32 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 49:32 ... uh, and then we challenge them to make sure they are really strong. Um, and they apply generically through life.

Steven Bartlett 49:37 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 49:37 You know? And, and it does settle our m- emotional mind down. But having said that, it, it's not a panacea. It's not like it's always going to settle. Sometimes we have specific experiences which can throw us, and then we have to learn how to manage these emotions. So again, when you say you're in the hotel room and your mind is spinning, stop the battle and now to express your mind. So say to the chimp, "Exactly what is it you're trying to tell me? What are you worried about?" And we have to accept, and this is important, that sometimes our relationships are based on trust, and we have to accept that reality. We cannot know everything about the person we're with. So clearly, we'll ask questions and we'll form a relationship, get to know them, but at the end of the day, any friendship or relationship is on trust, and we must accept we will never know.

Steven Bartlett 50:24 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 50:24 Sometimes we'll never know. And if our chimps, which are panicky a bit and want guarantees and want-

Steven Bartlett 50:30 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 50:30 ... then we're, we're going down the wrong path, and we have to tell our chimp, "You can't do this." The, the biggest thing to follow onto that is, as you've experienced, and, and it, it almost universal, you get your heart broken, it's extremely painful. It can damage you, and it often... You lose confidence in all areas of your life. So it's time to just build back up and give yourself time. But if you experience that and you go with the flow, not engage with it, you will come out the other side much better-

Steven Bartlett 50:57 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 50:57 ... much stronger. And then you come in with the factual evidence again that people do recover from broken relationships. People don't know what the next relationship will be. Not everybody is the same.

Steven Bartlett 51:09 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 51:09 So you start, like you're saying, giving all these grade A hits to it.

Steven Bartlett 51:13 I'm, I'm someone that tries things, and, um, that was one of the things that I tried-

Prof. Steve Peters 51:17 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:17 ... um, 'cause it felt like the right thing to do when my brain was just losing a bit of control, and it genuinely worked, so I carried on doing it. Um, but I think it's good to understand the kind of basis in psychiatry. Um-

Prof. Steve Peters 51:28 Can I just follow that through?

Steven Bartlett 51:29 Please.

Prof. Steve Peters 51:30 'Cause I know people listening and when you, um, you said to me, you know, this, "My mind is spinning in a hotel room," there's another really big truth that I say to people. Your chimp cannot, cannot deal with uncertainty.

Steven Bartlett 51:43 Yeah. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 51:43 It's based on... So he's never gonna be happy. And your job is to say, "Look, we have to live with uncertainty." You have to tell it that, that, "You cannot guarantee it." It's a bit like going with an elite athlete, you cannot guarantee a gold medal, so don't try because you're just gonna stress yourself. You know, accept that it's a throw of the dice in sport. Life is a throw of the dice. All we can do is try and alter the probability, weight the dice. But there's a big fact here, the chimp can't deal with some outcomes you can. As adult humans, we can deal with anything, and that's a fact we can put in our computer, which will, again, for a lot of people, settle down. There's nothing you can't deal with. You will deal with it. The chimp believes you can't deal with it and it doesn't look beyond, whereas I'm saying look beyond and say, "Whatever happens in life, you'll look back and think, 'I did deal with life.'"

Steven Bartlett 52:34 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 52:34 And maybe we can deal with it quicker if we work with our mind and learn how to expedite things like this and, and not sit with them-

Steven Bartlett 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 52:41 ... as problems, learn how to move it forward and be much more positive.

Steven Bartlett 52:46 Uncertainty.

Steven Bartlett 52:48 Stress.

Prof. Steve Peters 52:49 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:50 One of the topics, um, you, you write about in your book, A Path Through the Jungle, but also I've, I've been quite intrigued by over the years, is the idea of stress.

Prof. Steve Peters 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:58 I think it's been painted as a really negative thing-

Prof. Steve Peters 53:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:00 ... something to be... for us to avoid at all costs. But from what I've, um, understood, that's not necessarily the truth, so stress-

Prof. Steve Peters 53:06 No.

Steven Bartlett 53:06 ... can be a good and a bad thing.

Prof. Steve Peters 53:08 Yeah. I mean, trying to just go with the newer science again, if we look at where stress comes from, um, it's a good thing, provided we act on it. Uh, if you have, like, gone on a big dipper ride, your brain releases a lot of noradrenaline. And we know this is a good thing, you get a thrill from it, but if you keep on being in a stressful situation, noradrenaline stays high and that now becomes damaging to us. And it's joined by the big one, which is cortisol. And there are other negative hormones and transmitters. And so these, when they're held at high levels, become damaging.

Steven Bartlett 53:45 Right.

Prof. Steve Peters 53:45 In short bursts, they're actually healthy because they can wake us up to saying, "Right, you need to act."

Steven Bartlett 53:50 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 53:50 So we do have resilience hormones coming in, uh, and they will then give us an opportunity, as long as you recognize it, to say, "Stress is welcome, provided I act to remove it. There's something I need to do, whatever is causing me the stress." What tends to happen is people either don't recognize they're getting stressed and it becomes chronic, and they've got these habitual behaviors which are damaging to them, and they don't even recognize them. Um, and then they get symptoms of stress which they also don't recognize, 'cause people think stress is where we're wringing our hands and panicking, and that's not really true. Stress comes in all different forms and often isn't recognized. So for example, um, we know things like all your drives may go out, so your eating drive, sex drive, sleep drives, these all start to falter, can change in any direction. But also things like irritability, suddenly finding you've got a short fuse, constantly being tired, this is, this is usually an evidence of stress somewhere in your life. Um, but even more subtle ones, when you get people with gr- really bad anxiety, so you have a generalized anxiety state, gross anxiety, um, they can be appear selfish.... because suddenly they become so vulnerable in their own eyes, and stressed. They don't actually pay attention to people around them. And when we treat them and they get better, they suddenly start engaging with people again, and show, demonstrate respect and com- an understanding, and... But while they're not well, they become almost selfish, or appear that way. So again, you can get people who are stressed and appear to be very self-interested, and it's really vulnerability, they're under stress, and we misunderstand that or misinterpret it and start thinking someone's a selfish person. I mean, they may be selfish-

Steven Bartlett 55:33 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 55:33 ... but I'm saying it is one of the hidden stress factors that can start appearing.

Steven Bartlett 55:38 In terms of the causes of stress, um, d- well, I think one of the widely held beliefs is, especially now as we think about mental illness-

Prof. Steve Peters 55:46 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:46 ... is that it's, um, a lot of it's about sort of pent-up, unaddressed issues-

Prof. Steve Peters 55:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:51 ... or us not releasing or expressing what we're thinking or feeling. Is that accurate?

Prof. Steve Peters 55:56 It is, but then (sighs) the etiology, or the cause, of stress is- is multiple. So again, it could be, for example, that you've got an ongoing problem, somebody bullying you.

Steven Bartlett 56:06 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 56:06 You know, that's stressful. Or you're lacking a partner and it really isn't working out, and that can stress you-

Steven Bartlett 56:13 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 56:13 ... because you feel like it's never gonna happen, you know, and there's false starts and you start to become stressed by it. Or, as you said, you could have experiences from way back, um, which have never really been worked through or addressed, and they therefore keep surfacing, they bubble under these emotions, and that will definitely create stress. It tends to be they- they don't present with stress as such, they present with odd emotions.

Steven Bartlett 56:38 Right.

Prof. Steve Peters 56:38 So they translate into things like irritability. And- and when you say, "Well, let's look at why you're being irritable," it's unaddressed issues that, uh, that you need to get up to the surface in the time you want to do it, uh, and then clear the computer system, as I'm calling it, so you've processed these issues.

Steven Bartlett 56:56 And sometimes an addiction?

Prof. Steve Peters 56:58 An addiction to?

Steven Bartlett 56:59 Well, so, uh, um, I've... My business partner, (clears throat) and he's talked about this very much openly at length, and he's actually come on this podcast and talked about this. He obviously, um, he became a alcoholic-

Prof. Steve Peters 57:11 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:11 ... um, b- when we were growing the business, um, I- I believe in his words, because it was incredibly, it was incredibly difficult. We were-

Prof. Steve Peters 57:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 57:18 ... you know, 20 years old, we had, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of employees all around the world, and we'd never done this before. And, um, we were living together, and I think the pressure of the business, um, and the stress, as he would describe it, um, me- meant that he- he was turning to alcohol to cope, really, for him.

Prof. Steve Peters 57:38 Okay, so two separate things again. He's like... I mean, I don't know, 'cause I'm giving-

Steven Bartlett 57:41 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 57:41 ... like a little potted history.

Steven Bartlett 57:43 For sure.

Prof. Steve Peters 57:43 So clearly, um, alcohol is a coping strategy, a very poor one-

Steven Bartlett 57:49 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 57:49 ... uh, that people use to get social confidence, for example, or remove anxiety, or even depression. And generally, uh, it- it won't work out, it will end up being a problem within itself. But alcohol disorders are then, in- in approximately one-in-eight people, will change the brain and the way it functions, and they then get these cravings and addiction, uh, whereas a lot of people, it's more a behavioral addiction. So it's a case of get a new behavior, work out what's causing the problem, and we sort it, and they can stop and drink alcohol socially. But we have to accept that genetically, uh, some people... I'm going into my medical role here-

Steven Bartlett 58:24 (laughs) Yeah, brilliant.

Prof. Steve Peters 58:25 ... uh, I- I worked with the alcohol services for some years, uh, and patients who are addicted, I mean, they actually have a different brain system, so we know that their brain will cause craving, uh, and they will respond to certain medications that behaviorally drinking people won't. So again, it's learning which group you're in. And they have t- they must abstain, because we know that if they drink small amounts of alcohol, it sets the system off again.

Steven Bartlett 58:48 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 58:48 So w- we get this repeat behavior, and we have to say, you know, u- unluckily, it's ab- no different to someone who can't drink milk. If they've got lactose intolerance, the answer is you can't drink milk. Um, and if they've got an addictive genetic loading towards alcohol, then they mustn't drink. The- we're saying, uh, this is just a one-way street to disaster.

Steven Bartlett 59:07 Is that, is that a thing?

Prof. Steve Peters 59:08 Oh, yeah, yeah. People are genetically predisposed. So we know it runs in families, and we know that people's brains react differently to alcohol intake, and, uh, there's- there is a subgroup where we're changing the way that they operate in the brain, so therefore we know that, as I say, they will get that craving. I mean, there was once a group of guys i- in London, early days of me and my career, uh, in the alcohol services, and these were all guys who had problems with alcohol, and I asked them, I said, "Look, I've got all the medical knowledge, and- but you tell me, the reality is what makes you think you're an alcoholic?" And they said something interesting, which rang true with the neuroscience later in my career, they said, "We know we're alcoholics 'cause if we go to a pub and we ask for a drink, it won't stop."

Steven Bartlett 59:48 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 59:49 "Whereas people who are drinking for other reasons can stop."

Steven Bartlett 59:52 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 59:52 "Whereas we immediately change, one drink and we change."

Steven Bartlett 59:55 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 59:55 And that was such a- a fantastic thing to get from these guys. I'm indebted to them, because it was almost a question I'd ask, and it seems to run- run true.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:04 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:00:05 Nearly every case, I know now we've got a problem. Whereas if people say, "No, I could stop, and I don't, you know, bite my nails when I leave," um, I just think, "Okay, I'll have one today." But someone who's got a true addiction, a physical addiction, they said their mind changes. After one drink, it's just completely different, and you can't stop, the craving appears.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:25 I- I, um, I've been saying, um, when I talk about my business partner, Dom, and he doesn't mind me talking about it 'cause he's been on... As I said, he's been on this podcast and talked about it. He's very, very open, and he's a big, he's a big, um, public speaker about the topic of alcohol and sobriety. But, um, the way I would describe my experience with him and my other friends is just as a graph.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:00:42 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:43 So Dom's drinking, if he had... And I'd say this, I've said this multiple times, if he had one, the graph would looks- the line of the graph would look like this. Mine would be, I could have three (laughs) and then stop.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:00:54 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:54 So his was always like this. So if he-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:00:56 It's a victory.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:56 ... if he went to the bar, I knew the end of the night would be-... him falling over-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:02 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:02 ... because there wouldn't be the thing in his brain that stopped it.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:04 He can't stop.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:04 He can't stop.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:05 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:05 And... Whereas I could have two, and I'm like, "Oof, (laughs) that's me done," or, "I don't need any more," or, you know, "I'm-"

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:11 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:11 ... whatever, it's... And that's a-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:13 Well, interesting, when I started looking at this, and, well, we've detoured a bit, the, the neuroscience behind it brought me back to the chimp model because we know that we make decisions from either the chimp system or the human, and when we drink alcohol, it actually interferes with the circuits of rationality, so the human effectively gets disabled, so now our chimp is fully in charge, so it does impulsive things which, the next day, it may very m- well regret. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:01:37 Mm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:38 And that's because, at the time, the decision-making they've got is impaired, so... And, you know, most people say, "Oh, I'm better for a drink," it's interesting that most partners say, "No, they're not."

Steven Bartlett 1:01:48 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:01:48 They're not. So we... The brain actually fools itself, so, so there is a biological basis behind the decision-making we get when these people have got addictive, uh, genetic personalities so that they actually can't stop.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:05 I- I'm conscious of, um, people thinking that... You know, 'cause we'll all know a friend like that-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:02:09 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:09 ... but it doesn't necessarily mean they're an alcoholic, does it?

Prof. Steve Peters 1:02:12 No. I mean, I don't, I don't personally like the term. I think we just look at, you know, the fact that they're, uh, addicted to a substance of some kind or they've got a craving. I, I'd much rather give that terminology, otherwise it feels a bit judgmental. So I'm just saying, you know, how do you use alcohol? Do you misuse it or do you use it appropriately? What... Where do you fall? And if you've got an addiction to it, then let's look at that addiction and see whether it's a physical addiction or a psychological addiction.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:36 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:02:36 So again, it's like going through a grid to make sure we get the right thing for the right person.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:41 Quick one. As many of you know, I've been trying to make my life a little bit more sustainable as it relates to energy ever since I sold my Range Rover Sport and bought an electric bicycle, and Myenergi, as a sponsor of this podcast, are one of the brands that make that transition much, much easier. They are at the forefront of British renewable eco-smart technology, and their products are really, really changing the game. If you're on YouTube, you can see what I'm holding in my hand, this is called the Eddi, right? It's the UK's number one solar-powered diverter. So what is a solar diverter? It's a device for people like you and me. That means you can divert your excess energy back into your home rather than back into the grid, which will save you power and money. It's super user-friendly and easy to install, and you can control it using the Myenergi app on your phone. To find out more about this product and more products like it that will help you make that sustainable transition, head over to myenergi.com and, um, I highly recommend you check out the Eddi. It's, um, it's a real game-changer of a product and one that I'm gonna be installing in my home soon.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:43 One of the things you talk about extensively is about forming habits-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:03:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:46 ... and, um, a lot of people in my life recently, including myself, have tried to be, tried to form habits, especially during the lockdown when so much of our lives was, um... Our habits were broken, our cycles were broken because we were all trapped in our houses, so whether we, you know, had formed a habit of going to the Starbucks then the gym in the morning or whatever, we had our habits broken. So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could form healthier habits in my life. One of them was working out every day, um, but I... And one of the sort of, I guess, popular narratives is that if you do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:04:16 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:16 What is the truth about habits and how we form them?

Prof. Steve Peters 1:04:19 I mean, there's a lot of research on this-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:20 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:04:21 ... and th- they're a little bit contradictory-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:23 Sure. (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 1:04:23 ... so read and believe-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:24 As is life.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:04:24 ... what y- you like. But, I mean, the general feel is that if you look at why we form a habit, it's either consciously done with a belief system under or it's unconsciously done, we aren't thinking about it. A common one, for example, uh, uh, a poor habit is, uh... And I use this a lot when I do keynote speeches, to say to people, "When you go home, if you're with a partner that you love, um, how do you present to them when you arrive?" And it's amazing how most people moan, which, you know, they've not thought that what... They don't wanna see somebody mourning. (laughs) You don't meet someone and say, "You can have this every day of your life, I'll come back and see you."

Steven Bartlett 1:05:00 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 1:05:00 You know? So what you do is you walk in and think, "What habit would you like?" And the belief then is, "If I go in mourning, they could leave me."

Steven Bartlett 1:05:07 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:05:08 "This could damage..." Now that's gonna shift your habit. So once you've turned the belief around this, you're unconsciously doing it without thinking, "This is damaging." And so if you actually sit down and, and work that out and put it in your computer system, then when the chimp gets through the door, it's not gonna mourn because what the chimp has to do scientifically is consult the computer before it does anything. It all happens in a tiny fraction of a second, but if the computer's programmed to say, "Don't forget," it will unconsciously remind the chimp, "You need to be in a good place when you walk in," because that's what they're gonna decide on whether they're there the next night.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:41 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:05:42 So you start to re- recognize that being someone who moans all the time, or complains, when you first meet someone, isn't ideal. So we have these unconscious habits which we're not aware of, which we can bring to conscious by starting to look at our life and say, "Is this how I wanna be?" But you have to ask the question. Or we have habits like we eat too much. Now, these are different because the first one wasn't based on a drive, it's just based on a, a behavior that we've gotten to a pat-... The, the eating habit's much more complex 'cause now you've got not only a behavior that we've got into, like eating too much, or eating the wrong things, uh, we're driven with an incredibly powerful survival drive to eat. So now we've, we have to deal with two aspects. One is, what is it, the habit that we want to get and what are the beliefs we're gonna underpin with this, and how are we gonna manage this drive? How are we gonna fulfill the drive in a way that our chimp's happy that it's got its drive fulfilled and we're happy?

Steven Bartlett 1:06:40 Mm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:06:40 So now you really have to look at that, so that's a big battle. That's not an easy battle. But it can be won. It can be won. So again, habits are not straightforward.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:51 Mm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:06:52 They need to be subdivided and say let's look at unconscious, conscious, whether they're linked to drives or they're linked to some really bad experience. Sometimes we have a habit because we've got a bad, bad experience. It's like you, you explained that you went through a really bad time with this girl. If it got repeated, God forbid, if it got repeated three or four times, you can see how your habit would be to distrust-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:14 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:07:14 And it would become a habit because your belief is that th- these women are not trustworthy. And suddenly, your chimp generalizes all women are like this, and you hear guys saying this. And clearly, this is so untrue, you know? And so with you, I'd be looking and saying, "When you meet this, what are you looking for in the girl?" (laughs) Are you looking at physical looks? Are you looking at, "Do they make me laugh?" Or are you looking at their values?

Steven Bartlett 1:07:36 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:07:37 So we can actually start looking at how you're choosing your partners.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:40 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:07:41 And that might help you to avoid the behavior, the habit of picking up what you might then define as the wrong person-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:48 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:07:48 ... and, and worse even, to blame yourself then, instead of saying, "Right, let's analyze this." So again, there's habits there where it's based on, um, your belief of what you've experienced, or you're letting your chimp make decisions, instead of your human saying, "Hang on, can I make decisions from a more rational basis than just keep deciding on an emotional

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:09 basis?"

Steven Bartlett 1:08:10 There's a lot of reflective work that goes into being able to understand and kind of rewrite those, uh, first-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:15 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:15 ... like spot understand and rewrite those, um, those, those beliefs-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:19 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:19 ... you have. What, what is, what is the path to, what is the path to reflection for, you know, not everybody can go and see yourself every day and chat to you sort of thing?

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:27 Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be mentioning the book now.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:30 Go ahead.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:31 Not trying to promote, but... (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:08:33 (laughs)

Prof. Steve Peters 1:08:33 Um, the, uh, obviously, I help, I've helped a lot of people, and it's been a massive privilege. It's very humbling when people do do well. But one of the complaints people said is exactly what you said, "I can't work with everybody, and, uh, I've got a team." Uh, so we'd run lots of stuff, workshops and one-to-one. However, um, for Joe Public, some said, "I wanna work on my own." And so I wrote this, uh, Path through the Jungle as, as a manual with lots of diagrams, lots of science references this time, for people who wanna follow them up. Um, I hope it's really readable. And it starts from square one and says, "Let's look at the structure and your function of your mind." Then it takes you through this, a journey almost, through the mind, saying, "Let's look at how emotions work." We talk about grief processes and relationships, um, talking about interacting with others, so I've done the lot. And basically, what it leads to is, eventually you learn how to become robust and resilient. In other words, get yourself into a great place, uh, and it, and this takes you with practical exercises that you try out and find the ones that resonate with you.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:32 Across eight stages?

Prof. Steve Peters 1:09:34 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:34 Understanding your mind, emotional management, working with emotions, changing habits and managing life events, the two main stabilizer, stabilizers of the mind, creating a stress-free lifestyle, optimizing interactions with others, and then stage eight's pulling it all together.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:46 One of the, um, the last thing I really wanted to, to talk to you about was this, um, this idea of, um, fear of failure, which I think underpins so much of, specifically for my audience, um, one of the-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:09:56 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:56 ... big barriers in their life. The, I, I get, I get thousands of messages every week, and it's people trying to take that step to, to become, to start their business or to, you know, start that hobby or pursue that-

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:07 ... dream they have, but there seems to be something holding them back.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:11 Okay. I mean, I'll just take what you've given me there.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:14 Sure.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:14 'Cause it could be, um, a multitude of reasons.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:16 Yeah.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:17 As I've s- I keep saying, everyone is unique, and that's, that's what's intriguing about working with people. It, it's fantastic 'cause every person is different. But you mentioned a fear of failure, so I'm gonna be controversial.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:27 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:27 I, I don't, there's no such thing in my book as a fear of failure. What we're really saying, and it's really important subtlety, as you said before about language, your fear isn't failure, it's fear of not being able to deal with the consequences of failure. Now, that might sound the same thing, but it isn't, because if you fear failure, there's nothing you can do with that because it's, it could happen.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:49 Mm-hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:10:49 So you're stuck with fearing failure. Whereas if you say, "I fear the consequences of failure, not being able to deal with them," now you can do something, 'cause we can look at the consequences and address them and get people to be able to say, "I can deal with it. Whatever happens, I can deal with it." So the fear of not actually succeeding disappears, because they've got this, "I'm aware. I've got a plan."

Steven Bartlett 1:11:12 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:11:13 So I meet a lot of people who say that to me, particularly athletes, "I fear failure." And I have to correct it and say, "That's not actually what the brain is looking at. It's saying, 'I fear not being able to deal with the consequences of failure.'"

Steven Bartlett 1:11:25 Hmm.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:11:26 And that's something I can work with.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:28 There's just two other things before we round up that I was really intrigued by.

Prof. Steve Peters 1:11:32 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:32 Um, and w- you might've, might've touched on both in various ways throughout this conversation, this idea that if you wake up