Begin Again with Davina McCall - This Is Why You Aren’t Happy: The Chimp Paradox Explained!

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

In this episode of Begin Again, world-renowned psychiatrist and author of The Chimp Paradox, Professor Steve Peters, shares groundbreaking insights on managing our minds. With decades of experience working with elite athletes and professionals, Steve explains the Chimp Paradox theory, showing how understanding our "inner chimp" can transform mental and emotional well-being. Steve offers practical strategies to take control of our thoughts, behaviours, and decisions. Learn how to shift negative patterns, improve resilience, and make better choices for personal growth and performance. No matter your background, Steve’s advice helps you unlock your full potential and live a more fulfilling life. Packed with expert insights and real-world applications, this episode is essential for anyone looking to improve mental strength and well-being. 🎙️ Drop a comment: What’s Your Biggest takeaway? Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod Professor Steve Peters: Links: Short Courses - https://chimpmanagement.com/self-development/short-courses-with-prof-steve-peters/ website: https://chimpmanagement.com Socials: https://www.instagram.com/chimpmanagement_ltd?igsh=bHVsdGQxbHg1ZjFz (00:00) Intro (01:16) Origin of the 'Chimp System' & Chimp Paradox Explained (04:39) How 'The Machine' Hijacks Our Lives (06:19) The Amygdala & The First Success of the Chimp Model (08:12) How Steve's Book Changed the Game (08:41) Solving the Puzzle: Helping Others Find Success (09:24) Sports Therapy with Steven Gerrard & Chris Hoy (13:46) Unlocking the Power to Change from Within (17:04) Emotional Scars: Building Resilience in Children (21:04) The Role of Critical Parenting in Child Development (25:03) Navigating Strained Relationships and Making Tough Decisions (28:43) Understanding Your Brain: Living in Your 'Chimp Brain' (32:50) How the Brain Functions Like a Computer (34:56) Gremlins, Beliefs, & Behaviors: Understanding Their Impact (36:52) Life Experiences, Beliefs, and the Power of Reflection (39:56) Relationships, Suffering, & Emotional Growth (42:31) Rewiring Your Brain: Steps to Making Lasting Changes (46:06) Finding a Path Through the Jungle of Life (50:10) Steve's Workshops, Outreach, & Social Media Impact (55:14) Speaking to Your Inner Chimp: Practical Insights (01:01:18) Final Advice from Professor Steve Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And you don't know why you feel uneasy. You don't know why you're unhappy. If we can learn to shift systems, we'll approach life very differently. Really? The chimp system. It's a survival mechanism, making decisions that are not rational. The problem is a lot of people live in that all the time. People say to me, have you got a chimp?

And I keep saying, it's almost a gorilla. So many people believe that they are stuck in a pattern, and you'll never escape it. I was constantly in chimp brain. So I stressed you in some way and the chimp system lights up and now you're very emotionally based and the problem is you're being hijacked. So there's techniques of how to clear your brain.

You have to try putting outside your head all the problems because reality challenges beliefs. Wow. And now 40 years are doing this. Everybody improves and then you'll be the person you keep saying I'd love to be. Always try and not cry in this podcast. It's really hard.

The biggest problem I get with people listening is So Professor Steve Peters, it's so nice to have you here with me today. And I'd like to start with a question actually about... First thing you for invite me and call me Steve. Right. Hi, Steve. Steve, I'd like to talk to you about... When did the sort of chimp idea come to you?

How old were you then? It was a gradual thing and it was in, it's now 30 years ago. Wow. So I was a doctor then doing clinics and obviously I'd been trained in medical approaches and that is it is a mixture of therapeutic like talking therapies and medication and knowing which one is appropriate, if not both. And there was a lightbulb moment where I was chatting with a patient and I just felt there's two different people talking to me.

And by then just suggesting things, I will seem to be getting a different answer. Then by reassurance, I got another answer. Then by unsettling them, I thought, so I needed to then look at functional MRI scanners, which are like the brain working in real term. And in real times, you can see which parts are lighting up. But at first it was just like the whole brain lights up. And you think, how can you tell? But if you slow it down, there is a definite pattern forming.

So keeping this simplified, I ended up with two leaders of the brain. So this was effective, the two people talking to me. One of them was the person, and one was, I realised, was a machine. So we look at often damaging someone, so someone who's had like a stroke and damaged this bit, I'd call the person. Then the machine talks to me, and their partners or relatives say, this is the person we knew, but not quite right. There's changes, and I'm thinking, that's because the machine's in charge. now. And then others I would be thinking, I work with someone where the machine was in charge and the life was quite dysfunctional. And you start giving them ideas of beliefs and behaviours

and you start working therapeutically and they changed. And they started changing as a person and becoming what I called a real person. And the machine then started losing power. So that's where it all started. And I suddenly thought, at first I called it devils and angels just to give in the name and one of my students came. She's Muslim and she said to me, I'm not happy Dr. Peters. I was having these devils in me and I said, okay, and I had to think and it dawned on me that you've got to go back to neuroscience and the hominids, the great apes. And so I looked at the great apes and that's when speaking to a specialist, they were saying

that the chimpanzee and the human are different to the others and in the way our brain is structured and thinks, but we have this additional system, which is all. whereas the chimpanzee didn't, it has it, it's so primitive to use. But the chimp system was the same. So that's where they came from. I just said, that's your chimp system. It's given to you genetically. It isn't you.

And people, the students at Sheffield where I work, they were saying they got it. They loved that. And this girl comes back and I'm happy with the chimp. I can see that in me. It's quite interesting that though, isn't it? Using words or coming up with kind of a theory behind it is important to think of.

everybody and be inclusive and make sure that it's not stressful or distressing for someone. Yeah, exactly. I didn't want to alienate anyone. And it was just, it's not for everyone. It's for those who relate to it. But I'm saying that the neuroscience shows is we have two effectively thinking systems and you can learn to move from one to the other. And if you can learn to move, then you change. What's so nice, I think, is this idea of you can change. I think so many people believe that they are stuck in a pattern and they can't escape it. And sometimes you think these behaviours or these ideas are so entrenched that you'll never escape it. Can I, this is going to be really, I'm going to try and do it simplified again. It's a hard concept. I think people don't

change. They are who they are, but they're masked by this machine. So when I find the real person, which is the one that they say, I would love to be, and I say, if you, if you you say I love to be calm, compassionate, have integrity. You're telling me who you are now. And I can find that person. And that's what really inspired me. I thought, I know I can find this person inside this machine. And if I can remove the machine, I find a person.

So you always are that person. It's not you're trying to be them. What you're really saying, the problem is you're being hijacked constantly by a machine. And if I can show you that what that machine's trying to do, and then you find yourself, you then manage the machine, you'll be the person you keep saying, I'd love to be. But the machine has got a grip on some people with behaviours, thinking, and you've got to start really taking it apart and restructuring it.

And I did question, can you really restructure the brain? And the answer was yes. So a lot of research around 2000 was done once we had these functional scanners to show you can literally change. It's not different to you go at the gym and building muscle. your brain will change. Structures aren't fixed, so people talk of an amygdala. That changes in size all the time,

depending on what you do with it. It's not fixed. It's just explains people what the amygdala. Yeah, the amygdala is one that a lot of people have heard of. It's a very small, it's not like a peanut size in the middle of your brain, and it's the fight-flight-free mechanism. It actually has tons of other jobs.

I'm being in there now. It's got about 17 sets of nuclei, and they're all group. But we talk about fight-flight-free because it's easy, because we all recognise that. Yeah. But a lot of us don't want that. We don't want to have flight freeze. So that's a good example of the machine hijacking you. Because if people say, I don't want to panic, I don't want to run away, I don't want to avoid things. Or I don't want to get aggressive. I don't want to get hostile or angry or frustrated. But that's what that part of the brain does. But if we learn how to manage this and we can reset some of this, then it stops doing it. It literally will shrink in size. It loses power. So there are parts of the brain which intrigue me that you can build up, which actually what we call modulate or manage it.

So it influences it to calm down. And I started working and I was thinking, can I do it? And my first, I call them guinea pigs, they were patients. So I thought, no medication, we're going to work on these areas and see if I can do it with them. And they did it. And they were saying, I feel so different. Wow.

And that was like so inspiring that I then developed the chip model and the students were merciless, which was good, show me the scientific evidence, so I worked a lot and learnt a lot. And around, I'd say 2005, so 20 years ago, the model was finished, but I didn't go public because I kept thinking, by then this academic professor,

I'm thinking, am I really going to go around and see he got as little in the chimp? But I was inspired enough by the students who said, it's wrong not to share it. So I thought, oh, well, it's life. I put my head on the block can get mocked. So I threw it out there and it just took off.

It absolutely took off. I mean, I always think of you, when every time I go abroad and I go into W.H. Smith and I think I'm going to go and look for a book, you are always in there in the you must read pile. I mean, it's been 20 years. It's unbelievable how long. And it's still you know, it's a top best seller. It's unbelievable. How many copies have you sold? I think in all formats, nearly two million. I mean, I mean, that is so brilliant. What I love is the way that you look at everybody as a, how can I unpick you? It's like a problem that you can solve in someone.

Yeah, it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle. And the satisfaction that you get when you fix the puzzle. Like how nice that feels. But what I love about it, I mean, I've got goosebumps every time I talk about it. what I love about it is that you get somebody, you do this to someone like fix their self-esteem, but then the good that they go out and do to the world

with this new self-esteem and the difference that they make to other people, it's like a wave, a ripple, yeah, it's amazing. I want to go back, you were talking about sport, there was so much in what you just said. I'm going to pick it a little bit. No, it's amazing. I want to go back and talk about sport and talk a little bit about,

there was a footballer wasn't there that you helped. Steve Gerard, was it? And also Chris Hoy. Yes. Because were you sort of part of the team that were helping him or you were helping him personally before Beijing? Yeah, I met Chris over 20 years ago. Wow.

I was reminding me before he's famous. Again, as a doctor, I can only talk about people who give me permission. And clearly Chris has and he's written the book and explain what I'm doing with at the moment. And I can say he's one of the most genuine people that I've met. He's an absolute gentleman. He's amazing. I've met him a couple of times, he's absolutely knock out.

He is exactly what you get what you see. He was trying to help himself focus. He was always in a good place. So people said you always work with people who are falling apart at the seams. I work with anybody. It's what people want to do with their mind that's important. So he wanted to learn how to focus at the Olympics. So I actually went to Athens Olympics with him, but I wasn't public then because I didn't actually want to be in the limelight.

So for three years, I didn't do interviews. I kept sort of in the dark, in the shadows, because I just didn't feel comfortable being in the public limelight. But I reckon then I realised if I didn't go in the public landluck, I couldn't help people. I could only help the limited number. Maybe, maybe just think, okay, deep breath, let's go. And then I went to the limelight women. So I went to Beijing with the team. but Chris again works really hard on the mental skills

really hard so again he worked every week we'd have regular sessions and in between he might call but he learned how to manage his mind but he was always in a good place so his wasn't an emotional thing it was a definite specific can you help me to do the following and he achieved it I think that's very interesting that you say

that he's very good with his mind because I think in any case when we're talking about a method or even somebody that would go and do something as simple as a life coach, there's no point in doing anything like that if you're not prepared to put the work in. It's like being a bit of a teacher's pet. Like, you tell Chris to do something and he'll come back the next week and he's done it.

He's done it. You know, times 10. But that was the year that he just won gold after gold after gold. Yeah, six in the right. I mean, unbelief. It was an achievement. Yeah. And again, I deserved it.

We forget, though, again, I was just part of one piece of the jigsaw. I'm not going to say it wasn't crucial, but, you know, the physical aspects were horrendous that they had to go through. And, you know, there was a whole team behind him with nutrition and coaching, medics, physios. So I was part of that team. Again, I don't know how much everyone would have to say. Some people say it's like a small amount. Some people say everything on the day if you're not mentally in the right place. Yeah.

That's like life. Life. Yeah. So what I try and do is explaining that with Chris, I'm teaching emotional skills. So you're right. It's like anything. If you practice, then you get better. The encouragement of anyone listening is I've never had anyone who doesn't improve who puts work.

And I've never had that happen in now 40 years of doing this. Everybody improves. But it's like, I liken it's taking you all to running. track and say we're going to make you run 100 metres and some will be fit and can do a reasonable time and some will be very unfit, not even make it. But all of us can learn to do it, but some will

reach Olympic level and some will reach school sports day level. But that doesn't mean we can't improve. And it's the same with emotional skills. I'm not asking people to be in this amazing place where they never have an emotional crisis, they never have thoughts that are eating them up. I'm not asking to, I'm asked them to improve

and start picking things off and show gradual improvement over years. And then know what to do if you can't manage emotion, then I can say, right, we can put things in place when you think,

okay, I'm struggling here. It's not that that's it then. So it's a complex thing, but it's unique to the person. I think one of the things that really resonated when you were talking a minute ago was when you said

you can change. And I got a bit emotional then because... Take your time. I always try and not cry in this podcast. It's really hard. So I was like, I'm not going to cry in this one. Listen, I've done it where somebody turns on me

and they start asking you a detail. And I just broke and I thought, oh, God, this is so embarrassing. So humiliating. But at the end of the day, you know, like people say to me, have you got a chimp? And I keep saying, it's almost a gorilla. You know, I'm a very emotional man. tend to manage it well because I need to.

I can't meet people and then break down with me. Yes. But, yeah, you don't want to be non-emotional. No. You don't want to be non-emotional. And I think what it is is this idea that it's in you and you can find it. Like, you are you and you can't lose you. You might lose it for a bit because something else is taking over.

I'm not being very clear, but it's... No, you are. What you're saying is, I'll do your analysis. Yeah, great. Great and wrong. So you've always been the same person. Yes. You never changed. Yeah.

But life throws things at you so you then learn really poor coping strategies. You make poor decisions. You make emotional decisions. You grab a hold of things that you think might give security and then find that they let you down. Because you don't recognise that within you, it's all there. It's all there. But because you can't find it, you have to substitute something to the way. survive but that can often lead even more detriment and then that spirals to this low self-esteem

you can't get off the floor and that has to be someone which there's a lot of people like me who will come in and try and get rid of the mess and go right let's draw a line and let's just go back and review what happened here so and let's get rid of judgment let's get rid of regret let's say what we're going to learn what experiences have we got that we're really at the time negative, but we can turn them around. So if you learn how to do that with this positive mindset, which is not easy, and I do think most people should turn to a psychologist, therapist, counselor, someone who's qualified and experienced in it so that they can help you go through this. It's a lot easy with someone. Then you can come out of this and you can look back and be happy with your life,

you know, and realize it was always you there. We just need to untangle you. And as I say, for me, Now we're on a different thing. We're entanglinger from the machine, so it stops hijacking you and recognise who you are and what the machine is because it does think for you, but also we're entangly from experience.

You know, sometimes you've got to go back and reprocess things. And we do get what I call emotional scars. So we can't remove them. What we need to do is recognise what they are and put them in their place, but learn how to manage them. And there's different ways and different days

that you might want to manage them differently you gain a skill. Can I talk to you about resilience? Yeah. Because I feel like emotional scars are things that I think as a parent we try and like protect our children from. But actually I feel like also my emotional scars from my life have been brilliant learning. Like I've learned from everything I've been through good things, always. Like I've never, isn't bad things have always been a good experience in the end.

Yeah. But it's interesting how as parents you want to protect your children. What do you think is best as a parent in order to build resilience in children? Oh, well, this is a big topic. Sorry. You're good at big topics. Come on, Steve. We'll be here till tonight. I think I'll go on two different aspects. One, I agree with you.

I've dealt very recent with a parent who was trying to protect the child. And I said, don't protect the child. Give them the skill to understand, accept and deal. with life, don't remove them from it. But obviously, I'm not saying let them be subjected to horrendous experiences. I'm saying let them have the rough and tumble of life, warn them it's coming, and then learn how we start getting used to this and managing it, because we have to face life is rough. So that's one aspect of experience.

But a bigger one for me was always, and I'm going on research, I'm back to being nerdy. When they start looking at this and I want to know what's the difference between a child being resilient and an adult because they are different. The way the brain works is different and an adolescent is different. So I would work with the individual at the position that child or adolescent or adult has reached. And emotionally we're all at different points in life. So you can't say same for every six year old, every 10 year old.

It isn't. We're all different. So you find where we are. The biggest factor focusing in there and I push this is get the child to be the a critical, constructive critical analyst of themselves. Don't keep rewarding or punishing or punishment never works. But don't be the judge jury because it teaches the child nothing. All it does is teach the child to keep looking externally.

You need to say to the child, this is only in my opinion. And the research seems to back it to say, you know, I keep it simple on this one. If they paint a picture, ask them to say what's good about it. Ask them say what's not so good. Ask them what they could improve on the next time, but recognise it's they're talking objectively about a piece of work, not themselves. Whereas what we tend to do is muddle them up with what they produce

and what they can do, what they can achieve. And that leads to problems 10 years later. Yes. Because then they look to their peer group and say, do you approve of what I'm wearing, what I'm doing? And then social media destroys them because they've never learnt to be self-critical, but in a constructive positive manner.

So the evidence base is if you start as young as, four-year-old to get children to, you still compliment. I'm not saying you don't give a, but you make their opinion the one that can. Yes. And then they will learn to respect the opinion of one or two people that care about them. They give them good criticism and, you know, good compliments, where they think these are helpful.

And they dismiss people that they think, well, that's not important because I know what I feel. I know what the people who can't feel. And then the theory, we seem to be born at practice as adults. We do the same. So I learned to think, I'll be the judge of, how I'm doing, which gives me my stability. So, and I often say to people, don't let somebody else own your happiness. Take it back.

Why would you live your happiness to someone else and say what you say will affect me? You have to learn skill and we can do it. So I own my happiness. What people say and think is not important, but I do listen to people that love and care about me because they're going to give me criticism which I need to listen to. So I do allow them in, but for your public, I don't know, or even people, acquaintances, colleagues. I'm respectful, but they won't get through

because that's not what I allow. What happens if you've got a parent or a loved one who is critical of you? You know, they're a loved one, but they are saying things that is undermining you and your opinion of yourself. Again, if you look at what I've said, that's where had we learned as a child to say,

let me do the analysis, then what they say isn't as bad. You just feel like, okay, it will still affect because it's a parent. So now we're getting a bit more complex. So the chimp model that I brought in when I said, the your brain and the chimp brain, the problem is as we grow up, the chimp must necessarily go to the parents for survival.

So therefore we idealise our parents and we have expectations of them. And we don't grow up. So even at any age, 30, 40, 50, we looked our parents through the chimp's eyes saying you should be this ideal parent, which is ridiculous, really. They're a human being and no one gives them skills to be a parent, and they get things wrong, and they can be not too nice.

But our chimp brain won't accept that, so we're very critical of our parents and what they should and shouldn't do. Whereas if we'd switch systems and say as a human, they're just another person. Yes. A knife to temper the fact. Why let them come through the barrier? Let me just put a barrier up, because what you're saying isn't actually, helpful and I'm dismissing it. But if you're in a chimp brain system and you literally give your

oxygen supply to that, you'll keep getting hurt. And so I teach people to move systems and say, right, let's see them as an adult, let's see them as someone who is also dysfunctional, someone who doesn't how to communicate. Also, I like to use the word that they're not a bad parent, they're not a good parent. It's a mismatch. Yes. You need more love and affection than they've got to give. Wow. Or the way that they're giving. Giving it isn't the way you want it given. So a lot of dads I've seen and moms, but dads in particular seem to throw money at children

in a way of trying to get their love when they want a cuddle from dad. So there's a mismatching what I need and why I'm getting. But that doesn't mean they're not trying. It means they don't know how to do it. So behind locked doors, I often find these harsh critical parents blubbering in tears thinking, I can't do this.

I don't know how to show love to the daughter trot the son. So it's a complex one, but also, in fairness to people listening, you might have a psychopath for a dad or a mum and you've got to recognise it is what it is, going human mode and say, right, that's just, that's what I was given. Stop complaining. It's not going to help you. Say, why didn't they do this? Right? They didn't. So, and I'm tough now on people and say, let's start with what is and let's work with it. But I'd be giving TLC because we're still going to Chimp mode saying, well, I just never felt loved or us. respected or understood.

And unfortunately they had the emotional scars, which we can learn to manage. We got very heavy here. No, it's really interesting because I was looking at you, I was thinking about my experience with my mother and I was thinking about other people who, I ended up estranged from my mother, but I did that because, you know,

they say that insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. And I just kept going back thinking that she might kind of parent me. Then I thought, this is ridiculous. I'm asking somebody who can't. Who can't? She can't do it. And actually, after her death, I found enormous forgiveness and an ability to understand that she just was never going to be able to do it in a way that I couldn't when she was alive, which was interesting.

but what's your opinion on people that estrange themselves from their parents? Like should you be able to work it out or is it okay to do that? I always say never will use the word should. It can be used improperly. It could is better. So instead of saying should we be able to, could we work it out? It's just to stop the judgment of feeling why could I do it? Yes.

And the answer is sometimes we can't. Could we? Sometimes we can't. Sometimes we can. So it's understanding what have you done, what have you tried, and you've exhausted all things, then you've got to be realistic and survival mode. And if you think, right, we cut them off, then I'm not disapproven,

but that's your decision. Or limit the contact or be prepared mentally psychologically. Don't expect something that isn't going to happen. Yes. You know, and rather see them in a different light. And then my experience has been most people can then come to a reasonable relationship with the person. but they're not then expecting them to do something. They can't deliver.

I mean, I always think, how would I feel? I used to think, how would I feel if she died? And I haven't seen her for many years. How will I feel? And I felt like I thought I would feel okay. And when she died, I did feel okay. But it's a... a big one that, I think, letting go of someone that, and I often hear people who kind of ask me,

was it the right thing? And a bit like you're saying, I always say, look, this is your life and your parent, only you know if it's the right thing. But for me, it definitely was. I think it's a case of sitting down and working out, what are your options with this person? Yes. What have I tried? And again, this is really approaching a rational way. rather than just going emotionally and think, right, today I'm going to be nice to them. And that's not a plan. You know, whereas if you, and I'm not saying it should be so heavily analytical, but have a structure where you think, right, I've exhausted all possibilities,

this works or this doesn't, so we know what we're can and can't do. And then a big thing that you said, which is a bit different, is often we look back on decisions we make and regret them. And that's really actually unhelpful because at the time we make a decision is the right. decision. It's as simple as that. It's the right decision on what information we've got and the state of mind we're in. So we don't make wrong decisions. We make decisions. And I think, you know, going back and beating yourself up for anything in your life. Yes, pointless. It's really, really negative and it's hopeless. And the reality is you've got to say, at that moment in time,

I made this with good intentions or I made it because I couldn't deal with life, I couldn't deal with situation. But it was the right decision at the time. It wasn't the wrong decision. It may turn out there could have been a different type of decision, but at the time, you do what you're capable of doing. So I think then it becomes more positive to say, right, how do I go forward making decisions which are more helpful?

You know, what process could I now use that I didn't use at the time? That's then very constructive in a positive mindset where you think, you know, I'm looking at life like you've done. and think things I did, I don't regret. I just think I did it at the time. What can I learn from this? So if it's not a great thing, I don't want to repeat it. You know, how can I get insights?

And that's a lot of work that I do. So you're clearing all this like backlog of unprocessed information in people's lives so they get a freedom to draw a line and move into a new chapter, which we can all do. And leave behind all of this, process and bring positives with you. Want to go electric without sacrificing fun? That's the Volkswagen ID4. All-electric and thoughtfully designed to elevate your modern lifestyle.

The Volkswagen ID4 is fun to drive with instant acceleration that makes city streets feel like open roads. Plus a refined interior with innovative technology always at your fingertips. The all-electric ID4, you deserve more fun. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SUV-W, German engineered for all. I feel like when you've been, yeah, I'm going to get out the drawing. Steve, it's time for the drawing. Because you've talked about two parts of the brain,

but actually in this diagram there are three parts. Right. Can you? This was drawn the very first time when people were saying, well, where are these elements? So it's very inaccurate in that it's a diagram just to give you the idea of there's three bits of the brain. It explains. So your human is in the yellow frontlet. In fact, the chimp's also there. But it complicated things. I'll put the chimp because it's limbic system in the middle of the brain, which is where the limbic system is. But there's like a big strand going out into the yellow bit. And the chimp actually lives there. Right. So just for the people who are saying, this isn't accurate. What I was trying to say is these, the chimp and human are the two thinking systems, which we can see. So I stress you in some way. And it's very like the chimp system lights. up and now you're very emotionally based and are making decisions that are not rational,

they may be paranoid, you lose perspective, you can't see beyond the moment you're in, you might want immediate gratification instead of delayed gratification, so you become impulsive, you react fast to things, you don't respond, it's just a reaction with words or actions. So it's not thought through. It's a survival mechanism. Yes. And then I realised that a lot of people live in that all. all the time. And what I did is started working to say, we're going to put a pause and move the

blood supply into this yellow frontal bit to the human, which is at the top of your head. And what happened then when I moved it, the person gained perspective, they gained reality. And they started thinking rationally and logically, if I do this, what am I going to feel like in half an hour? And now they could do it. Now they can press the pause button and relax. So I was thinking, how can I train people to move themselves rather than me move them. But we can see this on a functional MRI scanner. We can see it literally lighting up. They're amazing.

Which means if we can learn, which is what I quite challenged 30 years ago, to shift systems, we'll approach life and ourselves and other people very differently in the way we want to rather than this emotional reaction. Because humans respond, they don't react. You said earlier that you can live in your trim brain. all the time. Yes. So it is possible that you are constantly in that kind of reactive place.

That must be exhausting. It is and it's sad when you meet these people and behind locked doors I can get them and I see what I said before. I see the person. The person comes out and now I know who you are and then something happens and it means you're going to chimp more again. I think, okay, I just seeing your chimp again. And then they go with the chimp because it feels right and then they regret it.

think what's wrong with me and I keep saying nothing wrong with you I found you but you're caught it in this yeah I found you yeah like you're in there you're in there people get very emotional when you say that those who realize what I'm saying yes because they suddenly think I do know who I am and you do know it because if you're a friend that you're close to and you've had like an evening together and you start opening up you relax and you become you and suddenly you don't feel any venom you don't feel any anger you don't feel regret you don't feel regret You feel relaxed and peaceful. You know, and suddenly you know.

So your best friends know who you are. And your best friends don't muddy up and say, well, you're really impatient or aggressive or they don't. They say, no, that's not you. But behind locked hours, I have found the person. And then that's so rewarding enough. I can just get them to see it. And then you literally, it's like growing the person. And then we're coming to the computer bit.

It's really the rest. Yes. The rest of the brain is the computer. So when I work with children, we just do chimp and human, and the children respond better than adults. People have seen it a lot. They've seen that. You're done. Three systems. This is it.

Enjoy it. Goodbye. Right. So the computer, because we haven't really talked about. Yeah. So children like just working in human and chimp, and some adults do, because you keep it simple. I had an 80-year-old and I wrote my hidden chimp, which is a children's book. And he wrote to me and he said, that's better than the chimp paradox. Wait, so just explain that.

So you had a children's book, but you also had one for parents come out at roughly the same time? Yeah, that was... What was the parents-on-to-one-gaw- It wasn't meant to be. It was added on to go with the book. Oh, okay. It was to sort of like... But then it expanded a bit. It was a little bit rushed and it was a regret, but not fully.

No regrets. No regrets. No regrets. It was to say, I need to go back and do that again, but I haven't time. So what I said was, we'll send it out. So that's called the silent guides. So the hidden chimp book doesn't touch the computer. It's implied.

Because children work on a very basic level. As adults, we work much more with the computer. What we do with the computer is we have beliefs, we have behaviours, we have automatic behaviours and beliefs. So it runs our life when the other two go silent. So when you meet somebody and introduce someone new, we have automatic things like hello, how are you, and there's a response that we're programmed to say,

I'm fine or whatever, and then how are you? That's all, we don't think about it. It's just programmed. When we go to work, driving or getting the tube or whatever we're doing, we don't think about it. We just know what to do. So the computer keeps running. It doesn't analyze or think.

It's just automatic. Instinct. Yeah. You've programmed it, but we program it to learn behaviors as a, well. We program it to use avoidance a lot. We program it

yeah. So, and it knows what it's doing. You know, we program it to overeat. We program it with excuses. So it comes to the rescue of the chimp. If we try and manage the chimp, in comes the computer.

And these are what I call the gremlins. Beliefs and behaviours really don't help you. Right. But sometimes you don't even know they're there. So, for example, Again, extreme just to drive a point home. Some people have this belief that they're not as good as other people. Or the world, they don't belong in this world. They're onlookers.

They're common. It's a defence mechanism of the chimps in. I won't go out into the world because it's dangerous. And then the Gremlin comes in, which is the false belief saying, yeah, you're not as good as other people. So when I say to someone, right, let's go whatever, they'll go, oh, immediately the Gremlin's going, you're not as good as the people. And you probably get things wrong and don't do any real.

You look silly. So I need to find that gremlin and remove it. Right. So that's not actually the chimp at all. It's a belief you're holding. So when I look at people, we often have, I would say there are six major beliefs people hold that are destructive. So on average I'll turf six out.

I work with someone who can't go public about, somebody well-known, and I had 22 gremlin's, and we've got a big piece of paper with all these false beliefs. and then we found the dance together. Oh, wow. And what he said is, oh, by that. One will say, you're not as good as others. So we then bring what I call a constructive belief. Look, what do you really believe?

And it's nobody's world. It's our world. And I'm as good as anyone else. I may not be as good in whatever talent I've got, but I'm a nice person and I value my person. So that's, you believe, I'm as good as heaven. And then there's another Gremlin will come in and go, yeah, but that's not what appears.

people think. So it reinstates the first gremlin, so you've got to kill them both of. And we're literally getting rid of them. So often I say one belief is followed by about four or five. They have little gangs. So I do an exercise. So let's just pick up all the beliefs and then you find there's about five or six. And we need to get rid of all of them. And otherwise they come back. So can a life experience, like a divorce, create a load of new beliefs about yourself? And then you've got to go and work on those. Because if you get older, you're picking up more and more beliefs, right? Oh, thousands.

So what I say is it's almost like I ask people who work with me to do a five-minute clearance at the end of the day and just go over the day and think, let's just have a look at what happened, let's get the right beliefs and interpretations. Otherwise, you're seeding again more beliefs that go into the computer, which are now hidden and keep nudging the chimp throughout the day. And you don't know why you're feeling easy.

You don't know why you're unhappy. And you think, well, that's because, the role these unconscious beliefs. So I asked people to clean the computer up. So there's techniques of how to do it. And go over your day and say... It's journaling good? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm working with someone at the moment who said this is really helping me. Again, it was someone that I've been working with for a while and they weren't as progressing as I'd wanted. And I've suggested this. And I've used it with a lot of people. And this person said, this definitely has made a difference because what I'm doing is scientifically it's accurate. you're putting outside your head all the problems.

So therefore your human can now see them. If you keep them in your head, one of the rules of the brain is that the chimp keeps going over and round in a circle. It never solves any of them because it's not a solver. The human has to solve. But unless you talk, if you talk, this is why therapies work, the human, the brain picks this up immediately and starts bringing in perspective, reality, challenges beliefs.

And often we talk and go, that's ridiculous. you know, what I've just said isn't right, you know. So talking is great, but if you can't, write it down and sometimes you write and you think, that's crazy. It is interesting how writing does give you a completely different perspective than something, I think. So I like that idea of daily assessing. Yeah. So they don't, you don't, they don't run away.

Lean it up, yeah. And say, right, why is that helpful? Is this really going to help me this belief? And again, sometimes I believe me and need to be put on the table. and challenged, because we can learn from it. So if someone says, well, you know, you were very rude at that point and you think, oh, and you get home and you think, I'm still chewing me up that comment because I don't think I was rude.

Then you can reflect and the right, don't be defensive. Why would they say that, especially if someone who likes you? It means I need to rethink this and this is a way I could have done it differently. And why would I have said that? What belief I'm holding about that person or that situation? And this is where sometimes it helps to write it out because it dawns on you. you or someone can talk to you and say, let's throw some ideas of what belief are you holding at that point. And then you, you know, a therapist, a psychologist or somebody like a doctor

in my shoes would work through it with you. And then you've got to say, no, that's not right, Steve. And then you say, but I'll tell you what has made me think. That's how it works. You're a team. It's not me saying, right, that's wrong. I don't do that. It's you that says that's resonated and that hasn't resonated. I mean, this idea, so many people find it hard. I think in relationships I observe how relationships work. And I guess like later in life I've met somebody and we work really well together. We can say quite difficult things and neither of us ever fly off the handle or we

will listen, I think because we know the other person genuinely cares about like us, that we can take a criticism and go, oh, okay, so what made you think that? Or what did I do? Or, okay, I'm going to think about that. Or you might want to go away and think about it a little bit. And so I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to think about how I'm going to respond because I need to go away and assess it and then come back and then you can come back. It feels really healthy. But when I, I'm around other friends or couples, and they, I'm going to, get defensive with each other, it makes my heart hurt. Right, but again...

Yeah, you're going back to what I said before where I'd be self-critical, but I will listen to the people who love and care for me because they're not hurting me, they're trying to help me. So therefore, it doesn't hurt. It's a productive. But when you see other people doing it to each other when you know that they love each other,

yeah. Like you think, oh, but you don't want to, you can't say something, it's their relationship, you can't. But if couples realize that, the problem is sometimes we don't suffer enough. You know, I always say people won't move unless you're really suffering or you really see a reward.

You have to recognise what's happening. But a lot of couples trundle along in the relationship, which is almost not surviving. It suits them, it's practical, it's comfortable. But the quality of life isn't great. But they tolerate it. And it's a shame because, like you say, they could get a much better relationship if they worked on it and thought, let's put some

energy into it. But a lot of people don't want to do that. I think it's quite frustrating also when you see one person wanting to change and being prepared to kind of, and then the other doesn't. And I guess that's the beginning of the end. If you're on completely different journeys, then. Yeah, and again, I do a lot of work in a couple of relationships. Do you?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Well, only because if you think about it, for most bit, it's the most crucial aspect to your life. Even with like CEOs of companies I'm asked to work with and you're talking about high-performing teams and managing staff but behind locked doors it's often, can we go about my family? You know, that's not unusual. I want to go back to something you said because I think it's important.

You said about a divorce happening and what could happen. So again, I'm putting it into boxes to try and make it accessible, understandable. There's a difference between a divorce happening and you get emotionally scarred and it does effectively scar you. So therefore the brain has now got almost damaged circuits. That doesn't mean we can't manage them, but it means we can't repair them. So we've got to accept a little bit of a scar there.

So when it raises its head, we learn what to do with it, as opposed to a divorce going through and someone getting damaged at the time, but we can repair that one. And it's not that, oh, well, it's the kind of divorce. It's the kind of person. So a same person can go through a really traumatic, or two people, the same traumatic divorce from parents, one comes out unscathed and one is damaged.

Yes. It isn't like, you know, this is what will damage you. It's very much unique to you. So it can even be a comment, a teacher made when you were young that never left you and did some damage at that vulnerable moment in time, or a parent's made. Whereas other people, go, well, that's nonsense. Just dismiss it.

And you can't. For some reason, it went in. So we have a look at that. Now, I try and get it to be processed and removed, which you can do. And I've done that with people. It's finding it. But sometimes they say, it just keeps coming back. And I'm saying, well, don't try and change it.

Let's work with it then. Let's leave it. Stop trying to say, I can't do it and therefore feeling a failure again. Say, no, well, when it raises its head, how do I contain it? What do I do to it? And there's ways of doing that. Is that what you're talking about when you talk about gremlins and goblins? Yeah.

That gremlins are the things you can change, that you have power and control over, and you are able to say, right, that's it. I don't want to feel like this anymore. You can change it. But the goblin is something that just won't leave you. Yeah, it's something that's, and it's not that it can be a devastation, like a parent dying suddenly, who it was in a great relationship with you. And that can become something you can't really get over.

But it can also be. be like I've said, a comment that someone makes. Yes. And a teacher says, well, you're stupid and you always will be. And you have that still fixed in your head and you try and compensate throughout your life. And you think, we can go back and reprocess it. But sometimes, like I say, people say, I can't remove it. So we learn what to do with it.

So we can overwrite it, but it's still there. So again, it gets a little bit complex here. going back to very basics, I would be saying to people who are listening, if they really want to improve the quality of life and get to respect and love themselves, then it doesn't have to be my model. I'm strongly advocating that any work you do

will start improvements, but be realistic. Yes. You know, it takes years sometimes to overwrite these programs in your brain. You can do it, but you have to have a very different approach, a very different mindset. And the biggest problem I get with people listening, is they try and make a real big effort.

And I'm saying it's paradoxical. The more you relax, the more power you get. Yes. The more you fight, the weak you become. Because the chimp takes you up and it will fight. Whereas when you relax the chimp and say, it's not that important now, we're just going to relax. The chimp then it's got no purpose.

It's there to defend and protect you. I have to say I've got to plug the last book I wrote because I'm not down in the chimp paradox or the other books. But I don't regret. But I have to say, I've written a one called A Pass Through the Jungle. The reason I wrote it 10 years later is people said, it left them in the air a little bit. It gives them the concept.

But where was the lessons? So this is a bit heavier book. I was going to call it one year, because that's the time I think it takes to work through it. And it's a course. It's a course in a book form. Oh, great. And it says, you just tell us the name again?

through the jungle. Just want to say to anybody watching that if you go and look, we'll put all the information about all of Steve's book in the bit below. I'm sure anybody that watches YouTube a lot will understand what I'm talking about.

I don't really understand what I'm talking about, but you know what I mean. Yes. I should say I don't know YouTube. I do. I'm not that bad. I'm allowed to say this. I'm all computers.

It was quite funny when I got the first degree because when I got thrown in the limelight they wrote to me and they said, I was at Stirling University and they said, you're claiming you've got a math degree from us but you're not actually on the system. And I said, well, I did.

And I was one of the very first students to qualify when it just opened and they actually handwrote it was before computers. And they found my name written in a black book apparently. I love that. In a black book?

That's amazing. It's written. Yeah, you're not even on the computer system. So, anyway. You are. You're in the book. Back to the plot. So apart to the jungle, it's 27 units.

And you talked about resilience. And that's what it's based on. But on route, it's trying to teach you about peace of mind, about happiness. And it gives a lot of practical stuff. So people do resonate. This is what I wrote for you to do this on your own or in a group or with someone. And there's exercises at the end to make sure you've grasped it. And again, for people, I'm really advertising here.

But I want to help people and I think I've always never said it, but now I think I get people then write emails saying, how do I find out about you? We have a website, chimp management.com. If you go on that, there's a lot of free stuff on it. We have to charge for some because I've got to pay salaries and also want to progress this work with the animals and people. Can I quickly say something? Never be embarrassed. I don't like it when people say, why do I have to pay?

Because you can't get to as many people as you get to without having. having to have other people as part of your business to help you spread the word. It's madness to think that everything has to be for free. I think it's because of my own background where you think I've come from, we didn't have money. We didn't have money. We never saw ourselves as poor, but clearly looking back, we didn't have money. We were well looked after as a family.

But I think then I always think, I don't want someone precluded because they can't afford it. The last thing I want someone said, I can't afford to see you. I tend to put prices sliding because I try and help people but cannot afford. So we do a lot of charity work as a company we're based it on that.

But if you go online there's a lot of stuff that'll help you with that and we do run off- There's free resources in there there's quite a bit. And I do a monthly what I call the troop episode where I do one thought for the month and ask people to engage in it

and one of the team got 10 mentors who work with the public can do it. I just thought I'd mention it because, again, I always get emails after these podcasts, saying, well, what do we do with this information? So there is that book out there, and it runs through all these things you're talking about. And even as a chapter about parents and being unrealistic, it's got chapters on basic happiness.

So people can use them practically and hope they resonate with the exercises. And we do workshops and we do a lot of public stuff. I'm going to do a public lecture in London. I think in the end of July, somewhere like that. Tell me about the workshops. We do workshops where we will, people ask me, they'll say, can you do a workshop on, say, happiness? So if there's a call for that, then we organise it and we'll go to a particular venue

and we put it online. I do a Christmas charity conference every year, so that's just for charity. And we'll get about 100 people. So we do like workshops where you meet others. I like the social aspect. And then you meet others and I'll go through a topic. I usually make a Christmas themed, but it can be peace on earth, you know, and then we'll look at how we get inner peace.

So there's serious stuff, but again, it helps charities, which I want to do. When you're thinking about people that you'd like to reach, who do you think? Because we've talked a little bit about social media. And I have such a love-hate relationship with social media. I love the connecting and I love finding my tribe. And I love laughing. Those are the things that I love about it. But I can see that I was very, very lucky to have lived a big life before social media came along.

I'm extremely lucky that my youth wasn't captured on social media because I probably would never be able to get a job. what's your opinion on young people and social media? I don't do social media but I think the way forward on social media is to if people are going to do it, learn not to read everything and learn to remember that some beliefs in this is the autopilots now in your computer

and you mentioned this before we started this one in five people and that's a lot of people 12 million people are not very nice they don't have compassionate empathy So that's a five Don't have compassion? Yeah They have

They have but it's very limited 80% of us do So reality check Okay So there's a lot of people That are very self-driven Don't really care about society You know

Don't get disillusioned We share the world with them 80% are decent people And one in five people Are these who love everybody You know They're sort of on almost an ecstasy hide without taking ecstasy.

I think that's... Yeah, I'm in that boat. Okay. I admit it. So I love... Wait. I love you. You love what I'm saying.

Do you know what? I love you though as a person, what you stand for and everything. You're just such a great guy. Sorry, going back to my... Calling back to my chair. You're brilliant. Sorry, yes, so 80%. We are the one percent who just loves everything.

My face. Right, so you know the real... They might give a different story. She'll interview one of them. Like I've got to know you a little bit. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm a bit... I would say I'm fairly open book.

Yeah. Because there's nothing to hide, so why should I? But, so going back to the one in five, one in five people surround yourself with them on social media. And remember, when you see a nasty comment, it reflects them, not you. Yes. It reflects them.

And again, go back to, which is why I'd build in someone who's doing it, say like yourself or other people that say it's get hurtful. Of course it's hurtful if you allow it. You've got to start putting auto pilots that say people don't own my happiness and something's only as important as I make it. Yes. You know? So if you're making it important, expect trouble.

But if you say it's not important in my world. So in my world, I've got me and I don't need someone to criticize. I can be self-critical in a constructive but positive way. But I've got a lot of good friends, and they will tell me, you know, but they also love me and they support me. So again, you know, you mentioned something about going back in life and you think, I'm glad they didn't see me as a teenager. But we have to change the way we see people and say, we all make mistakes. And we go through stages of life that are a mess. And there's a reason.

Some of us need more affection and love and so we look in the wrong places. Some of us need self-esteem, so we do things which are dumb and don't help us. But at the time, they all seemed like the right thing, because we don't know what to do. And although the teenagers are lost in this world, and now they've got added impact to social media. So I would love to just get right across the nation and say to teenage is stop, take control of this, because you're up against your own hormones at the moment and try and give them some wisdom ahead of their years. But wisdom comes in the form for teenage. It's not in knowledge, because they know it's in experience and affection.

and I keep saying we need, because they're in chimp more than me all the time, we need to speak the chimp's language, which is emotion. And if we speak emotion, we'll get through. But if we keep speaking logic, it's foreign language. Oh my God, okay, so we need to speak emotion. It's speak emotion, but positive emotion. Yes. You know, not negative.

And again, I don't want the misconception that the chimp's is terrible thing we need to kill. It's the best friend we've got. It's the colour in our life. You know, I always say my chimp is brilliant, is the best friend I've got. He wrote all the books and he tells me things. I haven't got the insight and he drives me to be affectionate, definitely, because I guess my humour is more like Spock, so I know about Spock. Is that out of fashion now?

Listen, I'm a Trekkie, so like I'm with you all the way. Right. But I just think I have this chimp but he's in in anept best friend. So I have to correct him to say, look, I know what you say, we're not going to do it that way, all right? And you'll take, no, let me deal with this, I'll talk, you listen. So I have a working relationship. Does he get out?

Yes. Do I think, okay, an apology's needed, yes. But I don't want to lose being all me. That's my chimp is part of me. And also, I don't want people thinking, you know, good excuse. It's not an excuse model. As you know, I do a lot of animal work and rest of them. I've got dogs.

I've got three dogs. But if one of them come up and beat you, I can't just get this dog. I would say, no, I'm responsible 100% for that dog. You are 100 responsible for your chimp. You cannot just hurt people or yourself and allow this to happen. You're responsible for it. So there's an accountability model. And I'm not adverse to pulling people up and saying, no, no, no, no.

You've got to start to hit responsibility. So actually your chimp is quite good to keep you in check. Oh, massively. Yeah. So everybody needs the chimp. Massively. It's really, I mean, this is such a nice way to kind of round up, really, when we talk about.

Because I was for a while thinking, well, why have we got the chimp? Why don't we just try and get rid of the chimp? But that's kind of explained it to me rather brilliantly, that the chimp behaves in a way that will show us how to behave. It warns you. Absolutely. It warns you. It warns you. It warns you. It picks up signals all the time. It reads body language. It reads people's eyes. The human aspects of the brain can't do that. They really are fairly, they have emotion, but they're based on logic. So after my operation, I had no short-term memory. I couldn't remember. If my boyfriend went to the loo, I didn't know he was in the house. When he came out of the loo, I was like, oh my God, you're here. But he'd been there for hours. Like I had, I didn't.

know if I'd eaten. Right. I didn't know anything. No short-term memory at all. And every day I could feel it coming back a tiny, tiny, tiny, weeny bit, but it was bit by bit. I was constantly in chimp brain. Yeah.

Because I had nothing to... That's interesting because you write scientifically. The chimp has to live in the moment, whereas the human's got a memory back to contextualize. And so, again, one of the things I do therapeutically is bring people out of the moment and look at the bigger picture, which then gives you a... I didn't have a bigger picture. Yeah, you can't. That was so interesting because when you said about...

God, that's so funny, I can't remember now. You just said something about the chimp brain and how it... And that's why I was talking about the operation, because it reminded me of exactly how I thought... Oh, that was it. Brilliant. Well done me. It's coming back. Yay! It was about... It's good of me not to interview. Yeah, no, and I'm really great.

Because I knew it was going to come. It was a bit like, you know, when you can feel it. It's on the tip of your tongue. It was when you were talking about facial expressions. And I became superhuman at reading faces because I couldn't go on anything else. So I could see frustration because I was really annoying. I mean, I was exhausting. I was exhausting to be around

because I can't remember anything I asked the same thing over and over again I didn't know. Let me correct because I want people listening you are not exhausting your behaviour was there's a difference in you

and your behaviour distinguish Thank you You were doing what you could Yeah So the behaviour was exhausting but not you Thank you

It's a difference Thank you Let me tell you as well Because I'm on doing We're better finish The chimp gives us humour the chimp is the one that gets the punchline because the chimp believes what it hears first

that's why we're gullible somebody says something we go really then you go hang on and then you laugh because that's not true so it's the chimp that has sense of humour a human hasn't got sense of humour so if the chimp brain gets damaged we lose our sense of humour

I've actually had a patient and couldn't laugh but he saw the amusing aspect of it but it never made him laugh he had some damage to the brain But I said, well, you say, I still enjoy watching a comedy. I just don't laugh. Wow. Because that part of the brain had been damaged.

So there's three circuits involved. But it's chimp circuits. So as human got the contradiction, or it's the chimp that believes it and then realizes. I've got a good joke for you. So someone, I mean, it's not a joke for you. It's somebody told me a joke. And they said, you know, they've taken the word gullible out of the English dictionary.

And I was like, really? There you go. There you go. There you go. And on that hilarious note, Prof Steve Peters, I absolutely have had the greatest time ever. Thank you so much for coming on. Can I just say to the people that will be listening if they managed to get this far? Yeah, no, it's gone on. If they're not well, please get to a doctor and get assessed because depressive illness is not that unusual in the community. so it's not just a case of you're not being able to concentrate or feeling low or feeling bad. Sometimes that's a presentation. So just get checked.

But if it isn't that, then just do yourself some favours and really just work on yourself and the relationship you've got with yourself. It's worth it. It doesn't have to be my model. There's tons out there that's really good, like mindfulness. Even hypnosis can work very well with people or just a counsellor going through things where you think there's nothing specific, but the counsellor will work wonders for you. But something else I think that's worth saying if you can't afford a counsellor,

you can afford a book and the books that you've written are all going to be listed. But if somebody was going to, if somebody was really struggling and it wasn't like a clinical depression that they needed treatment for with a GP, but it's something that they feel like they could change, but they just don't know how, which book do they buy? If they can only afford one. A path through the jungle. Definitely, because it's an exercise. It goes through it.

And the criticism of the Chimp Paradox was that it doesn't do that. It gives you concepts, but it's not actually a course, was this one was written. specifically. Yes. And it covers so much. I really like the idea of what you saying you could do it in a group, but I love the idea of doing it with a best friend. Yeah.

You know that you could. Yeah. That you could do it together. Yeah. And it's nice, in Narcotics Anonymous, you know, you do the steps and then you talk it through with someone. And actually talking through something out loud is such a helpful process of processing. Yeah.

Exactly. I say a human comes in and listens. So thank you so much. Thank you. I absolutely loved it. Everybody round of applause for Steve.