The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 170: The Scientific Method For Unstoppable Confidence: Professor Steve Peters

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

In this moment, elite sport psychologist, Professor Steve Peters discusses the way to overcome low self-esteem. Often low self-esteem manifests itself outwardly in abusive relationships, the wrong career, and impulsive behaviours. Dr Peters says these are ‘maladaptive coping strategies’, where you are punishing yourself, thinking that you don’t deserve to treat yourself well, as you believe that you fundamentally don’t deserve happiness. Dr Peters says the solution can be as simple as getting a blank piece of paper and writing down who you want to be, and what behaviours you want to have. He says that this exercise works, as once you remove the interference of your mind, this person you hope to become is actually you, as you are defining yourself. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link/z1I1IZ8k9Kb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/8Mn7QU2k9Kb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Professor Steve Peters: https://chimpmanagement.com/professor-steve-peters/

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. So if I'm 30 odd, you know, and I've got low self-esteem i'm you know i'm 33 got low self-esteem and i came to you where would you begin with trying to help and that low self-esteem was manifesting in abusive relationships bad work relationships very negative sort of feelings about myself and maybe even some impulsive behaviors, you know, I'm eating too much or

I'm, I don't know, whatever. Where would you start with me? Okay. The first, I mean, just so people say, Oh, wow, that's a strange start point. I'm a doctor. So the first is make sure you're actually okay. Because if someone were presenting with this, it could be in depression. And if, and that can present in many ways, typically it's low mood and loss of pleasure and everything and loss of energy, but that doesn't have to be. So I mustn't miss that. So I would make sure your mind is not ill, but only treatment. Now we assume that this is longstanding,

and what you've done is what you're describing is a lot of maladaptive coping strategies. So I eat too much, which is probably comfort eating, or it's just habitual stuff that you're just not, you know, or it could be you've got so low self-esteem, I've seen this, you're almost punishing yourself. You know, I don't deserve to eat well, and I don't deserve to eat the right things. So I deserve to be overweight, or I deserve to look like this. So that could be the bottom. So I have to start, my starting point is exploration.

But the key to this would be to move all that to one side. If you're in a reasonable place where you can actually communicate, if not, I'll let you express it all. It's important you get it off your chest. If you've got it, you say, I don't need to do that. What I do is what I've said in the book here. In A Path Through Jungle, I explain the starting point is get a blank piece of paper and write down who you want to be. What behaviors do you want to have? Let's define what you want, not what you don't want, not what you're experiencing. Don't start with a treacle. I call that the treacle. Start with a blank piece of paper and then write down the person you want to be.

I want to be, I want to be really confident. I want to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want to work out every day. I want to eat really confident. I want to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want to work out every day. I want to eat really good food. Right. So what you're describing now is the human system. The great news is when I ask you the characteristics you've got, so I want to be calm. I want to be happy. I want to be confident. That is you. That is you. How do you know it's me? Right. Because if we were, we can't surgically remove interference neuroscientifically,

which we can see on functional MRI scanners. If we remove the chimp and computer system, then you're completely in control of yourself. So you would choose to be calm. You would choose to be confident. So therefore, that's you. The human system can choose. What happens is when you choose to be calm,

the chimp system interferes or the computer interferes and throws shows to the world someone who's not calm so it's very important to recognize who you are before we start so now we've got a guy you're not going to write no one ever writes anxious no one they say no what I want to be is calm, collected, a good friend, have integrity. That is you if we didn't have interference in the machine. So it's very crucial. This is the biggest point in the book. The biggest point is to define yourself because now you've got self-esteem can rise just on that alone. Once you've grasped that, you say, wow, what I'm presenting to the world is interference. It's not me. If I didn't have this machine, I would not have anxiety because that system that you say in the human system can't do

anxiety. It's not built to do that. It's built to be rational and calm, but what it wants to do and how it wants to present is a choice. The chimp has no choice. computer has no choice the computer's programmed but these are interfering and presenting to the world someone who's not you so it's very important to grasp that concept that's my starting point now we've grasped that we build on that so now we i know who you are i'll say this sometimes when you're with a friend and you've been chatting a while maybe it's got late in the evening and you've got a lot off your chest and you've discussed you calm down and sometimes the real you presents and suddenly you feel at peace people often say i don't know it's just i felt so relaxed and thought i've got perspective i've got gather the world the way

it is i accept things are and i've calmed down and then suddenly you see the real person and they've got morals and values and not every human has sometimes the chimps the good guy some you know sometimes the human's not nice so i do get people who do not write for example who you are they don't write compassion they don't write integrity they don't care and if i challenge say you didn't put compassion they say i don't not bother about that so i have to work out who you are okay so not everyone is going to write the same things that's why i know it's you we're not just a generic list because someone could just be virtue signaling because you're asking me to do it or because i want to be these people but really

i'm a i'm a burglar i'm a bad guy you know i'm I want to hurt people. I'll tease that out. How? That's my job. Because again, then you look at evidence-based and you look at remorse, you look at whether somebody compensates for mistakes. There's a lot of things. I want to see the history here. Okay.

And then I'll challenge that and challenge it. So that's a series of talks. So often we have a long time when we detain someone to explore this so we don't get fooled. You talk referencing much of your psychiatric work here within psych hospitals. Yeah. So somebody is psychopathic. Generally, everyone's a different version of what it is.

For me, a neuroscientist, we know there's certain tracks in the brain that are not really fully developed or don't function. And this produces someone without empathy, without remorse, without any conscience. These are classic. And so I don't know that. I'm not a mind reader. I can't tell until people talk, you know. So yes, they could deceive me. I have to just go on what they tell me. But I can listen carefully to the words they use. I can listen to what they're saying. I can look at their past life events and it starts to unravel. So eventually you think, okay, I know what I'm dealing with now. But to be honest, people don't do that with me. What you tend is, because I would hopefully set a scene

where I don't care what you write. I don't care what you want to do with your life. It's not for me. I'm not a judge. I'm here as a doctor to explore this with you and get insights for yourself. So the most people are not psychopathic. We're decent people who've just got lost in the way the neuroscience of our mind has tumbled us. So my starting point when you gave me all this was to say, let's write out the real you and let's

start building ourself on that and recognizing what is not us and let's start unpicking it. So let's just start saying, right, why would you have, and we went earlier about low self-esteem, let's look at why you have that. First, it's natural and healthy. That can help people. Sometimes just saying that, they go, that's amazing. I feel better for knowing it's natural and healthy. Maybe rubbish and unhelpful, but at least I know it's healthy and there's not something wrong with me. Because the second you start saying, oh, I'm trying to please people and I can't say no and you see that as being a weakness or a fault, we're in trouble again

because you're muddling yourself up with a machine. So that's my starting point. Who are you? What's the machine doing? All of this, anything the chimp does, anything it does is natural. There's nothing you're going to give me, even if it murders someone.

That's what chimps do. They're violent. So it's still illegal and not acceptable. But I'm saying everything's natural. So that puts us on a different way of looking at it. Again, to try and give context to that, natural isn't always good. So overeating is natural, but it's not good. And even like the classic one I always use with parents and teenagers, I always say, if you've got, I said it this morning with someone, if you've got a teenager who's got a tidy bedroom, that's who I want to meet. If they have a messy bedroom, great, that's normal, you know? So you're more concerned with teenagers that aren't being teenagers. So if you've got a teenager who never lies, then it's a bit worrying.

Maybe they're good at deceit. Because teenagers are learning to lie and they're learning to defend themselves and it's a natural way of doing it. It's not helpful and hopefully they'll grow out of it. But you've got to say what's natural and let's work with that to minimise risk or whatever we want to do.

So there's a long-winded way of saying, get you to be yourself, get your machine, let's see what the machine's doing minimise risk or whatever we want to do. So there's a long-winded way of saying, you know, get you to be yourself, get your machine, let's see what the machine's doing and let's change the coping strategies. But I accept the machine is the machine.