Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of the podcast where I interview
Speaker 1: a range of interesting guests on different topics to do
Speaker 1: with enhancing your mind, your body and your brain. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is an absolute cracker. Doctor soph is a UK
Speaker 1: based neuroscientist and clinical psychologist who has just written one
Speaker 1: of the best books that I happen to have read,
Speaker 1: all around habits, why we do things, but also how
Speaker 1: to become unstuck out of behaviors that are not helpful
Speaker 1: for us or not serving us well. And it is
Speaker 1: an absolute tour of force around human psychology and I
Speaker 1: will actually find it really hard to believe that somebody
Speaker 1: would not walk away with lots of usable, actionable things
Speaker 1: that they can use to improve their life straight away.
Speaker 1: And if you don't laugh out lied lots, you need
Speaker 1: a sense of humor transplant. Before we jump into the podcast,
Speaker 1: I have a fever to ask from you, my listeners.
Speaker 1: It is a massive fever in terms of the impact
Speaker 1: that it will have on the podcast, but a small
Speaker 1: fever in terms of the impost on your time. And
Speaker 1: what we know about podcasts is that ratings and from
Speaker 1: you guys, the listeners, have a huge impact on the
Speaker 1: growth of the podcast and also the positioning in the
Speaker 1: charts which then helps with growth. So could I please
Speaker 1: ask you to at the end of this podcast and
Speaker 1: just jump onto your fevorite whatever one you're listening from,
Speaker 1: whether it's app of Podcasts, Spotify or whatever, and then
Speaker 1: just write a review and ideally it would write a
Speaker 1: couple of lines on on why you enjoy the podcast,
Speaker 1: if you do and if you can't be arsed with that,
Speaker 1: just given us a number of stars and would be
Speaker 1: a great help. So hopefully you can find the time
Speaker 1: and to just ge help give the podcast a little nudge.
Speaker 1: So now let's get on with it. Doctor Sophie More
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. Hi, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me, and I believe I have you on a
Speaker 1: very warm day in lighty Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Can't believe it. It's one of those days where every
Speaker 2: other sentence you hear in the streets in the cafes
Speaker 2: is can you believe how hot it is? I'm so sweaty.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. We're so unused to
Speaker 2: being this hot and sweaty that it's basically the only
Speaker 2: topic we can talk about.
Speaker 1: And tell me how hot has it been in the
Speaker 1: UK today.
Speaker 2: A wild thirty degrees, which here is unheard of.
Speaker 1: You know that all Australians are laughing their ass off
Speaker 1: right now. Oh my god, it's so hot. It's thirty degrees.
Speaker 1: I think I reckon the hottest I have ever seen.
Speaker 1: In Belfast when I lived there was maybe twenty nine.
Speaker 1: I think we've flirted with thirty degrees once. But if
Speaker 1: it's and I remember living and particularly Scotland for some reason,
Speaker 1: was worse. I remember if it was seventeen degrees in
Speaker 1: sunny everybody had their shirt off and was in the
Speaker 1: park or in the beer holes or in the beer
Speaker 1: gardens and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And had sunburn by the end of the day. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: You can get sunburn in less than twenty degrees here.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, no, it's crazy. Now you have been called
Speaker 1: by the Times no less in the UK, the guru
Speaker 1: of insta therapy. So talk us through that. How did
Speaker 1: they come to describe you as the guru of inst therapy?
Speaker 2: Well, one, I think newspapers like a splashy headline, so
Speaker 2: I think that's how they came up with that. Firstly, Secondly,
Speaker 2: because in two thousand and eighteen roughly I left my
Speaker 2: job in the National Health Service, so the British Free
Speaker 2: Health Service, because I was seeing the same thing time
Speaker 2: and time again, irrespective of what service I was working in,
Speaker 2: so it didn't matter if it was neurology, if I
Speaker 2: was working in physical health, or if I was working
Speaker 2: in mental health. In my first sessions with people as
Speaker 2: a clinical psychologist, I was seeing that no one had
Speaker 2: ever given them the basic psychological knowledge that we could
Speaker 2: have all been taught in schools, which meant that when
Speaker 2: they started to struggle, they often misunderstood themselves and then
Speaker 2: started to panic, thinking something's wrong with me. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be mad, I'm going to be bad, and then
Speaker 2: this led to much more distress. That's not the fault
Speaker 2: of the NHS, but the NHS, that's quite underresourced at
Speaker 2: the moment, was bearing the brunt of it. So I
Speaker 2: was like, right, I'm leaving my job and going out
Speaker 2: into the world, and I'm going to share the psychological
Speaker 2: knowledge for free, hopefully before people need it so they
Speaker 2: don't have to reach rock bottom and then sit on
Speaker 2: a waiting list, with both the hope that I, you know,
Speaker 2: get the information out to the masses so they didn't struggle,
Speaker 2: but also take some of the pressure off the NHS.
Speaker 2: So the time's calling me the group of insta therapy
Speaker 2: is quite wild and a bit of a stretch, but
Speaker 2: refers to the fact that I was kind of one
Speaker 2: of the first people to go on to social media
Speaker 2: and start sharing information that's usually kept behind therapy room doors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a very good way to reach people on mass.
Speaker 1: And as you say, if you can just prevent people
Speaker 1: from sliding into that vortex, because it often becomes a
Speaker 1: vortex right that they go down and dine. Now, so
Speaker 1: you have a degree in psychology, a master's in neuroscience,
Speaker 1: and then a PhD in clinical psychology. What got you
Speaker 1: interested in that area in the first place? Can you
Speaker 1: remember was it a certain moment, was it a teacher,
Speaker 1: was it somebody who inspired you? Oh?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember wildly clearly. I think anyone who's
Speaker 2: been in this situation will remember this kind of moment.
Speaker 2: So I actually had never come across psychology. They didn't
Speaker 2: teach it in school. I was more of a kind
Speaker 2: of maths and physics girl. I was, you know, like
Speaker 2: a kind of nerd. I also was pretty wild for
Speaker 2: a nerd, But I just mean I wasn't introduced to psychology.
Speaker 2: And then at eighteen, I had this very sudden fall
Speaker 2: from grace, so you know, this kind of cocky I'm
Speaker 2: invincible eighteen year old, and I suddenly had my first
Speaker 2: panic attack. Now, because I didn't know what was going on,
Speaker 2: I assumed that I was having heart attack. I really thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is it. I'm going to die.
Speaker 2: And one of the biggest predictors of having one panic
Speaker 2: attack and have that turn into multiple panic attacks is
Speaker 2: if you misinterpreted its a sign of something extremely dangerous,
Speaker 2: because then obviously you become hyper vigilant, like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: am I going to have that symptom again? Does that
Speaker 2: mean I'm going to have a heart attack. Once I
Speaker 2: realized it wasn't a heart attack, well my next thought was, well,
Speaker 2: it must be in that case that I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 2: So then the panic tax escalated further and I just
Speaker 2: didn't really know where to turn. And certainly when I
Speaker 2: looked in the eyes of my family, they were looking
Speaker 2: at me like, yes, no, we think you're totally mad too,
Speaker 2: And they weren't intending to be judgmental. It's just that
Speaker 2: they didn't know what to say. So I do remember
Speaker 2: very clearly when it started, and I remember very clearly
Speaker 2: that when I finally got my hands on the right
Speaker 2: information and got into the breathing exercises and the psycho
Speaker 2: education around panic and I started to get my feet
Speaker 2: back under me, I remember very clearly thinking, I cannot
Speaker 2: believe this very simple information and these very simple exercises
Speaker 2: aren't talked to everyone. I can't believe it took me,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not being able to leave home
Speaker 2: for three months in order to get here, And so
Speaker 2: I vowed that I was going to learn everything I could,
Speaker 2: and then I was going to share it as accessibly
Speaker 2: as I could once I was able to be, you know,
Speaker 2: educated enough to be able to do that qualified enough education. Now,
Speaker 2: so I hadn't heard about psychology and I got there
Speaker 2: because I thought I was going to lose my mind.
Speaker 2: When I found out I wasn't and that this was
Speaker 2: a common experience, I thought it was time to do
Speaker 2: something about it.
Speaker 1: That's very cool. And now you have written a Sunday
Speaker 1: Times best seller called A Manual for Being Human, But
Speaker 1: you have also you're also about to release a second
Speaker 1: book called unstuck. Five steps to break bad habits and
Speaker 1: get out of your own way. Now, in that you
Speaker 1: talk about us functioning on autopilot, So give us a
Speaker 1: sense of how much of our behaviors are automated and
Speaker 1: why is that?
Speaker 2: So it's a scary amount. I'm giving you that as
Speaker 2: my warning shot because I think when people find out
Speaker 2: how much of their day they're not paying any attention
Speaker 2: to what they're doing, it's quite alarming. So consider your
Speaker 2: self warned, bustiness. But it's it's roughly over forty percent
Speaker 2: of your day. Yeah, So if you imagine that you're
Speaker 2: awake for sixteen hours maybe of your day and over
Speaker 2: forty percent, let's make it just under fifty percent of that, right,
Speaker 2: So let's say between seven and eight hours of that
Speaker 2: you have no control over your behavior. You're simply acting
Speaker 2: as if you're kind of a train on train tracks,
Speaker 2: just repeating the same automated patterns. That's quite scary. Imagine
Speaker 2: sleepwalking through forty to fifty percent of your life. That's
Speaker 2: not something I want to do. And I think the
Speaker 2: thing that makes it particularly concerning or interesting maybe is
Speaker 2: that our habits, the part of the reason we're not
Speaker 2: aware about them. Isn't just because they're automatic or unconscious.
Speaker 2: Is because we often think we're choosing them. So let's
Speaker 2: say you wake up in the morning, you think, well,
Speaker 2: I'd really love a cup of coffee. You think I've
Speaker 2: chosen to have this cup of coffee. You think that
Speaker 2: was the decision you made, But actually you woke up
Speaker 2: in the morning and the first queue of for example,
Speaker 2: turning your alarm clock off, the first internal queue of tiredness, right,
Speaker 2: or the first clue of thinking I'm going to get
Speaker 2: out of bed, that triggered the craving for coffee, which
Speaker 2: triggered the automatic behavior of going to get it, and
Speaker 2: then the reward of drinking it stopped the habit loop.
Speaker 2: So it's a large amount of time. We often believe
Speaker 2: we're choosing the things that we are not choosing, and
Speaker 2: there's a very good reason we do it. But unless
Speaker 2: we get aware and back in the driver's seat of
Speaker 2: our life, we might miss a lot of it. So
Speaker 2: I feel like there was a second question.
Speaker 1: Oh, it was really about why. So now we can
Speaker 1: dig into the process of habit formation, you know, the
Speaker 1: amazing amount of stuff that comes at our brains and
Speaker 1: why it wants to have shortcuts. So educator our listeners
Speaker 1: on that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, there's an idea that without habits we would only
Speaker 2: get one or two things done per day, which is
Speaker 2: just so wild unacceptable to think about. Now, you know,
Speaker 2: we almost bathe our identity on our productivity. So habits
Speaker 2: ensure that you are able to act out multiple skills
Speaker 2: at the same time without giving it that much brain energy.
Speaker 2: So if you remember when you first can you drive
Speaker 2: a car? I can, Okay, when you first got in
Speaker 2: that car. Do you remember your first lesson or any
Speaker 2: of them where you were told So you're going to
Speaker 2: reach for the stick, You're going to have your hands
Speaker 2: on the driving wheel. You're also going to be going forward.
Speaker 2: You're also going to be looking for people in case
Speaker 2: they step out into the street, and you're going to
Speaker 2: be looking for signs, and you're going to be looking
Speaker 2: for traffic lights. You were conducting so many tasks at
Speaker 2: the same time that I'm imagining you were left feeling
Speaker 2: a bit bamboozled and also tired.
Speaker 1: Yes, and gripping the steering whil and thinking you're going
Speaker 1: so far. And it's interesting to talk about that, Sophie,
Speaker 1: because my little girl I keep calling the little girl
Speaker 1: which is seventeen years old and almost a stalls me.
Speaker 1: But she is learning to drive right now, and it
Speaker 1: is interesting at the start watching her drive and they
Speaker 1: and seeing her drive now and throw under the bus.
Speaker 1: She didn't even have a stick to contend with, right
Speaker 1: because everybody drives a bloody automatic over here.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. So as a British person, I obviously
Speaker 2: learned manual, so I know what you're talking about. And
Speaker 2: it is different because you grip the steering wheel. And
Speaker 2: my thing actually was that anytime I'd go to change gear,
Speaker 2: steering wheel would veer towards the direction of the gear stick.
Speaker 2: Because you're concentrating on so many things at once, your
Speaker 2: brain is running parallel tasks at the same time. So
Speaker 2: what your brain does is it creates a neural pathway
Speaker 2: that joins up every single activity that you need to
Speaker 2: do whilst driving to create one seamless pathway that when
Speaker 2: you get in the car, that pathway simply runs without
Speaker 2: you needing to think about doing anything at all. That's
Speaker 2: why you go from gripping the steering wheel to be
Speaker 2: able to have a conversation with someone else in the car. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and why now consolidate tasks?
Speaker 1: Sorry I was going to say, and why ni you
Speaker 1: can end up somewhere and not remember actually getting there
Speaker 1: in the car right?
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my goodness exactly, because your brain is just
Speaker 2: playing out the tasks it knows it needs to do.
Speaker 2: And so so we have habits in order to ensure
Speaker 2: that we have brain space to focus on what's important.
Speaker 2: So off our ancestors, it might have been they could
Speaker 2: make their hunting tasks habitual, which would mean that then
Speaker 2: they didn't have to focus as much on hunting, but
Speaker 2: could free up space in order to think, am I
Speaker 2: now in danger? What else do I need to be
Speaker 2: able to focus on at the same time. So there's
Speaker 2: a very good reason we have habits. It's just that now,
Speaker 2: especially in a world that is constantly fighting for our attention,
Speaker 2: and that makes a lot of money off your habits
Speaker 2: involving looking at their stuff, so for example Instagram, any
Speaker 2: other social media, we are under kind of our tension
Speaker 2: is under constant threat, and our habit loops are being
Speaker 2: constantly triggered, and we are losing more of our time
Speaker 2: to our habits than perhaps any generation before us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, and I think what a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't realize is behind all of these social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
Speaker 1: all that there are, there's an army of behavioral scientists
Speaker 1: who are working out and optimizing how to hack into
Speaker 1: your brain and to make you want more and more
Speaker 1: and more and more and more. And it's all based
Speaker 1: on euroscience, right, all of that stuff. A lot of
Speaker 1: these guys went through bj Fogg's Persuasive Technology Lab, where
Speaker 1: he was the first guy that I actually was aware
Speaker 1: of to talk about the science of creating habits. So
Speaker 1: tell me this then, and why do those people continue
Speaker 1: to do habits even though they know they're not helpful?
Speaker 1: But you just kind of find yourself getting so into that.
Speaker 1: Why do we get stuck in your language?
Speaker 2: So, I mean, there's multiple reasons. One is because we're
Speaker 2: simply not aware of which of our behaviors are habits.
Speaker 2: The second is because even when we decide to change
Speaker 2: a habit, we often only assume there's one queue for
Speaker 2: that habit. So we might let's say, for example, you
Speaker 2: want to stop smoking, you might assume that you only
Speaker 2: smoke when you are in a social situation, or you
Speaker 2: might decide that you only smoke when you're stressed, so
Speaker 2: you might. Knowing the science of habit, which involves Q
Speaker 2: craving action reward, you might very cleverly decide, so I'll
Speaker 2: remove the cues that I know are an issue, so
Speaker 2: I'll tackle my stress in a different way. Or you know,
Speaker 2: some people fiddle with pencils instead of yes, or I'll
Speaker 2: hang out with my friends who I don't smoke, who
Speaker 2: don't smoke. They tackle two cues, but there might be
Speaker 2: a hundred other cues that they've not even thought about. Seeing.
Speaker 2: Something long and stick like might be a que deserving
Speaker 2: a reward, might be a queue. So another reason that
Speaker 2: we continue with habits is we don't get savvy to
Speaker 2: the amount of cues that are triggering our behavior. The
Speaker 2: next is we assume willpower is enough. Now, the issue
Speaker 2: about willpower is that we used to think that willpower
Speaker 2: was almost like petrol in a car tank, that you
Speaker 2: had a finite amount each day, and the more you
Speaker 2: used it, the more it ran out, and by the
Speaker 2: end of the day, if you are tired, the willpower
Speaker 2: is gone. Actually, we know willpower doesn't quite work like that,
Speaker 2: or motivation as well, doesn't quite work like that. It's
Speaker 2: more like an emotion. It comes and goes, and when
Speaker 2: it's there you should take it. And when it's gone
Speaker 2: you have to rely on other factors. And if you
Speaker 2: don't believe you have it, you're less likely to have it.
Speaker 2: So people rely too much on willpower. They don't make
Speaker 2: a plan as to how they're changed their habits. And
Speaker 2: the next thing is, it's not that this is not
Speaker 2: anyone's fault. Very few people really understand how to leverage
Speaker 2: their biology and the science habit in order to make
Speaker 2: behavioral change.
Speaker 1: Now as you're talking about the science of biology, so
Speaker 1: I know a reasonable amount about habits, having talked about
Speaker 1: behavior change a lot in my corporate work, however, and
Speaker 1: the surprising thing that I read are one of the
Speaker 1: cool things I read in europook was about the importance
Speaker 1: of the time of day. So talk to us about that,
Speaker 1: and then how we can leverage that time of day
Speaker 1: if we are wanting to create new habits, or can
Speaker 1: we use it as well to break old habits.
Speaker 2: So it's this is quite interesting because so far to
Speaker 2: date I haven't seen a book on There are some
Speaker 2: brilliant books on habits out there, so atomic habits is exceptional.
Speaker 2: For example, but to date, I haven't seen a book
Speaker 2: that's written about this biology because it's come out more
Speaker 2: recently than a lot.
Speaker 1: Of the books.
Speaker 2: So what we know is that are kind of internal neurochemistry,
Speaker 2: So the chemicals in our brain in the first eight
Speaker 2: hours of waking are set up in such a way
Speaker 2: that we're more likely to be able to overcome friction.
Speaker 2: So friction in the habit world, there's any time when
Speaker 2: you go, oh, I don't really know if I want
Speaker 2: to do that, or oh, there's lots of excuses why
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that. So in the morning, we have
Speaker 2: more neurochemicals that help us push through that friction. After
Speaker 2: the first eight hours, our neurochemistry changes and it starts
Speaker 2: to settle. We're in a more relaxed state in it.
Speaker 2: Hopefully in the last eight hours we're sound asleep. So
Speaker 2: this pattern, this pattern isn't really applicable if you're a
Speaker 2: night worker, but for the rest of us, this is
Speaker 2: really important to know. So when it comes to habits,
Speaker 2: what we're talking about is anything that's new, anything that's challenging,
Speaker 2: anything that's active. You want to slot that into the
Speaker 2: first eight hours of the day because this is when
Speaker 2: your biochemistry is going to actually help you get through
Speaker 2: the things that in the afternoon you might be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: can't mothers do that? Then in the afternoon noon, that's
Speaker 2: when you want to slip in anything that's an old habit,
Speaker 2: or anything that's soothing. So this might be yoga, meditation, yoga, nidra,
Speaker 2: so anything that's new and challenging.
Speaker 1: Alcohol soothing, chocolate ice cream is soothing.
Speaker 2: Also for most people, those aren't new habits, so they'll
Speaker 2: happen at any type of day. If you're wanting to
Speaker 2: add a new a new habit, the hard ones, the
Speaker 2: kind of exert exerting ones, put them in the morning,
Speaker 2: but the soothing ones and anything that's an old habit
Speaker 2: in the afternoon. Now, once something is a habit, once
Speaker 2: you've got it kind of off pat when you don't
Speaker 2: have to think about it, it can actually happen in any
Speaker 2: time of the day. So there's an important thing here.
Speaker 2: People often decide, I know, if I want to change
Speaker 2: my habit, I've got to really plant into my diect
Speaker 2: This is true, but they often then think, well, I
Speaker 2: should do it at nine am every day. Our brain
Speaker 2: doesn't really work like that. Nine am comes and goes.
Speaker 2: The best thing to do is to decide I'll do
Speaker 2: it in the first eight hours. And then what you
Speaker 2: want to do is you want to stack it onto
Speaker 2: an old habit habit right, so yeah, yes, yes, so
Speaker 2: you know about this, yes, yeah, I call them if
Speaker 2: they and behaviors great exactly. So let's say, for example,
Speaker 2: you want to start running in the morning. I mean,
Speaker 2: that sounds absolutely bananas to me because I hate running,
Speaker 2: but let's go with that. Let's go with that. And
Speaker 2: you want to do the first thing. So let's say
Speaker 2: every morning you always get up, you always brush your teeth. Now,
Speaker 2: the first thing you'd want to do is at the
Speaker 2: night before you put your running gear. So it's the
Speaker 2: first thing you see when you get up in the morning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So when I wake up, I get out of bed,
Speaker 2: I put on my running gear, because the first habit
Speaker 2: is getting out of bed. Then I walk to the
Speaker 2: sink and I brush my teeth as normal. Then I
Speaker 2: go out of the door and I run for five minutes.
Speaker 2: Then when I get back, I complete my normal tasks.
Speaker 2: So you always get up, you always brush your teeth,
Speaker 2: and you tack onto the middle section of each one.
Speaker 2: The activity so putting on your running gear, which is
Speaker 2: already cute because you've already laid out next to your bed,
Speaker 2: so you see it, you know what you're meant to do.
Speaker 2: And then the final bit is tacked onto brushing your teeth.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if I get up, then I put my
Speaker 2: clothes on, So stack it in, but put it in
Speaker 2: your first eight hours. But don't fall into the trap
Speaker 2: of saying I'm going to do this every day at
Speaker 2: nine mm.
Speaker 1: Yeah cool. And is there any other way to help
Speaker 1: sort of consolidate that habit in memory or is there
Speaker 1: are there any other tricks that we can use to
Speaker 1: help if we're doing the If then is there anything
Speaker 1: else to creating that habit and trying to lock it in?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's hundreds, but I'm going to so
Speaker 2: as not to make it complicated, I'll often have it.
Speaker 2: Protocols are so complicated that become overwhelming, So some of
Speaker 2: the obvious ones are in advance. Find out why you
Speaker 2: want to do this activity. Often we do things because
Speaker 2: someone else has told us to. We're less likely to
Speaker 2: stay motivated if it's because we're trying to achieve something
Speaker 2: that someone else wants. So work out who you want
Speaker 2: to be in the future, work out what habits will
Speaker 2: take you towards that person, and choose that habit rather
Speaker 2: than the one you've been told to do.
Speaker 1: So that's firsting.
Speaker 2: Second thing that's really simple is habits become our mortie.
Speaker 2: Habits are more likely to stick if we focus on
Speaker 2: an instigation habit rather than the execution part of the habit. Now,
Speaker 2: what this means is it's more important that you initiate
Speaker 2: the habit than what you do during the routine. So
Speaker 2: let's say, for example, I'm going to stick with exercise.
Speaker 2: Can you tell I have an exercise this week, and
Speaker 2: all I'm thinking about is the fact that I should
Speaker 2: have gone to the gym. So if you want a
Speaker 2: daily gym habit, it is more important that you set
Speaker 2: up multiple cues in your house that will get you
Speaker 2: to the gym and you do your habit stacking or
Speaker 2: whatever it is your routine to go to the gym.
Speaker 2: It's more important that you initiate going to the gym
Speaker 2: every single day than it is to focus on what
Speaker 2: you do once you get to the gym.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool, very cool. And I like the having
Speaker 1: multiple cues because right now in my office I look
Speaker 1: behind me. I have clubbils there, I have a kettle
Speaker 1: bail there, and I have dipstition there. Right, And then
Speaker 1: you go into my living room. There's a TRX hanging
Speaker 1: off the wall. In our living room, there's kettlebells in
Speaker 1: the corner. There's even a frigging rowing machine in there. Right.
Speaker 1: There are exercise cues all round this heights.
Speaker 2: I love this. I love this because what people often
Speaker 2: don't realize, as we were saying before, is once you've
Speaker 2: done something for a while, it has more and more cues.
Speaker 2: They are gathered along the time, along the way, and
Speaker 2: often it's just the sight of one of those cues
Speaker 2: that makes you go, oh, yes, I meant to do
Speaker 2: this thing now, that's really really good. And so you
Speaker 2: want to focus on who you want to be repeating
Speaker 2: the same action, the instigation habit, and then afterwards what
Speaker 2: you want is to be thinking, how am I going
Speaker 2: to reward myself for this activity? And I need to
Speaker 2: do as quickly, but I need to do it intermittently.
Speaker 2: So we also gain habits faster if the reward doesn't
Speaker 2: happen every single time.
Speaker 3: So you know when you're scrolling dopamine, right, yes, exactly, predictaary,
Speaker 3: yes exactly. So one thing you could do is you
Speaker 3: do your habit with your friend, which leads to accountability,
Speaker 3: and then you take it in terms to decide who's
Speaker 3: going to decide this week if there's going to be
Speaker 3: a reward and what the reward is, and you're not
Speaker 3: going to tell each other nice or the other thing
Speaker 3: is to flip a coin after your activity, do I
Speaker 3: get your reward or don't I get your reward? And
Speaker 3: this intermittent pattern is going to make you look more
Speaker 3: like foster a habit. But I have to say, none
Speaker 3: of this matters if you're not repeating the behavior. The
Speaker 3: single fastest way to your habit isn't how many hours
Speaker 3: you spend doing it, it's how many times you initiate
Speaker 3: it and repeat it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice, I like that because it's about heavy and
Speaker 1: learning in the brain, isn't it, neuve? Sales that fire
Speaker 1: together wire together so frequent, see is really really key?
Speaker 1: That that's awesome. And I love the way that you
Speaker 1: threw in a bit of self determination theory in there
Speaker 1: and finding your own reasons why it's important. This is
Speaker 1: what I often say to people is that that don't
Speaker 1: be doing stuff for other people, right, It's like, you've
Speaker 1: got to find your own reasons why it's important to
Speaker 1: you and not to anybody else.
Speaker 2: But also not just because it's nice. It's not. I
Speaker 2: don't just say this as in like, oh, find your path,
Speaker 2: find your truth. I say this because when we're doing
Speaker 2: something for someone else, we always self sabotage that that intention, Right,
Speaker 2: We're like, why am I not doing this thing? It's
Speaker 2: like because part of you, know, is you really don't
Speaker 2: want to. So you're getting in your own way.
Speaker 1: Oh, and we're going to we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about getting in your own way. And look, I know
Speaker 1: you could talk for habits for ages and so and
Speaker 1: so could I because it's a really interesting topic. But
Speaker 1: there's so much other cool stuff in your book that
Speaker 1: I just want to give people a little taste of.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about heuristics, right, what the hell are they?
Speaker 1: Why do we have them? And give people some examples
Speaker 1: so that they can impress their friends today by talking
Speaker 1: about heuristics.
Speaker 2: So, heuristics is just a really fancy word for a
Speaker 2: mental shortcut. So, as you were saying before, we're bombarded
Speaker 2: by information all of the time, and so our brain
Speaker 2: had to develop a way in which it could make
Speaker 2: decisions very quickly with a very small amount of information.
Speaker 2: So one really oversimplified way of describing a heuristic is
Speaker 2: it's your gut instinct. So you know, if you walk
Speaker 2: into a bar and it feels dodgy in a few
Speaker 2: of those, there you go, me too, me too. That
Speaker 2: gut instinct is your brain is used used pattern recognition
Speaker 2: to very quickly say something is wrong and you leave
Speaker 2: that building without asking questions.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting Starry to jump in here, but there's
Speaker 1: really really interesting research on people like fireman and first
Speaker 1: respond other first responders that just have a sense that
Speaker 1: something is wrong and say, everybody needs to get the
Speaker 1: hell out of here, and then the whole building collapses. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's just all of that information that has been
Speaker 1: non consciously processed and held in the brain and in
Speaker 1: it just recognizes patterns right exactly.
Speaker 2: The fireman example is amazing. So it's happened so many times.
Speaker 2: Fireman will say everyone evacuates. Someone will say why, and
Speaker 2: I'll say, I can't tell you why. I just know
Speaker 2: something's wrong. So it's a gut instinct that happens before
Speaker 2: you're consciously aware, and some of the really common ones
Speaker 2: that often we don't realize are happening are things like
Speaker 2: social proof and group think. So social proof and group
Speaker 2: think are shortcuts that will tell you your brain, really
Speaker 2: because it's outside of your consciousness, that the right thing
Speaker 2: to do is the thing that other people think is
Speaker 2: right to do. It's the things. And with groupthink, it's
Speaker 2: saying I will ignore my own views because the group
Speaker 2: is likely to be right, and sometimes that will extend
Speaker 2: to I will then quiet anyone who disagrees.
Speaker 1: With the truth.
Speaker 2: So social proof and group think are things we see
Speaker 2: all the time on social media. It's why we want
Speaker 2: to buy what influences sell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also then when we're living in the echo
Speaker 1: chamber in social media, right when it's serving us up
Speaker 1: the content that it thinks that we want to see,
Speaker 1: we get really sucked into that. Social proof and group think.
Speaker 2: Right one and another mental shortcut is confirmation bias. So
Speaker 2: the idea that our brain will only look for the
Speaker 2: information that proves its own beliefs to be right, but
Speaker 2: then will also interpret everything that you've been told as
Speaker 2: proof that you're.
Speaker 1: Righty, we justify our own thinking. Are we were just
Speaker 1: constantly looking for evidence that what we believe is right.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, And another one that's really quite alarming on
Speaker 2: that front, but it's actually day to day just quite
Speaker 2: normal and fine. Is illusory superiority. So the fact that
Speaker 2: more than well most of us will assume we're better
Speaker 2: than average at almost everything we do. So of drivers
Speaker 2: believe that they're above average drivers, which is just statistically impossible.
Speaker 2: So if you consider that our kind of day to
Speaker 2: day decision making isn't generally us making rational, well thought
Speaker 2: out decisions, but is our brain shortcutting those decisions by saying,
Speaker 2: what do other people think? What that person said likely
Speaker 2: just confirms what I said to be true, And of
Speaker 2: course I'm right, because I'm pretty much smarter than everyone else.
Speaker 2: You can see how you can see how quickly our
Speaker 2: thinking gets derailed. And I know you know, I'm obviously
Speaker 2: giving you three of there's over one hundred of these touristics,
Speaker 2: but they happen in such a split second, much like
Speaker 2: walking into the bar and getting that gut feeling of
Speaker 2: walking out that whether they have a large impact on
Speaker 2: your life or not, this is happening any moment that
Speaker 2: you're awake, so can quickly derail a very logical thought
Speaker 2: process into you making decisions that actually have no link
Speaker 2: to the person you want to be in the future,
Speaker 2: getting you very stuck.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Something else that can get you stuck.
Speaker 1: And I love that. I saw this in your book,
Speaker 1: hyperbolic discounting or temporal discounting. Talk to us about that
Speaker 1: what that because it's so important that people understand that. Right.
Speaker 1: It explains everything from why we don't exercise to why
Speaker 1: we don't see it enough for retirement. And so talk
Speaker 1: to us about what that stuff is and high influences
Speaker 1: our decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to go back to our ancestors first.
Speaker 2: So almost everything we've discussed has a reason in terms
Speaker 2: of keeping us as alive as a species. So hyperbolic
Speaker 2: or temporal discounting is the idea that we choose the
Speaker 2: thing that is right in front of us rather than
Speaker 2: the thing that could happen in the future, even if
Speaker 2: the thing that happens in the future is better for us.
Speaker 2: So this makes sense when it comes to our ancestors.
Speaker 2: Imagine our ancestors came across a skinny little deer or
Speaker 2: a few berries on a bush. It makes sense. It
Speaker 2: makes sense that they kill that skinny deer and eat
Speaker 2: those berries now, rather than waiting for the deer to
Speaker 2: fatten up and maybe have a family, or for that small, tiny,
Speaker 2: rubbish little bush to grow into a massive one, because
Speaker 2: they may not be around in that amount of time later,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like a few weeks later,
Speaker 2: a few months later, or a year later. So take
Speaker 2: what you have now because you might not be around later.
Speaker 1: Do so.
Speaker 2: That makes sense for our ancestors, But what does that
Speaker 2: mean for your anna?
Speaker 3: I now?
Speaker 2: It means that when we think.
Speaker 4: Well, I could save this amount of money that I'm
Speaker 4: about to spend on this thing such as dinner right
Speaker 4: now or this outfit, I could add that to my
Speaker 4: pension and use that later in life when it would
Speaker 4: be really important to keep it for. But instead, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm going to buy that thing that I have right
Speaker 4: in front of me right now. It means we buy
Speaker 4: the fancy dinner or the outfit that we couldn't afford.
Speaker 4: In terms of going to the gym, it means we
Speaker 4: choose to sit on the sofa or like to eat
Speaker 4: the yummy thing that's in front of us, rather than say,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm going to save that until after
Speaker 4: I get back to the gym. We will always choose
Speaker 4: the quick win over long term game.
Speaker 1: And really interesting study by I think it's hal Halzburg.
Speaker 1: I can't remember his surname, but it was basically a
Speaker 1: real life experiment with Americans who had the first job
Speaker 1: or they were getting a job, and they had to choose.
Speaker 1: I think it's called the canine in America over here
Speaker 1: at super anniation, but we have to mandatory you have
Speaker 1: to pay some of your salary goes into that. In America,
Speaker 1: they choose how much they do it. And he did
Speaker 1: this really cool experiment where he got a bunch of
Speaker 1: people and they were wearing VR technology, so they saw
Speaker 1: an avatar of themselves actually filling out the form. And
Speaker 1: some of those people saw an avatar of themselves as
Speaker 1: they look today, and some of those people saw an
Speaker 1: avatar they'd aids the avatar. So it was in their
Speaker 1: sixties and the people and these were real life decisions.
Speaker 1: The people who viewed saw themselves as in their sixties.
Speaker 1: Making the decision put more than double the amount of
Speaker 1: their pay into their retirement fund. Right, so we can
Speaker 1: actually manipulate that for the good that was pretty cool
Speaker 1: shit and really shows how we are influenced by this
Speaker 1: hyperbolic discounting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the earliest study was something like
Speaker 2: if I give you ten pounds now or one hundred
Speaker 2: ten pounds in a year, which will you take? And
Speaker 2: people like, oh, ten pounds now, but like, logically that
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. You'll get one hundred and ten pounds
Speaker 2: in a year. It doesn't make any sense, but it
Speaker 2: feels like it makes sense to us. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I just want ten pounds now, I might not.
Speaker 1: Burd in hand in the bush, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although in a year's time it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, I really want.
Speaker 1: It to exactly now. I like to take a quick
Speaker 1: break for a word from our sponsors. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: self sabotage. Why the hell do we do what is
Speaker 1: under the hood whenever we are self sabotaged, because there
Speaker 1: will be so many people listening there as going that's me.
Speaker 1: I'm a self sabotager. I get so close and then
Speaker 1: I just screw everything up. What's going on there?
Speaker 2: Safety seeking it's the shortest answer to that question. So essentially,
Speaker 2: self sabotage, I think often comes across as this kind
Speaker 2: of willing destruction of our own life. But actually it's
Speaker 2: it's something that most of us do because either we
Speaker 2: fear failure, we fear rejection, we think that there's only
Speaker 2: a certain amount of happiness that we're meant to have
Speaker 2: in our life, or we fear success. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you a fun little story. I just before
Speaker 2: I was finishing my first book, Like literally, i'd written
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of this book. I didn't have much
Speaker 2: left to do. I suddenly just stopped working on it.
Speaker 2: I really mean it, like I just couldn't make myself
Speaker 2: to that. I was so close to the finish line,
Speaker 2: and I painted my entire house, my entire house, I
Speaker 2: mean what my house did not I don't own it.
Speaker 2: I'm a renter, right am I painting someone else's house.
Speaker 2: I was just so motivated to do it. It was
Speaker 2: really compelling. And then I found some other projects to do.
Speaker 2: You know how it goes anyway, So, because most people
Speaker 2: talk about self sabotage as being a form of protection
Speaker 2: against fear of failure, So in other words, if I
Speaker 2: don't try, then I can't fail and no one will
Speaker 2: laugh at me. At first, I thought, oh, maybe I've
Speaker 2: given up because I'm scared it's going.
Speaker 1: To be bad.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, maybe that sounds about right,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't really fit. And I realized that in
Speaker 2: the UK we have something and I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 2: have this. In Australia we have tall poppy syndrome.
Speaker 1: You get much stronger here. The force is strong. Oh really?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a stronger than the UK.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're gonna know what I'm talking about, right,
Speaker 2: So the idea if any poppy grows too tall, we
Speaker 2: must cut it down to size. Okay. So that's one
Speaker 2: of the many things that kind of told me early on.
Speaker 2: You must not get too big for your boots. You
Speaker 2: must not stand out, you must not go further than
Speaker 2: you are expected to go, because if you put yourself
Speaker 2: out there, someone is going to take you down. So
Speaker 2: what happened to avoid being taken down? I just stopped working.
Speaker 2: It was too frightening. The idea of finishing it. And
Speaker 2: I don't mean the idea of finishing it and it
Speaker 2: being a glowing success. I just mean finishing it and saying,
Speaker 2: my friends, so I've written a book suddenly felt too threatening,
Speaker 2: like ooh, who does she think? She is little misauthor
Speaker 2: over there, so I just stopped writing. So self sabotage
Speaker 2: is anything that we do to keep ourselves within our
Speaker 2: comfort zone, but there are many reasons that we do it,
Speaker 2: and the way that we move forward is kind of
Speaker 2: too pronged. It is figuring out what it is that
Speaker 2: we're trying to avoid and tackling that kind of emotional state. So, right,
Speaker 2: if I'm afraid, what do I do in order to
Speaker 2: soothe myself? How do I kind of look after myself
Speaker 2: should that worst thing happen? And what do I need
Speaker 2: to do right now? And the other prong is doing
Speaker 2: behavioral experiments? So okay, what do I need to do
Speaker 2: in order to be able to test out my fear?
Speaker 2: So is it I need to say? Okay, what if
Speaker 2: I did put my book out there and everyone did
Speaker 2: shame me? What would I do?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 2: Well, probably say to my friends, that's not very nice.
Speaker 2: I've worked really hard. Hopefully actually most of my friends
Speaker 2: wouldn't be like that, because that's not really what friends do.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I created a plan of
Speaker 2: attack for should the work happened, and then I just
Speaker 2: broke my task down into the smallest steps. I was like, so,
Speaker 2: can I sit down and write for five hundred words today? Yes,
Speaker 2: I can do that, And I just kept building from
Speaker 2: there and facing my fear, but in the smallest and
Speaker 2: most manageable ways. You mentioned fog earlier. He said, if
Speaker 2: you're wanting to set up a habit basically floss one
Speaker 2: tooth day, that's right. He said it in a much
Speaker 2: more eloquent way. But that's kind of how I tackle
Speaker 2: self sabotage, right. It's like, so what is the one tooth? Yeah,
Speaker 2: if I can sit down and write five hundred words,
Speaker 2: I can do that, and you build from there until
Speaker 2: you've done the whole set of teeth. And you've already
Speaker 2: tackled the emotional side. So you've kind of too prong approach.
Speaker 2: What do I do to manage emotionally? And what do
Speaker 2: I do to manage physically? And you put one front
Speaker 2: of foot in front of the other until you get
Speaker 2: it done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. And one of the things actually I've
Speaker 1: been talking to my daughter has jumped onto this like
Speaker 1: she's a nerd, she's a swat, and then sometimes she's
Speaker 1: she's just the motivation drops side and she's she comes
Speaker 1: and goes dad, I'm really not motivated today. And I said,
Speaker 1: that's fine, why don't you just do ten minutes? Say
Speaker 1: a Lauren, do ten minutes and that's it. And she's
Speaker 1: jumped onto this, so she DENI that she's not motivated.
Speaker 1: She just goes, I'm just going to go to ten
Speaker 1: minutes and that's it. And sometimes that ten minutes is
Speaker 1: ten minutes. But sometimes it just rolls. Right. This is
Speaker 1: what a lot of people don't realize. Motivation follows action,
Speaker 1: not the other way around.
Speaker 2: Exactly one hundred percent. And also, if we now tie
Speaker 2: that back to habits, what you're doing so brilliantly there
Speaker 2: is you're enforcing an instigation habit, right, So it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what you do once you sit down, as long
Speaker 2: as you sit down and start. And if you do
Speaker 2: that every day, even if you just sit down for
Speaker 2: five minutes. Now what happens every time you think I
Speaker 2: can't do it? The habit of actually I could do
Speaker 2: five minutes becomes a pattern that stays with you for life.
Speaker 2: And I do have to say, you know, sometimes when
Speaker 2: talking on podcasts or simplifying things in blogs or talking
Speaker 2: on kind of short form on Instagram, we can make
Speaker 2: quite complex things sound like they're very very easy to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, facing self sabotage, like when I was
Speaker 2: genuinely afraid. I was genuinely afraid, and I did turn
Speaker 2: it around quite quickly. But I just really want to
Speaker 2: stress to listeners that well, and it sounds like we're
Speaker 2: making life of quite complicated things. I do know that
Speaker 2: it can be more complex than this. And also the
Speaker 2: reason I wrote like a three hundred page book on
Speaker 2: this is because sometimes we need a little bit more
Speaker 2: than what we're talking about now, a little bit more support,
Speaker 2: a little bit more guidance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for anybody who's interesting, is you do a
Speaker 1: whole thing on the self sabotaged cycle and what we
Speaker 1: can do about it. So I will direct people to
Speaker 1: your book. But I love this the instigation habits. I'm
Speaker 1: a massive fan of that, although I wasn't even aware
Speaker 1: of the technology, sorry, of the of the preeseology. So
Speaker 1: often I'll say to people, you know, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to go for a run, that's fine. You know,
Speaker 1: you've said I'm going to go for a run, and
Speaker 1: going to go for a run, and then you wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and you're like, I do not want
Speaker 1: to go for a run. I just don't have the motivation.
Speaker 1: And I say, that's cool, you don't have to, but
Speaker 1: you do have to put your exercise gear on and
Speaker 1: walk to the and that's it. And he walked to
Speaker 1: the gate. He can come back in and that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you will come back in and sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: go you know what, I'm bloody well there. I like
Speaker 1: little things like enabling habits, which are kind of instigation
Speaker 1: habits but then have a flow on effect. So I
Speaker 1: have this rule that whenever I come back from work
Speaker 1: and I put on my exercise gear right. So last
Speaker 1: night I flew back from Canberra, I emailed you as
Speaker 1: the plane touched on the tarmac, i'd send an email
Speaker 1: to you with with just about this morning. And that
Speaker 1: was about half past nine, and so I didn't get
Speaker 1: back until nearly eleven o'clock and I was going to
Speaker 1: go straight to bed, and I found myself. I got
Speaker 1: home and I put on my exercise gear right. It's like,
Speaker 1: why why the hell am I doing that? It's just
Speaker 1: it was just it's locked into my brain. And the
Speaker 1: reason I started doing that is, if you you know,
Speaker 1: I talk to audiences all the time when they come
Speaker 1: on from work. The amount of people who put the
Speaker 1: pajamas on is just crazy, right, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: what's the priming in your brain? Right, you put your
Speaker 1: pajamas on. Their priming is sit on the sofa, have
Speaker 1: a glass of wine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or walk in, turn the TV on, you know,
Speaker 2: walk in and be like, oh, thank god, I'm here,
Speaker 2: and your home becomes associated just with sleep. And you know,
Speaker 2: obviously there's no problem with any of these activities if
Speaker 2: they're what you truly value in life and that's what
Speaker 2: you want. If that's not what you want, we need
Speaker 2: to be kind of setting up our homes. And I
Speaker 2: love that you have this exercise gear on the moment
Speaker 2: you come in. You need to be setting up those cues.
Speaker 2: Please don't rely on will parallel Like, yeah, your environment
Speaker 2: shapes what you do. So make that house a little
Speaker 2: bit less cozy if you need to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And take the ship food out of
Speaker 1: the house. Stop telling yourself that it's for your children.
Speaker 1: Don't need it. It's for you and you don't need
Speaker 1: it either, right, and.
Speaker 2: Stop working in bed. I think I'm telling myself this,
Speaker 2: stop working in bed, because then your bed becomes associated
Speaker 2: with being awake. Right, everything around you is a queue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that bird one is critical. And when I talk
Speaker 1: about sleep hygiene, I say, a really important thing is
Speaker 1: that your brilliant needs to know that your bedroom is
Speaker 1: a sleep sanctuary, is where you go to sleep, and
Speaker 1: if you're lucky, you get a bit of boostie macgoofty
Speaker 1: every nine and then right. But it's not for television's,
Speaker 1: laptops and mobile phones.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of femagogli in my whole life. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, that was amazing. Exactly, people, exactly, this is very,
Speaker 2: very true. And again this is where those kind of
Speaker 2: permissive cognitions come in. You know those thoughts that go, oh, well,
Speaker 2: how bad is it this time? And it's true, watching
Speaker 2: like doing a piece of work in your admissive cognition.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I've made that up. I don't
Speaker 2: think I've made that up. That sounds like too fancy
Speaker 2: a word for me to have generated myself. I think
Speaker 2: it is the technical term for basically just a thought
Speaker 2: that gives you permission when you know you really shouldn't.
Speaker 2: Like a single permissive cognition is no big deal. But
Speaker 2: what happens well the next time that will nothing really
Speaker 2: changed the last time I worked in bed? How about
Speaker 2: can it be? And suddenly you start laying down habits
Speaker 2: without realizing. So yeah, right, you have mcgufty and sleep
Speaker 2: in bed people.
Speaker 1: That's it exactly. Now let's talk about self esteem. So
Speaker 1: you talk about self esteem and boosting our self esteem
Speaker 1: in a healthy way. And so for me, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a thin line to walk here, because
Speaker 1: you know, we've had twenty years of boosterism of self
Speaker 1: esteem that did not work out well. That Chimerdi and
Speaker 1: United State. It's telling me, you know, you're awesome, you
Speaker 1: can be anything you want to be, and all this stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: So let's let's separate that false boosterism from people who
Speaker 1: really their self esteem is giving in their way and
Speaker 1: they need a cop of the little subtle techniques for
Speaker 1: just lifting it to a normal, reasonable level, not boosting
Speaker 1: it into this unrealistic stratosphere.
Speaker 2: Well, so firstly, I'd love to say that those kind
Speaker 2: of very exciting bumper sticker kind of your brilliant taglines
Speaker 2: often get us really stuck because we might try and
Speaker 2: believe them in our head, but if we don't believe
Speaker 2: them in our heart. We're constantly in conflict of feeling
Speaker 2: like that doesn't feel true. But I'm meant to say,
Speaker 2: oh God, am I failing? Am I failing? Am I failing?
Speaker 2: So that's the first thing. Second thing is I don't
Speaker 2: know if many people really truly understand what self esteem is.
Speaker 2: It's the value you place on yourself, It's your worth.
Speaker 2: People often confuse it with self confidence. So self confidence
Speaker 2: is how much you believe in your ability in a
Speaker 2: certain area. So I am confident as a psychologist, Yes,
Speaker 2: I'm confident that I can show up to a therapy
Speaker 2: session and pretty much always know what I'm going to do,
Speaker 2: or if I don't know the solution, I will pretty
Speaker 2: much find a way. Because I've been doing this for
Speaker 2: a long time. I'm confident in my skill I as
Speaker 2: a person, and not necessarily confident in who I am
Speaker 2: all the time. I don't struck down the street and
Speaker 2: so amazing, because that's a different thing. So our worth
Speaker 2: is based, yes, partly on our confidence. So if you
Speaker 2: feel like you're able to navigate most scenarios, even if
Speaker 2: they're scary, that's going to boost your self esteem. But
Speaker 2: there are other aspects of self esteem which include belonging.
Speaker 2: So if you're struggling with your self esteem, look at
Speaker 2: who's around you. Are there enough people around you who
Speaker 2: when you look in their eyes, they reflect back at
Speaker 2: you that they think that you're pretty great as you are.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of these Instagram posts will say
Speaker 2: who cares what other people think? And I think that's
Speaker 2: a really nice idea and if you're able to get there, brilliant.
Speaker 2: But actually, our real core sense of do I belong
Speaker 2: is partly derived from seeing in other people's eyes that
Speaker 2: they think that we matter, So we've got confidence working
Speaker 2: on certain skills. Belonging ensuring you're surrounded by a community
Speaker 2: of people. It doesn't matter the number of people, it
Speaker 2: matters the quality of the connections, So folks on belonging.
Speaker 2: The next one is identity. So often if you imagine
Speaker 2: your identity being like a jigsaw puzzle, often what happens
Speaker 2: is work for many of us, not everyone becomes the
Speaker 2: single piece of the puzzle. This means, if work isn't
Speaker 2: going well, do you imagine that puzzle piece suddenly missing
Speaker 2: or being destabilized. There's a massive whole or a shakiness
Speaker 2: in your identity. So this is where It's a really
Speaker 2: good place to do a values assessment. Figure out what's
Speaker 2: important in your life, and there's lots of values sheets
Speaker 2: online to do this. Also shameless plug in a Manner
Speaker 2: for Being Human and in my new book and Stuck.
Speaker 2: Figure out what you value and make sure you engage
Speaker 2: in activities that cover each of the main areas of
Speaker 2: your identity. So you feel like you're really engaging in
Speaker 2: valued activities, I feel like you really know who you are.
Speaker 2: So these are kind of three of the places that
Speaker 2: I would start.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that and really sorry, I just stay to step
Speaker 1: in right here. That is the most comprehensive, brilliant explanation
Speaker 1: I've ever heard around self esteem. That is just gold. Okay,
Speaker 1: so continue with what you were going to say.
Speaker 2: I know all I was going to say is putting
Speaker 2: on address that you love might make you feel one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a million dollars for like five minutes, but
Speaker 2: it's this other stuff that will make you feel like
Speaker 2: you're worthy for the rest of your life. So I'm
Speaker 2: not saying don't focus on the kind of frills, the
Speaker 2: fun fripperies, but really working on these core aspects of identity,
Speaker 2: belonging and building up skills that you know that you
Speaker 2: can cope in life. That is a foundation will take
Speaker 2: you through your life in a way that you would
Speaker 2: never imagine. But there's many other things, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's just a starting point.
Speaker 1: But a really good starting point. And I think if
Speaker 1: we just look at that belonging, I mean Richard Ran
Speaker 1: and ed DC who creates self determination theory, they talked
Speaker 1: about the three basic human needs, and relatedness is one.
Speaker 1: In fact, you touched on two of them, right, relatedness
Speaker 1: and competence or mastering. Right, So having some of those skills,
Speaker 1: but that being a member of a tribe. We are
Speaker 1: a tribal species, and one of the worst things for
Speaker 1: your health is loneliness. Right, we have to be connected
Speaker 1: into people. And I think you put it beautifully is
Speaker 1: being with people who actually value you is really important.
Speaker 1: And just stop hanging out with the p people who
Speaker 1: are constantly criticizing you or undermining your self worth, because
Speaker 1: especially if they're close to you, Oh my god, that
Speaker 1: can just destroy people right one.
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes we can't get away from those people.
Speaker 2: Let's say your boss is a micromanager. You might actually
Speaker 2: have to find a way to rubble along with them.
Speaker 2: But in that situation way, oh yeah, if you can.
Speaker 2: This comes from a doctor, Sophie bought no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: What I was going to say is sometimes you can't
Speaker 2: cut those people out, and in that scenario, what I
Speaker 2: would really recommend is just making sure that in your
Speaker 2: social life you're kind of joining communities, joining clubs. Maybe,
Speaker 2: for example, we're going to go back to exercise purely
Speaker 2: because we've mentioned it so much. If you want to go,
Speaker 2: like if you love hiking, if you love running, is
Speaker 2: there a community that you live near that you could
Speaker 2: go and do that once a week with other people
Speaker 2: you know people. It's amazing how difficult I think people
Speaker 2: find it to make friends, especially post pandemic and especially
Speaker 2: once people kind of cross a certain age group. But actually,
Speaker 2: you know, online there's things like meetup dot com where
Speaker 2: they where they'll tell you what is going on in
Speaker 2: your community. And the beauty of doing activities together is
Speaker 2: that you get to do something side by side. So
Speaker 2: if you're feeling anxious or you're not sure about your
Speaker 2: social skills, and the idea of sitting with someone looking
Speaker 2: them in the eyes, kind of having to feel like
Speaker 2: you have to come up with something witty and scintillating
Speaker 2: for an hour feels overwhelming. Doing an activity like walking
Speaker 2: next to each other or sewing, or even going to
Speaker 2: the cinema or going to look at art side by
Speaker 2: side with someone not only gives you a focus points
Speaker 2: outside of your head, but it gives you something to
Speaker 2: talk about afterwards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very cool. And actually you mentioned side by side.
Speaker 1: A really interesting little fun fact that I came across
Speaker 1: recently is that females and when they are getting into
Speaker 1: relationships and tend to do fierce to fierce interactions. So
Speaker 1: we'll sit down over coffee, we're below, it's much more
Speaker 1: side by side. So it's standing watching something talking having
Speaker 1: conversations when they're side by side, and teenagers will open
Speaker 1: up much more side by side, right out for a walk,
Speaker 1: driving in the car. How many people have noticed that
Speaker 1: their teenagers talk a little bit more when they're sitting there.
Speaker 1: So it's that side shoulder to shoulder stuff can be
Speaker 1: really really valuable as well in terms of a communication too.
Speaker 2: It's the best. Yeah, it's the best.
Speaker 1: Okay, now you talk. Also, you've got this really cool thing.
Speaker 1: You got so much cool stuff in your book, But
Speaker 1: do you talk about this drama triangle, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: So talk us through the drama triangle. What is it
Speaker 1: and why is it relevant in our lives?
Speaker 2: So Steve Carptman gosh I but it his name is.
Speaker 2: Then Steve Carpman came up with this. It's not mine,
Speaker 2: but it's to oversimplify it. It's this idea that we
Speaker 2: often take up repeated roles in our lives, particularly during conflict,
Speaker 2: where we either assume the kind of victim, rescuer or
Speaker 2: persecutor position. It's the pattern that we see in almost
Speaker 2: every fairy tale. It's the pattern we see in almost
Speaker 2: every movie. So in oversimplified terms, let's say a little
Speaker 2: red riding Hood, her grandmother, the wolf, and the huntsman.
Speaker 2: So little red Wolf is the victim because she obviously
Speaker 2: gets eaten, so is the grandma. The wolf is obviously
Speaker 2: the persecutor, and the huntsman who comes in and chops
Speaker 2: the wolf up and somehow rescues the still living red
Speaker 2: riding Hood and grandma from the tummy of the wolf
Speaker 2: is the rescuer. So this is a triangle. It's a
Speaker 2: pattern that we know. It's as tale as old as time.
Speaker 2: But in our relationships The reason it's a problem is
Speaker 2: because it rarely means that we tackle our conflict head on. Okay,
Speaker 2: So let's say, for example, you're in a couple and
Speaker 2: when you have friends over for dinner, you tend to fight,
Speaker 2: and then another person steps in to rescue you. Yes,
Speaker 2: one of you in the couple is the victim. The
Speaker 2: other person is probably seen to be the persecutor probably
Speaker 2: both of you think you're the victim. The friend steps in. Now,
Speaker 2: if this happens once or twice, that's not really a
Speaker 2: big deal. It can be helpful to have a friend
Speaker 2: kind of interrupt an argument. But if over time this
Speaker 2: relationship becomes reliant on a third person rescuing them, it
Speaker 2: means that the couple actually never faces their conflicts together
Speaker 2: and adaptively works through them. Now kind of something that
Speaker 2: many of the people I know really identify with.
Speaker 1: Is.
Speaker 2: Another example is people who are drawn to the rescuer role. Now,
Speaker 2: every therapist is drawn to the rescue role. Often think
Speaker 2: they're being helpful. They see someone they're like, oh, my goodness,
Speaker 2: I need to step in help. So they make the
Speaker 2: other person the victim, whether the other person was asking
Speaker 2: for help or not. It's like, oh, they need my help.
Speaker 2: Then they go in and they they tend to over
Speaker 2: offer help, right And sometimes when we help someone in
Speaker 2: a way that's realistic, we say, do you actually want help?
Speaker 2: What would you like me to support you with? How
Speaker 2: would you like me to support you? And then the
Speaker 2: two of you work together on a solution that builds
Speaker 2: the other person up so that in the future they
Speaker 2: can tackle the problem themselves. When we're in rescue a role,
Speaker 2: we treat everyone as if they're disempowered, as if they're
Speaker 2: unable to figure out a solution for themselves. We then
Speaker 2: step in do things for them, creating a cycle in
Speaker 2: which that person becomes continuously more disempowered and you feel
Speaker 2: more and more like I am such a good person.
Speaker 2: But and this is the final thing I want to say,
Speaker 2: which is irrespective of the position you're drawn to, and
Speaker 2: believe me, at any time of day, we can slip
Speaker 2: into persecutor a victim, or rescuer. Even though we're drawn
Speaker 2: to one role, we all occasionally become that person who
Speaker 2: criticizes the other. We all become the person that thinks
Speaker 2: they need to change them, not me. Irrespective of the
Speaker 2: role that you start out in, everyone ends up feeling
Speaker 2: like the victim. So the rescuer who says, oh, let
Speaker 2: me help you. At some point, if the victim says
Speaker 2: no thanks or yeah, the idea you gave me wouldn't work,
Speaker 2: then the rescuer goes, well, I was only trying to help,
Speaker 2: feeling like I can't believe they drew me into their
Speaker 2: drama and now they're not listening.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The drama triangle draws us into familiar patterns, It stops
Speaker 2: us from tackling the actual issue at hand, and it
Speaker 2: leaves everyone who plays the game feeling like they're the
Speaker 2: one that's hard done to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very interesting. Look, as you were telling that story,
Speaker 1: it's kind of linked to this, not directly, but it
Speaker 1: was about people not being left alone to sort it
Speaker 1: out themselves. Right. And I'll tell you a little story.
Speaker 1: When I was back in the military in the UK,
Speaker 1: I've just flying helicopters and we were going on an
Speaker 1: embarkation for I think it was six weeks and you
Speaker 1: fly in cruise, so there was going to be a
Speaker 1: number of crews on there. I think there was four
Speaker 1: crews anyway, And when you go to see with each
Speaker 1: other and the pilots, the backseater mean and navigator. You
Speaker 1: sleep together, you eat together, you fly together, you live
Speaker 1: in each other's pockets. Right. There were two pilots out
Speaker 1: of eight who detested each other, right, And they were
Speaker 1: both thinking, shit, was a reasonable chance that we are
Speaker 1: going to be crewed up here and we are going
Speaker 1: to be living in each other's pockets for the next
Speaker 1: six weeks. So they both they had a quick chat,
Speaker 1: even though they didn't like each other, and they both
Speaker 1: independently went to the senior pilot and PERSONNE who will
Speaker 1: rename me, and they said, Boss, I don't really get
Speaker 1: on with person B. I'd prefer if you don't crew
Speaker 1: me up with them. And then person B went in
Speaker 1: and said the same thing about PERSONAE. The senior pilot
Speaker 1: listened to them both and then brought them both into
Speaker 1: the room and sat them down and said the personally,
Speaker 1: how long have you got left in the squadron? And
Speaker 1: they said some like fifteen months in Person B said,
Speaker 1: they asked, and he said eighteen months. And he said,
Speaker 1: you two fuckers are going to be flying together every
Speaker 1: single day for the next fifteen months. Go and sort
Speaker 1: your shit out. There is no room for egos. This
Speaker 1: is a team, right, And that was it. They were
Speaker 1: just crewed up forever and ever brilliant way to shortcut
Speaker 1: that right, right.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because every conflict or pattern we get
Speaker 2: into in our life won't necessarily be helped by exactly
Speaker 2: the same solution.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So let's say you, for example, you have a warring partnership,
Speaker 2: so the same situation. Let's say let's go really heteronormative,
Speaker 2: like a husband and wife and they hate each other.
Speaker 2: The solution may not be in that situation, just go
Speaker 2: away and sort it out, but correct situation. But there
Speaker 2: are other scenarios in which what you're talking about is
Speaker 2: absolutely perfect because what the boss decided I did to
Speaker 2: do there was like, I see your drama. I see
Speaker 2: you're trying to drag me into some kind of triangle.
Speaker 2: And instead of playing the game, and instead of allowing
Speaker 2: gossip to happen, and instead of you're relying on me
Speaker 2: fixing your problems, I'm going to sit here and the
Speaker 2: three of us are going to talk like adults. So
Speaker 2: it's wonderful when I hear things like that, and you
Speaker 2: hear that it worked out, You're just like, yes, you
Speaker 2: notice the drama. You decided not to get involved and
Speaker 2: you sorted it, and you know, I assume that had
Speaker 2: it not have worked out, let's say six months later
Speaker 2: or a month later, even if it had become untenable,
Speaker 2: then you think of another solution. But having conversations out
Speaker 2: in the open is almost always the best way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And this is the extreme circumstances, right, because
Speaker 1: these people might have to go to war with each other. Right,
Speaker 1: So that is an extreme and so it's certainly not
Speaker 1: what I was suggesting for everybody to do. Now, let's
Speaker 1: not talk about the importance. You write about the importance
Speaker 1: of historical grips. So what are they and how did
Speaker 1: they influence? Just give us a couple of examples.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is I don't want it, do you
Speaker 2: to imagine that everything that you learned as a child
Speaker 2: is going to dictate what you do as an adult.
Speaker 2: But generally, when you came into the world, you learned
Speaker 2: what you were meant to do in any given scenario
Speaker 2: by watching the people around you and how they responded.
Speaker 2: So let's say, for example, if your parents were into
Speaker 2: having others over for dinner, you will have learned what
Speaker 2: hosting looked like based on how they hosted. Everyone else
Speaker 2: let's say, for example, your parents had affairs when things
Speaker 2: got stressful, you learned when things get stressful, you sleep
Speaker 2: with other people. So if you imagine, if you imagine
Speaker 2: that you're kind of writing down a script that says,
Speaker 2: when X happens, I do why. This is one way
Speaker 2: of conceptualizing how family scripts family behaviors are past generation
Speaker 2: to generation. Now, obviously I don't want to underplay individual
Speaker 2: differences DNA the fact that lots of us naturally have
Speaker 2: our own ways of being. But often when we get
Speaker 2: to a certain age in our life or a certain
Speaker 2: position in our life that reminds us of something to
Speaker 2: do to our family, we enact their patents. So something
Speaker 2: that can be really useful is if you start noticing
Speaker 2: that you're doing something you don't like, is to say,
Speaker 2: where did this start in my family tree? Did I
Speaker 2: come up with this or did someone three generations ago
Speaker 2: start drinking when they were stressed? Identifying where it came
Speaker 2: from is the first thing, because it helps give you
Speaker 2: compassion for why you're doing it self. Criticism flogging yourself
Speaker 2: isn't actually very motivating. Compassion plus responsibility that is how
Speaker 2: you make change. So intergenerational scripts dictate how you're going
Speaker 2: to act in certain circumstances. And what's really important I
Speaker 2: think to know is we have three different kinds of scripts.
Speaker 2: We have the ones where we replicate the ones we
Speaker 2: have to generate ourselves because we simply never saw someone
Speaker 2: do it. So for example, when tech came out, you know,
Speaker 2: like like proper iPhones, like there's no playbook, right yeah,
Speaker 2: so you just like creator in script. And then we
Speaker 2: have corrective scripts. This is the one where you say
Speaker 2: I don't like the way my family did this, or
Speaker 2: I don't like the thing I learned, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to do something different. And it's really exciting that we can,
Speaker 2: for example, literally sit down, write down the habits we
Speaker 2: don't like, the behaviors we don't like, identify where they
Speaker 2: started in time, and decide on a new way of being.
Speaker 2: And I won't go into it now because I don't
Speaker 2: know if we have time. But one of the really
Speaker 2: exciting things is one of the exciting things to learn
Speaker 2: is there is an issue that is we often try
Speaker 2: and overcorrect those scripts. So parents were too strict, So
Speaker 2: I'm going to be really lenient, which then leads to
Speaker 2: new issues, right, which often then leads the next generation
Speaker 2: to say, well, my parents didn't set any boundaries, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to come.
Speaker 1: So the generation the behaviors in the beautiful patterns.
Speaker 2: But we see it in politics. We see this over
Speaker 2: correcting everywhere. And a moment ago, I said, what's exciting
Speaker 2: and I don't really mean exciting, but what's exciting is
Speaker 2: when you think about these experiences from the position of
Speaker 2: these the scripts, sometimes we overcorrect. This is when we
Speaker 2: can realize, Okay, I can choose a new way, I
Speaker 2: can find middle ground, I can decide not to overcorrect,
Speaker 2: and I can actually make a future for the generations
Speaker 2: to come that won't lead to this kind of pendulum
Speaker 2: swing front to back. This is how we genuinely will
Speaker 2: make change I think in the world, both politically, climate
Speaker 2: change wise, and in our kind of just like immediate family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can. I can see the overcorrection playing
Speaker 1: out in some parts of society right now. But that
Speaker 1: that corrective because I as you started to talk in
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that and then you just started
Speaker 1: talking about corrective scripts. So is there some thing right?
Speaker 1: So let's take alcohol in the family or drugs in
Speaker 1: the family, and often you will see that beheave you're repeating,
Speaker 1: But then often you see somebody go the other way.
Speaker 1: Is there something that is consistent or tangible, whether it's
Speaker 1: a personality traitor or some other thing that causes one
Speaker 1: person to replicate that behavior where the other person completely
Speaker 1: goes the other way. Is there anything consistent in here
Speaker 1: or is it a complex mix of things.
Speaker 2: It's definitely a complex mix. It's definitely a complex mix
Speaker 2: because you can often see within the same family, siblings
Speaker 2: who were raised in the same environment by the same people,
Speaker 2: like enacting the same script, go in two completely different directions.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's because it was a conscious choice made early
Speaker 2: in life, and other times it may be because they
Speaker 2: had enough influence, for example, outside of the family or
Speaker 2: their DNA, so their actual temperament just simply isn't wired to.
Speaker 1: Be like that. Yeah, or maybe it's the age. And
Speaker 1: then the reason I asked that question, I've got a
Speaker 1: may Well obviously really me nameless, pretty hard upbringing parents
Speaker 1: and both drug addicts heroin addicts. He was the older brother,
Speaker 1: and he tells stories about coming home with his younger
Speaker 1: brother and having to spin his parents around in these
Speaker 1: church because they had heroin needles. Stuck out of their arms.
Speaker 1: They both died of heroin overdoses, and my mate went
Speaker 1: on to become an officer in the British Armed Forces
Speaker 1: and his younger brother became a heroin addict who he
Speaker 1: is constantly rescuing. So that made me think, like, is
Speaker 1: it something in somebody's personality outside in You rightly said
Speaker 1: outside influences, because often they just need that one mentor
Speaker 1: who's outside the family, right, But it also just struck
Speaker 1: me it could have been the IgE and that maturity
Speaker 1: whenever he kind of had the wherewithal to go this
Speaker 1: is wrong, or maybe the sense of responsibility that he
Speaker 1: had for his younger brother could have been one of
Speaker 1: those things, right, a number of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And sibling position is really interesting in terms of
Speaker 2: the way that shapes our personality too. So it's just
Speaker 2: I find humans utterly fascinating. There are so many factors
Speaker 2: that can shape who we are and what we do.
Speaker 2: And if we kind of go full circle to the
Speaker 2: beginning of our conversation and we realize that at the moment,
Speaker 2: maybe we're only fully present to kind of fifty something,
Speaker 2: maybe less than that percent of our lives, imagine the
Speaker 2: capability the capacity that we would have if we kind
Speaker 2: of got aware, if we decided to notice what patterns
Speaker 2: we're replicating that we do want and we don't want.
Speaker 2: If we decided, you know, I'm going to figure out
Speaker 2: who I actually want to be. I'm going to surround
Speaker 2: myself by people who are going to support that, and
Speaker 2: I am going to create an environment that sets me
Speaker 2: up for success. How exciting would that be? It's just,
Speaker 2: you know, humans are amazing, amazing people. I'm always amazed
Speaker 2: by their capacity to survive. But yeah, sometimes we need
Speaker 2: a little bit of a nudge in the right direction.
Speaker 1: We do, we absolutely do. And I think for anybody
Speaker 1: who is struggling wants to become a better version of
Speaker 1: themselves or are just wants to become on stuck, and
Speaker 1: I think you've got a brilliant resource. And I'm not
Speaker 1: just blowing smoke up your arse, as we used to
Speaker 1: say in Northern Ireland. It is I like to call
Speaker 1: myself a procademic. Yours your book is a true procademic book,
Speaker 1: right because it's got all the research, but it's just
Speaker 1: written in such a way that makes really good understanding.
Speaker 1: And people just go, oh shit, oh fuck, oh that's me.
Speaker 1: Oh that's me. But what I really like about it
Speaker 1: is it's not just a here's why you do what
Speaker 1: you do your muppet, but it's also here's what you
Speaker 1: can do about it, which is what I really like it.
Speaker 1: And it's all laid out there. So I highly recommend
Speaker 1: all of the readers to go and buy Unstuck. It's
Speaker 1: going to be very soon. It's not not quite yet.
Speaker 1: I think it's next week, is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, next week's second of June.
Speaker 1: Twenty second of June, next week. And you also have
Speaker 1: a book on how to be a human that you
Speaker 1: know that appeals a manual for being human? I like that,
Speaker 1: I do you know. I nearly called my book Man's
Speaker 1: called Death by Comfort, Why modern life is killing us
Speaker 1: and what we need to do about it. It was
Speaker 1: almost called a survival guide for the modern words, right,
Speaker 1: and so that manual. We all need a bit of manuals.
Speaker 1: And having a manual written by somebody who really understands
Speaker 1: human behavior. I think that beautiful combination of psychology and neuroscience.
Speaker 1: It just makes so much sense to people. So where
Speaker 1: can people find out more about doctor sof and all
Speaker 1: of your little links?
Speaker 2: Perfect? So I have an Instagram and it's at underscore
Speaker 2: dr sof so Underscore d R s Oph. I used
Speaker 2: to joke about who is at dr SOF. I don't
Speaker 2: know who this person is, and I still to this
Speaker 2: day don't know who they are. But I have now
Speaker 2: reached the point where I'm like, it's okay, you can
Speaker 2: have doctor Soph. I'm fine about it. So I have
Speaker 2: an Instagram where I share mostly daily, and then my
Speaker 2: website doctor soap dot com so d R s oph
Speaker 2: dot com where you can find my newsletter sign up,
Speaker 2: and I send out bi weekly emails that include blogs
Speaker 2: that are always procademic. I love that word. So we'll
Speaker 2: give you tangible takeaways, and it normally shares something kind
Speaker 2: of nuanced, something new, and something I always say it's
Speaker 2: nuanced new borrowed blue, so blue is normally something like
Speaker 2: a fun lu joke at the end, and the new
Speaker 2: is some kind of tipbit about something that's come out
Speaker 2: in research that week. But it will give you some
Speaker 2: practical skills to take away and then you can double
Speaker 2: in the world of mental health productivity and just finding
Speaker 2: out who you really are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, geezing into the abyss. Love it and doctor so
Speaker 1: thank you for taking a time of an evening, a hot,
Speaker 1: sweaty evening and lighty. Nobody's going to be able to
Speaker 1: get any sleep tonight because nobody's going to our conditioning
Speaker 1: in the UK for good reasons, and.
Speaker 2: They've probably sold out of fans. I mean, it's just wild.
Speaker 2: It's just a wild ride of lighty right now. But anyway,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for having me on. Honestly, this
Speaker 2: was a delight now.
Speaker 1: It was awesome, and I really love the fact that
Speaker 1: we did the whole podcast with you sitting on the floor.
Speaker 1: That's just cool.
Speaker 2: Don't telling me what.
Speaker 1: I will definitely have you on again at some stage
Speaker 1: at doctor self. That has been absolutely brilliant. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Have a lovely day.