Chapter 4
The Computer: Programming Your Automatic Responses
Your Computer stabilizes your divided mind by providing automatic functions and serving as a reference source. When born, your Computer is an empty hard drive that gets filled by either your Human or Chimp. It doesn't have original thoughts but acts based on stored information. Potentially more powerful than both your Chimp and Human, your Computer becomes the reference source for both.
Your Computer contains four elements: Autopilots (helpful automatic behaviors and beliefs), Gremlins (unhelpful automatic behaviors and beliefs that can be removed), Goblins (deeply embedded unhelpful behaviors and beliefs that are difficult to remove), and Life Stones (values and beliefs used to live your life).
Autopilots are positive, constructive beliefs and behaviors that help you become successful and happy. They can be programmed into your Computer at any age, including abilities like riding a bike, staying calm when problems arise, focusing on solutions, and having a positive self-image.
Gremlins and Goblins are the opposite-unhelpful automatic behaviors, beliefs, and programs. Goblins are programmed into your Computer when very young (before age eight), are strongly programmed, and difficult to remove. Gremlins typically appear after age eight, are more weakly programmed, and can be removed.
One common Goblin is the "Refrigerator Door Syndrome," where parents link a child's worthiness to their achievements, such as praising a child's drawing and displaying it on the refrigerator. The message conveyed: your achievements make you worthy. This differs from emphasizing that the child is worthy regardless of achievements. This Goblin makes many people anxious about others' judgments and measure self-worth by results.
Common Gremlins include unrealistic and unhelpful expectations that lead to negative emotions like frustration, anger, or disappointment. For example, the belief "I must always be on time" could be replaced with the Autopilot "I want to be on time when I can, but sometimes this doesn't happen."
To manage your Computer effectively, you need to recognize and replace Gremlins with Autopilots, prevent more Gremlins from entering your Computer, refine your Life Stone, and build and live by your Mindset.
Replacing Gremlins requires identifying unhelpful beliefs and replacing them with more constructive truths. For instance, if you struggle to say "no," ask yourself what you fear will happen if you refuse a request. Replace beliefs like "saying no means I'm selfish" with "saying no is an appropriate response from an adult who respects their own boundaries."
Your Life Stone contains your "Life Truths," "Values," and "Life Force"-the principles by which you live. These form the most powerful influence on your Chimp, Human, and existence-the strongest stabilizer for your Psychological Mind and entire Universe.
Chapter 5
Personality and Mind: How Your Three Brains Work Together
Your three brains-Human, Chimp, and Computer-work together and influence your personality. When your Chimp and Human are relaxed and unconcerned, your Computer automatically runs routine daily tasks without conscious effort. However, if danger or an unusual situation arises, your Chimp or Human wakes up and takes control.
Your personality is the embedded, predictable behaviors and responses you display. The personality you show is a mixture of your Human, Chimp, and Computer. Your Human and Chimp have separate personalities that can be either constructive or destructive. Your Chimp's personality has nothing to do with you; it's a machine given to work with you. Your Computer merely modifies what your Human and Chimp present, depending on how it's programmed.
To understand who you truly are, write down all the characteristics you want from your personality. This is the real you, while any deviation represents a hijacking by your Chimp. When trying to be yourself, your Chimp constantly interferes with emotions that make you present yourself in ways you don't like. If you don't recognize this hijacking, you might become disheartened and feel like you're always failing, which leads to "beating yourself up." Instead, see yourself as the person you want to be who's being hijacked, then work to manage your Chimp and remove Gremlins-a much more constructive approach.
You can't change your Chimp, but you can manage it and maintain your Computer so your true self emerges. To develop your ideal personality, you need to: develop yourself, manage your Chimp, remove Gremlins, communicate effectively, have the right people around you, create a world that suits you, look after yourself, and get quality of life. All these areas are covered in the planets of the Psychological Universe, representing aspects of life you can manage to achieve fulfillment.
Chapter 6
Understanding Others: The Planet of Others
Planet Others encompasses the relationships and interactions you have with other people in various circumstances. Understanding others will give you the ability to form meaningful and beneficial relationships with them. Like the case of a man struggling with his wife until he realized she also had a Chimp that could get out of control. When both recognized this, they could help each other manage their Chimps, allowing two Humans to work together.
Understanding others will benefit you. Just as you wouldn't throw a stick to a cat expecting it to fetch, or expect a dog to sit all day without walking, you need to understand the needs of the person in front of you. By working with realistic expectations, you can help them and avoid frustration. You can't change how people present themselves, but you can decide to bring out the best in them and accept their limitations-or leave if you can't tolerate their behavior.
We often assume others have brains programmed the same as ours, yet some people have brains that function differently. For example, people with autistic spectrum disorders experience difficulty reading facial expressions, body language, and others' emotions. By understanding they don't intend to offend, we can work effectively with them, as in the case of a father frustrated with his autistic son. After understanding his son's brain structure, they agreed on a simple action plan that helped both tremendously.
Another example of different brains is psychopaths (also called sociopaths or antisocial personality disorder). Not all psychopaths commit violence-most live normal, successful lives but damage those around them. They exist in almost every profession and have learned to restrain themselves. A psychopath's brain lacks the Humanity Center that generates feelings of guilt, remorse, compassion, empathy, and conscience. They're typically cold and calculating. It's important to recognize psychopaths because they're destructive. If involved with someone you suspect is a psychopathic, seek advice, don't blame yourself, and don't expect them to change.
Different Mindsets can cause people to get stuck in their behaviors and beliefs. Many people only show some characteristics of a Mindset, not the complete picture. One example is the Snow White Mindset, more commonly found in women. This includes Gremlins like not taking responsibility for decisions and happiness, feeling like a victim of circumstances, and feeling powerless to change situations. Sufferers often sigh and make subtle body movements to ensure others feel indebted, and use passive-aggressive behavior when challenged. They struggle to escape this mindset because it requires a genuine challenge to their approach to life.
Chapter 7
Effective Communication: Connecting Across Minds
After examining how the Psychological Mind works and the Planet of Others, we now consider how two minds interact. The inability to communicate effectively can lead to frustration and conflict, so we need to dedicate time to improving communication skills. If you don't set aside time and work on communication, don't be surprised if you don't experience improvement.
There are four ways two people can communicate. Each party can be in Chimp mode (emotionally charged and not necessarily logical) or Human mode (logical and not emotionally charged). The ideal conversation is Human to Human, as it will be logical and focused. The worst scenario is a conversation between two Chimps-highly emotional and likely to involve many attacks and defenses. If one person is in Human mode and the other in Chimp mode, the conversation is unlikely to be helpful.
The Communication Box is the basis of communication with four corners and one center. For effective communication, we need to remember: the right person (center), the right time, the right place, the right agenda, and the right way. If the middle of the Box isn't right, we're just wasting time. The "endless trail of the wrong person" occurs when someone complains about a particular person to everyone except that person. Speaking to the right person will save much time, effort, and emotional stress.
Being assertive means explaining to others what is and isn't acceptable in your world and why, in a calm, non-emotional way. Being aggressive is expressing emotions and behaviors in an attacking manner. An aggressive approach will wake up the other person's Chimp, which will likely attack back or cower, without hearing the message you want to convey. An assertive approach makes the other person's Chimp less likely to appear, allowing them to hear your message and respond appropriately.
The three parts of assertiveness are: (1) Stating what you don't want using the word "I," (2) Stating the feeling this action generates in you, and (3) Stating what you do want using the word "I." Using "I" is crucial as it makes a clear statement that you're unhappy with the situation and have an opinion about it, rather than just making a request.
The Communication Box has four important corners: the right time, the right place, the right agenda, and the right way. Choosing the right time is crucial-if someone can't listen or you need to speak quickly, communication won't go well. Sufficient time is also needed to convey your point and listen to others. The right place is also crucial-locations that are too noisy or busy make it difficult to concentrate and agitate the Chimp. For complex discussions, choose a private and preferably neutral location, not in either party's territory.
Chapter 8
Managing Stress: Immediate and Chronic Responses
This chapter discusses how to handle sudden stress that can stabilize the Planet of Real World. Stress is a healthy reaction meant to make you uncomfortable-nature's way of telling you there's a problem that needs addressing. Your body releases compounds like adrenaline and cortisol when stressed. You have the choice to merely react or genuinely handle stress in a constructive way.
When stress strikes, your Chimp will act first because all input must pass through it for sorting. When stressed, your Chimp will enter Fight, Flight, or Freeze mode, depending on what it considers the best reaction. It's important to recognize that the first reaction to stress is your Chimp's reaction, not your true self. To prevent your Chimp from taking over, you need effective Autopilots, as your Computer is 20 times faster than your Chimp.
There are seven steps for handling sudden stress: (1) Recognize and change - acknowledge stress and activate your Computer with the word "change"; (2) Hit the pause button - slow down thinking so your Human gets involved; (3) Escape - move away from the situation if possible; (4) Helicopter up - get a broader perspective by questioning the importance of the situation in the long term; (5) Make a plan - focus on what you can control; (6) Reflect and activate - choose your Human to lead; (7) Smile - see the bright side and laugh at yourself if you've overreacted.
The AMP process (Accept, Move on, Plan) is key to getting through unpleasant situations. Accept means exercising your Chimp and expressing emotions, not bottling up feelings. Move on means deciding when you've exercised enough and are ready to continue with life. Plan is crucial for breaking the cycle of problems-without a plan, you'll return to the same problem repeatedly. Always start from where you are now, not where you wish you were, to avoid feeling disheartened.
Chronic stress occurs when someone is stressed for a long time and has learned to live with it. The body makes changes to its systems, hormones, and chemistry. Chronic stress often leads to depressive illness and anxiety. If stress is with serious conditions, medical help is needed.
Symptoms of chronic stress include constant tiredness, irritability, loss of sense of humor, anxiety without reason, inability to relax, paranoid ideas, feeling of urgency about everything, being tearful, inability to face work and friends, small tasks seeming large, and disturbed sleep patterns. To prevent it, you need to use time sensibly, be assertive, have realistic expectations, take appropriate responsibility, deal with problems as they occur, manage your Chimp, recognize potential problems and your limitations, and seek appropriate help early.
Chapter 9
Physical and Mental Health: Caring for Your Machine
This chapter discusses physical and mental health. Illness and poor maintenance create shadows in life, but we can remove them. It's important to understand the difference between malfunction (the machine not working properly/being sick) which requires treatment, and dysfunction (the machine working but not being used properly) which requires maintenance.
Malfunction means you're sick-the machine isn't working properly and you need to see a doctor for treatment. The asteroid belt surrounding the planet represents malfunction and all physical and mental illnesses. Dysfunction is when the machine works well but isn't used correctly or maintained-Shadow Planet represents this dysfunction. To some degree, we all experience dysfunction, and this entire book is about minimizing dysfunction.
Physical maintenance includes nutrition, diet, body weight, exercise, and fitness. Your Chimp and Human have different agendas: your Human knows what it wants and enjoys fitness and healthy eating, while your Chimp avoids responsibility, seeks instant pleasure, and downplays consequences. Your Chimp's default setting is indifference and an easy life, which makes many people struggle to manage their Chimp.
The first golden rule for physical fitness is don't start with problems and then try to find a way out. Start with a blank page and formulate exactly what you want. Know your goal, state how you'll do it, and remove anything blocking achievement. Walking in sticky syrup is disheartening because it means looking at all past failures. Erase your page and start again with a new plan.
The second rule is be proactive and responsive. Successful people are proactive-they have a plan. They're also responsive-if the plan fails, they respond by pulling themselves together and making a new plan. They're resilient and don't give up easily. Unsuccessful people tend to be reactive, basing plans on reactions to problems and continuously fighting against them. Your Chimp tends to be reactive and give up easily, while your Human tends to be proactive and keeps making plans.
Chapter 10
The Path to Success: Planning and Achievement
Planet Success presents the foundation for achieving success by considering how we define and measure success. Your Human and Chimp have different definitions of success-your Chimp seeks possessions and achievements (becoming a millionaire), while your Human seeks personal qualities (becoming happy). It's important to determine your own definition of success without being influenced by others.
There are different ways to measure success. For example, in exam preparation guidance: the first measure is passing the exam (your Chimp's definition), while the second way is completing the guidance or trying to complete it (your Human's definition). By choosing your Human's definition, as long as you try, you cannot fail to achieve success. If you measure success by your best effort, then success and pride in yourself are always in your hands.
Success doesn't have to be black or white-there are various levels and stages in the gray area. You can consider partial success and be happy with it. Partial success is often a reality check about what can realistically be achieved. Appreciating what has been done is more constructive than criticizing yourself for failing to achieve total success. Success can also be divided into stages and celebrated at each stage.
The Dream Machine is a structured approach to optimizing chances of success when you have a specific dream. This model combines aspects from the stabilizing moons around Planet Success and has seven interconnected gears. It's important to remember that there are two personalities planning this journey: you and your Chimp. Your Chimp has its own needs that must be met to keep it on your side-like a small child whose focus doesn't last long, is easily distracted, undisciplined, and always wants rewards.
The first gear in the Dream Machine is understanding the important difference between "dreams" and "goals." Dreams are things you want but don't have complete control over, while goals are things you can set and achieve because you have full control over them. When your brain recognizes it doesn't have full control, it sends blood supply to your Chimp, generating anxiety. Conversely, when your brain recognizes it has control, your Chimp relaxes and blood supply is sent to your Human. Psychological evidence shows that to increase chances of success, you need to dream big and set very challenging goals-aim for the stars, not the moon.
Chapter 11
Happiness: The Ultimate Destination
Planet Happiness discusses how to feel happy by understanding three states of mind: negative (worried and anxious), neutral (content), and positive (happy). To achieve happiness, we must first exit the negative state by ensuring four functional planet systems (Divided Planet, Planet Others, Planet Connected, and Planet Real World) are working well. Then we need to add positive qualities to our lives that go beyond basic contentment.
Happiness is a choice, although it's unrealistic to be happy all the time. Everyone has a different definition of happiness, so it's important to determine what makes you personally happy.
Your mind can be in three states: negative (worried, anxious), neutral (content), and positive (happy). To exit the negative state, you need to ensure four functional planet systems work well, meeting the basic needs of your Chimp (troop, sex, food, power, ego, territory, security) and Human (role in life, soulmate, intellectual stimulation).
To achieve happiness, you need to add positive qualities to your life, not just meet basic needs. This includes additions for your Chimp (having fun, new experiences, enjoyable activities) and Human (laughter, achievement, generous behavior). Happiness can be viewed in aspects of "having" (achievements, possessions, emotional aspects) and "being" (self-identity).
When achieving something, your Chimp often downplays the achievement and immediately seeks a new target. This is seen in athletes who break world records yet consider it "not good enough." We must be careful to celebrate achievements and not let our Chimp downplay them.
Happiness gained from possessions usually only lasts momentarily. Research shows lottery winners, after an adjustment period, return to their previous happiness levels. This is similar to getting something new; its value diminishes over time. We need to be careful to continue appreciating valuable things we have before they're gone.
It's important to recognize conflicts between your Human and Chimp's needs in emotional, physical, and intellectual aspects. Some conflicts are easily handled, like exercising which can satisfy your Chimp's aggressive behavior while being enjoyed by your Human. However, sometimes compromise is needed, as in couples with mismatched sex drives. Ignoring strong drives from your Chimp can be dangerous, as a restless Chimp can take you places you don't want to go. Happiness is based on understanding the needs of both sides and ensuring they're addressed and matched.
Chapter 12
Confidence and Security: The Final Pieces
Self-confidence can be built through two different approaches. The first approach (your Chimp's way) bases confidence on believing in your ability to achieve a certain standard, which always produces fear of failure. The second approach (your Human's way) bases confidence on committing to doing your best and being able to handle any consequences. With the second approach, confidence can reach 100% because you can always guarantee doing your best, even if you can't guarantee the outcome.
Most people think confidence relates to believing in your ability to achieve something. With this thinking, there are only two ways to increase confidence: improve your ability or "brainwash" yourself into believing you can do it. However, there's an alternative, more effective approach: basing confidence on committing to doing your best and being able to handle any consequences. For example, when Liz was asked to give a speech-with the Human approach, she focused on doing her best and being ready for the outcome, so her confidence was 100% and she could relax seeing the speech as an opportunity.
When choosing the Human approach to confidence, several questions often arise. First, "What if I could actually do better?" The answer is simple: doing your best means giving everything you have at that time-you can't do more than your best. Second, "What if I fail?" Human adults can handle any consequences, including failure, unlike Chimps or children. The Human approach allows us to hold our head high and say, "I couldn't do more because that was my best at the time." We also tend to get better results when relaxed and confident than when tense and doubtful.
A common problem making people unhappy is having an unrealistic self-image. Many people lack confidence because they fear saying something stupid or embarrassing themselves. The cause is often a Gremlin belief that we must be perfect-an impossible standard creating an inadequate self-image. In reality, every human continues making mistakes throughout life. Accepting our flaws and weaknesses as normal parts of being human is very liberating. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves and not fear admitting ignorance. The self-image we want to achieve might also be based on an unsuitable role model. Be yourself, because with people, "interesting" is far more powerful than "beautiful" or "clever."
Security is the need to feel safe in our environment and troop, which makes our Chimp happy. Our Chimp and Human have different approaches to security: our Chimp looks outward (environment), while our Human looks inward (beliefs) for security. Our Chimp always tries to remove all risks from our life-something impossible-by keeping everything unchanged. In contrast, our Human is more adventurous, accepting that nothing stays the same, and that vulnerability and risk are unavoidable parts of daily life.
