Oh For Food's Sake

Book Review: The Chimp Paradox

Episode Summary

You walk into a crucial NPD meeting knowing that you have bad news to deliver. When your senior colleagues start to question you, you feel your blood pressure rising and your anger boiling up. What if we told you that that behaviour isn’t actually you, but a chimp instead? On this episode of the Oh For Food’s Sake podcast, we review Professor Steve Peters’ book The Chimp Paradox.

Episode Notes

You walk into a crucial NPD meeting knowing that you have bad news to deliver. When your senior colleagues start to question you, you feel your blood pressure rising and your anger boiling up. What if we told you that that behaviour isn’t actually you, but a chimp instead? On this episode of the Oh For Food’s Sake podcast, we review Professor Steve Peters’ book The Chimp Paradox.

Amy walks us through the chimp model of our brain structure, explaining the three key parts of our brain and how they make us who we are. Using Professor Peters’ theory, we explore how to retrain your brain to get rid of your ‘gremlins’ so you can be a happier, more productive person. Tune in for tips on how to appease your inner chimp with bananas in the form of different kinds of behaviour. You’ll also learn how to diagnose other people’s inner chimps so that you can improve your communication.

Have you read The Chimp Paradox? How often do you feel your inner chimp override the human element of your brain? Join the book discussion over on our Facebook page! If you’d like to learn more about The Chimp Paradox or have a training course on using the chimp model in your workplace, please get in touch with us using the links below. You can also hear more from us by subscribing to the Oh For Food’s Sake podcast.

Timestamps

[1:20] Join us for our OFFS book review episode!

[2:36] Why we love The Chimp Paradox

[4:14] How mindset makes the difference in sport

[5:52] Breaking down the ‘chimp’ and ‘human’ parts of our brain

[9:34] The role of the ‘computer’ and its goblins and gremlins

[11:40] Retraining your brain: Getting rid of brain gremlins

[13:55] How to use this brain model to improve your life

[16:02] What your chimp needs from you

[19:10] The three things you can do to make sure your chimp doesn’t take control

[22:48] ‘Distraction’ and ‘reward’: The two kinds of bananas to feed your chimp

[25:14] “Our chimps are the same, the computers are different”