Most of us have been told that a good doctor stays calm, keeps control, and doesn't let emotion get in the way. But what if control isn't something your brain can actually do? What if the anxiety, frustration and self-criticism you've spent years trying to suppress were never ”you” in the first place? And what if the harder you push logic at them, the more they push back?

In this conversation with Professor Steve Peters, consultant psychiatrist  and author of The Chimp Paradox, we go deeper than the usual resilience chat. Steve has spent 30 years helping medical students and resident doctors understand their own minds, and he breaks down the neuroscience in a way a busy clinician can actually use: why willpower loses, and what works instead.

We cover:

• The three systems in your head: the chimp, the human and the computer, and why the chimp always gets the first bite of the cherry
• ”It is what it is, what's the plan?”: the phrase Steve has programmed in so it fires in under a fifth of a second, before his chimp can take over
• Grade A hits: why you need at least five personal truths that settle your chimp instantly, and why borrowed slogans (including Steve's) won't work for you
• Gremlins, goblins and autopilots: why you can't delete an unhelpful belief, only replace it
• Two plans, not one: why your sensible plan for the rude senior on the ward round collapses unless the chimp gets a plan too
• Pressure comes from you: Steve's blunt take on the 40-patient clinic, failing systems, and why doctors keep propping them up at their own expense
• Why ”I'm anxious” isn't true, and what Steve makes his patients say instead

This episode is for you if you're a brilliant clinician who still beats yourself up on the drive home, or you've tried every well-meaning phrase about self-care and none of it has stuck. You'll come away knowing the difference between you and your chimp, why five minutes a day beats an hour, and the one piece of advice Steve would give his 23-year-old self.

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