Who’s in Charge? You or Monkey Brain?

Meet your Invisible Puppeteer

System 1 and System 2

This puzzle is designed to kick off an invisible tussle inside your head.

Mary’s mother has four daughters. They are called April, May, June, and…?

Can you name her fourth daughter?

The first time you hear this, your subconscious recognises the pattern and wants to answer “July”. But your conscious mind assumes it’s a trick and wants to problem-solve.

So while you consciously try to think through the information you have been given, you have to compete with the strong desire of your subconscious to complete the pattern.

For most people, what we call ‘instinct’ has the upper hand, and it’s hard to get ‘July’ out of our minds. So we don’t work out that ‘Mary’ is the answer.

Instincts about our safety are even more dominant.

We don’t control these instincts; they’re inborn, a reflex. For example, suppose a speeding car is about to hit you.

You don’t stop to think through your options. You feel a rush of adrenaline and instinctively jump out of the way.

System 1 Thinking

In his cutting-edge book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman called this System 1 thinking. System 1 is the ancient survival centre of the brain.

It’s what we’ve called, up until now, the subconscious mind.

System 1’s job is to keep us safe. Its pattern recognition program was developed in childhood, as I described in Chapter 2, ‘The Illusion of Reality’.

Your System 1 Brain operates in the background, scanning all the sights, sounds, sensations or scents streaming into the subconscious.

As it runs the rule over all this data, creating our Edited Reality, it quickly identifies patterns that could signal danger.

So, System 1 ‘thinks fast’: it takes part of a pattern it recognises, fills in the gaps and makes us aware of the danger it has put together from scraps of information.

It does this quickly to protect us. Any delay could put us in danger, so accuracy is less important than speed. Its goal is to spur us to react before it’s too late.

It’s Not Just About Safety — Social Needs Matter Too

Psychologists have added to Kahneman’s work to indicate that the risks System 1 is constantly scanning for are not just safety needs.

Once we feel safe, our social needs, our standing and popularity, move to the forefront.

I refer to these needs throughout the 7 Skills as Safety, Belonging and Esteem.

Remember, System 1 manages millions of bits of information per second, streamed through our senses. It needs to take shortcuts to handle this volume and speed up our reaction time.

But as we have already seen, Kahneman proved that this process makes System 1 prone to jumping to conclusions and making mistakes.

System 1 Exaggerates Dangers

Sometimes, it will even see a risk where there isn’t one. This tactic has been successful throughout evolution, so it’s still with us today.

Your subconscious will trigger Fight, Flight or Freeze (FFF) in moments of pressure, which is often unhelpful in modern times.

Even worse, it has evolved to emphasise or even exaggerate anything it thinks may be dangerous.

It’s not hard to understand why. Imagine an ancient ancestor (AA) walking along a path in the bush and glimpsing something through the undergrowth. Our ancestor doesn’t get a clear view. Just a flash of what could be a wild animal.

Maybe they see a part of the hide, or a paw or an ear. But the pattern is familiar to the Hunter-Gatherer. The subconscious mind fills in the missing pieces and fires the thought into AA’s conscious awareness that a lethal predator is waiting in ambush.

And so their subconscious wants to get them out of harm’s way. The only tool it has for this is FFF. AA’s heart rate shoots up, and adrenaline surges, preparing them to react without thinking.

Within a heartbeat of seeing the pattern, and without a moment’s thought, FFF kicks in, and our ancient ancestor runs away. They survive!

Now, suppose this pattern didn’t belong to a deadly beast. Maybe some shapes glimpsed through the undergrowth were of a smaller, harmless creature resembling the predator.

AA’s subconscious still comes to the same conclusion, and runs away. No harm done. The mistake wasn’t fatal, and they survived!

But what if the subconscious minimised the risk?

For example, if our ancestors had thought, “I’m not sure if it’s a small friendly creature or a dangerous predator, I’ll go and check”. Often enough, that ancestor would not survive to pass on their genes!

The ‘better safe than sorry’ approach has been hardwired into our brains. Maybe that’s why this instinct is still with us in modern times.

Ananya’s Edited Reality

This is what happened to Ananya at the seminar in Chapter 1. As I said in the last chapter:

“At the seminar, when she looked at the blank faces in front of her, she was looking at a group of people who were relieved that they weren’t in her shoes. And who felt sympathy and empathy for her situation.”

“But that’s not the reality her subconscious mind made for her. It projected the image of a sneering and aggressively critical group.”

Ananya’s System 1 exaggerated her risk and created an Edited Reality that fired Fight, Flight or Freeze. Its aim was to cause her to run away or freeze and not be noticed and, thus, avoid the criticism it believed always came her way when she was at the centre of attention.

System 2 Thinking

In today’s world, where physical dangers are less immediate, the instinct to exaggerate risk can lead to unnecessary anxiety.

This is where System 2, or what we call the ‘conscious mind,’ comes into play. It’s a later evolutionary upgrade to our mental software.

It helps us to ‘think slow,’ and assess situations rationally. It allows us to rise above pure instinct and counter the impulsive reactions of our System 1 Brain.

From System 2, we gain self-will, restraint, long-term thinking and problem-solving ability. Kahneman called this ‘Thinking Slow’.

Monkey Brain and the Computer

Many scientists and psychologists describe the mind as having two broad systems: an emotional, impulsive one (often called the “Monkey Brain” or “Chimp”) and a rational, deliberate one (the “Computer” or “Human Brain”). Under stress or emotion, the Monkey Brain, linked to our limbic system and tribal instincts, reacts first and often hijacks our thinking before logic gets a say.

Figures like Dr. Steve Peters, Robert Sapolsky, and Daniel Kahneman all describe this battle between fast, emotional reactions (System 1) and slower, reasoned thinking (System 2). Recognising this pattern is vital, because it allows us to learn how to manage our impulses rather than be ruled by them.

The Stroop Magnet

System 1 wants to ensure your survival, and this goal has priority. In times of stress, it takes over and grabs the driving seat. Let’s explore this effect through the Stroop Test.

Please read the words on the chart below. The first word is ‘pink’.

Now, please try this exercise again. But this time, read the colour of the text rather than the spelling. So, the first word is ‘green’.

Did you find this second run-through harder? If you did, it’s because your System 1 is running its pattern recognition program. Its instinct is to focus on the spelling because it’s a familiar pattern.

System 2 wants to rise above the reading impulse and name colours. So there is a fight for control between System 1 and System 2.

It’s hard enough to resist System 1 when you are relaxed. It can become impossible under pressure.

In adversity, this safety impulse narrows your focus. It magnifies dangers, draws them irresistibly to the centre of your attention and limits you to System 1 thinking.

This effect is called a Stroop Magnet.

When System 1 wins out, we switch to autopilot. We become unthinking and reactive. You might freeze, your limbs feel stiff, and you might be trembling (onset of FFF).

Reasoning is difficult, and it’s hard to answer even straightforward questions. And if it has completely switched off System 2, even the power of speech can desert us (full FFF).

How Did This Relate to Eddard and Jacqui?

As we learn about the workings of System 1 and System 2, can I invite you to think back to Jacqui and Eddard on that fateful night when we met them in the Prelude Chapter?

In those crucial moments, her System 1 was driven by stress and the profound pain of grief and despair. She was making a life-altering decision, but her rational System 2 mind was switched off.

Eddard’s Struggle

And don’t forget, Eddard was involved in the same struggle to control his mind. The stress of having the life of Jacqui and her children in his hands was a classic trigger for System 1 to step in and take over.

But Eddard kept his System 2 switched on, even during the most stressful moments of that negotiation. And he used his seemingly casual language with Jacqui to bypass the resistance of her System 1, reach in and bring her System 2 back online.

This moment depicts the complex battle for dominance etween our instincts on one side and our strengths and abilities on the other side.

Eddard was in no doubt about how he managed to do this. He would talk about how the first three pillars of the 7 Skills to impress™ turned his negotiations from a tit-for-tat argument and power struggle into a genuine and cooperative search for the best outcome.

In his view, Identify Your Outcome, Manage Your State, and Practice Rapport (IMP) were 80% of the secret.

They were the foundation of his composure and the connection with Jacqui that enabled his influence. The remaining elements of the 7 Skills created the persuasive words that allowed him to “change minds”. (We reveal all his methods in Part 2 of The 7 Skills to impress™.)

Keep this story in mind as we explore further how our subconscious and conscious minds wrestle for control, especially when the stakes are at their highest.

The Force Behind the Curtain: Identity

System 1’s job is to protect you. And it does that relentlessly. Yet it does not work alone. It is guided by a deeply ingrained sense of who you are. That inner picture of yourself influences what feels safe, what feels threatening, and what matters. We call that inner picture your Identity.

Formed early in our lives, Identity shapes our perception of the world and our reactions to it. It’s built upon fundamental beliefs, some of which we have already talked about. They are:

Safety
Belonging
Esteem
Capability
Sense of Purpose

These qualities are more than just a list. They are like a matrix, interwoven through every cell of our being. They are the building blocks of our psychological and emotional soul.

They form an innate sense of who we are. A self-portrait mainly built by age six, which, from then on, quietly steers our every waking moment.

And that is what Identity is.

Identity is the Template for your Edited Reality

I mentioned above that System 1 needs help to know what protection we need. And to guide its Sifting and Sorting accordingly.

This is where Identity comes in. It acts like a template that decides what data is sifted and sorted into your System 2 awareness.

System 1 thinks it has built your Identity perfectly for this role. From your first moments, it began working out if you were safe, wanted, respected and capable.

And over your first few years, Identity builds a set of beliefs around your strengths or flaws in these areas. And they act like rules to protect you from risk.

These beliefs and rules become totally ingrained, a part of who you are.

System 1 constantly filters sensory information through this lens of Identity as we navigate through life.

It allows through only what matches our deep-seated beliefs and rules. And from this very cropped set of information, System 1 crafts our ‘Edited Reality’ (ER).

And our ER creates a sense of safety or risk, a picture that may or may not be reliable. And if we feel danger because of our ER, our System 1 may try to shut down System 2.

Understanding this intricate dance between our subconscious instincts, conscious thoughts, and the role of Identity is crucial.

It’s about who we are and how Identity shapes how we assess and interact with the world around us.

Ananya and Eddard’s Identity

What we’ve learned about Identity casts further light on Ananya and Eddard and the counting exercise at the seminar we heard about in Chapter 1.

Ananya’s Identity would contain ideas such as:

I’m not good enough

and

Everyone thinks I’m stupid.

For Eddard, it would be more like:

I’ve got what it takes to handle any challenge.

And since their impression of the event is led by Identity, this same event looked entirely different for each of them. And their individual take on what it meant to them was instant.

And so, Ananya’s Sifting and Sorting process would filter out any evidence of her abilities and the respect she was held in. Her ER was of an audience ready to shoot her down.

All Eddard sensed was support and respect.

As a result, Ananya was stressed and panicked. Eddard felt comfortable and at ease and could perform at his best. And as I said, their unique reactions were instant.

What You’ve Just Learned and Why It Matters

In Who’s in Charge?, we saw the tug-of-war between your two minds:

System 1, the fast, instinctive “Monkey Brain” that jumps to protect you
System 2, the slower, rational “Computer” that lets you solve problems and act with intention.

We learned how, in moments of pressure, your Monkey Brain often grabs the wheel, triggering Fight, Flight or Freeze, shutting down your thinking, and altering how you see the world.

We saw how this played out for Ananya at the seminar, how it nearly consumed Jacqui in her moment of despair, and how Eddard, using the 7 Skills, kept his System 2 engaged and chose language that reawakened Jacqui’s.

The takeaway? You can’t turn Monkey Brain off, but you can learn to work around it.

And that journey begins with understanding what your Monkey Brain is protecting: Your Identity.

What’s Coming Next and Why It’s Important

In “The Identity Matrix, How To Build a Human Being”, we shine a light on the hidden system that’s been quietly shaping your behaviour, emotions, and instincts since birth.

You’ll discover:

The five building blocks of Identity: Safety, Belonging, Esteem, Capability, and Purpose.
Why your reactions to pressure aren’t random; they’re coded into your Identity.
How your score on each building block forms your IDQ (Identity Quotient), a measure of how confidently and calmly you show up in life.

You’ll see why Ananya’s fear of judgement wasn’t irrational, it was her Identity working overtime to protect her from what it believed was danger.

And why Eddard’s calmness wasn’t just experience, it came from a strong internal sense of Safety, Belonging, and Capability.

You’ll even start to understand Jacqui’s mindset that night in the park, not as weakness, but as the inevitable result of an Identity shaped by grief and abandonment.

This chapter isn’t just about understanding yourself; it’s about rebuilding the foundations of confidence and composure.

Because once you decode the matrix, you can begin to reshape it.

UP NEXT: Chapter 4: The Identity Matrix: How to Build a Human Being