The Triple T
Every episode ends with one thing you can actually do. Small, specific, and tested on the hosts first. Here are all of them so far.
For when you are stressed or overwhelmed. Sit still and work through your senses: five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste.
The point is the attention rather than the senses. We have very little conscious control over heart rate or breathing, but we can choose where to point our attention, and doing that on purpose settles everything else down. If you lose your place halfway through, start again at five. That is part of the exercise.
When you are stuck or on the spot, ask a question. If the conversation stalls or the nerves kick in, an open question hands the floor back to the other person and takes the pressure off you.
It is the move underneath the whole Ossoff interview, and it works just as well at a party as it does in a Senate hearing. If someone puts you on the spot, you can always ask them why they are asking. One catch: it does not work in a media interview, which is exactly why Hegseth had nowhere to hide.
Ask yourself one question: what do I actually want here? At a party, in a meeting, or in a conversation that is making you anxious, stop and name the goal.
Do you want to look clever, or do you want the other person to leave feeling good? Another drink, or an early night? Naming what you are really after tends to change what you do next. It works in a meeting too: walk in knowing what you want and you say less, say it better, and are far more likely to get it.
If you do something you love you never really work a day. That is the long game to keep in mind when a single set of grades feels like the whole story.
The results are one stepping stone, not the destination. Keep your eye on what you actually want your life to look like, and there is almost always more than one route to it.
Wait a second before you respond. Most of the harm we do, and most of the nonsense we spread, comes from reacting to a headline as though we already know the whole story.
There is nearly always a backstory, a complication, a perspective you have not heard. Let investigations run their course, let the facts arrive, and above all do not send the tweet. It will almost certainly be wrong.
Turn on the screen time report, look at the number honestly, and then decide the rules rather than letting the app decide them for you. Thirty minutes. Nothing after a certain hour. No phones at the dinner table.
This is not advice aimed downwards: Peter's own screen time is not great, and understanding addictive design has not made him immune to it. And limits are not only for phones. Being able to say no to people is the same muscle.
If you have said something embarrassing, own it straight away and it clears the problem almost entirely.
The example is a moment at PMQs where the Prime Minister said something rude by accident, realised it mid sentence, apologised while still saying it, and then apologised publicly afterwards. Nobody got to spend the afternoon calling him rude, because he had already said it himself.
Peter is straight about this one not being a wellbeing tip. It is not do this and you will feel better, it is do this and you will be better. When something is presented to you, before you elaborate on it, take a step back and ask what the evidence for it actually is.
He arrived with his own example. He asked ChatGPT for interesting facts about Manchester for a family walking tour, and it told him about a Victorian fountain of liquid mercury in St Peter's Square, lit by gas lamps, tickets a farthing, closed because of the fumes. He asked for a source. It said there was not one and that it had made the whole thing up, because he had wanted those stories. His point is not to stop using the tools. It is that asking where a claim comes from is a habit almost nobody has, and it costs very little.
Take the position you disagree with and make the case for it properly, the way its best advocate would. Peter's framing is the courtroom: if you are in the defence lawyer's position, try arguing it from the prosecution's, and the other way round. Then ask yourself the real question, which is what would I say if I were motivated for a different outcome.
It follows straight from the Concept of the Week. If you reach a conclusion first and build the argument afterwards, the only way to see that happening is to build the other one on purpose. Peter uses the week's own headlines as the exercise: what would you say if you thought it a great shame the assisted dying bill fell, and what would you say if you supported Reform accepting the money. He can do both, out loud, and he points out that money from the unions is the same shape of argument seen from the other side. He is clear that this is not a wellbeing tip. It will not make you feel better, and it is good for your brain. Hilary's mother had the shorter version: walk in someone else's shoes before you judge them.
Go first. On the tube, in the office, in any room where everyone is looking at everyone else to see what the done thing is, somebody has to move, and Peter's tip is that it might as well be you. He is honest about the cost: you may be the only one who moves, and the person you step in for might not thank you. You will still have done the right thing.
It is the other half of the Concept of the Week. If the bystander effect is people waiting to receive a cue from others, then the person who gives the cue breaks it, and the research suggests that once one person steps forward the rest tend to follow. Peter extends it to dating with an algorithm he attributes loosely to game theory: do not ask out the person you think is your level, ask the one you actually like and work down, because a no leaves you exactly where you started. Hilary's reply, from a producer she knew on a dating show, is that this sounds like a very male attitude.
For a decision you cannot make. Set it up as a coin toss, heads one way and tails the other, and toss it. While it is in the air, ask yourself which way you want it to land. At that moment, you know how you feel, whatever the coin says.
The toss makes the choice feel real for a second, and the hope that comes with it tells you what you already wanted. There is research behind it: Mariela Jaffé and colleagues found in 2019 that a coin flip sharpens how people feel about their options, and Steven Levitt found that people whose coin told them to make a change were happier six months later. Peter admits it sits awkwardly next to his other advice, do what you believe to be right after careful thought, and adds a third tip for free: take tips with a pinch of salt.
Next time you do something embarrassing, take the other seat. Ask what you would do if you saw it happen to someone else. You would glance over, maybe have a chuckle, and get on with your day. It would not be the most important thing in the world, and you would not particularly judge the person.
It is the counterpoint to the spotlight effect, the Concept of the Week. The moment feels enormous because you are at the centre of your own attention; seen from the outside it is just an incident in someone's day. Peter's own example is the bike: he fell over at a crossroads in France, got a ripple of applause, and cycled off. Was he particularly embarrassed by it? Not really.
When you are convinced something is not there, your keys, an error, a person you think you have missed, stop and look again from a different angle. Peter means it literally and metaphorically: change where you stand, or argue from the other point of view. Looking for your keys? Think where the cat would put them.
It is the answer to attentional blindness, the Concept of the Week. If you are focused on the basketball you will not see the gorilla, because your brain makes a mask of whatever you are not attending to. Changing the angle changes what you are attending to. Hilary's versions: her art teacher had her turn the painting upside down, and when she is looking for her keys she says keys, keys, keys to stop her brain drifting off to fudge.
Before you buy something that might be conspicuous consumption, ask yourself: if I bought this, and for the rest of human history nobody ever knew I owned it, would I still buy it?
It separates what you want from what you want to be seen with, which is the heart of conspicuous consumption, the Concept of the Week. Something that is genuinely good can still win social approval, and that is fine; buying it to be a peacock is different. Peter uses the test on himself when he sees a little jewelled thing he has to have now, and often finds the attraction would fade within a couple of days.
The ideas behind the tips live on the Concept of the Week page.