WHY DO
SMART
PEOPLE
KEEP MAKING
IRRATIONAL
DECISIONS?
The Snack Monkey isn't really about eating. It's about the hidden behavioural forces that shape health, leadership, cybersecurity, relationships and the decisions we make every day.
WHY WIM HOF
WROTE THE
FOREWORD
Wim Hof — world record holder, creator of the Wim Hof Method, author and international phenomenon — agreed to write the foreword for the second edition of The Snack Monkey because he believed in the message behind the book.
He and Matt first spoke in January 2022. It was not a networking call. Matt had been living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome for decades. Wim picked up the phone.
"Anybody who comes from a dark place and flourishes is a hero. I will always endorse a person like that."
— Wim HofWE HAVE BECOME VERY GOOD at being comfortable. Too good. We heat our houses, we soften our beds, we fill our cupboards with food that was designed in a laboratory by clever people whose job it is to make sure you cannot stop eating it — and then we stand in the kitchen at nine o'clock in the evening with an empty packet in our hands and we say to ourselves, what is wrong with me?
Nothing is wrong with you. Your body is not broken. Your body is bored. It's waiting for a signal that never comes, because we have removed every hard thing from our lives and called it progress.
I go into the ice to bring that signal back. Matt White went into a biscuit cupboard. Different door, same room.
He did not stop. He learned to climb differently, and then he climbed for Great Britain. That is the whole man, in one story. Every time life took something away from him, he asked what was still there.
It Was Never
About the Biscuits.
The Snack Monkey starts with food. It quickly becomes something much bigger. The same behavioural patterns that send you to the kitchen at 10pm are running every boardroom, every security team, every relationship, every project plan that slips.
Once you understand why the Snack Monkey wins, you start seeing it everywhere — in procurement decisions, in password hygiene, in why AI adoption stalls, in why the meeting that could have been an email keeps happening.
Behaviour changes behaviour.
The Behavioural Translator
Matt White is an author, international keynote speaker and the creator of The Behaviour Desk — a publication applying behavioural science to leadership, technology and decision making.
Matt's work sits at the intersection of behavioural science, leadership, cybersecurity and human performance. He competed for Great Britain in paraclimbing and has a foreword from Wim Hof to prove the rest.
The Snack Monkey started as a book about eating. It became a framework for understanding why intelligent people consistently act against their own interests — and what to do about it.
Readers Thought They Were
Buying a Book About Eating.
Here's what surprised them.
"What surprised me most about The Snack Monkey is that it isn't really a book about food at all. It's a book about decision-making, self-awareness and the stories we tell ourselves. Food just happens to be the vehicle used to explain those ideas."
"I picked this up expecting a diet book. It isn't. It's more like sitting in a pub while a mate explains why you've just eaten the entire packet of Hobnobs and somehow makes you laugh while doing it. Simple idea. Brilliant execution."
"Whenever I catch myself reaching for a snack when I'm not actually hungry, I simply tell the snack monkey 'not today, go away.' It sounds silly, but that one simple idea has genuinely helped me stop mindless snacking and overeating."
"I've read plenty of books about diet, habits and motivation over the years, but this is the first one that made me stop and think, 'that's exactly what I do.' The genius is that it takes something most of us experience every day and gives it a name."
Ready to Understand
Yours?
This isn't really a book about food. It's a book about behaviour. Food just happens to be where the story begins.
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