The Alter Ego Effect
How to improve performance by creating a new identity
👋 Hello, my friend. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks around here. From baseball tournaments to Disney World to the beach and back, we’ve been putting some serious miles on the ‘ol VW Atlas. But I am back and fired up to bring you some awesome stuff today and in the weeks ahead.
Today…… here’s what I’ve got:
The latest episode of the Intentional Wisdom podcast.
Some thoughts on why having multiple personalities can be a good thing.
A couple of pieces of content you might enjoy.
Finally…… before we get going, I’m fired up to tell you that I just booked an interview with ANOTHER one of my favorite Peloton instructors. Any guesses who? And I have an interview with one of my favorite authors and one of the world’s smartest thinkers on artificial intelligence all coming your way in the next month so stay tuned.
Alright, enough intro. Let’s go.
Ep.17 – Todd Herman – How to Create a Bad-Ass Alter Ego
Back in 2021, I wrote an article about alter egos—a concept that fascinated me more and more as I learned about how high-performers from professional athletes to famous entertainers were using these “secret identities” to unlock previously untapped levels of performance. That article was inspired by the work of Todd Herman.
Fast-forward to 2023, and things have come full circle. I was fortunate enough to connect recently with Todd on Twitter and he graciously accepted my invitation to join me on the Intentional Wisdom podcast.
If you don’t know Todd, he is a world-renowned mental performance coach and mentor to everyone from Olympic athletes and pro sports stars to CEOs and entrepreneurs.
Todd is also the author of The Alter Ego Effect, a ground-breaking book on the power of creating alter egos to help us optimize our performance from the board room to the playing field.
This conversation was a ton of fun for me and I hope it will provide a ton of value for you. If you’re interested in learning about how and why top performers from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Beyonce to Bo Jackson have used alter egos—and how you can use them to improve anything from your public speaking to your golf game, you might enjoy this one.
If you don’t follow Todd on social media, make sure to go check him out on Twitter: @todd_herman and on Instagram: @todd_herman
On having multiple personalities
I used to think I was such a weirdo. Like I had multiple personalities. I remember sitting in geometry class in high school and I don’t think I uttered more than three words the entire semester. Then, two periods later, in physics (of all classes), I was the life of the party — the class clown.
“I am so freaking weird,” I would think. I mean, who has a completely different personality from one setting to another?
Well, it turns out, a lot of us do. Maybe even all of us.
Recently, in diving into Todd Herman’s work, I’ve been thrust back into some of these big questions about identity.
Todd’s view, to paraphrase, is that of course we are different versions of ourselves in different settings. For instance, at work, you might need to be serious, intense, or even combative in certain situations. But at home, let’s say with young children, you might need to be playful, nurturing or stern.
Does that mean you have multiple personalities? Not necessarily. But it does mean that there are different versions of yourself that you need to be at different times.
It’s not weird or dishonest or disingenuous to act differently in these varied settings. It’s often ideal and necessary.
In my conversation with Todd, I spoke with him about all of the different identities that I am trying live up to. You’ll recognize these from my articles on 2023 planning but they include:
A great dad
A great husband
An extremely fit man
A profitable, independent creator
An effective executive
A skilled golfer
These are all roles that I need to bring a different version of myself to if I want to perform to the highest standards.
And that’s where alter egos come in. In our conversation, I asked Todd to help me create an alter ego on the fly, in the hope that it might make it more tangible for my listeners and give them a roadmap for applying some of these tactics in their own lives.
We could have picked any of the roles above but we zeroed in on the “profitable, independent creator” one.
I won’t recount the entire conversation here but I’ll share a few quick highlights:
What you wear is… who you are? - The power of uniforms and artifacts - Todd explained to me that when it comes to identity, and especially in shifting from one identity to another, there is massive power in using physical objects. It could be a ball marker that we keep in our pocket during a round of golf and touch it now and then to convince ourselves that we are “Young Tiger Woods.” Or it could be an outfit we wear on stage that tells us (and the world) that “The Badass” has arrived.
An example Todd gave was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s use of a non-prescription pair of glasses when he wanted to summon his alter ego, “The Distinguished Self.”
Dr. King often felt that he was not personally capable of the vast challenges he was taking on. But The Distinguished Self, behind those smart-looking glasses, was up for the challenge. Todd and I discussed how my own habits around wearing glasses—or not, and wearing baseball hats—or not, could play a material role in summoning my own “creator” alter ego.
Finding Power in a Name - In The Alter Ego Effect, Todd also tells the story of how Beyonce went from shy gospel singer to the bad-ass owner of stages that she is today. She did it by creating her alter ego, “Sasha Fierce.” Beyonce would transform herself into Fierce when she got on stage to give her the confidence to do things that shy little Beyonce would never do. And there was power in that name: Sasha Fierce.
Changing our names can be another powerful way to shift from one identity to another. Some of this may happen organically in your own life. Do certain friends call you by a nickname? Do you use a more formal name in work settings? Or do you have a name you use for yourself when you’re talking to yourself (let’s say on the golf course or tennis court?). Those are all examples. There is massive power in what you call yourself. I haven’t cracked this one yet, but Todd tells me I need a new name that is specifically crafted for my creator persona… any ideas?
Content Diet
If you can’t get enough of Todd, like me, I also highly recommend this beautiful conversation he had with the great Rich Roll:
Finally, the full YouTube version of my conversation with Todd can be found below:
Let me know if you experiment with any alter egos yourself. I’d love to hear how this tactic works (or doesn’t work) for you.
Thanks for reading — see you in two weeks!
Greg
I definitely had ‘unnamed’ alter egos in sports that were necessary for me to succeed. Quiet, shaggy haired student Marcus wasn’t going to cut it!
Looking forward to digging into this one soon 👍
It was still Marcus ... but with a cooler, deeper voice that didn’t crack ha