Todd Herman on Becoming Your Alter Ego

Somebody at home right now is listening, they want to have the change, they want to have the breakthrough. Yeah. What the [ __ ] do they do? Is so Okay, well that's that's different from like if we're talking about identity, I'm talking about oh that's the process of if I'm onboarding someone into my business like into my I love that. So I think that'll get into the nitty-gritty of like what you're trying to tease out. So they're doing the diagnostic, it's telling you Yeah. It's telling me where they need training. Like where they haven't spent much time on mastering the mental and the emotional part of their game. Okay. Right, cuz we're trying to is this reminiscent of a personality test? Uh not well there's there's there's elements of that, but you know, I use a whole bunch of different diagnostics because I am not a believer like there's so many people who are out there who are like I'm an INFGA or INFJ or whatever it is from Myers-Briggs and I'm like boy, again, what a fantastic way to trap your and limit yourself. Cuz people love to to say, you know, that's why personality tests and all these quizzes online are so popular, they go viral cuz they go I'm a this. People love to discover more about themselves. But what it actually does is it traps many people cuz they're like I'm an introvert. And introverts don't blah blah blah, whatever they say. It's like okay, great. Now you're going to live through that hear that, you hear all right, this person has a label now. That label has created limitations. What they're no longer recognizing that they're actually a multitude of and what's interesting is I don't know what word you would use there. Personalities, traits Multiple of No, multiple of identities. So identity, okay. So now real fast define identity. What does it encompass? Identity encompasses, I talk about it in chapter three of the book, the different layers that get stacked on. So, you know, at this core of what we are is just like pure possibility. Like we can we can move in many directions with our with the kind of inborn talents of what it means to be a human being, okay? So there's four core possibility. Outside of that creates what I call this kind of core drivers layer. Core drivers are things that you've that are that you've attached yourself to and that are attached to you because of your your race, your religion, your values, um where you're from because people don't realize just how much that stuff shapes them. You know, well, I'm black, so that means that this or I'm white and that means this or I'm Asian or I'm a Catholic or I'm a Jew or I'm Have you Have you heard that study where if you take um an Asian woman who's about to take a math test and stereotypically women are worse at math and stereotypically Asians are better at math. Yeah. And if you prime her by saying, "Oh, you're a woman. I wonder how well you're going to do on the test." They'll do worse. But if you take that same person and prime them, "Oh, you're Asian. I wonder how well you do on the test." Yeah. Then they'll do better. That is so crazy to me. And when I was diving into some of your research, that was what I was thinking is like that there's some of the you're taking control of the priming essentially. Yes. So, all right. So, keep going on that. 100%. So, core drivers sit there. Um and again, even being a part of a larger group. What like military man, police officer, you know, this. So, we we have these labels and now because we they're they're the things that really can help either block someone's possibility or, you know, unleash it in many ways. We see that at the Olympics where someone who's coming out of nowhere, but now because they're wearing the you know, the red, white, and blue on their back or the red and white from Canada or the wherever from somewhere else, they just level up because of what it means to now represent their country. Other people, conversely, I can't use it with them cuz I've worked with, you know, well over 100 Olympians. That actually crushes their performance. Because it's just too much weight. It's too much or they actually don't care. Some people don't care. Like it's that's not meaningful to to that they're an American or a Canadian or a Brit or an Aussie, whatever the case. So, so that's the core drivers. And then outside of that, I call it the belief layer. So, that's where your attitudes, your perceptions, um your beliefs about you or the world around you sit, okay? This is all shaping that identity. And it's shaping it in the different areas of our life and the roles that we play. That of an entrepreneur, that of a a parent, father, husband, wife, you know, lover, brother, sister, mom, like all those We have And that's why it's important that we sort of peel away the layer or peel away and show that no, you've got many identities and we can shape you. No, you get to shape yourself cuz it you're doing it anyway. I'm not I'm not explaining anything to anyone that is not grounded in gravity. Like it's real. It's truth. We have many identities. We just don't think about it. But I'm trying to build awareness so that people can see it and they go, "Oh." Cuz once you build the awareness, all bets are off with people. Cuz now Do you have like archetypes of alter egos that you push people towards depending on what they're trying to accomplish? I love archetype stuff, um but that's probably where it's a little bit intuitive, but not necessarily. You know, the the natural lean when you talk about this is people talk about, you know, like bringing that kind of like lion to things or that roar or whatever. But I have one client, she's in the book where I talk about, you know, that never resonates. She's this real soft-spoken, like super kind person. And her trying to bring out like an inner lion thing wasn't wouldn't work. But for her, she's German, uh she has a she has a deep history in her family of like exploration, being in the outdoors. And she had this really great reverence for a buck, like a male deer. And for her, it was like the way that it stands its ground. Despite the fact that a bear is coming off, That's what people don't People don't see the fights between a wild buck and a bear or a cougar where it fights it off with its antlers. People don't see that. They only see the kill. But, sometimes the prey wins. And and a big male buck will will do that and fight with its antlers. Fight it off. But, for her, what she needed because she was a business owner and she again very common thing where she had a a sort of a freelance marketing company. And you know scope creep. You know, it's like so now she's she's building a website for someone they go, "You know what? We need some brochures done, too. You know, can you add that on?" Yeah, I'll do that, too. And because she's so nice and kind all of this and now she's completely unprofitable or she's just making, you know, a laughable amount an hour. So, the way that she started showing up in her business was through this lens of a buck that stands its ground. And honors the fact that she's valuable. Like she is um what she has is valuable and people need to respect that. Uh lion wasn't going to do that. So, no. Archetypes, I don't push people towards certain ones. And at the end of the day, the most common uh sort of alter ego identity that people adopt is actually grandmas. If there was a category Grandmas? Yeah, grandmas. Because in order for you to now elite performers. Uh Or these are cops and These are These are people that are either in um in the business world. Grandmas aren't popular necessarily in the sports world. That's not where So, who's becoming the grandma? Uh so, it and again, you're not becoming the grandma. You're adopting the traits, the qualities, or the abilities that you admire about your grandmother. Okay, I've got a a really wealthy man in uh in New York who's a client for a long time. And he was kind of a traditional Wall Street type that just railroaded himself towards success. Burned out and churned out a lot of leaders in his business, but now he had a very large private equity business and his leadership team was burning out quite a bit. And so when and I started working with him, his identity needed to change. Cuz he was now in a completely different role that what got him to be successful. Right? So that hard charging thing, that really helped him, but that's not working now. That's going to break his business. So he needed to step into a new identity. Couldn't figure out a way to do that. So when I was talking about like, well, who do you respect? Like who do you admire as great leaders of of business? Or just leaders in general. And he was talking about like Jack Welch or Sumner Redstone and and these names were coming out. And so I kind of but just talking to him I could get that he wasn't like emotionally connected to that idea. So then I just asked him about his family cuz I knew a bit about it. I mean I knew his history. And he started talking to me about his his grandmother. Hus- her husband died in the Holocaust. She had four young boys, brought them over to America. Classic story of, you know, settling in the Lower East Side with nothing, $70 in her pocket, raising these four amazing young men, all going on to have tremendous success. My client was the son of of one of them. And you know, just talked with great reverence about just how like amazingly nurturing she was, but really strong with an iron rod up her back with like the values of how we operate as a family. And and I said, "That's That's who your identity is." That's So how do the people then grab that and actually put it to use? Because when you were talking earlier about um you know, you need a uniform and do you have the uniform of the dad when you walk in. So I'm thinking what's the uniform of the grandmother? But I'm guessing you're going to say it's not quite how it works. Yeah. So there's again, there's there's different ways to activate this. So uh I want to I you know, continuing on with that it's like active like getting him to realize well, what are those qualities that you just appreciate about your grandma? Like what is it about it? Uh cuz the reason well, what are those qualities? What are those attributes? What are those traits? And then so yeah, a uniform really helps. Something we call them totems and artifacts. Something that physical that you can put on that can help you step into that because again, we're acting with this intention now. Cuz you're choosing it. And and that item represents what you're activating. So, for him there was no thing. There was no there's no something that he was going to go put on. But there was another quality that we use is something that you use in your environment. So, he had a framed photo of his grandmother. And he wasn't going to be like, you know, acting through this identity through his entire day, but it was when he needed to have conversations with his leadership team that he needed to like, you know, pump the brake on his extraordinarily aggressive personality and and start you know, acting with a completely different intention. So, anytime he was about to have a leadership conversation he had this frame of his grandma sitting on his on his credenza or on his desk, sorry. And it was we like to create triggers. So, there was a switch. So, he would turn that frame so now she was facing him. What's the importance of the triggers? That's really interesting to me. Uh the importance of it is to create rituals. And and Why? Why does that matter? Because human beings are uh are grounded in rituals and there isn't it's almost like an honoring ceremony. Because what I want you to do is I want you to I don't want you to dishonor the memory or the spirit of whatever or whoever it is that you are activating by not truly acting through the qualities of that individual. So, the conversation with him is is like, now you know, choose your grandmother very carefully. Because you you cannot go into a conversation with your leadership team and act the way that you do and dishonor the way that your grandmother would handle that by you acting in this completely, you know, kind of wild and you know, swear laden way cuz she wouldn't do that. So, that trigger again, it's just it it it helps to send a signal through your entire electrical system that something different is happening. So interesting. Are you familiar with Tony Robbins and his whole idea of state change and all that stuff? Sure. Man, that stuff is really interesting to me and there's something so fascinating about the human ability to change your state. Like reading your stuff about alter egos and I was like, okay, this is interesting. There's something about for anybody that that doesn't quite have their hooks into this yet. Do the following exercise. Sit down, close your eyes and think smile. Yeah. And what's weird is you will feel the change. Like you'll feel a neurochemical change just by thinking smile. Like you're not actually moving the muscles, you're just thinking about the smile. And my gut instinct is if you sat there long enough thinking smile, you'd actually start to smile. And then to take this to to where you started, that ritualistic move. There's something about birthing it through physicality that and I I I'd actually be really curious to understand the research or you know, the the underlying physiological thing. So, I have this obsession with physiological hooks. So, there there is something about tying your mindset to physicality that is incredibly important. Like when you see people trying to do a state change, athletes will do this all the [ __ ] time. Yeah. And I've done this I do this sometimes for if I don't want to get in a cold shower and I'm like [ __ ] Yeah. I don't want to do this and I have to like state change it. I'll [ __ ] pound my chest. There's I don't know what it is, but dude you do that and boom it's like I've got the aggression. I have exactly what I need to tackle this and to just completely I always think of it in terms of frame of reference. But my gut instinct is if I were to define frame of reference and you were to define an alter ego, we would find that they're similar. They may not exactly overlap, but it's a No. a very similar concept. I mean I've seen a lot of stuff you're I mean you talk a lot about identity with people, right? Like your your you you're dancing around the stuff that I've been working with people on for you know, 22 years. Really alter ego stuff is what came into my practice in 2003 2004. Um because I just started to discover that this was the golden thread that was weaving together all of these elite people that I was now starting to work with where they were talking about I've got this persona that I step into. I've got this other kind of identity. I have this character that I use. And you know, I I played college football at a high level. I was a nationally ranked badminton player. I played sport at a high level. Not pro, but I was a good athlete. And my responses back to those people was always like, "Oh, that's really cool cuz I use I use that as well." It was more like an interesting kind of connection point. Mhm. And then it was me preparing um a a US swimmer a a lady for the Athens games back in 2004 where it's just the way that she said it where it's all of a sudden all of these dominoes of conversations came together and I was like, "Wait a second. There is this consistency amongst the people who are consistently performing at their best. They keep on referencing this idea. There's something there." Do you know who Sasha Fierce is? Of course I know who Sasha Fierce is, yeah. Absolutely. to me is when I heard so for anybody listening that doesn't know who Sasha Fierce is, that's Beyoncé's alter ego on stage and I thought, "Whoa, that's so interesting that somebody that successful uses this technique to have the balls, essentially, to go out on stage, to own it, to be fierce." And she needed it. You know, when you take a look at her story, she's a gospel singing young black girl from Houston, Texas, who people would show up every Sunday. They can't wait to hear Beyoncé singing gospel songs. Her dad, recognizing her talent and her love for music, gets her and Solange inside of a dance group. There's eight of them. And now Beyoncé, who's used to dressing very modestly in a church environment singing gospel hymns and songs, is now asked to sing provocative music dancing provocatively. She had a real internal combustion over this. Right? Now, I want people to track this. Are there some things that you've got some internal combustion over right now that you're resisting against because you have a tough time seeing yourself do it despite the fact that you want to manifest it. You want to pursue that entrepreneurial career. You want to pursue that acting or that singing or you want to get out there, okay? So, she then created Sasha Fierce, someone else, another identity to go out there that loved going out there performing, loved the provocative, loved dancing that way. And that's who she would step into and activate when she went out there. Now, all of a sudden, she could protect for herself that sort of more innocent Beyoncé.