The 5 Step Process To Tap Into Peak Performance Anytime & The Tool That Creates A New You

This episode is based on the book "The Alter Ego Effect," by Todd Herman. Do you ever wish you were someone else? Someone richer, stronger, more beautiful or well-spoken - like a movie star? It’s tempting to want to be something you’re not, comparing yourself to the people you see in television and movies, but don’t wish away who you are! In exploring this book, Jay Shetty gives you a lighthearted view of how to tap into your inner alter ego. You'll learn five steps to becoming more like someone you admire just by modeling them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have.

• 0:43Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop.

• 1:26Jay Shetty?

  AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements, and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised to yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 2:45Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. When you choose an alter ego, you want to choose someone, real or fictional, who is most known for the qualities and attributes you want more or less of in your life. So it doesn't just have to be one quality or attribute. It can be several, but you might want to start out with just one or two and then you can shape your alter ego

• 3:30Jay Shetty?

  as you get more accustomed to working with it.

• 3:38Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so excited to be with you today. It is truly exciting when I'm recording these episodes, preparing. I get so excited by some of the insights I get to read and study for these podcasts. And I put in a lot of time to really research and think about how I can make these concepts really simple and accessible and relevant and shareable. I want you to be able to talk about them this weekend and at dinner and over your next Zoom call or whatever it is that you're up to. I want you to be able to share these concepts in a way that they add value to your life. Your life and what's going on. Now, this was one of my favorite reviews that I got recently, and I want to share it because I just love sharing your reviews and I would love,

• 4:21Jay Shetty?

  love, love for you to leave a review as well. And this is someone who wrote a review says, twice a week automatically. Like many others, I've become a bit of a podcast junkie. Jay's show is at the very top of my list. Most shows I look at the subject and or guest before deciding to listen to it. Not so with On Purpose. This podcast is my automatic twice a week regardless of the subject or who the guest is. The day that Jay's podcast is published is the day I listen to it. That means the world to me. Thank you so much. It truly, truly makes a difference. Make sure you go ahead and leave a review. And today, we're talking about the surprising tool that can transform your life and the five steps to putting it into work for you.

• 5:04Jay Shetty?

  Now, answer these questions honestly. Like, really think about it. Do you sometimes wish you were someone else? Maybe a famous actor or a rock star, a successful author, or maybe an investor, or maybe you wish you had a particular skill set, that you were more charming or better at networking, that you were better at handling money or negotiating, that you were a better listener, or a better public speaker, or better at giving presentations? With the future so uncertain and things feeling so out of control in so many ways, lots of us are looking for things we can control, what we can do to make an impact on our lives and perhaps the lives of

• 5:46Jay Shetty?

  others. The last few months, I've talked to you about increasing your focus, managing anxiety, cultivating curiosity, and broadening your skill set. But what if you could just borrow these abilities from someone else? What if you were like Rogue from the X-Men who could borrow the powers of others, or Mystique who could shapeshift and perfectly mimic other people or mutants? Okay, I get it. I'm super into mutants and superheroes. But here's a fun statistic. As of 2018, forty-five percent of male consumers surveyed had seen one or more films from Marvel's Avengers series. I've got my hand up for sure. And thirty-eight percent of women had watched one

• 6:26Jay Shetty?

  or more of the movies too. The most popular films, do you want to guess? They were the Iron Man movies with roughly forty-eight percent of men, forty-one percent of women having seen at least one Iron Man movie. Now, you might be thinking, Jay, where is this going, right? You know, why are we talking about Iron Man? Well, there's so much going on around us that feels heavy. So this week, I wanted to bring you something a bit lighter. And it's something fun and playful. But the great thing is that it's also an extremely powerful tool that can create real, meaningful change in your life. So let's say you struggle speaking in front of groups of people. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously joked that at a funeral, most people would rather be the person in the coffin

• 7:10Jay Shetty?

  than the one delivering the eulogy. Because people are more scared of public speaking than they are of dying. But what if you could be a great orator like Martin Luther King or Barack Obama? What if you could channel some of their skills to be a speaker who's brilliant and inspiring and motivating people? Today, I'm going to talk to you about how you can do just that. Most people know that Winston Churchill was the British Prime Minister during World War II, leading during one of the most challenging times in modern history. What many don't know is that Churchill used the tool that I'm about to describe for you. If you look at pictures of Churchill, you'll often see him wearing a hat. No big deal, right? Yet for Churchill, it was. Churchill would select his hat

• 7:54Jay Shetty?

  based on the person he needed to be for the event at hand. Whether it was giving a speech to rally the British public during the bombing campaign against London and other British cities, or meeting with international leaders. In the movie The Darkest Hour, there's a scene where Churchill, played by actor Gary Oldman, is preparing to travel to London to accept the role of Prime Minister from the British King. He stands there surveying his large collection of hats and asks, "Which self should I be?" You see, for Churchill, a hat wasn't just a hat. It was what peak performance coach Todd Herman called a totem.

• 8:36Jay Shetty?

  Right? An object that evoked a particular personality. Now, I had the joy to sit down with Todd about his book called The Alter Ego Effect last year when it came out, and I really enjoyed this conversation. And so I dove into more around this theme and seeing how we could use it. Incidentally, and he told me about this one, another famous figure who had a totem was Martin Luther King Jr. Though his vision was fine, King wore the glasses because he thought they made him look more distinguished. Wearing the glasses, he felt he was better able to channel the eloquence and presence that was required of him in his role as a leader of the civil rights movement. Both Churchill and King use props to invoke the same tool you can use

• 9:21Jay Shetty?

  to show up as your best, smartest, savviest, or funniest self. And that tool is known as an alter ego. Now, you're probably familiar with the idea of the alter ego primarily from comics. Superman is also Clark Kent, T'Challa is also Black Panther, Carol Danvers is also Captain Marvel, and so on. Some of you might be familiar with the idea of an alter ego from the entertainment world. Singer Beyonce released an album introducing fans to her alter ego, Sasha Fierce. Beyonce says she created Sasha Fierce because after a childhood, growing up singing in church choirs, she struggled transitioning to the sexy presence she needed to channel as a pop star that she wanted to. So she let Sasha Fierce do it for her.

• 10:06Jay Shetty?

  And I remember growing up listening to Eminem, Marshall Mathers, right, Slim Shady, these were all personality types that help us tap into different parts of ourselves and even understand ourselves. I had Liza Koshy as a guest on the podcast, that was an amazing podcast. I literally just watched her new movie on Netflix with my wife the other day. It's awesome, it's really good fun. And she was talking about how she created characters on her YouTube channel that represented different parts of her personality. And that was almost like a healing process for herself. And this is something that you can do as well. Today, I'm going to walk you through five steps for creating and channeling your alter ego. But some of you may be thinking, really? An alter ego? Does that actually work?

• 10:51Jay Shetty?

  There's actually science to back it up. Stephanie Carlson, a professor and director of research at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, took four-year-olds and split them into groups and told them they were going to do a task. Then she and her team did something guaranteed to frustrate the kids. They put a toy in a locked box and gave the kids an assortment of keys. But what the kids didn't know was that none of the keys would work to unlock the box. The researchers wanted to observe what the kids would do under these circumstances. How creative they'd get in how they tried to unlock the box and how long they'd persist in trying. What they were studying is called executive functioning,

• 11:34Jay Shetty?

  which is a set of brain skills that includes flexible thinking, working memory, and impulse control. Carlson and her team knew that kids already spent a lot of time in pretend play. And they wondered what would happen if they instructed one group to bring that pretend play to bear during a serious task. So the researchers also gave one group of kids some instructions. They told them to pick a character that they should pretend to be while they undertook the task, either Batman or Dora the Explorer. They even had the option of wearing a cape. The other group of kids received no special instructions. The results?

• 12:14Jay Shetty?

  As Carlson writes, kids who pretended that they were Batman or Dora were more flexible thinkers than those who didn't. They spent more time trying to open the box, they tried more keys, and overall, they were calmer. As one child told researchers, Batman doesn't get frustrated. But those were kids, right? Well, Carlson and her colleagues believed that the reason pretending had such a dramatic effect was that it created something called psychological distancing, which is when we have the space to step back and examine something from a different perspective. You've probably heard me talk before about the power of detachment in allowing us to access new and more creative solutions. Along with patience, it is a form of psychological distancing.

• 12:59Jay Shetty?

  And that skill doesn't have an age cap, right? Like, we did it as monks, like, as monks, we, the mindset of a monk is to psychologically distance to solve an issue. So, all of that said, let's get started. Here's step one for creating your alter ego. Let's start with a little fill-in-the-blank exercise. If you can, get out a piece of paper or open a Notes app. If not, take a screenshot and come back to this exercise later, because it's critical to creating an alter ego that's effective for the change you want in your life. Now, I want you to think of one quality you wish you had. Right? Just one quality you wish you had and one way you want your life to be. So, maybe a quality you wish you had was to be better at finances or the stock market.

• 13:43Jay Shetty?

  And you want your life to feel more secure and you want to feel more confident in the decisions you make about money. Or maybe a quality you wish you had was to be a great listener. And you feel if you were a great listener, you would have stronger relationships in your life. So, fill in the blanks. If I was more blank, my life would be more blank. Or you can go the other way and think of a quality or behavior you wish you didn't have or a behavior you didn't do. And then something you want your life to be less of. Maybe you wish you didn't feel so afraid to have difficult conversations. So you feel like you wouldn't be held back in your career. So, in terms of filling in the blanks, that sounds like if I was less blank, my life or my job or my family wouldn't be so blank.

• 14:27Jay Shetty?

  That's step one, and I prefer the positive affirmation as opposed to the negative to try do the first side of the activity. So, for example, if you want to be more fun and engaged with your kids and less focused on work when you're home, you're not going to pick an alter ego like Thor or Shonda Rhimes. That's not what they were known for, right? Maybe if you wanted to be more confident, you'd pick Thor. Or if you wanted to be an incredible screenwriter, you'd pick Shonda Rhimes. But if you want to be more fun and an engaged parent, you'd pick someone like maybe Robin Williams' character, Mrs. Doubtfire, or Mary Poppins, or Scott Lang, who is Paul Rudd's character in Ant-Man. When you choose an alter ego, you want to choose someone, real or fictional, who is most known for the qualities and attributes

• 15:11Jay Shetty?

  you want more or less of in your life. So it doesn't just have to be one quality or attribute. It can be several, but you might want to start out with just one or two. And then you can shape your alter ego as you get more accustomed to working with it. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making and that extends to the practical stuff too. Like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.

• 15:55Jay Shetty?

  Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 16:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated calm space for my morning meditation and reading. But I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality. So you can shop with more confidence.

• 16:43Jay Shetty?

  And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market. Who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients.

• 17:28Jay Shetty?

  They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in store or online.

• 17:40Jay Shetty?

  Step two is to list out five people you admire. Now, these definitely do not have to be famous people. In fact, some of the most powerful figures in our lives are often family members, coaches, teachers. So definitely do not limit yourself to celebrities or other famous people. Also, just like comic and other fictional characters, they don't have to be real. You might look up to a favorite hero, a heroine from a book or a movie. Or again, it might be someone who's an everyday person who embodies a quality or several qualities you'd love to channel in your life. Scott Harrison had a life people dreamed of. He was 28 and driving a BMW with a posh apartment in New York City. As a club promoter, Harrison was connected. The rich and powerful looked to him to know where to party and be seen.

• 18:24Jay Shetty?

  But even though he had all the outward signs of success, Harrison was desperately unhappy, describing himself as emotionally, morally, and spiritually bankrupt. During a New Year's trip to Uruguay, when Harrison was hosting a party with hundreds of guests, he decided it was time for a change. When he got back, he quit his job and spent the next year volunteering as a photojournalist for a team of doctors caring for people in poverty in Liberia. Harrison was deeply affected by the fact that so many of the health problems that people faced were because of a lack of clear drinking water. He realized that he had a superpower that he wasn't using for the greatest good. When he got back to New York, he threw himself a 31st birthday party,

• 19:09Jay Shetty?

  invited more than 700 people, and charged them each a $20 coverage charge. Then he had a team, took the 15,000 he'd raised to a refugee camp in Uganda, and used it to fix three local wells to supply clean water. He sent pictures of the work back to his party guests to show them what their money had done. And that was the birth of Charity Water, a nonprofit that has donors from more than 100 countries around the world and provides clean water for millions. Lots of people wish they were better at networking. So Scott's superpower is one many of us have dreamed of having. But you might be thinking, Jay, Scott Harrison was great already at networking. He didn't have to create an alter ego to do that.

• 19:54Jay Shetty?

  And you're right, he didn't have to create an alter ego to become a great networker. But to create Charity Water, he did have to create another vision of himself, another version of himself. And that was Harrison, the humanitarian, right? It's almost like connecting to your inner monk. And that also brings me to an important point. And it's perhaps the most important takeaway from this exercise. By creating an alter ego, you're not faking it or being insincere. Maybe you've heard the advice, fake it till you make it. But when you channel the skills of an alter ego, you're not faking it. Squaw Harrison wasn't pretending to be a humanitarian. He tapped into that desire that was already within himself, but that he hadn't yet connected with. Beyonce wasn't faking being an unbelievable pop star.

• 20:37Jay Shetty?

  Her alter ego of Sasha Fierce helped her connect with those skills that were already inside of her. Though it might seem that by channeling an alter ego, you're pretending to be someone else. What you're actually doing is bringing out something inside of you. The phrase alter ego is from the Latin for other I. This isn't about tricking anyone or yourself. It's about connecting with other versions of yourself. You can think of your alter ego as a magnet for those qualities, pulling them to the front when you need them. In fact, in Todd Herman's book, Alter Ego, he describes a client who actually created an alter ego that was a giant magnet so he could channel and focus his own innate ability to attract new business.

• 21:20Jay Shetty?

  Now, there's something else I should explain. If you want to have a certain skill set, like being great at investing, you can't just channel Warren Buffett and all of a sudden you'll have his knowledge. You have to actually take the time and take some tips from him and how he got to be Warren Buffett, because he wasn't born knowing about money either. He used his innate interest in money and markets to spark his desire and read and learn all he could about them. You have to build those skills if you don't have them. Also, you don't have to want to be a footballer to channel Ronaldo or a scientist to channel Stephen Hawking. Creating an alter ego is about taking some of those qualities that makes the person so good at what they do and applying it to your field of play, as Todd Herman calls it.

• 22:04Jay Shetty?

  Definitely that salesman didn't actually want to become a literal magnet, right? Ronaldo is on my shortlist of people, the top people that I greatly admire and would love to interview. Well, I do love playing football. It's his work ethic that's such a big part of his success. Ronaldo is at the top of his game because he shows up with the intensity and consistency. And that's something I strive to emulate. Let's say that you want to be the kind of mother that your mother was for you. You've got to break down what it was about her parenting that you want to channel. Was it how she balanced her career and parenting? So you she so you know, you felt she was there for you when it mattered the most. Was it that she was a great listener? Was it how she made home cooked meals and she cared for you?

• 22:47Jay Shetty?

  Be specific so that when you think of channeling your mother, when you parent your own kids, you will know what actions to take. Maybe you're not much of a cook or your partner does the cooking. And instead you demonstrate your care for your kids in other ways, like doing their homework with them. So that's step three. Pick one or two people you listed in step two and break out three to five specific actions or ways of being that made them show up on your list. What do you admire or want to emulate about them? What inspires you about them? Step four is to actively create your alter ego. Now you can choose to channel a specific character or person such as Adele, Batman, or Dora the Explorer, if you like. I'm joking about Dora, but actually childhood heroes and heroines can be very powerful for us.

• 23:33Jay Shetty?

  The amazing thing about your alter ego is it doesn't even have to be the same gender as you are, right? Or have the same approach to that as you have. They don't even have to be human. Kobe Bryant had his own alter ego. He called Black Mamba and the idea he got from Kill Bill movies. You can choose an animal like Kobe. Maybe you want the keen eyesight of an owl to be able to make smart decisions about your business or who to trust. Or maybe you want to be more playful in your life and channel a baby goat. I don't know. Or have the confidence and self-assuredness of a lion. And of course, like our magnet man, you can choose an inanimate object.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped going? You're stalled, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under seventeen, not admitted without parent.

• 24:41Jay Shetty?

  Once you've chosen your alter ego, the final step, step five, is to choose a totem to help you bring forward the energy of the alter ego, like Churchill with his hat, or Martin Luther King with his glasses, or the character of Mary Poppins with her umbrella. According to Todd Herman, a totem is not essential, but can help. Maybe it's the briefcase your uncle gave you at graduation and reminds you of his faith in you, that you make sure you bring to meetings where you need to be confident. Maybe it's a red tie that evokes Iron Man, or a piece of jewelry. Whatever it is, it should be something special that you clearly associate with your alter ego and doesn't also have a lot of other meaning

• 25:21Jay Shetty?

  attached to it. That way, when you put it on, or carry it, it clearly evokes that alter ego. In 2010, Beyonce announced that Sasha Fierce was no more. She no longer needed the alter ego. She had fully embodied the qualities of Sasha Fierce that she wanted to keep, and discarded the rest. The announcement marked a shift in Beyonce's music and performances that embraced a more authentic self, and in many ways, different from her earlier work. So those are the five steps to creating and invoking your alter ego, right? First, list either what qualities or skills you would like to display more or less of, and how that would impact your life. Second, make a short list of five people, or animals,

• 26:05Jay Shetty?

  or objects, whose qualities you admire. Third, pick one or two people, or animals, or objects from your list, and list out three to five that put them on your list. What fascinates or intrigues you about them? What do they represent to you? Step four is to create your alter ego, and to do that, you want to isolate one to three qualities that you want to be able to channel in particular situations. Perhaps it's the keen side of a hawk who can spot and seize opportunities, or the confidence of Drake, who incidentally has a few alter egos, including one he calls Champagne Puppy, which is even his Instagram handle. And lastly, once you have your alter ego, you can choose a totem or a symbol that will help you evoke your alter ego in those situations when you want those qualities to come forward. So there you go. I hope this was powerful.

• 26:51Jay Shetty?

  And if you enjoyed it, you can check out Todd Herman's book, The Alter Ego Effect 2, which I interviewed him for when it came out and really underpins a lot of the research and a lot of ideas that I've shared here today. So I really hope you enjoyed this podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of On Purpose. Make sure you share what you learned from this in your Instagram feed and Twitter and Facebook. And please, please, please take a moment to leave a review. I hope this has been useful and powerful for you. I can't wait to see what you learn and what you practice in this one. Thanks for listening and always come back to On Purpose.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company for me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17 not a middle without parent.