Episode 242: Embrace Your Alter Ego with Todd Herman

As a business owner, you spend a significant amount of time and money helping potential customers find your business. When you launch new marketing campaigns or products, do you have a plan in place for handling more calls and questions? Well, you don't need to hire and train someone, just sign up for abConnect. Abby Connect provides business owners with a professional and courteous customer care team specifically trained on your business. The there's over 100 hours per week of answering, coverage included, but you get to choose exactly when you need the help. Abbyy's team can transfer calls to you in the office or on the go, and can also send your call information via email, text, or even directly into your CRM. Clients of Abbyy Connect report a higher volume of new client call conversations, a more efficient workflow, less interruptions, and a renewed focus on the core of their business, telling you check out their reviews. With AbyConnect helping you with the calls, you can focus on your day to day operations and marketing your business, knowing your callers are well taken care of. For my listeners, Abby Connect is offering a no obligation free trial. And after your trial is over, my listeners also will receive 95 bucks off their first bill, but only when you sign up at my special link. It's Abby Connect. I mean it's abbyconnect.com elevate so sign up today. Abbyconnect.com elevate that's E L E V A T E To begin having your phones answered today, strap on your 1986 Beastie Boys jumpsuit. Kelsey has a collection of them because we're about to discuss how to discover your alter ego. You're about to hear that and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Welcome Kal.

Thank you.

I'm Mike Michalowitz, everyone. I am the author of Profit first and Clockwork and some other entrepreneurial books. I'm on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty and I am joined in studio by my dear friend and colleague Kelsey Harris.

Hello friend. You can find us on itunes. Stitcher, TuneIn radio, iHeartradio and now what's the other one?

Spotify.

Spotify in any podcast or anywhere.

I love that you did it from memory. You don't even look at the script. I love it. And we're joined in studio also with Jay Bonaris.

Hello.

How are you brother? Good to see you again. And wow, we got a lot we're going to be covering today. I'm super excited about Alter Ego. I crushed this book in I think it was three days I read the entire thing. I've developed my alter ego per the script that Todd Herman lays out. I may even want to ask him about it. I'm a little bit nervous, though, because it's kind of audacious. It's kind of bold. Before we get into that, what have you been up to, Kels? Anything exciting?

Well. Oh, you know what I've been up to.

So what you went up to, what did you go up to? A mountain?

No, you know what I have been up to?

Oh, I didn't hear the have.

So I'm going to Myanmar in July, and one of the places I'm volunteering at is a Buddhist monastery. And so you have to meditate and chant in the morning from like 4:30 to 7:00am and then again in the evening for another two hours. And I've never meditated for that long, ever.

Two hours of meditating and chanting per hour?

Yeah. So four hours every day? Yeah.

That's when you're on your sabbatical.

Mm. So I've been.

That sounds more difficult than going to the abuse women's shelter that you work with. I know. I'm not trying to make light of it, but it sounds, like, really intense.

Yeah. But I'm trying to prepare for it because my meditation routine has now become more of a visualization slash breathing exercise than true meditation. So now I'm trying to actually get into a real routine.

Oh, I like it.

Yeah.

So I did a wine. I'm sorry.

No, it's okay. And we're listening to, like, liturgies, so that I'm used to that as well.

Okay. What's the goal of this? To not kill yourself. It's, like, at the end, like, if you don't care.

I think more to not embarrass myself.

How can you embarrass yourself in meditation?

I could start laughing.

That's right. Do you remember last week when you started cracking up about the guy who died?

Yeah, yeah.

I was telling my. Some friends about that. It's like my. I was like, I can't believe this. We're sitting here, we're talking about this tragic death. This guy fell off a cliff and died using one of his products, the Segway. And Kelsey, like, lost her shit. Like, she was laughing so hard.

It's just, like, perfect irony.

No, but it gets worse.

I sent Kelsey an email with a picture of a guy going off a cliff.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And then they're like, really? She was laughing at that? I'm like, no, not only that. She Says she laughs at funerals. And they're like, who is this?

Can't believe you guys.

Who is this demented?

None of you have done that. Or like, at church when it's really quiet.

Church?

Yeah.

My brother karate chopped my throat in church one time, and I started coughing, and then I got yelled at for it.

That's genius. What a dick. But it's genius. J Bone, I want to ask you for our a little later on. We have three options for today. We have. You know how we did last week? It was like dead or alive. Okay. This week we have what's. Name the fake product. There's multiple products. One of them is a fake. Kind of like we did with the Schrainer that you guys fell for.

I did.

We have name the company. This is a cool one. Name the fake company name. So these company names exist that are outrageous, but one of them is a fake. Or we have another one, which are quotes from famous people, but one of them is a fake quote. So which one? Jay Boner. Which one?

That's tough. Quotes. Let's do quotes.

I want to do quotes today.

Yeah.

Where is it? Okay, here it is. Good. So we will do that today. And the other ones we'll save for later. So it's not like we're ditching those.

Yeah. You didn't say what you were up to.

Oh. So I've been doing different semiannual alcohol tastings with my family, and different meaning. The first time we did beer, we did wine last week. And so my father, he's 91 years old. He basically, he's chair bound now. He can move around, but it's a shuffle. So my sister's like, we just have to do things where the family can congregate around him and he doesn't have to move around. So she came up with this beer tasting, and it was a huge success six months ago. So we did the second one last weekend with wine. So we always read wines. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get this really expensive bottle. So I get Camus. Ever heard of Camus?

Yeah.

Okay. It's $100 a bottle, right. And I bought a few of these things and I tasted them prior. Like, this wine is off the hook. I also get Boone's Farm, which is like a $5 strawberry wine. Yeah, you like that? Kelsey's like, I love Boone's Farm. I love it.

I've never heard of it.

Right. And then all these in betweens, we got like, always. So we do a taste testing of six wines. Boone's farm did come in dead last. Camus toe blind taste test came in fourth place. The number one wine that we tasted was called 14 Hands, which I never heard of it before.

We had it in Nashville. That was 14 hands.

Oh, my gosh. We did. Yeah, that's right. So we had 14 hands. Blend. Blind taste test. It was the winner, hands down.

How much?

9.95.

Yeah. So, like, there's a great article off the Senate to you. It's basically, it says there's. There's no correlation between really good wine and price for a lot of the time.

Yeah.

There's no question about it. Except when you know you're drinking a hundred dollar barrel of wine, you really savor every second. But when I didn't know what it was, which really upset me because.

And you like Stag's Leap, if I remember.

Yeah, I love stagger. Look at it.

Look at. I'm like an elephant.

You are like an elephant. Stag's Leap Hess. But these are all, you know, the higher end, they get expensive. And now I'm questioning my decisions.

The same thing happened with the tequila.

Yeah. When we did the tequila. Oh, you weren't Kelsey, Me, Amy and Ron, we did tequila tasting. Hers is Milagro. That's your favorite, right? And then we got Don Julio. And then we got like Cuervo. And 1800. And 1800, which is a generic air quote. Tequila won hands down. I think all of us pick.

Really?

Three out of four of us picked it.

Yeah.

So I love tequila and I'm a big fan. Like, I know a lot about tequila. Milagros is one of my favorites. For the price, I think you can. Herodora is good.

Oh, it's Herodora.

Yeah.

There's no answer.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

All right, Kels, do we have any English or male?

Yeah. So this is a little bit different than our norm. So this is somebody who wrote in as opposed to a shout out, and we're just keeping it anonymous because it's very personal.

Oh, so is it from you? Kelsey's on a. I am desperate. I laugh at funerals. I like to dance in the rain, and I like pina coladas.

Okay, so they write, I'm reading profit first while on an airplane to hopefully win an entrepreneurial award. And I'm filled with imposter syndrome vibes. Moments before boarding the plane, I checked my business bank account, did some quick math and had to figure which credit card I was going to pay for my room with. I ultimately decided on my personal card as the business Ones were too close to maxing out. I'm terrified and I feel stupid and can't imagine closing my business and walking away. Instead, I resign to continue reading your book and will do what it takes to become permanently profitable.

Oh, man. Thanks for reading that. Holy crap. I can relate to that. Right? Dude, that is the definition of entrepreneurial poverty.

Exactly.

The outside world is giving you an award for being CEO of the year and you can't afford your room at the hotel. I can relate. I'm sorry. Thank you forever. Who? You can't say her name. Whoever had the courage to say that. Thank you for sharing that. I want to thank our corporate partners. Make the show reality. Nextiva and Receipt bank, the stalwarts of sponsors. We'll share a little bit more about them in a little bit. And let's get to the business at hand. Okay?

Yeah.

Okay. His name is Todd Herman. Todd Richard Herman. You're gonna find out why I know his middle name because I read his book. Creator of the Leadership and skills development program, 90 day year, and author of the Alter Ego Effect, which I am begging you right now as you listen, buy this book. It is life changing. The alter ego. The power of secret identities to transform your life. Todd's professional programs are delivered annually to over 200,000 professionals in 73 countries. And today, my friends, you're going to discover how to implement and design your own alter ego. Todd, welcome to our show.

Michalowicz, why are you yelling at me?

Todd, welcome to our show. That's. You know, I'm trying to be like.

Do I get to do the rest of the show with my radio voice too?

Oh, we should do the entire show like this. How's the weather out there?

We just. We just annoyed everybody. Your listener rate just fell off dramatically.

Dude, the fact that you developed an alter ego for yourself is amazing. And I don't know now if I know you as Todd or Richard when I meet you. Who are you?

I am all a composite of many, many selves which I talk about in the book and how powerful that is.

So give us the essence of what an alter ego is.

Sure. Well, I mean, alter ego is a. It's built into the human psyche. Every single person that's listening to this right now has absolutely, 100%, verifiably done and used this in the past. And so an alter ego was coined as a term back in 44 B.C. by Cicero, who was and is widely thought of as probably the greatest Roman statesman and philosopher. And he. When he used the term in A letter to a friend. Its root term means the other eye or trusted friend, which I'll kind of get to in the conversation around why that's a powerful mindset for people to have around this. But an alter ego is simply just a doorway into using our creative imagination to help us maybe move more gracefully around resistance and the natural things that challenge people or stop people, whether it's the concerns of what other people are thinking of them. Imposter syndrome, which you just talked about with the lady who wrote in earlier. You know, personal traumas that people have to deal with. And sometimes they have a tough time suspending their own disbelief of what they think they can or cannot do. But our creative imagination is this. It's the only superpower human beings have that makes us unique on the planet over anything else that's living. The ability to love and care for others and other things does not make us unique. There are other animals on the planet that do that. But our ability to tap into this creative genius that we have is something that does allow us to navigate and create things, navigate life and create things that others can't. And an alter ego is just simply one of the tools that our creative imagination gives us in order to do that.

Is an alter ego always on? Do I design my alter ego and then I'm that going forward?

No. So there's a great quote that I share in the book from this golden kind of Hollywood era. Actor Cary Grant, where, you know, he's known as being extremely debonair, very charismatic, came from England and, you know, came over to America and dominated the Hollywood scene for decades. And he, at the end of his career, had said, I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be. And I finally became that person, or he became me, or we met at some point. And it succinctly kind of wraps up a lot of the idea of what happens for people when they play with this idea, which is that. And I would only change one thing in his quote, which is going from I pretended to be somebody to I activated somebody I wanted to be. Because what you're doing is I'm giving people simply the language and the tool set in order to tap into this. And what it does is it actually allows you to be far more intentional about who is driving the wheel of your performance car, as opposed to what most people do is they're so concerned about what other people are thinking of them and doing things for other people and, you know, doing things with the intention of possibly causing people to think of them in a certain way. And that creates what I talk about in the book, which is a trapped self, you know, a self that is not living through the kind of intentions and the values and the way that they want to be showing up, but they're now showing up for other people's purposes and not their own. And so the idea of activating somebody I wanted to be until I finally became that person, like Carrie said, is that if you think of it like a two circle Venn diagram, there is this current existence that you have where you're getting current results. But the resistance or the kind of issue that it's creating is, you know, you've got far more capabilities than what you're getting right now. And so there is this lack of overlap between what you can do and what you are doing right now. And that's that other circle. That's that capability circle of what you can be accomplishing. And what an alter ego does is it creates this fantastic bridge between the two. And then at some point in time in the future, you're going to find that you're now automatically doing the things that you want to be doing or taking the actions you want to be taking, or having the emotional feelings you want to be feeling without even consciously being aware that you've used this alter ego anymore. And so, I mean, that's what happened to me. When I first started in business, I was terribly insecure about how young I looked. I was 21, looked like I was 12. So concerned about what other people were thinking of me. Who's going to believe me when I'm standing on a stage talking about mental toughness or peak performance when I'm not 40 yet? I don't have seven degrees. I haven't worked with 400 Olympians yet. I don't have a book that's out yet. I haven't stood on big stages with 10,000 screaming people. All of these rules that I'm making up in my own head about what it takes in order to be finally crowned as being someone who's capable at what they do, despite the fact that the young athletes I was already working with were getting really good results. And so I wasn't taking the actions I needed to take, which was like book speaking gigs, set up workshops for myself so I could invite people in. And I simply just one day I had this kind of epiphany, thought, actually while I was watching an episode of Oprah, which I kind of talk about in the book, I use one of the examples of Johnny Jocks, who, which is. Goes down as Oprah's favorite episode of all time where this lady stood up in the audience and she recounted her story of when she bought a pair of shoes from one of Oprah's kind of auction sales. And she was going through a really difficult time at the time. And she would get up and she would go and stand in Oprah's shoes and just soak up some of Oprah's power. And she would stand in those shoes until finally one day she didn't need to stand in those shoes anymore because she was standing on her own. And I thought to myself, wait, I did that exact same thing when I played football.

You were over shoes.

Exactly. That's how good I was. I could run in high heels. Yeah, well, I mean, I used an alter ego when I went on the field. I was 6 foot tall. I was 156 pounds soaking wet when I was in high school. But I ended up getting a lot of college football scholarships because I didn't play to my size. I suspended the disbelief about how big I thought I was. And I played as a composite of many, many different alter egos that I brought inside myself or not alter egos. One alter ego that encapsulated many, many people's qualities, including like Walter Payton and Ronnie Lott and a tribe of Native American warriors. I'm a huge Native American buff. Where I grew up in Canada, I live in New York City now and have for years. But where I grew up on a big farm and ranch and our area is rich with Native American history. And my alter ego's name was Geronimo. So anyways, in that moment I was like, wait a second, why don't I bring Geronimo into business? And I thought, well, that doesn't really work because Geronimo is very aggressive and he hit people. And that's not going to work for me in business. So I was like, but you know, really what I want to do is have that kind of that Superman effect. I want to show up as this super version of myself in business. And so that's what I did. Instead of me putting on a pair of glasses to become Clark Kent, which was Superman's alter ego. Everyone thinks that the alter ego in that case would be Superman because people think of alter ego as being powerful, but really he became Clark Kent so that he could walk around society being accepted and that mild mannered version of himself so he could kind of hide out. And my kind of argument with people is there are more people walking around as Clark Kent's than there are Superman and superwomen right now. And I'm trying to give them the tool that's already built inside of them to help them, you know, show up as they know that they can.

As I was reading through the alter ego effect, you talked a lot about artifacts, and I think in your football uniform, you inserted the cards of your favorite players in different parts of the pads. I remember you talking about the glasses on the COVID And you said, you may think that's Clark Kent's, you may think it's even yours because you use glasses.

Yeah.

Without a necessity, the need for a prescription. But you said it's another person's. Whose was that? Whose glasses?

Yeah. So I did. I did a Talk back in 2004 at a leadership conference in San Antonio, Texas, and I had stood on stage and I talked about how when I was, you know, transforming into this Superman version of myself in business. And again, this is all stuff that's happening in my own head. The one thing with alter egos is most of the time, you don't share it with other people. This is a personal ally that you're bringing into your own mind. And that was what's so valuable about that idea that Cicero brought up around the trust trusted friend is we all know that it's so valuable to have friends and allies and partners to help us navigate life and make connections and get to where we want to go more quickly. But everyone misses out on the place where an ally is most important. And that's between the six inches of your own ears. And so what an alter ego does is it's that most powerful trusted friend and ally that you can bring to situations. And so that's what I did. And I went out and I bought a pair of non prescription glasses. And that's what I'd put on in order to trigger that self that I wanted to really be. But so I told this story on stage, and this lady came up to me afterwards and she said, you know what I love? You know, what you talked about on stage specifically, I love that you wore non prescription glasses in order to, you know, really help you step out into the business world. The funny thing is, is Martin didn't need glasses either. And when I looked down at her name tag, it was Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King's wife. And so she went on to tell me about how Martin had 2015 Vision 2, and he went out and got a pair of glasses to help him do the difficult things because he felt like he was carrying such an important movement and mission forward. He did not want to get in the way of that movement and mission with his own insecurities of himself or just the, you know, hard things are going to be coming his way from the slings and arrows of other people. So he used it as a bit of a shield, those glasses, as a physical shield to his more sensitive self, but really to step into what he called himself. His alter ego's name was the distinguished self. And so those glasses are a replica of the ones that he wore. And now those glasses are actually on display at the Atlanta Hartsfield airport in a small monument area that the Martin Luther King foundation has donated to the Atlanta airport. And next to them is a card that says, to that exact same effect, that Martin had perfect vision and he wore these to step into his distinguished self.

That's so powerful for our listeners. I understand now the power of an alter ego. Yeah, I hope our listeners do, too. Is there a script or a method they can follow to develop our own alter egos?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, in the book, I unpack kind of the science of all. All of this, why it's so effective, Just the psychological phenomenons and switches that you're flicking when you use this, how it's extremely natural, because we've all did this as kids, Whether we play dope being Wonder Woman or Superman or Black Panther nowadays, or our favorite sports hero when we're on the front porch or whatever it could be for someone and the history of other people that have used them. And then I kind of walk through the actual method itself. And so the first place to start is understand that we live in context in our worlds. Everyone, for the longest time, the psychology world has brought out or had kind of pushed forward the idea that the healthiest people mentally are the ones who have a single self, a single identity. And me, in the work that I did, working with high performance, I knew that that was fundamentally wrong and not true because I'm a practitioner. Mike. This is really important for people to understand. I'm not someone who's researched this and wrote a book on it that's got some value. But practitioners, people who actually work with people one on one daily. I've got 16,000 hours working with people one on one, not counting groups, not counting seminars, speeches, one on one. And when you're faced with people nose to nose, toes to toes, belly to belly, and you're giving people advice, you know what happens the very next week or next day, they come back and they give you feedback on that advice. And so you as a practitioner are placed under the white hot light of performance as well. You had better be delivering strategies that actually work. And so as someone who's been on the field with people, what has been bandied about in the personal development, self help and leadership worlds for a long time fundamentally is very untrue. And it doesn't work. Sounds really nice, but it's what I call cotton candy, popsicle and bubble gum type self help. It makes you feel good, but it ain't gonna produce a result for you. Because the reality is the people who are out there doing the hard task of challenging themselves and moving forward, they tap into different resources than are typically shared. And so the single self wasn't something that I thought to be very true because it didn't work in the practical application of life. It's the people who have multiple selves. And what I mean by that is they know that they live in context. Who you are, Mike, with me right now, and how your personality shows up with your kids is of course going to be slightly different. Right?

You're elevating I tickle you like I did my kids.

Well, that would be the promise of the 17 minute segment. That would be amazing if that happened. Now we're moving into the tickle fest segment. Well, and so we know this, we know that we play different roles in life and that's extremely healthy. And now actually the psychology world has come to the conclusion that the people with multiple selves, that they understand that they have multiple selves that they take out onto these different fields of play, of life. These stages are the healthiest people mentally. The single self individuals, people who see themselves as one identity, are the people who struggle with the most mental health. Right. It's the same as like, you know, in your quest to solve the entrepreneurial issues that you're trying to solve, one of the greatest threats to the people that are entrepreneurs is that you only identify yourself as an entrepreneur. That's extraordinarily dangerous because if your business isn't working out for you right now, you think you're failing as a human being. And that is wrong. You are not. Because you know what? You might still be a great father or mother. You might still be great on the rec volleyball court. You might still be great to show up as who you are with your friends and still being supportive to them. That's really important for people to understand. That's why I rail against the self help world so hard. And I'm completely unafraid to do it. I will call people out because I'm not here to be friends with the other authors out there. I'm here to help good people do hard things. I'm not the one who's going to try to pander to other people so that they can promote me like many other people do in that industry. And so that's really important for people to understand. You have multiple selves, so the context of an alter ego is very important. Who and or where are you building it for? Is it for your home life? Because that's where you're frustrated with right now. Is it for your business life? Like the lady who's showing up at her awards night right now and feeling like she's an imposter. Right. Like, yeah, maybe in one area of her. Of her life, she might be struggling with a financial thing, but that doesn't mean that you're a failure as a CEO and how you lead people. That's. Those are two very different things. And yet people, they conflate these ideas, they let them bleed into each other, and that isn't good. We need to define the fields that we stand on, the stages. And I go, you know what? Right now, as a father, I am freaking crushing it right now. Every time I go home, my kids know that they're loved, they're being challenged daily. They're growing, you know, and that's good. But you know what? Right now, my business might be struggling, but that doesn't mean that I'm failing as a human being. And I've seen it happen, especially when you're working with athletes who the only thing that they've known for their entire lives is that they're a football player or a baseball player. And then when it comes time to retirement, they have no idea what their identity is going to be. I need to be there and place a biopsy on that and separate themselves away from these things. So context is really important. I built an alter ego for the field of play, of business. Richard went out there on that. That's what that was my super Richard. That was my name that I gave myself there. And it was really healthy. It helped me navigate those insecurities that I had.

I love that you just narrow it down to a very specific thing.

Yeah.

That you want to elevate. We're running against the clock here. Where can people get started with. With you? Should they get the book? I mean, everyone's got to get the book.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing, Mike. Here's what I know to be true. 100% of the planet will be buying the book at some point in time because.

Okay, I love it, bro.

No, I know that's. I just know that to be true. It's because I know that the feedback we've gotten already with the book being out and people who I know are extremely hard to impress have come back to me about how powerful they see this being as an idea. And I think it's one of these ideas where it's time has come again. What I'm telling people is the reason I can, you know, stand on the pulpit of this thing and scream as loud as I possibly can is I did not invent alter egos. It is something that's embedded into the human race. It's embedded inside of everyone that's listening right now. I am simply giving it voice. And I have simply just been the person that codified the process for how you build one out in a healthy way with a lot of intention to help you go and freaking crush whatever area of your life might be the biggest thing that's frustrating you now or the place where you want to be more playful. Just like David Bowie built Ziggy Stardust to find another way to creatively express themselves and step and step into another self. You know, that can be another avenue for people. So everyone, you might as well end up buying the book because you're gonna end up buying it anyway.

You're gonna have to.

You're gonna have to anyway. So do it now. You know, stab that. Stab that idea with a pencil. And they can go to alter egoeffect.com that's the home base for that. My home base on the Internet is Todherman Me. And of course, there's links to there for, like, all my social media and videos and stuff like that that I've got out there around this.

Todd, thank you. And my listening friends, I cannot endorse this book enough. I'm telling you, this is the book of 2019. Thank God I'm not releasing a book this year because it would beat my books. I mean, it is that powerful. Everyone needs to read this book. Get your copy. And I would suggest, like, I did get an audible copy and a print version or maybe Kindle so you can follow along. There is a script to developing your alter ego, and it's a game changer, and I'll reveal mine in just a little bit. All right, Todd, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you.

I appreciate you, brother. All right, guys, in a minute, we're going to share what we learned from Todd Kelsey. I Want you to start developing your alter ego. You too, J Bone. And it better not be called J Bone. And we are going to. I got a listener tip. Or not listener tip, but I got a tip that I want to share with everyone. And then we do have a listener question, I think that came in today. Okay, but first. Well, that's exciting. But first, what's coming? Oh, it's our sponsors. Yes, I love them. Nextiva. You know their alter ego. You know what it is? Receipt Bank. And you know what Receipt Bank's alter ego is? Guess, just guess.

Nextiva.

Yes. They've altered ego to each other. They've become such fabulous companies to up level. They're now playing on each other. So I've called nextiva and they're like, who, who am I speaking with? This is such a great experience. Well, basically, I'm embracing Receipt Bank. I'm like, oh, they call Receipt bank. And like, wow, you guys are really ramped up. What are you doing? Oh, we're embracing Nextiva. Next. Even the VoiceOver IP phone system, the best in the world. I swear, we've used it forever. Jaybone, do you have one at your house?

You know, I don't. I gotta get one.

Okay, yeah, well, let's get you one immediately. They have Voice True voice technology, which is unbelievable. We just figured that out. They now have multi call. It's a new thing. You can call more than one person at a time. You can connect calls. I think they're the innovators in this.

Yes, I heard of that before.

Yeah, it used to be party lines in the 70s, but since then, you.

Can call anywhere in the world too, with them, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're, they're. They said they're gonna be releasing tone technology. When you pick up the phone, you'll hear a tone to know that you're not connected to someone.

Like a. Oh, wow, what a novel idea.

They're working on that receipt. Bank scans in your receipts. Any receipt, you have to scan it in. You used to take pictures on your phone. I remember I was on Jaybone's phone when he wasn't looking. I was just scrolling through to see what pictures he has. It's all receipts.

I'm like, dude, from seedy places.

From seedy places. All porn. Porn shops. All right, guys, that's our sponsors. Definitely check them out. They're wonderful people. And next we have our big takeaway. So join me. What did you learn today, Kels?

Oh, I love this so much. I wish that he could talk more. There's a lot of things in his book that he didn't talk about, obviously, because of the timing. But one thing I super love. I was a sociology major, and I remember W.E.B. du Bois wrote about a double consciousness. So basically, you have multiple social identities. Like, I'm a mother, and I'm a woman who is a career woman. And oftentimes it's super hard to reconcile the two. Right.

Yes.

And this is the perfect framework for people to reconcile, because you put on your cape at work, that maximizes those capabilities that are already inside of you. It's not like you're creating this thing with a skill set that you don't have, and then at home, you're wearing that cape. That maximizes those. Nurturing those other qualities that make you who you are, but it gives you this framework that makes it feel okay that you're not. You're not warring with those two identities inside of you. Right. Like, I just love.

Damn. That's a good. That was a good summary.

Yeah. Well, he. In one of his examples in the book was about the army general. Do you remember that part?

He fell in the army, who's a father also.

Yeah.

Yes, I do remember that part.

So he talked about how he understood what it meant to put on his army uniform, but then when he went.

Home, the T shirt or the shirt he wore.

Yes. Yeah, he was. He's carrying that identity home with him.

Yeah.

Because he didn't have a uniform for at home. Right.

That was good. Yeah. So, Jay Bone, I don't know if you know this. Everyone here at the office is studying. We pick one book a quarter to read. I started reading Alter Ego. I'm like, we have to do this as a group. So our entire company, we got copies for everyone except for J. Bone. I don't think you get a guy.

Get left out of everything.

It was on the profit first side. Um, let's get one for Jay Bone. Jay Bone, you take away. You want to share?

Yeah. I think, like, to piggyback on Kelsey, I think it's. There's, like, a really powerful connection that's. That's maybe like, you know, it's hard to explain where something material can manifest something inside you to pull it out when you need it. So, like, the Oprah shoes. I used to wear a wristband to remind me to, like, push through when I was afraid of something.

Yeah.

So, like, when I had to do with public speaking, I would look at the wristband, and I'm like, all right, cool. I got this. I got this. And it Kind of draws that. That out of you. Yeah, just like a uniform or whatever it is. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was my takeaway, is he's. He calls them artifacts and totems, I think was the other word he used, but artifacts. And so I do this, like, I wear a vest every time I speak. And I know it's. It's kind of like a. It's funny. But also, I consider that armor when I put it on. And I think, you know, I open one button on my shirt under the armor because I want my soul to come out when I'm on stage. So that's. So no one knows I'm doing that. But for me, it's a way to manifest the experience I want for the audience by taking on this alter ego. And I actually have a name for it, too. This is thanks to Todd. I call it the patron saint of entrepreneurs, something Simon Sinek was so kind to call me in a testimonial. And I've taken that on now as my alter ego, the patron saint of entrepreneurs. So I walk on stage. That's the moment. That's the field. That. That's not me walking up as a patron saint of entrepreneurs.

That's cool. So when you speak, why's your fly down? What purpose does that have?

That's just to impress the ladies. That's just so I got everyone's attention, J. But I deserve that, man.

Good.

Good comeback there.

That's good.

Yeah. Good punch to the face. Make sure we don't get him a book. Okay. All right, Kels, do we have a list in our mail?

We do.

Let me give it a punch.

So this comes from Carlos Rojas. What is your recommendation for the five founding accounts? He's concerned because his company handles two accounts in local currency and another in US Dollars. So this would mean that he would have to create five accounts for each currency.

Yeah, Carlos, if all your business is. He's in Peru. Is that what he said? If all your business is in Peru, set up the accounts in Peru and use Peruvian dollars. Pardon my ignorance. You don't know Kalos, do you know?

I don't. I don't. I mean, that sounds.

Do I. Look that up real quick, one of you guys. But what is called Peruvian dollars. So if you are in one currency, you set the accounts in that one currency. The challenge is, of course, if you are trading or doing business in the US or internationally outside your country, you don't need more accounts. You just need to convert it back to your currency. Now, I understand that there may Be some legal requirements. You got the thing?

Yep. The Nuevo Soul Nuke.

Wow. No, dude, Soul. That's like a band.

No, the soul.

Yes, the Nuevo Soul. The New soul. I think that's a band.

Soul Son, right?

Soul Son, Yes. Or the New Son.

New Son.

They call their money New Sun.

Yeah.

Damn, Peru. You got it going on. So you just do it all in your local currency. If you have to do international transactions, don't set up accounts there. Try to do a conversion now. Speak with your accountant. There may be a financial advisor. There may be reasons you don't want to convert currency, but for the profit first reason you do want to do it. So you may have to do that one on a spreadsheet. All right, cows, that's my answer for Carlos and his Nuevo Soul.

Gracias, senor.

De nada. You want to hear my tip?

Yeah.

And then we'll do the. The quotes. Quotes.

Yeah.

Okay. So here's my tip for our listeners. I wrote it down here. What the hell was I going to talk about? Oh, this concept of congregation points. So once you identify who the clients are that you want to serve and you want to clone, I call this the cloning process. Find out where they congregate. Too many businesses just take business from any client, anyone that knocks on your door. So we're not being selective. Instead, look at your best clients that you have, the ones you like the most. That person that buys those. That jewelry that's shaped like a lake from you. The customers who buy Hunter's recipe over and over and over again from you. Jbone. Identify who they are and then reach out to them and. And learn about where they congregate. Where else do they go? Because remember, birds of a feather flock together. So, hey, do you. You know, a retailer like you, do you go to retail conferences for other people? Are there retail stores that are specific to communities, like lake communities and stuff like this? And you'll start to find out they have congregation points. Maybe they physically meet. Maybe they listen to the same podcast. Maybe they read the same blogs or magazines. Once you find those congregation points, appear there constantly. You know, run your ads there or be a guest on their shows. Those people then will perceive you as being everywhere because you're appearing where they congregate. And when they believe you're everywhere, the know like and trust factor skyrockets, and you get tons of business. That's some good stuff. Was that good? I got a hallelujah for myself. All right, you guys ready for this last bit?

Yeah.

Come on, man.

Here it is. Do you also know who also wore jumpsuits besides the BC Boys? This fella. Remember him dancing around that jumpsuit. Big banging around, can't touch this.

No, he wore Hammer pants.

Yeah. What are you talking about?

You guys are such asses. You're right.

Actually, wait, I had. I had a pair. I had a pair of those.

Did you?

Yeah, a pink pair. Because, like, that was, like, the cool thing when we were young.

I still have a pair. My sister every time is like, you.

Have a pair of those.

MC Hammer wants his pants back.

Oh, that's awesome, dude. They're super baggy, like silk. What was the material? They were so silky, like cotton.

Yeah, it's just a shape.

But didn't you have to have a lot of sheen?

It's like you have the end of the waist. I mean, the crotch. Crotch area is really low.

It's at the knee. Yeah, but the. But the pants are very balloony. Yeah, you're right. It was not a. Not a jumpsuit. All right, guys, here's the. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna read off four quotes. These are all quotes. And I'll tell you who's. Who said the quote. And some are, you know, inspirational. Some are just kind of all real.

People, but not all real quotes.

Exactly. And one of these quotes. They're all real people. One of these quotes is not real.

Good thing you have that insurance for slander.

Did you hear this, Jayvon? No. I had to get insurance for slanderous comments like, you don't.

Wait, is that because, like, the last five podcasts in a row like that.

Because I'm calling you bonerous and stuff. They're like, I haven't slandered. I've slandered our sponsors.

We mostly slander Jeremy.

I slander Jeremy. Yeah, I slander our sponsors. Like, who does that? And so this. This. I got a big speaking gig. I think they paid a lot of money, right?

Mm.

They have me on a speaking tour, and they said, we want Mike because the popularity of your books and so forth. But we won concern he may say something stupid. So I would get, like, a million dollars of insurance or something.

Two million.

Two million dollars.

That's a good amount.

Is that ridiculous? I'm the only speaker has to get slanderous protection. Okay, here we go. We'll go to the perv first. Jeremy.

I'm bleeping all these out. I edit these videos, by the way.

Really?

Yeah.

All right. I'm just. Read them off in order, and you Guys will both pick. If we try to think of a good idea, we wouldn't have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life. That was Brian Chesky. He's the founder of Airbnb. Tell me if you need me to repeat that.

Yeah, yeah, One more time.

Okay. If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn't have been able to think of a good idea. We just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life. That's Brian Chetzky of Airbnb. Next person. People are the most important thing. Business model and product will follow if you have the right people. That's Adam Newman. He's the co founder of WeWork. Okay. Twinkies for breakfast. I would never do it, but some people do. So that's why I invented them. And that's the inventor, James Alexander Dewar, who's the inventor of the Twinkie.

I want to say that last.

Can I read them all?

Oh, there's more.

There's four. There's one more. Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything. That's. Ivana Trump said that. So of those four, I say three. Say three. Twinkies for breakfast.

Yeah.

I would never do it, but some people do. So that's why I invented or that's why I make them.

Yeah, I would say that's fake.

You guys nailed it. You guys nailed it. That is not true. He said Twinkies for lunch. I would never do that. Now, he didn't say any of that stuff. He did invent the twinkie back in 1930 on April 6th, I think. Jerry, it's your birthday, right?

No, not at all. Wait, so I think you wrote that, right?

I did.

Yeah. So I think you tripped yourself up because how can people want Twinkies for breakfast if it hasn't been invented yet?

Exactly. Doesn't make sense.

No, I would never do it. Me, I would. Yeah, that's a good point. I said I would never do it, but some people do. So that's why I make them. I should have said I would never eat them in the morning. I don't know. You're right. I tripped myself up. But I thought we would trip you guys up. Is fiction writing is great. You could make up almost anything.

Yeah, but who said it?

Ivana Trump. That's good point. Exactly. It's ridiculous. And he hears name Rick. Oh, yeah, I get it. All right. That wasn't as fun as I thought. You know, next week I want to do. If you guys are up for it, I want to skip the quotes. I think I want to do the crazy company names.

I'm up for it.

Yeah.

Okay. We'll do it next week. All right, guys, is there anything else we have covered? Do we have a question? We did it. Yeah. To Carlos. That was Carlos, right? Do we have anything else?

No, I think that's everything.

All right, Cal, start taking us out.

Then again, you can find us on itunes, Stitcher, tunein, radio, Spotify. But please leave us a comment or a review and subscribe.

Yeah, please do all that stuff because you don't want to miss this stuff. This is magic that we're making here. You get magnificent tips. You learn about jbone's personal life.

Made up quotes.

Make up quotes. All here. Oh, and one last thing. Go to mikemotorbike.com that's the short version. Mike Mallowitz. Go to mikeMotorbike.com on the top of the site. You're going to see a big call to action button, per story brand. Click on that and right now you can get a free copy of Surge. All right, see you guys later.

Bye, everybody.

Sam.