215: The Power of the Alter Ego with Todd Herman

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned lifestyle and high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or have had a big setback? And how do we adjust quickly when life throws us major curveballs? On this podcast, I do what I do best. Taking complicated information that is relevant to us now and breaking it down simply with actionable steps. Steps you can implement to level up your own life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on the planet who at their worst, learn how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up, creating everything from nothing. If you are new here, I encourage you to go back and listen from episode one for the full transformative experience. Todd Herman builds alter egos and secret identities for Olympians, athletes, and public figures around the world. It's true. After a terrible event happened to him at the age of 12, Todd formed an alter ego to protect him and to help him thrive in life. Now, as an adult, Todd has been working with the highest achievers in sports and business for over two decades, helping them create an alter ego to expand their results to the highest levels possible. Todd is now the author of bestselling book the Alter Ego the power of secret identities to transform your life. And as a father of three, he has now also released a children's version of the book called My Super Me to help kids find their own superhero within and be more confident and courageous. Join in today and learn exactly how Todd's method will level you up, helping you get over imposter syndrome, getting you into the ultimate zone and flow state. Today on leveling Up, I'm talking to Todd Herman. And I can't wait for this conversation because he builds alter egos. Yep, I said it. Alter egos and secret identities for Olympians, athletes, and public figures all around the world. Can't wait for this conversation. Todd, so excited to have you here. Thanks for being here.

Yeah. After many, many years of people telling me we need to connect, it's good to finally make it happen.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was listening to you on an old Tony Robbins podcast and I thought everything you were saying, I was like, yes, yes, yes. So I started digging more and I thought, I've got to have him on the show. I have so many questions.

Well, you know what's crazy about that actual podcast? So that is the number two most downloaded podcast ever on his podcast. Really? Yeah. So. And it's funny because it's been consistent. Like, you know, I've been on a lot of other big podcasts, and this. This, you know, topic of alter egos ends up being either in their top five or top ten most downloaded podcasts ever.

So, yeah, I have so many questions for you, but I'm going to start with why, what is an alter ego? Why is that even. How is that even something you stepped into?

Yeah, yeah, those are two very different conversations. I'll go with the first one. Like, what is it? So, you know, everyone's familiar with, like, frameworks and models. We use frameworks and models to help us, like, think faster, sort of diagnose problems more quickly. And. And that's what the kind of a hallmark of some of the fastest thinkers or faster, fastest actors on the planet will do. And an alter ego is simply a mental model that every single human being on the planet has already used, because we already played with the idea of an alter ego when we were kids. You know, we jump off the sofa to see how far we could go as Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, or on and on, or when we're out in our front driveway and we're playing with our, you know, hey, I'm going to be LeBron James, and I'm going to be, you know, Kevin Durant, or, you know, insert the name of any of your favorite athletes. And you're doing that because you're like, well, I see myself as having certain limitations, but that person over there, they don't have the limitations. And I'm going to. I want to play through their skills or I want to play through their attitude. I want to play through their traits. And what it does, it allows you to unshackle yourself from what you think you're about and allows you to attach to a stronger story, a stronger narrative. And so we do it as kids, and then people forget to employ it. And so this alter ego is the other I, or trusted friend within. And Cicero is the person who said that back in 44 BC. And it's extremely useful way to think about, you know, a lot of most of people's sort of experiences of life is you feel like you're on your own. And we all know the power of having amazing mentors or coaches or friends or peers or people to be around, right? The stronger you've got a tribe around you to help you level up, the faster you're going to be able to navigate the challenges. But most people forget that we have this amazing creative imagination that gives us the same ability to Build a tribe within to help us navigate our own challenges that are very personal to us, our own limitations. Whatever the story is we tell ourselves that we think we can or can't do helps us move through comfort zones so much more fast. So instead of you willpowering your way through it, instead build a new identity that's already custom built to win, and then all of a sudden, you can leap over that obstacle so much more quickly.

So right now, as we're recording this, there's a lot of talk around vulnerability, being authentic, being your authentic self. Like, that's a big messaging that I see. I watch so many speakers speak into, so many coaches talk into. How does that play around with that? Because are you still your authentic self when you're pulling up an alter ego?

There's no such thing as an authentic self.

Tell me what you mean by that.

Well, I rail against this a lot.

Okay?

So, Natalie, I'm a practitioner. I'm someone who has. I'm coming up on 18,000 hours of working with people one on one. Okay? A lot of the people who write books who are out there and they're influencers and they're, you know, trying to spread a positive message, which is great and wonderful. They. They're not on the field. Working with people through the challenges and the realities of what it truly takes to win in whatever their field is. Could be being a phenomenal mom, could be, you know, starting a business and growing a business. And I think that really matters. And I think that, you know, one of the messages I like to give people is start to be a lot more deliberate about who you're choosing to give up rental space in your mind to. Because the ideas, the paradigms, the beliefs that a lot of people are throwing at others, they fundamentally just don't work. And they're not actually how human beings succeed in life. And so the reason I say there's no such thing as an authentic self, because there is no one self. There is no one you there. There are many roles that we play in life, okay? There's. There's the interviewer Natalie, who's here now. Then when you get off of this, there's going to be also the Natalie who shows up with her team to lead the team. There's the CEO side of you, and then there's the content creator side of you, right? And each one of those demands a certain different level of skill set from you, different traits to help you really succeed. Like the Todd that shows up on stage to do a speech that's dynamic and draws people in is different than the way that Todd shows up when I am with my kids. And I should be different.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But what I am drawing on here is if there is something that's authentic about being a human being, is we have an inordinate. We have an unlimited amount of traits and abilities that we can tap into as human beings. And most people flex the same muscle of their ego all day long. They're, you know, like me, eight to ten hours of my day, I am working with some of the top achieving individuals on the planet. They have very big personalities. Some of them have very big egos. And I need to come in a lot of times and smash through that ego. Which means that the personality or Persona that works for me in those situations is very much a challenger personality type. Almost like I am right now where I'm challenging people's paradigms. But if you sit with me long enough, you're going to see that I've just broken something for you to allow you to do what? Reveal more of yourself to the world. So authentic self is a trap, because the word itself, authentic, beautiful word in its root term, but words take on new meanings and cultures. And now authentic self. And I think that's kind of what you're kind of hinting at a little bit is even you've got this little bit of a. With it because it's become a meme and a trope for many people.

Totally.

Right.

Yeah. So are you saying. Then I hear what you're saying about there's not really an authentic self because there's different aspects of every person. And I. It's funny because if someone says to me, what do you do? I typically say, it depends on the day. So I'm really answering it, basically, what you just said.

Yeah.

However. But you do think, or maybe you don't, that there's ways to be authentic.

Yeah, yeah. And the ways to be authentic is for you to make sure that the reasons and the purposes that you're going out there to act, to lead, to behave in the world around you is something that you're choosing. You've chosen it. The moment that you start to choose something because you think it's going to create a perception of you that's going to. Now you're trapped. Like, I've just done this for so long. Like, when you are doing something for the purposes of impressing someone else or to fool someone else or to create a narrative about you for a group, it's going to trap you as opposed to seeing yourself As a creative expression of many, many different traits. And you know what? This is how I want to show up. And I don't care if it bothers other people, this is how I want to show up. Like, I'm a challenge of personality. I really don't care if people don't like it because I'm typically speaking to a completely different audience than sometimes I'm being interviewed for.

You know what? Everything you're saying is really landing for me, especially because I hate when people say to people, stay in your lane. Like that expression, stay in your lane. Because that. I'll use myself an example. I've been known as fitness and nutrition and killing fat for the last 12 years. That's what I've done. I have way more interest. I have another business that I'm working on. My passion, my true passion isn't even that. So but. And when I tap into that, which is very real, it's a very big part of my life and my business. People in my fitness nutrition world will think that I'm stepping out of my lane and I would get triggered by that. But everything you're saying is making sense now because that I would have said, yeah, I'm authentic doing this, but that was just one expression of myself.

That's right. That's right. 100%, yeah. And so, you know, this is such a really, really, like, this is what I like about when you're talking to other people who've done stuff is conversations can lead to really practical ways to help people navigate the difficult parts of life. Because this is something that other people listening either are confronting already or they're going to be confronting at some point in time and just mean the language I give back to people is always. There's many different expressions of how Todd shows up in this world. Todd is just the name that has been given to me so that you can call me something. But there's many different versions of me in the world, just like there's many different versions of you. Now I'm inviting someone else to see themselves as that way. And they go, yeah, you're right. Like, I'm not just the stockbroker. There's many other sides of me.

So, so, okay, so this is really, this is a fun conversation now because. Do you have kids, Todd?

I got three little ones.

You have three little ones. Okay, so I have a 13 year old and I see this with kids all the time. They're playing make believe or dressing up and being a superhero, princess, whatever they want to be, you know, and and the adults will say stop making believe, stop pretending or shoot down that reality. And then, and we're guilty of this with my daughter, she's trying all these different activities and like say like why can't you just focus on one thing? So are we damaging? Like we're actually creating this problem I would imagine.

Great. You're, you're. I've done 148 interviews on this topic in the last year and a half since the book has come out. And you're the first one to sort of bring up this topic. And it's. Well, I'm interested. Why do children play with the idea of a free flowing identity better than we do as adults? Because a young child hasn't learned the language of putting themselves into a box like I am this. Right? Because they're in playboat. Well the reason is because between the age of really about six months, but more one to the age of seven. The, the part of the brain that is most active is in the brain waves, is actually the theta brainwave state. So if you're familiar with how brain waves work. So you got beta, alpha, theta and delta. So beta is like active. Like your reasoning, you're judging, you're really focused on kind of learning or you're paying attention and it kicks up the frontal lobe part of our brain. It's the most active part of that brainwave pattern. And then you get into alpha which is really focused activity. Now you're like working on something and you're sort of really much, you're very much ingrained in the activity itself. And then that opens up the doorway to theta brainwave state which is truly flow. Flow is, there is no, you know, one definition of how I'm showing up. It's, I'm almost becoming an observer of the activity. That's kind of the, that's why people talk about the zone state. That's really theta brainwave states. And it's where the creative imagination most kicks in. And then they got delta which is really like deep restful sleep and really deep relaxation. But children between the ages of 1 and 7 are in the theta brainwave state where they are just so caught up in the act of play. And it's got a great purpose as well because that's when we as human beings need to develop as many skills and awarenesses as we possibly can. And so it's like the structures of our human body said let's keep them locked in theta so they can just be sponges and absorb, absorb, absorb, absorb. So that's it's really instructive because after the age of seven, you see, my daughter Molly is seven, and I'm already starting to see her make this transition now where they start to look at children or kids who are 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And I mean, I remember what I was like, you look up to them, you're like, oh, I want to do that, or I want to be like that. And so you start to look at what people older than you are doing. And a lot of times it's different than what you were doing. You're doing a lot more make believe and play. But the kids now, they're grown up.

They don't do that anymore.

So you start to leave that part of you behind, leave that part of our creative imagination behind. And we unshackle ourselves from really the great gift of being a human being, which is truly our creative imagination. It is. You know, everyone's familiar with superpowers because of, especially nowadays, the most popular genre of movies is superhero movies. But our creative imagination is truly the superpower that human beings have. Our ability to create heavens from hells and hells from heaven. Right. And so why do we. It's natural. We just start to unfold into these, you know, new cycles of, oh, I want to be more like that. I can't wait till I drive. I can't wait to do this. We take a look at our parents, they look more serious and more reserved and all that. We think that that's the way that we're supposed to be. We start acting into these roles that are not custom built to help us win. And so, you know, that's why in. In the world of entrepreneurship, the most common type of individual that shows up inside of the entrepreneurship world is people that have learning disabilities. I don't know about you, but I've.

Got, yeah, I have a whole list. I've got dyslexia, I'm adhd.

There you go. And so. Well, why is that asking ourselves the question, why do people that are like that end up showing up in the world of entrepreneurship? Well, it's because we're growing up in a world between the ages of 5 to 17 that is meant for people who can focus in class and sit there and do the work and wrote stuff. And so we need to stay locked in our creative imagination to help us navigate that world. Well, case in point with me, dyslexic, I'd get a reading lesson to do. And, you know, it takes me 17 times as long to read something as someone else in the old form that I used to. You know, how I was taught to read. And so about five minutes before the lesson was over, I'd start pinging on all the people around me saying, oh, what was your favorite thing about the thing? So I had talking points in case my teacher called on me.

Yeah.

So I was coming up with creative solutions to navigate the world. And what do you need in order to win in entrepreneurship? Creative solutions, Creative ways to look at existing problems so you can come up with a new solution for people. And so, you know, that's just. I mean, that's. I just look at. That's one of the reasons why is we've lost touch with our theta or creative imagination. And then that doesn't invite in the idea of using an alter ego. And yet it's a part of the human experience. And again, like, I mean, I work with, you know, some of the top athletes in the world, and I'm known for the. As being the alter ego guy. But really why people will reach out is because I'm known as the quick hit guy. I'm known as the guy who can help you make shifts and changes fast.

You're also giving permission to something that we've been trained that it's not okay. Like, we're. We're trained especially in traditional school with to fit into a box, like, to do this, to be this way. And I think you're speaking into something that is. Sounds very. It's very different because you're giving us permission for something that we've had to mask and hide.

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, one of the. One of the, like, one of the traps is that we're looking at this idea of an alter. And again, I didn't invent the alter ego. I'm the one who. You had asked the question at the very beginning, how did you even get involved in this? And it was through reps and it was through, you know, the act of climbing through and getting through to the towards the top people in sports. And then there was this common thread that was being weaved between all these athletes, and that was they would say things like, oh, I've got this performance Persona. I've got this other identity. Like, you talked about the training that you were just putting together on Personas, and then you came across, you know, heard me on the 21 podcast talking about alter egos, and I was like, helping to give a language to all of this stuff that you felt was innate. That's the beauty of this. I'm like, for me, it's like an awakening. I'm trying to reawaken something that helps you navigate life with a lot more playfulness and a lot more grit and perseverance, which has been proven out in a lot of different studies about how that actually activates for people.

So the training I was putting together, because this is really going to make sense more now to you when I came across your interview was about imposter syndrome and how so many times, me included, don't fully express or step into gifts because we think maybe we're not the smartest one for this. Maybe there's someone better, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. It starts feeling fake. And then the one train of thought which was very different from what you're saying now was be your authentic self. Just put it out there. And as much as I speak into that too, with so many areas for that specific thing, it wasn't working for me. And I thought, and I kept asking myself, who do I need to be? Who do I need to be? So I was putting that into a training and a program that I'm creating. And I heard your podcast, I thought, wow, this is like, this is so cool. And create it. But it is innovative. We're not.

Nobody's talking about it until you did it. It's funny because inside of Tony Robbins world, I've heard through the grapevine from people and again, like, we know of each other and have for like, you know, a couple decades because we both shared Jim Rohn as a mentor. And apparently behind the scenes, Tony was very upset that he didn't come up with this as. And I'm like, well, some of that's because he sort of lost his practitioner. The only way you find ideas like this is if you're actually doing the work on the field of play daily with people.

Yeah.

Like I was saying before, like 18,000 hours of just one on one work, not counting all the group trainings around the world and all that. And so in one on one work, you see the real nuances in like ways of how people are who are really achieving at high levels, what they're really doing. And yet the ideas that show up in a lot of self help books are ideas that are very palatable.

Yeah.

I call it popsicle and cotton candy self help. It tastes good, sounds good to you as well, but it doesn't satiate your actual ambition for appetite or your appetite for ambition. And so it's such a powerful way to allow you. And you even said it too, people say, why don't you just Be your authentic self, or why don't you just be your real self? Amazing platitude, but do you know how many psychological triggers get flicked when you try to change into an authentic self or real self? That's brute force. That's trying to come up at this idea of what you want to achieve with the brute force of an idea of just being your authentic self or real self, as opposed to the idea of, well, if I had the traits and abilities of Martin Luther King, how would I attack this issue? It gets you out of your own paradigms and into a new set of paradigms. And that's just a simple example of you employing the idea of an alter ego.

Yeah. So brilliant. I'm curious. You said that you came up with this because of countless hours, so much time with one on one clients. Did you, yourself? And I'm gonna ask about your glasses in a minute because I read that without you. Did you as a kid or as a young adult? Like, what? How did you figure this out for yourself first? I'm assuming that you figured it out for yourself first before tying it in with others 100%.

So mine was born out of a necessity. Even me getting into the world of, like, peak performance and mental toughness stuff was. It was really survival for me. And that was because, you know, I grew up on a big farm and ranch in Canada, had amazing parents and amazing brothers and sisters and so great home life. And I went away to a church camp when I was 12. And when I was there, over the course of a few days, two men raped and sexually assaulted me. And it was brutal. I mean, I was held captive in a cabin and all that, and came home from that experience, and again, they said a lot of not very nice things about me.

Are these, like, counselors and people that your parents were trusting with you with at camp?

Yeah, there are people in the church.

Oh, wow, Todd.

And so I come home from that, and I was terrified of the idea of my family finding out, because even, you know, that's how they control you, is they tell you that your family's gonna disown you kind of thing. And so I came home and I dropped my duffel bag off at the front door as my mom came out to say hi to the people who were driving me home, like family friends. And I went into our backyard, we just put a pool in the backyard, and I changed into my swim. Swim trunks and. And jumped in the pool and tried to, like, drown myself underneath the stairs that were like the pool stairs. And so I struggled with that throughout my teens and twenties, you know, attempted suicides and, you know, really, really terrible depression.

Did they find you or did you pull yourself up? I'm like, what?

No, no, no, I. You know, it's that survival mechanism.

Because how do you even process something like that? Like you're at a. It's like there was no one to talk to. A process that you're just holding that in until.

And I made the mistake of not talking to anybody about it. Literally not a soul until just four years ago, sorry, three years ago was the first time I actually, actually did. Because what ended up happening, it's like that, you know, the cliche of you can only keep the kind of volcano from erupting for so long. And, you know, sort of one event that happened a few years ago sort of triggered all this old stuff, and I really couldn't keep it down any longer. And so I worked through it and it was amazing to get on the other side of it, but it didn't stop me from the ambitions that I had in life to want to make an impact and do things. What it did, though, is it basically took the emergency break and just lifted it up and made it harder. So you've probably had these experiences too, where some of the successes that you've had in life have been by you operating in the red line. The RPMs were just. You were just flooring the gas as much as you possibly could to get through it. And it was because of, you know, some of it was identity, some was belief, some of it was story and narrative, some was just past traumas that you had. And. And so I started to. I stayed probably more locked into and connected to my creative imagination because I needed to just to navigate life. It was just really hard to be with myself. And because now I was this. I was a kid that got raped, now I'm the kid who got abused. And those labels didn't help me kind of thing. So when I played, I was a football player. I was a really good football player in high school and I had some college scholarships and stuff, but when I played on the football field, I mean, I was 6 foot, but I was like 159 pounds soaking wet. And. But my image of myself, if I was to just show up as this sort of, you know, in some ways I viewed myself as a bit of a weak version because of this stuff that happened to me that wasn't going to help me out on that football field. So I created this alter ego named Geronimo who was a composite of Ronnie Lott and Walter Payton, two Hall of Fame football players. Walter Payton was my true hero. And then five Native American warriors. And I'm extremely enamored with the Native American culture up in Canada. It's the first nations culture. And so I had this reverence for them, and they would all come together, and then that's what I would take out onto the football field. And I gave. The name was Geronimo that I took out there. And so that was super powerful for me, allowed me to play way bigger, because in my own mind, you know, you thought you were going to come and hit or tackle or you saw someone coming to tackle you that's, you know, tallish, six feet, but, you know, I wasn't very big, so. But really, you were getting hit by seven other people.

So when you would do that, would you. Is it like a. Was it a priming? Like, what did you just do? You have to get into a mental mindset. Like, I know we. We've all heard Beyonce talk about her alter ego, Sasha Fierce.

Yeah.

Do you. Would you get into this mental, like, priming, like, this is who I am, or. How did that show up for you initially?

I'll walk you through the exact process. So I was sitting in the locker room, and I had my football pants on by this time and my shoes tied. And then I had five trading cards sitting next to me. One was. Three were of Walter Payton, and two were of Ronnie Lah. And I talk about in the book the importance of totems and artifacts, things that you wear, uniforms, objects to help trigger the identity that you want. And so I had these five trading cards sitting next to me. Then I close my eyes, and I'd lean back into my locker, and I start to go through. Into my mental movie theater, I called it at the time. And I constructed this actual movie theater that I would walk in through a side door, and at the other end of the theater were these two doors on the other side. And there was also a screen on the front as well that I'd use to, like, you know, watch myself do plays or whatever. But for this purpose, it was for me to actually unlock, because the doors would open and unlock the other seven identities that were coming towards me. And so in one door came Ronnie Lott and Walter Payton walking towards me in their football gear. And on the other door came five Native American warriors led by Geronimo. They would approach me, and Geronimo had five trading cards in his hand. Okay. So the same trading cards that are sitting next to me he had his in his hand. And as they approached, Walter would say to me, so, Todd, take each of these cards out there as a representation of all of us, all of our traits, all of our abilities. And that's when Geronimo would start to hand them over to me. And in my mind's eye, I would reach out and I would grab them. And all I would see is, all I'd see would be basically my arm from my elbow up, reaching out and grabbing them and pulling them back. And as I reached out and grabbed the cards, that's when Geronimo would tug them back towards him. And then Walter would lean in towards me and he'd say, but don't you for one second dishonor our memory. And the way that we would show up on that football field by not bringing every single ounce of all of us with.

You just got chills. This is like, it's. You're really breaking down. Almost like a self hypnosis visualization, but in a really. So many people think that's so woo woo. But the way you're explaining it, it sounds so practical.

It sounds woo woo to people. But here's the reality. This is the stuff that elite people do to win.

Yeah.

They have very different mindset tools than is typically what's talked about in self help books.

Okay.

And there's an intensity that comes along with it too. Something that is sort of beaten out of society in some ways. There's a lack of intensity with the way that people are willing to go at things because they don't want to offend other people. And I'm telling you, anytime you're trying to level yourself up, it's going to be offensive to someone. And the reason is because you hold space in their head and a story, you're playing a role in their world. And by you changing that role, by you pursuing something new, by you acting in a new way, that's creating change and it's wreaking havoc on their mental framework of the world. And just know that even if people are, you know, you think that they're trying to hold you down, they're not really trying to hold you down. What they're trying to seek is something called psychological safety. Just know that fundamentally built into every human being is a need for psychological safety. Most of the reasons why people do things is to seek psychological safety. That's why change is so difficult for many people. And so when I start showing up in a new way for other people, and if they're somehow triggered by that, whatever that means for them, it's not that they're. They don't want me to pursue my goals in life. It's because they're trying to create. They're trying to keep their world in the way that they know it to be.

Makes so much sense. Makes so much. And, you know, I. Countless stages that I've spoken on, and I'll be backstage with the speaker before, the speaker after, and I've yet to see a solid speaker that doesn't have some sort of priming or stuff that would look crazy to somebody else. But they're doing it. They're. Whether it's making noises or doing what, sitting down quietly with headphones on or whatever it is, they're doing something that doesn't look normal to others, but it's. What's. What's getting them into that state. I have an interesting question for you. I don't know if anyone's ever asked you this, but it just came up for me. So multiple personality disorder is also a result of somebody that faces a lot of trauma in their life, has what creates that and that becoming an issue versus, like, you're choosing to take on different Personas and alter egos. Does that even make sense, what I'm asking?

You just said it. You just said the keyword choice. You're activating it yourself. You're actively pursuing an identity that's going to help you to win in that field of play of your life. So I'll finish up just. Just to kind of put a bow on that, you know, me triggering Geronimo. So, you know, Walter leans in and says that, you know, don't dishonor us. And then. Then Geronimo would release the cards to me, and I'd have them, and then I'd open my eyes, and next I'd have the cards now next to me, and I'd pick them up, and I'd take one of Walter's and I'd stuff it inside my helmet because I wanted to think like him up there. And then I take his other two and I put them in my thigh pads because I wanted to run like him. Okay? And then I took the other two of Ronnie Lotz and I wanted to hit like him, so I put them in my shoulder pads. And then. So that's. That's the extent I extended out their triggering process. And now I was like, I'm very much primed. I'm like, I'm very much in this mindset of go time. But there was a final switch, and that was when I would put on my helmet and I would leave my chin strap unstrapped until I got to a certain point on the bus trip. Because you'd get bused from your high school out to the field, right? There'd be a certain point, and it was right when we pulled into this one parking lot that that's when I'd snap on the chin strap and that's when the. I'd feel. I would. And I'd even say it, I go. And that's when the tribe of Native American warriors would whoosh inside of my heart, because I was gonna play like them up there. And, you know, now I had the heart of the warrior out there with me. And, you know, so Todd. Todd existed in this other world, but Geronimo existed out here. And what it does is, at the end of the day, all the stuff I'm trying to help people to get to is if I can give you nothing but strategies to help you get into zone and flow state, where, you know, if we were to use the term that you used earlier, that authentic self for that role or field of play gets to come out. And that authentic self, really, if you just to give it a different maybe lens for people, is it's the part of you that has all the capabilities and all the traits and all the skills that you've built up and you've created and you've focused on over time, finally gets to come out in full fruition in that moment or in that series of moments for you. And now listen, you're playing up to the powerful state that you can actually reveal to other people.

You know what's funny about this? I mean, this is really simplifying things, but I feel like the reason filters work so well on social media filters is because people get to see. Step into a different version of themselves. I watch so many people show up on video strong, and they have like a filter. They have some type of filter on whether that's a dog filter, whatever, something funny or something. But it's like this different side of their personality comes out. And it's almost like smartphones and stuff have gotten even better with that. Like, because if we could get you to show up looking like you look better or funny or different, you're going to show up different.

Yeah, well, I call it the Halloween effect, right? I mean, I'm outgoing and gregarious 365 days a year. My favorite day of the year is Halloween. And I feel it's because it's the day that everyone else gets to that's invited to the same party I have every single day. Because someone puts on whatever outfit or costume that they have on and they become more outgoing, they approach people. They're not because there's a mask that's there. And what's funny is people have flipped it the wrong way. They think that the mask is the wrong thing. And it's not. A lot of times the mask or the alter ego is the part that allows you to become the person that you really like to be in that situation. And I share a quote a couple of times in the book. And I think it's one of the best encapsulations of this idea. And it came from Cary Grant, the Hollywood kind of golden era debonair actor in the 1940s and 50s and 60s. And he grew up in Bristol, England. To a single mom. Very, very little means that they had, but had this real dream of, you know, making it in Hollywood and, you know, getting across the pond and stuff. And, you know, carried with him a lot of self doubt and actually battled a lot of depression for a lot of his career. And someone was interviewing at the end of his career and they said, like, what's some of the secrets that you had to kind of making it? And he said, well, I invented Cary Grant. I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I became that person, or he became me. But at some point we met. And that's been my experience of working with. And I mean, it built up thousands and thousands of alter egos and performance identities for people. And that's the experience is in the very beginning. You're priming and you're activating it consciously. But it's just like the ladders of awareness, right? You've got unconscious incompetence. You don't even know that you don't know. And you become consciously incompetent. You know that you don't know. That's where awareness kicks in. And then you go to conscious competence. You're consciously competently doing it. You need to. That's where the real focus and the energy needs to go. And that's why most people never get something into unconscious competence, which is, you know, just. It's a part of you now. And it's because most people don't make it through this really difficult stage of energetic focus. And that's what happens is all of a sudden you level up into the new identity. And that's what he was saying. I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became the person or he became Me. But at some point we met and that was my experience because, you know, fast forward a few years. I started a business when I was 21 and it was, you know, the peak athlete. So I started this business 23 years ago and totally insecure about the fact that I didn't have a bunch of letters behind my name, didn't have a bunch of best selling books, because in my head, the rules were in order for you to be perceived as successful, you have to have a couple best selling books, you have to have multiple letters and degrees behind your name and all this. And none of that's true, but it was true for me. So that means it's true of the ways that I'm showing up in the world. But the reality was I was really good at working with young teen athletes, which is where I started. And by the way, for all of you, I started out charging $75 for a package of three sessions in 1997. So 25 bucks a session. And they were in home visits. And I did that. And I did that for three years when I did my taxes in Quicken back in the day. After gas money and all the other costs, I paid myself $8.56. Wow. But here's the thing. I loved it because I loved working with these young kids. And it gave me a lot of reps. Whereas a lot of people are trying to posture nowadays to show success as opposed to someone who's embodying success by just doing the things you need to do to win. I still was failing to do some things. And that was. I wasn't very good at selling myself. I was good at the application and the practitionership, good at that. Didn't need any help with an alter ego and becoming a better coach. But when it came to selling and promoting, I was terrible. I would avoid, you know, the night before, I had all my list of things that I was going to be doing that day. And then the end of the next day, I didn't do the things that were going to cause me to have to like reveal myself or rejection or resistance. So I was like. It was. It was actually an Oprah episode that triggered my memory of Geronimo. And it was this famous episode, actually talk about in chapter one of the book, with this black lady, Johnny Jocks, who had wanted something from this auction that Oprah had. She was selling off a bunch of her clothing. She did it kind of every year in the 90s, I think, into the 2000s. But the only thing she could afford were a pair of her High heels. But Oprah has like a size like 13 foot. And Johnny had like a size 7 or a size 8. But she bought this pair of high heels and she put it in the corner of her room. And she was going through a really hard time at the time. I believe it was an abusive husband at the time. And she said, those days where I just felt like I couldn't go on, I would go and stand inside of Oprah's shoes. And when I was standing inside of her shoes, I felt like I owned some of her power. And that's an example of someone leveraging this alter ego idea.

So many light bulb moments are going off for me. One thing that's coming up for me is the way that I even started my business was my vision board. And I've spoken about this numerous times where I used to stare at that vision board and say, if I was the girl living in that board right now, what would I eat? Who would I talk to? What I would I listen to? What would I do? So really what I was doing is a lot of what you're talking about. I just didn't have a label for or. No, that's what I was doing. But I was doing that same thing. And then I even think about just even my name. When I started my fitness brand, Natalie Jill. Jill's my middle name. I dropped my last name and became Natalie Jill for that. So it's all these little things you're saying. I'm like, I wonder how many people are doing that and didn't even know that they're doing it. And then with this awareness, what could we create?

So it's so funny because that's going to dovetail in perfectly what you just said to then how I created my new alter ego for business. So I saw this Johnny Jacques, and I just like and actually Oprah, in the late 2000s, right before her show ended, people asked her what her favorite episode was, her favorite moment was. And she said that moment. That moment is to this day, her favorite moment in Oprah's history. And I play that little video clip as well for people when I do speeches. And, you know, it's on my website as well. So anyway, so it triggers me. I'm like, wait a second, why don't I. My first thought was, why don't I use Geronimo? But then Toronto was built for that field, the football field and the sporting field. Not really built with the intensity that he had to go and win in business. So I built Super Richard. So, like you, Todd is Actually, my middle name, my first name is Richard and I just always called Todd. And so I built out this alter ego named Super Richard. And Super Richard was the composite of three of my heroes. Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Campbell, who wrote the Power of Myth, and he invented the Hero's journey model. And the third one was Superman, the 1970s, 1980s version of Superman. And together there are three different. I was pulling out of them one specific trait from each of them that I was wanting to embody. And so I became Super Richard. Now the final phase was I need to have a uniform. I need to have something. So I went to LensCrafters in west Edmonton mall, which was the largest mall in the world at the time. And I went in and I bought a pair of non prescription glasses. Back in the 90s when people were like, no one was wearing. Everyone's getting lasik and now it's fashionable to wear glasses, I guess. But I went and bought a pair of glasses and the optometrist was like, but you don't need glasses. I'm like, can you please just sell me these freaking glasses? And so I would only put on the glasses when I was triggering. Super Richard, whose job in my business at the time, the role he had was, and this is a helpful way to think about it, he was Todd's advocate. You know, at the time, I was still really, still really struggling with all of the demons from the past. And it was stopping me from getting out there. But Super Richard would come along and say, hey, I'm going to take care of you and I'm going to get. You're really good. Like, this is the conversation between Super Richard and Todd in the head. You're really good at what you do and other people need to experience that. So don't worry, I got this. And I'm gonna go out and sell you as hard as I possibly can because I know you're gonna take care of people. And that's what Super Richard did. He didn't lack the three things that I lacked at the time. Confidence, being articulate and being decisive. Those were the three things I really needed. Confidence, being more articulate and being decisive. Because when you lack confidence, a lot of times you become really wishy washy within your messaging. It's like you, like when you're, when you're showing up as Natalie Jill Fitness, you know who you're talking to, right? It's like, it's why. It's the power of picking a niche. Yeah, you can, you can then talk to that person with so much Better articulation and more confidence. And so those were the three qualities that I really embodied. And in the same thing in my head, this is the thing that really makes my model for how I, you know, teach and show people how to use the alter ego. That is, whoever you choose, really think about the fact that you're honoring that person and you don't want to dishonor that person, because human beings fundamentally don't have that. We don't want to dishonor someone else that we really care about. And that's why in the process of finding your inspiration for your alter ego, always choose someone or something that you do have reverence for, something that you do have a natural love for. And because the odds of you triggering that person or that things qualities, their attributes, their traits and skills, in the moments that you needed to just go up way more, way higher. And that's because the thing that triggers the idea out onto the field of play, of action, because we're triune beings, mental, emotional, and physical, living in a social world. Emotional, physical. If you don't have an emotional attachment to the new idea that you're creating for an identity for yourself, it won't get out onto the field of play of action. That's why people are like, oh, man, you should have, like, a shopify store where people could, like, buy an alter ego. It doesn't work that way.

I can't do that.

You can't buy an alter ego off of a shelf. It's so personal to each person.

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have to cut? Like, you mentioned that over time it gets easier. Like I'm saying, assuming now you just put your glasses on and you're. You're in that spot. But do you have to. Is there an unwinding thing? Like when you would come off the field as Geronimo, did you have to preserve.

Yeah, there's. The beautiful thing is like, you know, just me on snapping the chin strap was now releasing Geronimo back into what I at the time was the cage within. Like, I kept, like, even Kobe. Kobe and I had connected many, many times over the years. And I was actually in your neck of the woods meeting with Kobe. We were scheduled to meet on Tuesday. When his helicopter went down on Sunday. Whoa. Because I was gonna be bringing the alter ego training into the Mamba academy, and then I was gonna help him because I'm, you know, I'm just good at the mental side of stuff. I was gonna help him unpack more of his mental approach because his book Mamba mentality really didn't do that. And I was giving him a rough time about the fact that his book didn't do his real mindset stuff justice. But even Kobi talked about, you know, the black mamba, the snake. He had it in a cage. And then when it was, when he was in his locker getting ready for the game, he would approach it, and before he would unlock the door to allow the mamba out, he would stop for a second. And it's that. Stopping for a moment. It's what we. What we talk about at peak performance levels is rituals. People talk about routines and habits. Rituals are far more powerful because rituals is when you have an activity that you're doing, a habit, a behavior, but you're attaching story to it. And when you think about human beings, we are storytelling beings. So the more that you can create rituals for yourself that are powerful, connect you to the moment. And so anyways, that was his. Yes, but that's why this is so powerful. Natalie is a. Now you're starting to see yourself as someone who's got many sides of you, and you're honoring those different sides of you, but you're also creating context for them. You know, even for me, like, with my kids, I've got three little kids. And when you're in the habit of showing up as a challenger personality type for 8 to 10 hours of your day, it'd be so easy for you to bring that home. But my kids don't want the challenger, you know? And so my mental model for how I want to show up for them is inspired by my dad and Mr. Rogers. So my alter ego's name is Mr. Rogers for my kids. And again, do you put on a.

Sweater and change your shoes when you come home?

I do. I don't quite have the sweater, but I am a big fan of cardigans. Okay. But, yeah, no, like, I go home, and on the inside of our door in New York City, where we live, there's a hook and there's a bracelet that my daughter Molly and so daughters Molly and Sophie made for me and has their initials, msc. It's colorful. It's all rainbows.

Yeah.

And it's got my wife's name, Val. And then it's got two words, only love. And when I walk through the door, I grab it and I put it on, and that's me, like, now, embodying those traits of how I want to show up there.

But, you know, it's interesting. Even as I asked you that question, though, think about Mr. Rogers. Had that. I mean he walked in and put a sweater and changed his shoes. That was his thing.

So uniforms. It's so powerful, so powerful in the book. I mean I walk through so much of the science of like how this is so effective and why it works and all that kind of good stuff.

So if. Because so much of what you work with is these totally high performance people, high performance entrepreneurs, athletes, Olympians, so that profile of a person is hungry to try new things. So they're action takers. They'll try and take on what you're saying and run with it. Do you think? Because most people listening don't necessarily fall into that category yet. They want to, but they don't. Can anyone apply these things?

This is, I mean the greatest, like the most fun I've had in the last year and a half, especially since the book has been out, is how many people who would never have described themselves as high performers, they're not in that class yet. Have finally found the key that unlocks. Because most people are sitting here and they know the how, they know the things that they should be doing. They've read enough books and so many people have reached out and said this was the missing link. This was the missing link for me or this was the missing linchpin for me to help unlock the stuff that was nested within already. And again, most of it's because I'm very hard on breaking through some really bad paradigms that have been thrust upon people for a really long time. The idea of authentic self again in its idea form. It's a lovely idea, I get it and I'd love it for people to act through an authentic self. But it's changing the meaning of it and saying no. The authentic self is the version of you that you bring to certain moments, certain roles, certain fields or stages of your life and you choosing to bring through the traits that you want and recognizing that within all of us there is just a library of traits and abilities.

I love when you said authentic expression because that does make more sense. That's like that you could. Because I think people do get stuck with how do I be all these things? Or how do I. And what you're giving everyone permission to do is you can be all the expressions of yourself.

Yeah, 100%. And it's not wrong. It's. And in fact it's the thing that the people at the highest levels do the best. Right?

Uh huh. And it's actually, if you think about it, it sounds, it's actually inauthentic to not do that. Because then you're like. You're saying, it's not possible just to be one thing. So that. That is inauthentic. To say that that's.

Well, and to also give people another way of looking at that is. It's inauthentic. Because really what you're doing is. Is you're using now your ego, using one form of you and your ego. You know, it truly is the I talk about in the book. You know, there's the hero and the enemy, and the enemy, typically, is our own ego. It can also be a story and narrative from the past. It can be imposter syndrome, like you had said before. But by not allowing yourself to express yourself in many different forms, what you're doing is you're allowing your ego to rule you, saying, no, but I'm this.

Yeah, yeah.

That ego is not all that you are.

That ego's sneaky.

Yes. Very sneaky. He is. She is. Whatever. Yeah.

So I love your. I love everything about this. This whole conversation, everyone listening. Go run out and get that book. You can get it on Amazon. You get it anywhere. The Alter Ego taught by Todd Harmon. Where is that the best place for them to get it? Amazon, Barnes. And where do you want them getting it?

Yeah, anywhere they want to get it. They can also go to alteregoeffect.com to, you know, there's links that are there to go and get it, or there's more resources and stuff that people can use to help activate some of the lessons that I've got inside of the book as well. And for all of those people out there, I'm going to reach back here behind me. A year after my book came out, I came out with the children's version book of it called My Super Me. Oh, wow.

My Super Me.

And I wrote that because right before my book came out, my daughter Molly was going through some bullying experiences at school while she was in kindergarten. Some boys telling her that she shouldn't be running in an upcoming race because she was too slow and all this. And so I told her when I was tucking her in at night, I said, who's the fastest? Who's the fastest thing that you know? And she said, chase. Anyone who knows Paw Patrol knows Chase, which is like the number one cartoon amongst young kids. And I said, okay, Chase is going to come help you run your race. And so. And she was, because we talk about this stuff. And then I went out and bought her a headband because now that's her totem. I'm like, you know, just so you know, I got Chase to put him. His superpowers inside this headband. And when you run your race, you're running not as Molly anymore. You're running as Chase. And so she FaceTimed me after her. After she ran the race, and I actually captured it on video. And it's her calling to tell me that she beat all the boys and she won the race.

Oh, what a great story.

So anyways, my super me is just helping kids to stay connected to the fact that, you know, all their suit. It's sort of like a little boy who has this stuffed animal, Captain Storm. And he uses Captain Storm's abilities to help him become more confident.

Todd, how many alter egos do you would you have now?

Four. Four. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, think about it. You know, we have. There's. There's. There's four specific areas of my life where I'm being very intentional about really leveling myself up. And so I'll give you an example for one of them. It's when I do interviews on television and stuff. Like I've been on today's show. I just got done. NFL Films is doing a documentary on me and my book and the work I've done in the NFL. And one thing that I could easily get, because I'm a bit of a science nerd, is I could easily come across as more sciencey or nerdy or serious. And so my alter ego is inspired by Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds, and that's to be more playful and fun while doing interviews and on camera. And last year, literally just at this time, I did an interview with the Today show, and that's where I really activated him more than anything else.

I do have one more question for you, and this might be a little off topic, but it's coming up for me. A lot of entrepreneurs especially, and that's what I'm specifically my experiences with, they tend to take things to get them in the mode so they'll like. They have extra caffeine or they're taking a stimulant or they're doing how to. Any thoughts around that? Because what you're saying, it's like you wouldn't even need that. So I've always had my own issues around that. Like when you. Somebody has to take something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just curious. Any thoughts around that and if that's come.

Well, it's funny because when I first. The very first person I started doing this with, when I was. When I discovered it, and then I Was like, wait a second, I need to build this out as a part of my training. I brought. And it was for a young girl hockey player up here in Canada who was just an absolute superstar. And I brought her a pack of Tic Tacs. And so part of the ritual was all the traits and the qualities that you want to activate out on the ice here are already embodied inside this Tic Tac when you take it. So it was a placebo effect type of thing.

I like that. That one works for me.

Yeah, because there's, you know, there's not much to it, but, you know, like, some of the things that people take nowadays, I would say they're using it in its most extreme case. You know, they're being a little more superstitious about it as opposed to. I don't need to take anything like, I mean, now I'm very well seasoned and, you know, I know how to. I can activate this with just a sound or anything like that. But, you know, I'm not. I hate to be the person who judges how other people try to get the best of themselves. There's always. There's always a refinement. Right now that you're at this level, can we refine this and remove maybe this caffeinated need or this need for a nootropic or something like that? Because fundamentally, your body doesn't really need it. Yeah, you need it because it's the story that you tell yourself.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, look, I have nothing against nootropics or caffeine. I'm just. I'm thinking on extreme cases, people taking prescriptions for things or what. And I'm certainly not a doctor, but what's coming up for me is there's a. There's a workaround before we even have to go there, which is what a lot of what you're talking about.

Mm. Well, I mean, once you start to really appreciate just. Just the phenomenal power of your mind and I mean, this is. You know, people have heard that before, but I don't think they've really experienced it. There's a big difference. I mean, I've had the chance to experience it and see just how fast people can transform. And then what you get is this incredible unlocking of self concept. What you unlock now for someone is, oh, I don't need anyone or anything. If I. If I do use them, it's because I've chosen to, but I don't need it out of, you know, a victim mentality or something like that. Like when people really unlock that experience of how powerful their mind is. I mean, it's just a completely different gear for people. Yeah.

Everyone go out and get alter ego and say that website again, Todd, if they want to.

So it's alteregoeffects.com. yeah. I mean, if you want to find me on. If you want to find me across the social webs and tag me in this interview, tag Natalie and I, you know, I'm on Instagram and you can. My home base on the Internet is ToddHerman me.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Todd. Thank you.

Thanks, Natalie.

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